Let’s dump the negative and let the ‘can-do’ take over in Alberta

By Medicine Hat News Opinon on December 13, 2018.

As the sunset nears for the 2018 calendar year, the question remains, exactly what sort of year it was for Medicine Hat.

The answer, unfortunately, from a lot of people is “unsatisfying.”

Reporters at the Medicine Hat News are now compiling their lists of stories of the year.

By a number of measures it might have been the biggest year in local economic development in 40 years, but on the street, there’s still a sense of malaise.

Hatters at large, however, may still be wondering what all the fuss is about.

The same old arguments persist.

There are too many unemployed, too few good jobs, downtown’s dead, City Hall is closed for business and the price of natural gas is in the toilet.

There’s a carbon tax, ninnies in major cities want antibiotic-free beef and we need population growth.

It’s easy to find things to grumble about, even in the face of strong economic news in the city, region, province and country, though it’s become standard for the conversation to devolve back to worry.

It’s become a national pastime of sort to undercut positive or even encouraging news.

Locally, three major projects are less than a year old, and are speeding towards completion in 2019 at an astonishing pace.

A gigantic cannabis growing operation could employ 400 or more next year when a whirlwind $130 million construction is completed.

A $300-million wind farm near Bow Island is now underway, but sits far enough out of sight to make it hardly top of mind.

A new $100-million data-processing facility that employs 40 Hatters in the search for cryptocurrency is so vague by its nature that many in the community don’t realize its value.

It’s not lost on accountants at City Hall, who now have enough revenue forecast from the city power plant to bridge a 10-year plan to balance the operational budget.

That’s a big upside, though still not as good as it once was, many will note.

Indeed, taxes will rise so that resource revenue can be stripped out of municipal spending.

When the City’s gas production company was rock ‘n’ rolling, it provided a $24 million dividend for tax abatement, equal to about $1,000 per household.

This month, it was announced the division could require $30 million per year in cash just to keep it operating.

After 10 years of low natural gas prices, people should now be grasping the fact that lofty prices simply aren’t returning.

The same state of affairs applies to the oilpatch in the southeast quadrant.

Things are rough out there, no doubt. There are no easy paycheques anymore, if there ever were.

Lots of questions loom about new industry, the new economy, and what the future holds for a city like Medicine Hat that leaned on gas production so heavily for so many years that it could be considered a failing.

Another go-to point is to complain that diversification should have been grappled with years ago.

But, here we are, without a time machine, and dealing with upsides and downsides of quickly retooling a local economy on the fly.

It doesn’t look or feel like other economy recoveries. While the world has sped up, doubt and hardship still linger.

The local real estate market and home-building sector are still stalled. Construction seems to take forever. Oil exported from the province is still discounted because there’s still no new pipelines underway.

Wishing these problems away, or trying to avoid a modernizing of the economy, is like trying to wish the tide from rolling in.

As politicians are wont to say, there’s still much more to do and action, not words, are required.

Alberta is a can-do province, it’s been often repeated.

If that’s true, a positive first step would be to change the tone of the conversation in 2019.

(Collin Gallant is a News reporter. To comment on this and other editorials, go to https://www.medicinehatnews.com/opinions.)

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