Category: Hicks on Biz columns from The Edmonton Sun
Hicks on Biz columns from The Edmonton Sun
I have a smartphone made by a once-mighty cellphone manufacturer, on a major Canadian mobility carrier’s three-year contract.A year-and-a-half ago, the phone was considered at the top of the smartphone pile.Today, I’m counting the months to the end of the contract. Not because of the carrier, but because this phone has been overtaken by superior competing mobile phone manufacturers. It takes forever to access the Internet, is slow to load websites, and too often the words aren’t formatted to fit my device’s screen.Welcome to the world of lightning change, called cellphones.How do you decide what carrier/network to use, what phone to buy, when things change so quickly?I’m hoping this Hicks on Biz – consumer’s edition – will help you make an informed choice.If I was starting over today, here are some of the things I’d look into. The network I want a carrier that has coverage right across Canada, no matter where I am. The most extensive networks belong to the Big Three – TELUS, Bell and Rogers. Generally speakin ...
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By Graham HicksHopefully this is a Chicken Little column, harking back to that little piece of poultry, who, certain the world was coming to an end, ran around crying, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!”Chicken Little was wrong, of course.But something doesn’t feel right about the soothing words we are hearing from Alberta’s economic forecasters, that good times will roll along in Alberta for the foreseeable future, i.e. at least for another 12 months.It is, surprise, surprise, all about the price of oil.About 2.5 million barrels a day are sucked out of Alberta ground and exported at a price ranging between $70 to $100 a barrel, creating $200 to $300 million in new wealth every day.No other industry employs as many people, no other industry pays half as well, no other industry earns as much revenue for government, no other industry has anywhere near oil’s impact on our standard of living.Our energy wealth continues to shower goodness upon us, despite the fact the once-mighty natural gas industry is on i ...
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By Graham HicksIt’s an annual insult.Every year around this time, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s releases its report on the world’s most livable cities with much fanfare. The Economist is a leading international news and business magazine.Every year, Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto make it in the Top 10. This year, Montreal was the only other Canadian city included, coming in at 16th.No Edmonton.A few years back, tired of this slight, I asked the Edmonton Economic Development Corporation why we didn’t rate, even though Edmonton and Calgary come out neck-and-neck in any survey of Canada’s livable cities.The answer, finally dug out of the Economist people, was that since Calgary and Edmonton were in such close proximity, only one needed to be scrutinized, and it was going to be Calgary.We were not even considered for the list! In the eyes of the authors of this prestigious survey, Edmonton does not exist.There’s an argument for not worrying about lack of recognition – why fret over how others see us, when we ...
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By Graham HicksMy cousin’s husband looked as me as if I was just what he thought I was — an right-wing, oil-snortin’ Alberta redneck.“Don’t tell me about how good fossil fuels are,” growled the Torontonian. “I grew up breathing (fossil-fuel) pollution that drifted over from Detroit and Chicago. I’m done with that stuff.”I wouldn’t worry if said husband had no influence.But he’s a top Canadian architect who designs energy-efficient office towers … and he didn’t want to even hear about the greening of fossil fuels!This deep, stubborn, near-hatred of the cheapest, most efficient and abundant energy source in the world is irrational, but is deeply engrained in the mindset of the chattering classes.Yet the exact opposite is true.Thanks to the power of new technology, Alberta’s hydro-carbon energy industry is cleaning up its act at a breath-taking pace.Energy produced from the burning of oil and natural gas is fast becoming environmentally competitive, at a much cheaper cost, with alternative energy sources like so ...
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We’ve been dangerously smug.Our American friends are buried in debt, our European allies are gasping for financial air.Cash-rich China, still buying up our oil industry without blinking an eye, is facing an economic slowdown.Our cousins down east are finding jobs harder and harder to come by.But we Albertans have laughed off economic hardship.We have been immune to the world-wide economic misery of the past four years.Thanks to our beautiful, sticky, bullet-proof oil.Oil pouring out of the oilsands, oil miraculously flowing from once-dry oil wells thanks to new technology.While everything else seemed to fall in value these past few years, oil held up.Oil, refined into gasoline and diesel, remained the world's energy of choice for transportation.Oil has stayed on either side of $100 a barrel for several years now.Brace yourselves.The party, muted as it is, may soon be over.Oil has dropped recently from that $100 benchmark down to its latest price of $88, after falling under $80 at the end of June.Hundreds of e ...
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The Edmonton Indy just had its eighth birthday.That’s right. Though it’s been a bumpy road, the race has never not been held since Greg Macdonald (now back in the outdoor advertising business) persuaded Champ Car to put Edmonton back on the car-racing map in 2005.Through near-bankruptcies, forced changes in ownership, city subsidies and crisis after crisis, this race has never missed a beat.Click here to check out our Indy section for a wrap of all the action.There was a bit of tizzy after last week’s race, when race producer/owner Francoise Dumontier of Octane Motorsports suggested Octane needed more business support and better attendance before it would consider extending its agreement with IndyCar and the city (as landlord) beyond 2013.While there are challenges and a few potholes to be filled, there’s no reason for doom and gloom.In fact, the Edmonton Indy’s odds of not only surviving but prospering into the long-term are better than ever.The IndyCar league doesn’t release race attendance numbers. Octane ...
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Blame it on the lack of wind, or blame it on the inherent weakness of Alberta’s deregulated power system.Blaming Monday’s rolling power black-outs, on the hottest day of the year, on the lack of wind is a bit of fun.But the deeper reality is the black-outs are the result of an entire electrical system that needs fixing.The wind argument first.If Alberta’s electricity producers were not so dependent on wind power, there’d have been no need for the rolling blackouts.Seven per cent of Alberta’s power-producing capacity comes from wind-powered turbines. We’re a “leader” in wind power, primarily because of the wind corridors of Southern Alberta. Lethbridge isn’t called the Windy City for nothing.But on Monday, the great weakness of wind power was exposed.No wind.The Alberta Electrical System Operator (AESO), the folks who are supposed to ensure electricity is flowing nice and evenly all over the province, want to have 7% more power available than is being consumed, especially during peak periods.With no wind, most ...
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It’s the giant nobody knows about.The gorilla in Edmonton’s garage, our invisible backbone.ICT – standing for “Information Computing Technology” has now, its advocates suggest, passed forestry as the third largest industry (by sales) in Alberta, after energy and agriculture.According to the industry association, 5,500 ICT companies in Alberta in 2010 produced $10 billion in revenues.Of those 5,500, the Alberta ICT Industry Association outgoing chair Tom Ogaranko suggests 33% to 40% are in Edmonton and region.Information – solid, reliable data, mountains of it, with the computing tools to properly analyse it – is the competitive edge of the 21st century business world. He who has the most computing power and the best analytics wins.Yet this industry is hard to find. There’s no ICT Tower, no ICT industrial zone.Geeks in front of computers are everywhere, but nowhere.Some of the biggest companies have the tiniest south side offices. Their people work as contracted “systems integrators” alongside provincial gover ...
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My eyes nearly popped out of my head.
I could not believe what I was reading.
The city-appointed Renewable Energy Task Force, in its preliminary report to Edmonton City Council’s Executive Committee, is suggesting the city subsidize alternative energy sources – mainly residential photovoltaic (solar) panels – to the tune of $83 million over five years!
The task force chairman’s reported rationalization, that conventional energy (oil, coal, natural gas) had been using the environment as a “free sewer” all these years, and “they don’t pay for that.”
If you couldn’t figure out the bias of the members of this task force beforehand, you sure can now.
Big Oil and Big Energy is bad, bad, bad. Wind power and solar energy is good, good, good.
I have a great idea as to how the city can save $83 million over the next five years.
Ignore the rubbish in this report!
Don’t get me wrong. The entire world wants to be as green as green ca ...
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It wasn’t quite a “I told you so” when Quesnell Bridge contractor ConCreate went bankrupt some weeks ago.
But the folks at another major construction firm had an office pool going, taking bets on how far behind schedule the rehabilitation and widening of the massive Whitemud Drive bridge across the North Saskatchewan River would be.
The worst-case bettors won.
After massive pressure from the city, ConCreate finished the bridgework in November 2011, a year behind schedule.
Four months later, the company went bankrupt.
“A year behind schedule!” exclaims another bridge expert, whose company also lost the Quesnell contract to ConCreate. “Just imagine the value of drivers’ time, waiting to cross the bridge. Even at a loss of a minute a day, over 365 days, times 145,000 drivers, earning an average $20 an hour each.” Which is about $18 million.
The $64,000 question — actually $10 million in contested costs with the now-bankrupt company’s b ...
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