Category: Hicks on Biz columns from The Edmonton Sun
Hicks on Biz columns from The Edmonton Sun
A spate of Metro Edmonton reports, recommendations and proposals have been pumped out over the past month. All have wide-ranging implications, but few have been analysed or debated in wide-reaching public forums.
Within all these issues, what’s the best, most efficient use of taxpayer’s money?
EPCOR’s latest bid to take over the city’s drainage services: What’s there not to like about this deal?
Twenty years ago, CEO Don Lowry transformed the city’s electricity department into EPCOR, a private company owned by the City of Edmonton. EPCOR then pivoted out of power generation (by creating Capital Power), took over the city’s water and waste-water treatment plants, plus the pipes in between – and springboarded that water expertise into a profitable company running municipal waterworks across North America.
EPCOR now pays a $140 million a year shareholder’s dividend to the City of Edmonton every year. Imagine removing that $140 million from t ...
Read the rest of entry »
There’s only one problem with Porkapalooza, the successful early summer barbecue food festival held last weekend (June 17 & 18, 2016) at Clarke Park/Stadium.
Meat is sold by the 30 food vendors and food trucks on site. But only the judges taste the fabulous cooking from the 42 teams entered in the barbecue competition.
It’s like watching beautiful plates of food go by at a fine restaurant, with none for you: To have one’s nose scrunched up against the window pane, gazing at goodies beyond your reach: To be told as a kid that it’s “FEL” night — Family Eat Less — at gramma’s Sunday night dinner. Unexpected relatives have shown up.
It was to suffer, to downright suffer, to view, smell but not taste Darren Cave’s beautiful Scotch quail eggs as they were carried from the Red Boar BBQ team’s smoker across the festival grounds to the judges’ quarters for the (optional) ground pork cooking category.
Instead, I had to buy barbecue ...
Read the rest of entry »
It’s not about the political party that happens to be in power.
If Jim Prentice hadn’t called the Alberta election a year early, his Progressive Conservative Party would be in the same deep do-do as Rachel Notley’s New Democrats.
It’s about a near unalterable reality that Albertans must face.
This economic crisis isn’t going away.
Global energy analysts predict world oil and gas prices will not recover for a very long time, probably decades. World-wide demand for fossil fuels is dramatically slowing. Supply just keeps on growing.
There’s no way around it – Alberta’s over-all standard of living will have to drop.
By how much, nobody knows. For the sake of argument, let’s say, conservatively, 10%.
It matters not what party is in power. The gusher of cash from oil and gas is gone, not to return for many, many years. In Calgary, they call it the new “long low.”
The marketplace, that cold-hearted beast, has already reacted, s ...
Read the rest of entry »
A little bit of this, a little bit of that in Hicks on Biz this week – Living longer, bus depots in the middle of nowhere, cuppa coffee with the Oilers, job losses, farmland.
Another minute in the spotlight
Of the 133 former Oilers who gathered Wednesday to bid farewell to Rexall Place, about half the names were recognizable. The other half were here for a cuppa coffee, likely playing a few games before being sent back to the minors.
Most of the guys have woulda, coulda, shoulda stories – untimely injuries, the GM didn’t like them, too many players at the position, never given a chance.
Still, they made it to the Big Show, if even for a game or two, creating a treasured memory.
Friends and relatives all know Joe Schmo was an Oiler for a few games. Now, thanks to this collegial gesture by Oiler management, they all enjoyed another moment of recognition.
Farewell oil-patch jobs, hello McJobs
Interesting job statistics from a TD Bank study: The provincial job mark ...
Read the rest of entry »
Okay, so we are expected to suck it up and take one for climate change.
Soon, Alberta’s middle class families will be turning over hundreds more dollars a year in a carbon tax – i.e. much higher taxes on gasoline powering our vehicles and natural gas heating our homes, and who knows what else.
This will raise billions of dollars, which will all be re-invested, Premier Rachel Notley promises, into ways and means of becoming a “carbon-free” province.
Here’s my problem: Notley’s criticism of past Conservative governments for “not doing anything” about climate change is totally and absolutely wrong.
Alberta – our research institutes, universities, energy companies and our unique Climate Change & Emissions Management Corporation (CCEMC) – was a global leader in reducing GHG (greenhouse gas emissions) well before Ms. Notley came to power, and continues to be a world leader.
Let me count the ways.
Up in the oilsands, most of the major ...
Read the rest of entry »
Let's be realistic.
Alberta's oil will not get to "tidewater" on either of Canada's coasts, not for 10 or 20 years.
Those who believe fossil fuels are part of the climate change problem are winning the political battles in Ottawa, Quebec and British Columbia.
New or expanded pipeline proposals that need regulatory approvals will not get built. Environmental reviews, appeals, appeals of appeals - are now so time-consuming and so expensive as to make new pipeline construction near-impossible.
The only way increased production of oil - mostly heavy or diluted bitumen oil from the oilsands - can be moved is through existing pre-approved pipelines and rail lines. There's one realistic exception: New pipeline and new rail might be possible through friendly neighbouring jurisdictions.
Canada currently exports 3.7 million barrels of oil per day (bpd). The currently transport system is keeping up, barely.
Growth will still happen, slower than was predicted because of low oil prices, at an added 100,0 ...
Read the rest of entry »
What was Daryl Katz doing, selling his Rexall drug store chain upon which he built his current fortune, for $3 billion to American pharmaceutical giant McKesson?
It’s about being where the puck is going, not where it is. It’s about long-term vision, strategic transformation and deliberate disruption, about Katz becoming a global business player, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg.
In the drug retail business, Katz sensed the time to exit is now, while the going is still good.
Rexall is primarily a bunch of drugstores, but the North America drug business is increasingly consolidating into “vertical integration”.
The same mega-companies, i.e. McKesson, manufacture, distribute and retail drugs. Katz didn’t see himself in drug manufacturing and distribution. He saw the storm clouds on the horizon if Rexall continued as only a drug retailer. Obviously he was offered good coin to sell to McKesson.
Buying the Oilers in 2008, ...
Read the rest of entry »
In Northern Alberta, “diversification” is near impossible.
At least 30% of the $306 billion that moved around Alberta’s economy in 2014 (the last year for which the province has these numbers) came directly from oil and gas production.
CAPP – the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers – pushes that figure up to 42% when including energy-sector dependents like oilfield maintenance, fabrication, accounting, legal services and so on.
It’s pie-in-the-sky, quite ridiculous to suggest – as have several of our current provincial cabinet ministers – that Alberta can transition away from gas and oil production, yet maintain our quality of life.
The answer, articulated so well by Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall and badly articulated by Alberta’s current New Democrat government, is that “diversification” should be primarily directed to the industry that we are really, really good at.
The production, transportation and end-use of fossil ...
Read the rest of entry »
While the city has been all a-buzz about Northland Park’s Vision 2020 that was released on Wednesday, an existential question has not been asked.
Why does the City of Edmonton still need Northlands Park?
In any emotion-free analysis, the most cost-effective way forward is to reduce Northlands’ operations down to its EXPO Convention Centre and K-Days, then shut down/sell off everything else.
The case is cruel, given the not-for-profit Northlands willingly brought itself to the sacrificial alter for the greater good of Edmonton.
Northlands gave up all hockey-related Rexall Place profits to the Oilers to keep the team in town back in the ‘90s.
It has now accepted the closure of Rexall Place, sending all those concert profits over to the equally subsidized Rogers Place.
Talk about signing your own death warrant.
But for all the quality-of-life and greater-good arguments within the well-reasoned Vision 2020, there’s huge risk.
To survive, Northlands is likely to forever suck furious ...
Read the rest of entry »
You have to forgive realtors.
They are relentlessly optimistic.
The economy is dropping like a rock. A great time to buy!
The economy is sizzling red-hot. A great time to sell!
I was impressed with the reasonably objective research and conclusions of Edmonton realtor (and ex-accountant) Kathy Schmidt, in her monthly The Schmidt Report.
The sky is not falling, she argues, not in Edmonton’s housing market.
It has crashed down in Fort McMurray, it’s falling in Calgary, but here, we’re just a little overcast.
Median house prices are down – about 3% — in most of Metropolitan Edmonton, a median price of about $340,000 compared to $350,000 at this time last year.
(“Median” excludes the very top and very bottom ends of the housing market. At the top end, Edmonton houses listed at $600,000 or more are down more than 3%.)
But the market, Schmidt says, is busy. More homes (houses and condos) were sold last month than were sold in January a year ago. Th ...
Read the rest of entry »