Alberta Politics Thread v2

[CaptainCrunch]

Alberta's Home Builders have been crippled.


https://globalnews.ca/news/4731449/a...pled-builders/

BILD Alberta — a unified voice for the land development, home building and renovation industry — said the industry has been crippled by fewer residential construction jobs, less affordable homes and uncertainty surrounding proposed legislation.


The association says the impacts have been far-reaching across Alberta, with some companies reducing their staff by 15 to 20 per cent in recent years.

[Lubicon]

Welcome to the party home builders. This is the fallout from 2014-2015 when the energy industry went into the crapper and has yet to emerge. Honestly I'm surprised it has taken this long for the effects of the downturn to be felt in the housing market and elsewhere for that matter.

[CaptainCrunch]

I have a friend that works in the HVac side of things and works with the builders and he says its just grim right now.

[Muta]

Too bad. Would have had tons of affordable housing projects to build and keep people employed if we just voted 'YES' on November 13th.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Kenney is suggesting repealing notleys carbon tax and going back to stelmachs, but the major players in albertas energy economy, and thus Alberta seem to think notleys is preferable, and their removal seems to be contribute to a less stable and constructive business environment.

Notley may be less than ideal but Kenney would be a catastrophe.

You're letting your viewpoint frame your evidence as opposed to the other way around when you use the 4 CEO's standing behind Notley back in 2015 when the carbon tax was announced as evidence backing up the claim that the 'major players in Alberta's Energy economy seem to think Notley's is preferable.'

First of all those 4 companies do not represent all of Alberta's economy or even all of Alberta's oil patch (CAPP was actually opposed to a cap).

Second of all that was then, this is now. Since then Shell has pulled out of oil sands, Cenovus has a new CEO, Suncor's CEO is retiring, and CNRL's chairman left for England to avoid Alberta's taxes.

Thirdly, it could be argued that the carbon tax and cap was of self-interest to those 4 companies for competitive reasons discussed on other posts in this thread

Lastly, I honestly think those companies thought they were buying a 'social license' to build pipelines and operate. That's clearly subsequently been proven to be a mistake.

My stance on carbon taxes - It can't be argued that a carbon tax would be the most efficient market based solution to the carbon emissions problem (if right wing people need someone from their own tribe to say so before they accept this look no further than Preston Manning). That said this only applies in a closed system where every country is participating. Right now our biggest trading partners don't have a carbon tax, therefore ploughing ahead with one beforehand ensures that not only will our carbon taxes fail to reduce emissions globally, they will also hollow out our industries as they move investment to carbon-tax free jurisdictions. We can choose be be boy scouts on this issue and go ahead anyway, but it's at our own economic peril.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Regorium

I disagree. I basically subscribe to this fiscal conservative definition from Michael Bloomberg.

When your definition doesn't jive with the common understanding of the term, including its connotations, are you better off contesting the definition, or using an alternative phrase that better conveys your meaning? Bloomberg is a politician, not a linguist. He's giving a definition that suits his narrative, not to enable disambiguated communication.

Fiscal conservatism usually doesn't save during good times either. Why would it need to, when it doesn't support deficit spending during downtimes?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Muta

Too bad. Would have had tons of affordable housing projects to build and keep people employed if we just voted 'YES' on November 13th.

Not reallly, in 2022 that may have been true but right now the situation would be identical, unless you prosped building everything prior to actually winning the bid.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

You could replace the name of Jason Kenney with any politician. Justin Trudeau, Rachel Notley, Andrew Scheer.


They all lied. Trudeau abandoned most of his campaign promises, Rachel didn't have a carbon tax in her platform, Scheer's just kind of a muppet.

He's achieved more than he has broken or not yet started working on. "Most" is dishonest.

https://trudeaumetre.polimeter.org/

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by GGG

Not reallly, in 2022 that may have been true but right now the situation would be identical, unless you prosped building everything prior to actually winning the bid.

There is a lot of pre-work that goes into master planning. It would have started creating opportunities in the very near future even if not right away in the construction industry. However the results are what they are - even if they are disappointing and confounding to me.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

There is a lot of pre-work that goes into master planning. It would have started creating opportunities in the very near future even if not right away in the construction industry. However the results are what they are - even if they are disappointing and confounding to me.

There's a half a billion dollar BMO center upgrade in the works and more to follow in the east village. According to the Olympic logic that should set your friend up with a few miles of tin to bash.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

There's a half a billion dollar BMO center upgrade in the works and more to follow in the east village. According to the Olympic logic that should set your friend up with a few miles of tin to bash.

ARIS, Alt Hotel, Calgary Public Library, N3, INK, The Hat and Verve are all either finished or under construction already. BMO Center upgrade was already planned, Olympics or not. No other major buildings are planned for the EV outside of the 9th Avenue Parkade and some street-level retail.

I wish the Olympics happened for a variety of reasons, so more people could have tin to bash.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

ARIS, Alt Hotel, Calgary Public Library, N3, INK, The Hat and Verve are all either finished or under construction already. BMO Center upgrade was already planned, Olympics or not. No other major buildings are planned for the EV outside of the 9th Avenue Parkade and some street-level retail.

I wish the Olympics happened for a variety of reasons, so more people could have tin to bash.

It was planned but hardly planned with a funding model in place. It's got that model now. I'm not sure how it would have been funded had we been spending on the Olympics.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

It was planned but hardly planned with a funding model in place. It's got that model now. I'm not sure how it would have been funded had we been spending on the Olympics.

BMO Centre project isn't that big at all. Only $40M. That's really nothing in the construction world.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by Muta

BMO Centre project isn't that big at all. Only $40M. That's really nothing in the construction world.

No it's a big one. The plans from early 2017 were for 500 million. The article a couple days ago doesn't say that number but does indicate it's hundreds of millions in employment...

Calgary city council will soon see a plan to move forward with the BMO Centre expansion.
All three levels of government need to come on board, but a funding model that could add hundreds of millions of dollars worth of jobs to the city is now in place for the mega project.

It's a Mega project. It doubles the size of the existing building. That's way more than 40 million.

[troutman]

Alberta unemployment falls by a full percentage point to 6.3% — the largest drop in more than a decade

Sudden upswing in employment sees gain of 24,000 jobs, reversing several previous months of losses


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...ZTPKp2MBbtECtI

Out of the roughly 24,000 jobs added in Alberta from October to November this year, more than 10,000 were in the goods-producing sector, which includes the natural resources sector. However, only about 900 jobs were added in that sector.

The manufacturing sector added 4,300 jobs; there were 2,300 new agriculture jobs; there were 1,800 new jobs in utilities; and there were 1,300 new jobs in construction.

Growth in the service sector accounted for 13,200 new jobs, including 8,200 in health care and social assistance.
However, the wholesale and retail segment shed 4,100 jobs.

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by troutman

Alberta unemployment falls by a full percentage point to 6.3% — the largest drop in more than a decade

Sudden upswing in employment sees gain of 24,000 jobs, reversing several previous months of losses]

Certainly welcome news, but can't help feeling this is a momentary blip as layoff thread keeps being bumped, and most oil companies have severely reduced budgets looking into next year.

Scary to think what December onwards is going to show...

[troutman]

Hopefully the positive numbers are due to greater diversification.

[TheIronMaiden]

I wonder if the "2,300 new agriculture jobs; there were 1,800 new jobs in utilities; and there were 1,300 new jobs in construction." are result of the legalization of cannabis.

[Manhattanboy]

Starting to seriously consider the separation option.

[Flamenspiel]

nm