Alberta business climate should be more open and welcoming

Doing business in Alberta is becoming harder and harder in recent years due to the economic downturn without adding social licence concerns into the equation. Add the digitus dei, “the finger of god,” which is social licence, and it is becoming darn near impossible to start any type of intensive business operation in modern day Alberta if you are not in the energy industry.

 

Agriculture seems to be particularly hard done by in this respect. Try to establish any kind of feedlot, dairy farm, greenhouse, etc., and you will quickly find people coming forward to complain about every little aspect of it. The smell, the unsightliness, the lighting, the standards of hormone and chemical usage, the disturbance to landscape or the potential for property devaluation. Valid concerns, but not grounds for the hysteria we sometimes see when these things come up for public hearing and debate. After all, we all like to eat, don’t we? Would you rather be eating your veggies off a three-day old boat from China at the sufferance of an American multinational, or from a responsible local grower?

 

Agriculture built this country, and it might be the only saving grace in the Alberta economy right now. Time for some people to get off their high horses and take a broader view. That is, if they know one end of the horse from the other in the first place.

 

Even on a much smaller scale within the city itself, the business climate is not as conducive as it could be. High taxes, uncertainties about the permitting process, and questions about provincial and federal government wage and taxation policies are big issues.