September 21, 2018 - Banff, Alberta

Date: September 21, 2018
Location: Banff, Alberta

Q1: What does a stronger western Canadian economy look like 10 years from now?

• Increased access to national and international markets
  • Pipelines
  • More globally plugged in
  • Western provinces need to work across borders and globally
  • Nationally connected strategy to compete more nationally and internationally
  • Need to reduce competition between provinces
    • Don’t compete with other provinces; overcome the longstanding barriers
    • Build on each province’s strengths

• More diversified economy
  • Building on core competencies of industries that are well entrenched
  • Building on the industry – business skills and operations
    • companies need to be provided with new skills
  • Bring platform technologies into existing industries
    • digital oilfield, autonomous vehicles
  • Alberta has strong capabilities and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Alberta
  • Create hubs of activities
  • Support companies to pivot and to scale
  • Go to industry 4.0 and go beyond, don’t stop there
    • medical innovation and medical devices
  • Build new industries
  • Maintain size while diversifying

• More jobs in the West
  • Quality jobs
  • Able to support families
  • We need more entrepreneurs

• Long-term, evidence-based strategies needed – a little bit of money goes a long way

Q2: What are the best ways to spur new growth in western Canada?

• Review the Intellectual Property policies at universities
  • should there even be a revenue sharing policy?
• Free trade policies
  • doesn’t have to be US,
  • could reinvigorate the Commonwealth
  • don’t rely on just one trading partner
• Free internal trade needed
  • address internal barriers to trade
• Ability to attract large amounts of capital from outside of Alberta
  • get better at attracting international investment
  • attract capital, growing, and evolving our domestic market
• Pension funds super large but not currently used for ventures/innovations
• Need expertise and talent to go into companies that lack capital to scale up
  • talent development attracts the capital
  • support companies to acquire the talent to pivot
  • over 50 year olds – largest entrepreneurial market in the US – come at all stages
• Entrepreneur average age mid – 40
• Partner for mutual interests
• Looming shortage of labourers and tradesmen
• Build training programs for trades and skilled workers (not just programmers), who can then start companies and create jobs
• Need access to markets and pipelines
• New growth in western Canada – infrastructure roadworks and bridges provide opportunities to create jobs
  • technology infrastructure included

Q3: What will help the Indigenous economy continue to grow?

• Arctic north – there are big infrastructure needs to solve
• Companies owned by First Nations are growing and need to be supported and engaged
• First Nations communities need to lead and be involved in economic growth
• Roundtable needed with Indigenous business and leaders
• Three way partnerships – with Indigenous communities, industry and government, and having the structure in place to support those partnerships
• Values of importance – focus on areas, issues that matter to Indigenous people such as environment and clean tech.
• Women in Indigenous communities will drive improvements
  • Access to skills, training and get base family units involved in learning
• Education
• Affordable training that can be delivered in remote communities
• Issue now is that educated young people don’t go back to communities, need to change the economic structure on First Nations reserves.
  • Similar issue in most rural and remote communities
• Technology can help people who don’t want to live in urban centres.

Q4: How can we improve economic participation in the west of underrepresented groups, including women, youth, and new immigrants?

• Success stories need to continue to be built
  • celebrate success
• Diversity is good for business
  • educate business on benefits of diversity
• Don’t assume what the skills gaps are
• There are connectivity gaps. We generally hire who we know. Shared learnings needed
• Foster connectivity/networks for women
  • get them together – private dinner – women in innovation (informal and formal)
  • need to foster those networks
• Identify women who might have skills and future talent
• Have role models present in high schools and universities
  • target specific groups/industries
• Women’s Enterprise Centres can take on additional roles to help with more mentorship - expand mandate to include daycare or eldercare in place so that women can participate in the economy
• Boards need 50% women
• Dispel myths around cost of maternity leave to business
  • E.g., planned vs unplanned leave
• Women can help companies make money

Q5: How can governments, industry, and western Canadians work together to grow the regional economy?

• Continue to work on navigating companies to the right programs; need to get the hand off to companies right
  • focus on the client journey – navigation service and not having multiple programs
  • support each other in the impact of programs and then we can multiply the impact – it is not a competition to see who has the best program.
  •  focus on the client’s needs
  • interconnectivity of departments – Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA)/provinces in east are a good example of client focus

• There are lots of incubators but they need to connect and hand off better
• Programs/initiatives that help companies: clean tech growth hub – Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP); Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC); Export Development Canada (EDC) etc. We need more of those initiatives
• Policies should be led by industry
• Each province works independently, need to align better
• Skills are not in pipelines – partner with others to identify and develop complementary skill sets
• Set regional priorities and a way to drive collaborative activities across provinces