[MacLac]

Not so fast. At one time Imperial, oil Shell, Syncrude, Suncor among others had their regional offices in Edmonton until Lougheed asked (told) them to move along with all of the regulatory departments. Edmontonians were indeed to blame for going along with this and continually going along with it and voting conservative for the next 40 years.

Look at those companies now......Shell pulled out of YYC and has 1 telephone operator, BP - 5-6 folks, Conoco - ghost town, CNOOC (Nexen) - 300 folks, Ovintiv (EnCana) - 300 (YYC is merely a field office - I know this cause I contracted for them for 14 yrs), Imperial - will be down to a telephone operator in a year, Husky - gone, Devon - gone, Chevron - gone, Marathon - gone, Statoil - gone, Suncor - Yes - about 2,000 in YYC, Syncrude - synergized with Suncor - so part of the 2,000 Suncor. So it looks like we avoided the evitable......

 

[Dkeirle]

Lougheed bought PWA with the explicit purpose of moving the head office from Vancouver and the centre of opposition from Edmonton to Calgary to make them the hub they are today.

Yes that's correct. The Alberta government bought the controlling share and they moved their head office to Calgary. It's not the only thing that made Calgary the hub though. They already had more international tourists due to geography, and it would have been the hub either way.
I see so many people on this thread pulling their hair out relating to things Edmonton should have done or complaining about Edmonton's attitude, etc, but IMO, this is something Edmonton never had control of.

 

[Vanfan123]

I would say that Edmonton does a pretty good job of promoting tourism. I always see ads for festivals in Edmonton, and clearly Edmonton has a good system of attracting festival goers from around the province. I find Calgary doesn't push tourism for 'Calgary' itself, but instead piggybacks off the tourism for Banff. Rather than events, Calgary's tourism is geared at offering permanent venues to out of country or out of province people who spend a day or two in Calgary en route to Banff. Venues like Heritage Park, the Zoo, the Calgary etc.. tower seem to be the popular venues that people visit, and as far as I know Calgary doesn't even advertise those venues.
Tourism Alberta still focuses on the mountains more than anything. Calgary and Edmonton get thrown in a bit, but it's clear what brings tourists to the province.

Yes & when I travel to Calgary - I always enjoy going to Calgary Zoo / Calgary Tower to visit & have fun .

I visited Calgary Heritage Park time & it was just ok .

Sometimes attend a few hockey games at Scotiabank Saddledome which had a great atmosphere!

 

[Beltline_B]

Look at those companies now......Shell pulled out of YYC and has 1 telephone operator, BP - 5-6 folks, Conoco - ghost town, CNOOC (Nexen) - 300 folks, Ovintiv (EnCana) - 300 (YYC is merely a field office - I know this cause I contracted for them for 14 yrs), Imperial - will be down to a telephone operator in a year, Husky - gone, Devon - gone, Chevron - gone, Marathon - gone, Statoil - gone, Suncor - Yes - about 2,000 in YYC, Syncrude - synergized with Suncor - so part of the 2,000 Suncor. So it looks like we avoided the evitable......

Maybe you avoided the inevitable, or maybe not. Calgary having all those head office jobs allowed Calgary to build a larger skilled labor pool, and it's been a big help in Calgary's evolution towards being a different city. According to your post Calgary has lost thousands of oil and gas jobs, and it's probably true. This is exactly what Calgarians want to see. If these jobs were killing our economy it would be a different story, instead Calgary's workforce has grown by 160,000 in the past 5 years, and the city has grown by 300,00. Even more striking is that the city's tech workforce has doubled from 30,000 to 60,000. Making it one of the fastest growing in NA the past 5 years. And, yes, tech jobs, and no, they aren't call centre jobs.

North American Rank	City	Number of Workers	Employment Growth 2021-2024
3	Toronto	334,200	14.7%
7	Kitchener Waterloo	39,400	58.2%
10	Vancouver	125,100	5.2%
11	Ottawa	95,900	13.2%
15	Montreal	154,900	6.9%
17	Calgary	64,600	61.1%
43	Edmonton	32,300	-1.2%
Unranked	Winnipeg	21,000	10%

 

[Glenco]

Yes that's correct. The Alberta government bought the controlling share and they moved their head office to Calgary. It's not the only thing that made Calgary the hub though. They already had more international tourists due to geography, and it would have been the hub either way.
I see so many people on this thread pulling their hair out relating to things Edmonton should have done or complaining about Edmonton's attitude, etc, but IMO, this is something Edmonton never had control of.

You are correct. Voting patterns in Alberta didn’t change for many decades until DS made her ill advised floor crossing that gave the NDP credibility. Now the divide is more visible in the voting patterns.

 

[TAS]

I do think the AB govt plays a significant role in bringing investment to the province - ministers were actively involved to build YYC's film industry, for instance, and many examples. Having all those key govt ministers since 2018/19 from only one city certainly didnt help Edmonton's cause.

 

[David A]

I have read through all of the recent posts and wanted to weigh in on the discussion. I see a lot of the blame for YEG's decline relative to YYC being pointed at Westjet, and while they are partly to blame, it goes further than that. When I lived in Edmonton my dad was a regular flyer due to his work. I remember him complaining about having to use YYC as far back as the 80's and 90's before Westjet was around.

The day that air travel took off and Banff became a major air travel destination, Calgary cemented itself as Alberta's main hub. Westjet maybe partly to blame, but in reality it was more of them taking of advantage of the situation that had already unfolded. Long before Westjet, PWA was also using Calgary as its hub. If Westjet had never come along, AC in combination with other European carriers would have done the same thing. It would have been to a lesser degree than with Westjet, but YEG would most likely be in the same situation. YOW is also in the same position being near Montreal.

Regarding Danielle Smith. I hate the woman with every fiber of my being, but I don't have an issue with her helping drum up support for flights to Alberta. If Nenshi (who I will be voting for) were in power I imagine he would do the same thing. The chances of Etihad choosing YEG as a destination is pretty much nil and YYC was probably borderline. If you can at least get one into Alberta then why not?

That seems very defeatist to me, while I understand why people here may feel that way, you can be behind 3-0 and still come back. You only lose when or if you give up.

 

[David A]

I do think the AB govt plays a significant role in bringing investment to the province - ministers were actively involved to build YYC's film industry, for instance, and many examples. Having all those key govt ministers since 2018/19 from only one city certainly didnt help Edmonton's cause.

Yes, I wonder how many times the AB govt has tipped the scales to favour Calgary over the decades with regards to air service to build and maintain an artificial hub there and other sometimes related things.

There were some examples already cited here, but offhand I think there at probably a dozen or more. It is astonishing how much the scales have unfairly been tipped against us and partly explains the situation.

 

[MacLac]

Yes, I wonder how many times the AB govt has tipped the scales to favour Calgary over the decades with regards to air service to build and maintain an artificial hub there and other sometimes related things.

There were some examples already cited here, but offhand I think there at probably a dozen or more. It is astonishing how much the scales have unfairly been tipped against us and partly explains the situation.

True, but we've been tipped in our favor just as many times.......both cities can't be all things to everything and everyone....let them have the aerospace business......Geez - I sound like Ian now!

 

[David A]

True, but we've been tipped in our favor just as many times.......both cities can't be all things to everything and everyone....let them have the aerospace business......Geez - I sound like Ian now!

Actually, IMO Edmonton would have been a much better natural fit for aerospace production with all the metal and industrial manufacturing and engineering work already done here. I feel just another example of tipping the scales.

 

[David A]

We're already the following: Health/Pharma Hub, AI Hub, Hydrogen Hub, Oil and Gas Hub - Not Head offices but Operations wise, Gov't center, Military Hub, Educational Hub....how much more do we need?

Yes, definitely NOT HEAD OFFICES!!! We seem to get the less lucrative stuff, that sounds good and can be hyped a lot but may or may not lead to much of anything.

I don't think the GOA made the decision on putting a military hub here, but actually aerospace also would have made sense to go near to that.

As for Educational Hub the U of A fortunately was here way before the UCP, although they seem hell bent on starving or destroying it as much as possible.

 

[yeggator]

I think we’re getting distracted on the talk of hubs. The goal shouldn’t be to turn YEG into a hub. That’s not happening for valid reasons. We should focus on getting a select few key routes across the oceans (London, Frankfurt, one major airport in Asia) (and the US Northeast Corridor eventually) that’ll allow us to reach 90% of the major airports of the world in one stop or less. That won’t make us a major hub, but it will make us significantly more attractive to businesses and tourism. Like I said before, the bare minimum for a city of our size and wealth.

The benchmark for us shouldn’t be YYC (unrealistic) but rather YOW. They’re also the same size as us but less wealthy, get 60% of our passenger traffic, even further from the mountains and are closer to bigger hub airports that hinder Ottawa’s ability to attract more flights. Despite this, they have 3 transatlantic flights (2 to London, 1 to Paris). And sure, they’re closer to Europe, but they’re not running small aircraft to Paris - those are Dreamliners. Plus, more efficient aircraft like the A321 XLR are coming out that make range a non-factor for us to Europe. 2 frequent transatlantic and a transpacific flight are achievable and our airport needs to lobby hard for that.

 

[Dkeirle]

That seems very defeatist to me, while I understand why people here may feel that way, you can be behind 3-0 and still come back. You only lose when or if you give up.

I don't see it as defeatist, it's only being realistic. A team can always come back from a 3-0 deficit because they are in the game and can control their destiny. The issue here is that YEG's destiny is controlled by externally factors. Essentially AC and WS and the business feasibility of their flights. This isn't to say YEG won't get a flight to a destination like London someday, they will, but it's going to be limited beyond that. We'll see when WS's new dreamliners arrive, they'll have 7 more. I'm confident they'll add London, and who knows maybe another Euro destination.

 

[Offworld]

Edmonton has generally been run by socialists and unionists for the past 50 years who are not the most business friendly - Edmonton is generally a union town with "progressives" - Calgary has generally been run for the past 50 years by dynamic business focused people who embrace capitalism and corporate culture. This means Calgary has become a wealthier, more famous, more organized, more pragmatic business city with a real airport. Edmonton has people like Andrew Knack and Heather "Hamas" McPherson representing it - and therefore we get a bush league airport and a drug riddled downtown and massive socialist housing complexes destroying our legacy neighborhoods - or "areas of white privelage" as the progressive set call them. Same as it ever was.

I can add to that. Calgary has effectively marketed itself as the gateway to the world. Edmonton? The gateway to the north. Walk downtown and see that play out real time.

 

[Dkeirle]

Maybe you avoided the inevitable, or maybe not. Calgary having all those head office jobs allowed Calgary to build a larger skilled labor pool, and it's been a big help in Calgary's evolution towards being a different city. According to your post Calgary has lost thousands of oil and gas jobs, and it's probably true. This is exactly what Calgarians want to see. If these jobs were killing our economy it would be a different story, instead Calgary's workforce has grown by 160,000 in the past 5 years, and the city has grown by 300,00. Even more striking is that the city's tech workforce has doubled from 30,000 to 60,000. Making it one of the fastest growing in NA the past 5 years. And, yes, tech jobs, and no, they aren't call centre jobs.

North American Rank	City	Number of Workers	Employment Growth 2021-2024
3	Toronto	334,200	14.7%
7	Kitchener Waterloo	39,400	58.2%
10	Vancouver	125,100	5.2%
11	Ottawa	95,900	13.2%
15	Montreal	154,900	6.9%
17	Calgary	64,600	61.1%
43	Edmonton	32,300	-1.2%
Unranked	Winnipeg	21,000	10%

Not to nitpick, but the math isn't quite right. An increase of 30k to 60k is a 100% increase, but the chart says 61.1%. Where are the numbers and percentages coming from?