Edmonton Economic Development Corporation (EEDC) boss Brad Ferguson said all the right things in his annual state-of-the-economic-union speech at the EEDC’s annual Impact luncheon last Tuesday.

The old ideological “left” and “right” are dead. We should come together, right now, all Albertans, develop a 20 year industrial plan and stick with it “to get out of this mess.”

Ferguson’s plan has some glaring holes, the first of which it’s yet another plan. It’s not even a plan. It’s a plan to have a plan.

Plans are what politicians propose when they can’t think of anything better. In the debates leading up to the American presidential election, Hillary Clinton had a “plan” for this, a “program” for that.

Donald Trump didn’t talk about plans, he talked action: Bringing American companies back to America; stopping illegal migration from Mexico; lowering corporate taxes; relaxing regulations to create a pro-business environment to “make America great again.”

Politicians and CEOs just love plans – one year, two year, five year, 20 years. Plans make them look good to their bosses, be they the electorate or the company’s board of directors.

Most business leaders want government to create a pro-business environment, and then get out of the way.

Glaring hole number two: Every new government and every new president/CEO tends to throw out their predecessor’s plan. It’s always out with the old, in with the new.

The first Edmonton Economic Development Corporation boss, Rick LeLacheur, was a city booster during tough times and (unsuccessfully) tried to unify regional economic development under one authority.

Second boss Jim Edwards discarded LeLacheur’s plan in favour of a business “cluster” strategy.

Third boss Allan Scott wasn’t so much interested in clusters as in growing the high-tech sector.

Fourth boss Ron Gilbertson didn’t focus on regional unification, clusters or high-tech. Under his watch, the EEDC was all about selling Edmonton nationally and internationally as an industrial powerhouse.

Ferguson was picked as the fifth EEDC boss in 2012 for his youth and marketing skills. His prime achievement has been the remaking of Edmonton’s identity as a dynamic, modern, urban community.

The best economic development plan I ever saw was the 2011 Premier’s Council for Economic Strategy report commissioned by then-Premier Ed Stelmach. That report envisioned an Alberta energy institute as a world leader in high-carbon technology. The report was shelved by the next premier Alison Redford – because it wasn’t hers.

Glaring hole number three: Ideology – political beliefs about how things should operate – do exist.

Ferguson wants everybody to put aside self-interest, overcome politics and come up with this pan-Alberta long-term industrial growth strategy.

Minor problem: The New Democrat provincial government knew exactly what it wanted when elected in 2015. It powered ahead with its election promise of a carbon-tax financed climate change program. This government is serious about economic diversification and indifferent to high-carbon technology, such as technologies to reduce emissions from burning coal or natural gas, or cutting down on heat needed from natural gas for bitumen extraction and processing.

It’s not hard to imagine Premier Rachel Notley being none-too-pleased with the Impact 2016 speech last year, when Ferguson declared that “being the freest, most entrepreneurial, least unionized, least subsidized, least regulated, hardest-working province in Canada is what has made us successful.”

It was a good, blunt speech, but I’m told it also put Ferguson in the New Democratic doghouse. His current declaration of an end to “right” and “left” must have Notley snorting with laughter.

That said, visionary plans – and sticking to them – can make a difference.

Premier Peter Lougheed’s fully executed petro-chemical strategy resulted in a thriving, multi-billion dollar industry. The Chretien government’s fully executed plan and policies to kick-start the oilsands worked. Thank you Anne McLellan.

But most multi-year plans get started but never finished. The billion-dollar provincial carbon-capture plan is in limbo. The Premier’s Council plan gathers dust. Building the Heritage Trust Fund has been a crushing failure.

Give Ferguson some rope. The EEDC boss wants to lead the creation of 20-year Alberta industrial strategy plan at the local level, to persuade his counterparts in other Alberta centres to come on board, to coax Alberta’s corporate and government leaders to the table.

Maybe he can be a prime player in creating, through consensus, a plan that will ACTUALLY BE EXECUTED and help “get us out of this mess.”

Let’s see how he does. Let’s see if his Impact Luncheon speech next January reports on progress made for a 20-year Alberta industrial plan. Or will the plan to have a plan, like so many others, be glossed over and forgotten?