People always talk about diversifying the economy like its an idea so simple and so good that we must be imbeciles not to be doing it, but economics dictates that business sets up where it has some competitive advantage.
Why would a tech firm set up shop here rather than Silicon Valley?
Why would a manufacturer set up somewhere far from the consumers, and with no port access?
Labour intensive jobs are not going to favour the Alberta job market, when they can operate in Mexico or elsewhere with far less regulation.
I've had heard in the past that Edmonton could potentially serve as a hub for warehousing style companies, using rail yards to route goods imported to a Northern BC dock. But look how difficult it is to construct any kind of rail or pipeline to move goods from BC to AB, let alone get approval to construct a dock/terminal.
Mining, oil and gas production, and farming is what we've got. Thats where our competitive advantage lies and if we want to compete economically with the rest of the world we need to utilize that advantage.
(This is very simplified but it is what it is. We aren't going to transform our city into New New York overnight.)
|