“Our future economic prospects are not tied just to oil and gas, just to the one pipeline,” Tombe said.
“The cancellation of this one project I don’t think will itself carry significant adverse effects for confidence in the economy overall. That confidence is already pretty low because of all the challenges we’ve been facing.”
Calgary Economic Development president and CEO Mary Moran said it’s time to “get on with the diversification strategy.”
“This continuation of not being able to get our product to market, yet having solutions for global climate actions, is really quite disappointing, not just because we’re going to have more office space, but when it comes to people it will result in the shedding of more jobs and we already have the highest unemployment in the country,” Moran said.
“We’ve got to figure out how these people that have chosen to keep Calgary their home, how we get them retrained to go into other industries.”
Moran said Calgary is seeing growth in technology, agriculture and aerospace-related industries. She said Calgary and the province as a whole “need an offence strategy” to move forward following years of economic pain in the energy sector.
“Even if the oil and gas industry comes back, it will not be the mega-job creator,” she said.
“We need many paths for these people if we want to retain them.”
— With files from Madeline Smith
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Twitter: @SammyHudes
Source: – Calgary Herald
