Category: Hicks on Biz columns from The Edmonton Sun
Hicks on Biz columns from The Edmonton Sun
Yes, it was Saskatchewan’s day last week, when the Roughriders trounced the Hamilton Tiger Cats to win the 2013 Grey Cup, at home!
But the Miracle on the Prairies is far greater than Darian Durant, Kory Sheets, Weston Dressler and that amazing offensive line composed of beefy Saskatchewan farm boys.
The Roughrider triumph is symbolic of the turnaround in Saskatchewan’s economic fortunes, since Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party came to power in 2007.
Saskatchewan has gone from zero to hero — from a debt-riddled economic backwater to a province brimming with accomplishment — and the surface is scarcely scratched.
Government numbers offer a snapshot of economic fortune, and Saskatchewan’s are impressive.
The Saskatchewan government’s accumulated debt (excluding crown corporations) has shrunk from $13 billion in the late ‘80s to $4 billion today.
After 80 years — 80 years! — of a population stuck at 900,000, Saskatchewan has shot up ...
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Bottleneck, what bottleneck?
If anybody has concerns about pipeline capacity from the oilsands out to the world, breathe easy.
In the last few weeks, the GO button has been pushed on four major new oilsands projects that will bring another 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of bitumen on stream by 2017.
You think those dudes would invest the $10 billion or more it costs per mine, if they had the least doubt about getting their product to market? You think shareholders would approve?
Where there’s a will, there’s a way
Even without the Northern Gateway and Keystone XL pipeline projects, Canada’s two biggest pipeline builders will add another 2 million bpd capacity within three to four years. TransCanada and Enbridge are expanding existing American pipelines and converting existing natural gas pipelines to send bitumen/crude oil to Eastern Canada for refining, domestic consumption or export.
Other companies are sniffing out new pipeline opportunities from the oilsands northwest to ...
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The American states of Washington and Colorado will soon embark on a societal experiment of mega-proportions.
Legalized “recreational” marijuana will be for sale – available in state-licensed stores.
All governments are watching, given pot will likely be legalized across Europe and North America in the foreseeable future. California, the pundits say, will vote in favour of legalization by 2016. As California goes, so goes the USA.
This is not a column about the pros and cons of smoking pot.
It’s about the tax revenues from legalization; whether the added tax income is worth the hassle of legalization.
Washington and Colorado residents voted for legalization, in part, because advocates have promised new marijuana taxes will pour money into cash-starved state coffers.
If Canadian governments, including Alberta, toy with pot legalization, it’d be to tax the bejeezus out of it, as they do alcohol.
Right now, pot growing (primarily in B.C. it is claimed) is the la ...
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Air Canada, you have missed your cross-border Edmonton flight.
While Edmonton International Airport has grown and grown, while Edmonton/Northern Alberta is acknowledged as one of the world’s fastest growing regional economies, Air Canada is not capitalizing on the international and trans-border (i.e. USA) flight potential of our market.
Mr. Air Canada Chief Executive Officer Calin Rovinescu, I can tell you why.
Air Canada is basing its international service on an archaic marketing model – that the vast majority of its international and American flights should originate out of four “hub” airports – Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.
That was a progressive, forward-thinking corporate strategy, Mr. Rovinescu … 20 years ago.
But today, there are FIVE aviation hubs in this country, the fifth – and fastest-growing of the bunch – being Edmonton.
The evidence is as clear as the nose on your face, Mr. Air Canada Board Chair David Richardson.
...
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Last week, I approached a friend, a field manager for a small oil producer in rural Alberta with a few hundred wells.
How about a Hicks on Biz story on the company, I suggested, a column that could tell the general public the real story about the industry that’s the backbone of Alberta’s economy.
Not a sensationalized report about leaks or contamination or pollution, but a ground-level look at an industry that’s among the cleanest of its kind in the world.
I could witness first-hand the process of going back to old wells, re-boring, drilling horizontally, and the fracking that has bent New Brunswick aboriginals all out of shape.
I could report back to the general public on environmental improvements, on ever-improving technology, on the industry’s job creation and so on.
Nope. The oil company’s head office didn’t want any publicity.
No matter how sympathetic the journalist, they feared what might be written in the comments section of any on-line story - th ...
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(Update on this column: Two days after its publication, Don Iveson did win the mayoralty election in Edmonton, Alberta ...by a mile.)
What business wants from municipal politicians is so simple.
Create a business environment as good or better than other municipalities – physical, financial and regulatory. Be supportive, then get the heck out of the way.
Talk to any Edmonton business owner with skin in the game, and you’ll hear much the same.
Fix the potholes, roads and sidewalks; ensure top-notch core services; maintain law and order; enforce sensible regulations (i.e. environment, safety); help rather than hinder; keep taxes reasonable; create a city where employees want to live.
Then get out of the way! The less any of us have to do with bureaucrats, the better!
Business is most fearful of a city council or mayor so overly influenced by one interest group or ideology as to lose sight of the overall good.
Mistrust between socialist mayor Jan Reimer (1989 to 1995) and commer ...
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Blair Lebsack had scoured the downtown, looking for space to house his new RGE RD restaurant.
RGE RD is now open, just off 124 Street’s restaurant row. But downtown leases, Blair says, “just about doubled” during his 18-month location search.
Restaurants, pubs and clubs are an accurate, if anecdotal, indication of the downtown renaissance.
As Jim Taylor of the Downtown Business Association puts it: “Up until now it’s been ‘ready, set, wait a minute.’ Now we’re truly into the ‘ready, set, go’ stage.”
The new arena, to open early in the 2016-17 NHL season, is having an impact. The reality, suggests Colliers International realtor Perry Gereluk, is bigger than the arena. “Edmonton is growing, we have jobs, we have a vibrant economy.”
As it is, new storefront leases in prime downtown locations are closing in on Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver rental rates.
“There’s not much street space left,” says Tayl ...
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The “big picture” is often difficult to grasp.
But Northern Alberta’s prosperity depends on the right decisions now to fully realize our future.
A conference in Edmonton last week brought together Canadian and global players in the freight transport business, be it airlines, trucking companies, railways, freight-forwarding companies, governments … anybody and everybody with a stake in what’s called the “logistics” sector.
The “Roads Rails & Runways” conference may have flown under the radar, but the event was a practical look at industrial/economic growth in Northern Alberta, what’s happening now, how to handle future growth from a logistical perspective in a thoughtful, pre-planned way.
For the out-of-towners, there was a whole pile of discovery. It may be obvious to us that Northern Alberta is a treasure trove of natural resources, technological know-how and political stability, but those freight-movers based in Toronto, New York, ...
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Quick hospitality quiz.
Where is the world’s fifth biggest hotel?
Hint. Not far from Edmonton.
What company owns this hotel, and is Canada’s largest hotel chain owner/operator?
Hint. It’s headquartered in Edmonton.
Why is this company the single biggest buyer of yogurt in Canada?
Hint. It feeds an awful lot of people every day.
The company is PTI Group Inc. a subsidiary of Houston-based Oil States Inc.
It may be a subsidiary – PTI is headquartered out of a former Costco warehouse on the south side of Edmonton - but it’s a mighty subsidiary.
PTI’s biggest hotel is Wapasu Lodge, a two hour drive north of Fort McMurray, in the middle of nowhere, but just a short drive down a private road to Kearl Lake, Imperial Oil’s massive new oilsand mining operation. At 5,400 rooms, it truly is the fifth biggest hotel in the world.
PTI buys more yogurt than any other Canadian customer because it’s a lunch-bag favourite for the 19,000 plus tradespeo ...
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Self-celebratory, inspirational-type gatherings where at the end everybody links arms, lights candles and sings Kumbaya don't do much for me.
E-town, Edmonton's Entrepreneurial Festival held last week at the Shaw Conference Centre, had a few Kumbaya moments, but the guts of the festival may have moved me down the change curve.
In the context of Edmonton’s galloping contemporary entrepreneurialism, I can almost embrace this congratulatory stuff.
The e-town festival is visible proof of the profound change of attitude that has happened in e-town (trendy-talk for “Edmonton”). And the festival defined that change within the language, symbols and communication of the incoming business generation.
It was a launch, perhaps THE launch, into the trajectory that will soon see Edmonton known from coast-to-coast as one of the country's most liveable cities.
Off the top, the e-town entrepreneurial festival was symbolic of a city that has fully restored confidence in itself. The evidence pou ...
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