November 8, 2018 - Calgary, Alberta

Date: November 8, 2018
Location: Calgary

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

Labour Force and Skills Development:

• We need a workforce that is more inclusive and flexible.
• We need to retrain and redeploy people into knowledge-based industries.
• Knowledge workers are key – things like a two-week landing visa could help support.
• Solving the talent question right now is a guessing game – there is some labour data information to support these guesses, but it is weak. Better statistics would be helpful in doing a better job of figuring this out and understanding what the opportunities are – need to pick winners and losers given the limited dollars and investment opportunities.
• We need to be deliberate and intentional about being ready for changes related to Artificial Intelligence.
• We need to figure out how to unlock the potential of creative workers.

Culture and Innovation:

• We need to build a culture of innovation. Currently, we are a culture of commodity price-takers. We need to have a different mindset – innovative cultures get things done much more quickly.
• Knowledge workers who have an understanding of what it takes to drive change and innovation will bring a different mindset.
• We have strong inventive capacity, but we need to take the strength we have in post-secondary institutions and develop innovative ideas here instead of exporting them elsewhere. We have great ideas, but we need to execute on them – extract the economic value (innovation).
• Regulation:
  • One of the biggest barriers to innovation is our regulatory burdens – we need to be willing to change to allow people to try new things.

Building on strengths:

• Many people are not supportive of the oil and gas sector and its economic contribution. We will not have a strong economy if this attitude persists or grows.
• We need to leverage existing resources in order to transition to a lower carbon future and a more diversified economy. Resources are the engine of economic growth in western Canada, but also a driver for diversification.
• We need to build on our strong oil and gas sector – market access is a key piece of this to avoid losing out on billions of dollars.
  • Market access is our number one job.
• We need to be innovative and integrate thinking about the environment to reduce impact on air, land, and water.

Diversification:

• We need both market and industry diversification. Lack thereof will continue the dramatic cycle that we live in.
  • Market diversification also requires supply chain diversification. We need to be part of strong global value/supply chains.
• We need to place our bets on where else (besides the energy business) we can be a player in the global economy. We need to make a choice and lay the groundwork in other sectors of the economy.
• Diversification comes in part by thinking differently about the way in which we are doing some of our regular businesses, as well as developing brand new streams. For example, we need to think differently about oil and gas production – things that will change the nature of the oil sands basin and use bitumen in different ways.
• The oil and gas sector is the reason that we have a clean technology innovation hub – we don’t have a clean tech hub in spite of the sector.
  • We need to have more Canadians investing in clean technology companies.
• Value-add opportunities, including in the food ingredients sector, are immense. We need to move from commodity-driven resource economy to more product development.

Reconciliation:

• It is a time of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, and there is a new generation of Indigenous youth emerging that is asking questions and getting engaged. We all need to be prepared for engagement and look for opportunities for them, and all youth, to be involved.

Digital:

• Future growth in any sector will be driven from digital development, so we need to support this. It is conceivable that our production units (agriculture, oil and gas) may be in a global block chain oriented sales situation, getting fair world prices.

Access to Capital

• We need to improve connectivity for innovators in terms of access to capital. Overall connectedness in the innovation economy is key.

Cities and Clusters:

• We need to have a greater focus on cities, as they will become even more prominent in the economy. This is where collisions between stakeholders and clusters happen.
• We will have more clusters – more small companies doing different things interacting with each other to find solutions.

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

People, Education and Talent:

• We have an urgent need for workers that the new economy needs – there are many jobs open today that cannot be filled. We need to focus on education.
• We need to encourage entrepreneurship throughout our whole system of government, healthcare, education, etc.
• We need to focus on innovation and the knowledge economy – make innovation an equal part of the university combined with research and teaching.
• We need to be nimble and fast in re-skilling people and getting them to market. Need to support people who want to pivot out of traditional economies and make it less risky for people to do so.
• This will require bringing in talent from abroad. It will not all be solved by Albertans living in Alberta today – we need to bring in people to fill in the gaps.
• We need to focus attention on science, technology engineering and mathematics (STEM) and arts (STEAM), in particular with women.
• We need to think about how to attract high-performing talent to Canada. One way may be by promoting SR&ED tax credits, which is unique to Canada.
• We need to find a common platform to look at labour market information to inform training.
  • Start at the core definitions underlying labour market information to reduce friction in the system – that is, define skills in a way that people understand what they do and what it means in today’s economy.

Support for Business Scale-Up and Export Development:

• We need to support companies in scaling-up, to help growth-oriented companies that do not know how to grow.
  • This might be in the form of policies and programs that government can use to target companies and help them grow.
• We need to focus on exports. Many companies do not know how to sell outside of Alberta, but western Canada is too small of a market to focus on and be successful.
  • This requires vision – the expectation of scale. We need to be explicit in expecting companies to grow more, and not settle for small growth.
  • We need to recognize that we have products that the world wants, and we need to be able to get these products to the world.
• We need to create the right environment for business, not just in terms of government programs but in terms of the right tax environment to encourage risk.
• There is a role for government in helping entrepreneurs grow and invest by absorbing some of the risk, but governments should not be picking winners. Entrepreneurs need to learn how to take risks too.
  • Adopt a funder of funds model - instead of government picking winners through direct funding, have the people who pick winners with their own money also do the job for government.
• We need to look at programs like I-Corps in the US that help scientists become entrepreneurs.
• We have some structural advantages, such as a single-payer health care system and the Alberta Investor Tax Credit. We need to take advantage of these and market them better.
• We need easier access to government programs. There are many programs for SMEs, but often help is required to navigate them.
• There has been lots of government money invested into innovation, but it is still shy of what’s needed. We need to be more aggressive with an intention of scale.

Regulation:

• We are experiencing a pancaking of the regulatory market – regulations being added on top of each other. Need to make sure we are competitive on an international level, where we compete against very different markets that might not have the same requirements.
• We need to allow more innovation on the regulatory side.
• Regulatory risk is perceived as high in Canada, resulting in companies moving their operations out of country.
• We are one of the safest countries in the world in terms of our regulatory environment, but we do not market this well. We need to recognize our strengths in this area. There is a risk that we are over-regulating and this is hindering our growth.

Partnership and Collaboration:

• We need to foster partnerships and collaboration with First Nations. This requires a proactive approach – it should not only be the result of a government program requirement.

Vision and Urgency:

• We currently have a lack of vision and sense of urgency that could help spur growth.

Digital Technologies:

• There is a huge potential for digital technologies to advance resource extraction, and agriculture.

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

Reconciliation:

• There are intergenerational traumas that still exist. We all need to be sensitive to these. Not everybody is at the same place.
• Small steps towards reconciliation are happening. But we need to understand what communities are doing, and take steps to reach out to Indigenous communities.

Partnerships:

• There are exciting examples of partnerships between First Nations and non-Indigenous communities – we need to showcase best practices.
• It should not just be government-mandated partnering.
• There are many communities that are open to partnering – we need to have those conversations.
• There is a need to create opportunities to bring people together, to share knowledge and time.
• We need to have more conversations and dialogue.

Education

• We need to help bring Indigenous youth into the knowledge economy. They are an important workforce. Youth need to be encouraged.
• We also need to work to make Indigenous training a core competency, to promote learning about reconciliation among the general population.
• We can also work to support economic reconciliation by ensuring that Indigenous communities have the supports they need, and the capacity to critique industry to ensure that we have the proper regulation in place.

Leadership from within:

• Leadership from within Indigenous communities can help identify the key people and promote change from within.

Infrastructure and Connectivity:

• We need to support internet connectivity and proper infrastructure in order to create and make visible more opportunities.
• Remote infrastructure is a barrier.
• We need to move faster on broadband.

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

Targeted Strategies:

• Each underrepresented group needs a targeted strategy in order to energize the full potential of what we have in western Canada. Need to be purposeful in terms of social media, mentoring, role models, etc. There are so many variables to different underrepresented groups.
• We need a strategy for STEM. This needs to start young – there is still a social stigma for girls in STEM that starts early.
• Encourage women to get involved from a ground level up.

Flexibility:

• We need greater flexibility in the workplace for women. Business ownership/entrepreneurship can afford this.
• Corporate culture of a many companies is often more conservative – some simple things like telework flexibility can help address barriers that underrepresented groups face.

Competencies:

• We need to rethink the credential system, especially for new immigrants. We need to have ways of assessing their competencies and capabilities, not the diplomas or degrees or where they came from.
• Equality of opportunity is closer than it was in the past, and we have to be careful not to lose sight of that competency aspect. We need to focus on competency as an outcome, and equality of opportunity as an input.

Try Harder:

• Push and pull strategy – a little bit of a push is a good thing, but at a certain point the successes will obviate the need for the push.
• A lot of organizations are guilty of doing the same old, not going beyond the people that we already know.
• Every group needs to do what they need to do – women have to look after themselves and figure out how they will be represented.

Business Support:

• We need to support women in venues such as peer advisory boards where women get practical advice on their businesses. Business people giving business advice.
• Continue to support training programs.
• There’s a lot of dollars going into supporting young women in STEM, high schools, etc., but cannot forget about the middle-aged women demographic – there is a need for capital formation and deployment.
• We need to invest in the farm teams approach – government can help with this.

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

Conversations:

• We need to have meaningful conversations with diverse groups, bringing industry and government together but also engaging beyond the usual suspects.

Leadership:

• We need to demand more from our political leaders. Western Premiers ought to cooperate. While it is positive that government officials are still engaged with each other, there ought to be the same expectation from our political leadership.
• We also need leadership across all sectors, private and public, with vision of our story going forward.

Other:

• Support communities in the way that they are asking to be supported.
• P3 partnerships.
• Help our diplomatic staff abroad know about who we are and our opportunities in order to sell our country better.
• Create a more efficient regulatory system.
• Be outcomes-based.
• Develop competencies for an innovation economy – this requires speed of action.
• Remove barriers to doing business within Canada. This requires leadership from the federal government to have us work as a western Canadian unit. Work collectively and collaboratively