By Scott Jeffrey
I’ve long since given up expecting politicians to stop treating their game like a blood sport. Anything the opposing faction does is bad, and what should be reasoned critique descends into back-biting, name-calling, and “my budget’s better than yours” rhetoric.
I’m not going to debate the most recent Saskatchewan and Alberta budgets point by point. Others will do that ad nauseam. I will say though, that each party believes that they have done the best they can under the circumstances. Sure, Brad Wall has raised the PST in Saskatchewan, and of course Notley is spending more money than the province has. It’s called a deficit, and both parties have turned in deficit budgets this time around.
What I am going to do is ask why Brad has decided to go public now in trying to lure head offices away from Alberta? He recites his business mantra, and of course Calgary and Alberta must respond in kind.
Brad brings in Saskatchewan boys like Grant Fagerheim of Whitecap Resources to say that an offer like Brad’s to relocate, and be treated extra special, should be taken seriously. He can respond seriously, but does he seriously want us to believe that he’s going to uproot his whole head office, consisting of over 100 people, from Calgary to Saskatoon or Regina? Or maybe Brad thinks the head office would do well in Estevan, Grant’s hometown. As we all know, the internet means we can be anywhere, right? Not exactly.
Every town or city has built-in advantages, including the natural beauty of their respective settings, but Calgary is probably the only place in Canada where you can start a major deal in a Plus 15 on your way to coffee to make another deal. Built up over many decades, the executive heart of Canada’s oil patch has been, and will remain, Calgary.
What will probably always remain a pipe dream is the outlandish idea that provinces with mutual interests and resources should not poach from each other, but look further afield, perhaps even daring to cross international borders.
The fact is, regardless of where a city or a province decides to look for money and talent, it takes an almost unimaginable convergence of interests to make a head office move of any size feasible. Many of you will remember the hand-wringing and the cries of wrong-doing that accompanied the decision of both Esso and TCPL to exit Toronto and move their head offices to Calgary. Two major energy companies were essentially marooned in central Canada, away from both peers and infrastructure. And one of the main reasons for having delayed the decision for so long was the people. For entrenched central Canadians, you don’t move FROM Toronto, you move TO Toronto. Nothing else was even thinkable, but the unthinkable happened, and it made sense. It made business sense!
The petty squabbles of two provincial politicians, or any promises they might make, would not have made a lick of difference to the outcome once the decision was made at the board level. It’s not that a company is above accepting an incentive if it’s offered, but it would not factor in any final decision.
Rather than squabbling over who should have who’s head office, why can’t provincial politicians, like Notley and Wall, sit down and move toward a comprehensive plan on interprovincial cooperation, all aimed at reducing barriers to the free movement of goods between the provinces?
I have one or two little examples of the restricted, or taxed movement of goods from one province to another. I once bought four Manitoba manufactured boats in Calgary, and had the temerity to transport them into Saskatchewan, the ultimate destination being a particular northern river system. Just outside Kindersley, I was stopped by two gentlemen in brown uniforms in an unmarked but official looking car, and I was told, after I explained the provenance of the boats, that I needed to pay a tax to bring these boats into Saskatchewan. I didn’t even know these guys existed, but they were real enough, and so was the money I paid. These kinds of punitive tariffs should be removed to the benefit of all businesses.
The one that looms largest with me though, is when I return from Saskatchewan to Alberta. My favourite beer is Bohemian, and we happy few know that you can only buy the magic brew in Saskatchewan. I always feel like Prohibition-era gangster when I take more than a 12 back into Alberta. I take pains to hide the cases, as I know I could once again be subject to a tariff if stopped and my guilty look is traced to its source.
And so, my suggestion is this- why don’t Notley and Wall meet in an undisclosed location, crack a case of Boh, and work out once and for all a framework for true cooperation, and not competition, between provinces.
I’ll even provide the first case.
