I don't disagree with what you're saying. However, it also needs to be taken into account that the global trend was for de-regulation, and that's what led to the global crisis. Leaders around the world were outbidding each other with more and more lax securities rules. Harper keeping Canada out of that race to the bottom required very reasonable decision making. In other words, it wasn't just about making new regulations, but keeping existing regulation in place in the face of extreme pressure to lift those regulations.
Flaherty and Harper and the big 5 banks DID want to put Cdn mortgages into the derivatives market as the we were 'disadvantaged' to the folks down south. Martin told them to pound sand.
Even up till late 2006 with his minority gov't, Harper wanted to deregulate. Kind of good he didn't have a majority govt eh?
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Promoting mortgage ‘innovation’
In his first budget as Harper’s finance minister, Jim Flaherty invited “new players” -- that is, U.S financial corporations -- into Canada’s mortgage insurance market and doubled the amount of government money available to back up private insurers from $100 billion to $200 billion. Flaherty’s 2006 budget states that “These changes will result in greater choice and innovation in the market for mortgage insurance, benefiting consumers and promoting home ownership.”
There wasn't a lot to choose between Winnipeg and Calgary in the 80s and early 90s. I graduated from high school in the 80s and most of the bright and ambitious kids left Calgary and moved to Toronto and Vancouver the minute they were out of university. It's highly unlikely there will be another oil and gas boom to restore Calgary's fortunes the way things turned around in the late 90s.
However, Alberta is no longer as reliant on oil and gas as it was back then. We have a larger population, and it's still very young and well-educated compared to most places in North America and Europe. Alberta will remain a relatively good place to work and live. It won't offer the crazy salaries it did 10 years ago, or compete with Silicon Valley or London. But then, few places will. It's all relative.
However, I doubt Calgary will remain a more prosperous city than Edmonton for long. In the parts of the world that don't have a particular booming industry that drives the economy - that is, most of the parts of the world - the most prosperous cities are government administrative centres. It may be anathema to Calgarians, but Alberta may well develop into the kind of place where the best jobs are in government. That means Edmonton.
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I'd rather live here than in Ottawa, Toronto or Montreal any day of the week. Great places to visit though.
Vancouver though. Maybe if I had the same house as if I have in Calgary.
We're not world class. We're a 1.5 million metro prairie town with a higher than average salary pool.
If people are basing the expectations of what Calgary is going to be on us currently being a world class city, the "downfall" is going to be a lot harder on them. Be realistic about what we are and it won't be such a dramatic change.
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Flaherty and Harper and the big 5 banks DID want to put Cdn mortgages into the derivatives market as the we were 'disadvantaged' to the folks down south. Martin told them to pound sand.
Even up till late 2006 with his minority gov't, Harper wanted to deregulate. Kind of good he didn't have a majority govt eh?
Mortgages in Canada are indeed repackaged and sold as derivatives.
Really the only difference is that the rating agencies here don't lie about their risk level. Well as far as we know anyhow.
Regardless the GVA and the GTA are going to have massive RE corrections once the Chinese start pulling out their money.
Let's not give Paul Martin too much credit here. The only reason the Liberal gov't at the time started paying down debt was because the MoF's office got a phone call from a bond rating agency saying that Canada's rating was about to rerated to junk status.
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Mortgages in Canada are indeed repackaged and sold as derivatives.
Really the only difference is that the rating agencies here don't lie about their risk level. Well as far as we know anyhow.
Regardless the GVA and the GTA are going to have massive RE corrections once the Chinese start pulling out their money.
That won't happen for a long long time. Where are they going to move it to? Not back to China as the crackdown is real and it's on. Bitcoin is killing many of them.
I lived through $11/barrel oil, high interest rates and a youth unemployment rate of 25%. Back when you needed a PhD and ten years work experience at McDonald's to work at Burger King.
Everything is better now. Literally everything. I #### you not.
Well except for housing prices. Thanks loose monetary policy.
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That won't happen for a long long time. Where are they going to move it to? Not back to China as the crackdown is real and it's on. Bitcoin is killing many of them.
The moment you convince yourself it won't happen, that's when it's going to happen.
Just ROFL.
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Is Calgary on the decline? Are we on our way to become Winnipeg with slightly milder weather and mountains nearby instead of lakes?
Go back to the boom years and Calgary was growing like crazy. Good jobs were plentiful. Ralph Bucks were filling mailboxes and wallets. Everyone had disposable income, real estate was soaring, luxury brands and American retailers were fighting for mall space. Now the provincial government is looking for new ways to tax us, housing is flat, malls are seeing stores closing..
It's a weird phenomenon that happened to Calgary in 1 years where people talk about the boom years like they were the norm, even though they will still refer to them as the boom years. Of course things were crazy during the boom years, that's what a boom is. If it were normal, it would just be 'the regular times.'
Calgary's finding it's level right now, which isn't the boom years, but is also a long way off what the bust years were.
But yes, Calgary, like any city coming off a boom, will seem in decline.
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I think Calgary was in decline in 2015/16, but things are slowly starting to pick up again. Picking up to a normal level though, not a boom level.
Sure you see restaurants closing and that's directly the cause of lower downtown traffic. But then in place of that, you're seeing more specialty/boutique shops and services:
From ice cream shops to board game cafes, VR cafes, locked rooms, pinball bar, and breweries.
Maybe they're all fads but that doesn't matter. This city still has lots of smart people and entrepreneurs that will use this downturn and vacancies to their advantage.
I think calgary needs to start attracting different kinds of corporate investment like Edmonton is doing by getting Cannabis producers to set up their offices there. It’s not oil no, but it is a growing(no pun intended) multi billion dollar industry that exports to foreign markets with very little global competition, more importantly the US will not be entering that market anytime soon. For some reason I don’t think BC would be too up in arms about supporting infrastructure to benefit that industry either.
I’m not saying this would replace the O&G industry in terms of jobs or economic impact, but if Calgary’s best days are behind us(which I don’t believe is the case) then we should probably look at adjusting our gameplan instead of sticking with the one that lead to the decline in the first place. Diversifying our economy IMO is the way to go regardless of what happens in the O&G industry. Rebuild the economy in a way that makes high oil prices a bonus instead of our only option.
I actually was alive in the 80s but far from being old enough to grasp the situation. The median age in Alberta is 36. Most Albertans were not old enough to be working in the 80s.
Alberta's population was 2.36 million in 1986. It's probably safe to say half of those Albertans have since passed away. Assuming the rest of them didn't move away there are approximately 1.2 million out of 4+ million current Albertans that were even alive and living in Alberta during the 80's. Accounting for people that were under 20 and not yet in the work force and that number is even smaller.
MOST Albertans and certainly most CP user were not working in Alberta, or even born yet, in the 80s. That was a generation ago.
I actually was alive in the 80s but far from being old enough to grasp the situation. The median age in Alberta is 36. Most Albertans were not old enough to be working in the 80s.
Alberta's population was 2.36 million in 1986. It's probably safe to say half of those Albertans have since passed away. Assuming the rest of them didn't move away there are approximately 1.2 million out of 4+ million current Albertans that were even alive and living in Alberta during the 80's. Accounting for people that were under 20 and not yet in the work force and that number is even smaller.
MOST Albertans and certainly most CP user were not working in Alberta, or even born yet, in the 80s. That was a generation ago.
Dude, the stuff I described was the 90s. The 80s were even worserer.
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The City of Edmonton, the universities and colleges, and developers are in full out spend mode right now. There's billions worth of public and post-secondary design and construction projects up there right now that are currently in progress or have been announced within the last year. Just insane.
Edmonton is THE place in Alberta for work right now. If they're a 'raging river' of projects right now, Calgary would be a slight trickle from a water fountain.
That sounds like mostly government (deficit)-funded construction. That's pretty worrying to me in terms of long term sustainability given a future of contracting private sector revenues for the province and an inevitable re-balancing of provincial expenditures.
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Maybe they're all fads but that doesn't matter. This city still has lots of smart people and entrepreneurs that will use this downturn and vacancies to their advantage.
A major issue is that the cost of capital and labour is so high, that's it's difficult to start a new business. In the 70s and into the 80s, you could afford to not only rent large spaces, but potentially buy them. Combine the increase in capital costs with ever increasing labour costs, and you've got a very difficult environment for businesses. Many of the start ups you're talking about are actually funded by kids parents. They get their parents to provide them with an initial loan in the $200k+ category, which they supplement with a small business loan. The "entrepreneurs" spend all of that money fixing up a retail/restaurant, providing the appearance of an actual business and then go under in about 2 years. The number of genuinely successful entrepreneurs is extremely limited by the economic environment in Canada.
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I think calgary needs to start attracting different kinds of corporate investment like Edmonton is doing by getting Cannabis producers to set up their offices there. It’s not oil no, but it is a growing(no pun intended) multi billion dollar industry that exports to foreign markets with very little global competition, more importantly the US will not be entering that market anytime soon. For some reason I don’t think BC would be too up in arms about supporting infrastructure to benefit that industry either.
I’m not saying this would replace the O&G industry in terms of jobs or economic impact, but if Calgary’s best days are behind us(which I don’t believe is the case) then we should probably look at adjusting our gameplan instead of sticking with the one that lead to the decline in the first place. Diversifying our economy IMO is the way to go regardless of what happens in the O&G industry. Rebuild the economy in a way that makes high oil prices a bonus instead of our only option.
Cannabis is definitely an industry Canada should be getting on board with. The federal government is acting way too slowly. Unfortunately, I'm not sure Calgary's arid environment lends itself to being the headquarters of the industry though.
Cannabis is definitely an industry Canada should be getting on board with. The federal government is acting way too slowly. Unfortunately, I'm not sure Calgary's arid environment lends itself to being the headquarters of the industry though.
