The Wildcard

So far this week, two notable speeches about the economic outlook for Alberta have been given. The first was by Todd Hirsch and the second was by Brad Ferguson.  Neither of them were too optimistic but Todd Hirsch mentioned something in particular: the political wildcards.

Obviously, our geographic proximity to the United States gives us Trump.  While campaigning, Trump claimed he wanted to get a better deal for the U.S. out of NAFTA but what would that mean for Canada?  Trump is a businessman.  So if we focus on the business, we see these numbers for Canada:

"U.S. goods and services trade with Canada totaled an estimated $662.7 billion in 2015. Exports were $337.3 billion; imports were $325.4 billion. The U.S. goods and services trade surplus with Canada was $11.9 billion in 2015." 

 And these for Mexico:

"U.S. goods and services trade with Mexico totaled an estimated $583.6 billion in 2015. Exports were $267.2 billion; imports were $316.4 billion. The U.S. goods and services trade deficit with Mexico was -$49.2 billion in 2015." 

 The U.S. spends more money in Mexico than Mexico spends in the U.S.  The opposite is true in Canada.  Does this mean we can relax?  Probably not and here's why; if the U.S. were to greatly reduce their imports from Canada, the Canadian economy would plummet. Canada can't just hope for the best with that level of risk. On the other hand, if Trump follows through with his punitive efforts against Mexico, Canada could become the only nation in the world with direct access (and possibly still free trade?) to the United States.

Essentially, Trump has the power, literally, to make or break the Canadian economy.  So how can Alberta help?  Hirsch and Ferguson both pointed to entrepreneurs and Hirsch punctuated his speech with a story about wallpaper cleaner (it gets better).  In the 1930's, Noah McVicker started a soap business.  When tough times hit, they managed to repurpose the soap into a wallpaper cleaner.  Technological advances in natural gas heating (rather than coal) and vinyl wallpaper brought the company near forcible closure again and they managed to repurpose their product a third time; into Play-Doh.  The moral of the story is that Alberta's economy does not have to go down when tough times arrive; we might just need to repurpose our focus to meet the changing needs.

D.

Come Together, Right Now

Brad Ferguson, President and CEO of the Edmonton Economic Development Corporation, gave his speech at the annual Impact Luncheon on Tuesday.  I wasn't fortunate enough to attend but I did hear a recap at 9:00 am on 630 CHED with Ryan Jespersen.

"... the biggest challenge we have, economically... is that we have been divided by ideologies on the far left and far right and we need to meet in the middle with good intentions to start finding solutions to some of the challenges that are in front of us..." - Brad Ferguson

Right now, there is a terrific opportunity to have the strongest voices come together and create balanced policy for Albertans. This doesn't necessarily even have to amount to compromise but it does have to involve cooperation.  Certainly, this is an ideal that is unlikely to come to fruition without some major changes in the way our current government operates, but indulge me anyway.

The NDP shows strong leadership on social policy.  The Wildrose wants to show leadership on economic policy.  Together, they should be able to create a winning combination of policy that all Albertans would benefit from.  It would also signal to Albertans that the NDP is worthy of its position as government and that the Wildrose is worthy of its position as Official Opposition.  Currently, both are lacking.

How could this play out? For the NDP it could decrease political risk.  If they brought the opposition in to assist in policy development, they would be able to take credit for a successful, cooperative strategy on economic policy.  Alternatively, they would be able to point fingers if it was unsuccessful.  Win/win.  The Wildrose would also be able to show that it has a grown up side in managing to work with others and the PCs, Alberta Party and Liberals could have a chance to actually influence policy as well.

Though it may seem as if the opposition has more to gain from such an arrangement than the NDP, the NDP would still come out on top because they are the majority government.  If they succeed with such an outlandish plan of action, they would be able to campaign on that cooperative governance in 2019.   In the meantime, it would be nice if the entire government could work together for everyone's benefit.

D.