Economic diversity in Calgary

Economic diversity in Calgary

Calgary has been the head of the economic train in Canada since the late 90’s. It doesn’t matter whether you enjoy the boom or compliant about it; how long you think this can last?

I am not an economist, I cannot predict any economic up/down turns, but I still remember some old Calgarians told me how the darkest days looked like on 1983-1984.  We all know that the boom we had in the last decade was heavily relied on the energy sector, and people including our Council all take it for granted.

According to a report by Boston Globe, U.S. – our biggest energy products buyer is heading to energy independence at around 2030 and will be able to export at around 2035.  (American energy independence: the great shake-up)  Just imagine what will happen to Calgary if we lost this single biggest customer on our energy products?  Should our city Council start to prepare for this potential challenge to our future, by at least be more responsible in controlling their spending first?

What we should do next to be prepared for possible rainy days?  I think the diversification of new sources to support our economic growth is a viable option.  We should start to open our eyes to the world, U.S. is no longer the only market or investor we have.  Look at Samsung and LG, and look at our RIM too; look at the numbers of Korean cars on our roads; city Council should be more proactive and aggressive to attract investments and develop new market opportunities from new economic powers.

World population grew from 5 billion to 7 billion in the last 30 years, and it will grow to 9 billion in 2040, while farmlands are diminishing around the world.  Canada is still one of the few countries in the world can export food; and Alberta is main source of supply on beef, wheat, Canola etc.  Will the weight on economic contributions by oil & gas industry starts to shift to the food industry?

Some E.U. countries are hunger for garbage to generate power by the heat collected from the incineration of garbage, while city of Calgary still has no idea on what to do with landfill problems. Should we start to do some studies on this new technology and see if we can invite some of these European companies to invest here?

Asian countries are building plants using German revised Pyrolysis technology to recycle used tires with zero emission and toxic exhaust.  We have so many used tires and have to pay $4 to dump each tire; so a plant like that should be able to take care all these used tires in the entire west coast and reclaim some of the land for future use, right?