Liberals missed great opportunity with infrastructure bank
There is an adage that farming and second marriages — and now, maybe, being an Oilers fan — are the triumph of hope over experience.
To that we can add Calgary’s search for any sort of break from Ottawa.
On Monday, the Trudeau government announced the new federal infrastructure bank would be headquartered in Toronto. The Liberals will seed the bank with $35 billion in cash and loans, and leverage that capital on a four- or five-to-one basis for infrastructure development with the private sector.
Calgary made no secret of its desire to be on the list of potential homes for the bank. Mayor Naheed Nenshi, Calgary Economic Development CEO Mary Moran and Calgary-based Senator Doug Black all offered impassioned pitches on the city’s behalf. Clearly, to no avail.
The feds instead took the easy route, on many levels.
Yes, Toronto is geographically closer to Ottawa and the seat of this country’s capital markets. It also happens to be where a large concentration of votes were cast in favour of Liberal candidates in the last election.
Calgary did elect Kent Hehr in Calgary Centre and Darshan Kang in Calgary Skyview, but didn’t exactly offer the Liberals a wealth of support. Yet you would think a governing party with the opportunity to make a difference for future elections would choose that path.
Think of the goodwill that would have been generated had the government chosen Calgary over Toronto.
Calgary may be a four-hour flight from Toronto, but that’s never stopped the energy sector from raising billions of dollars, with 2016 a very important testament to that. And, as has been said before, a significant amount of financial innovation has occurred in Calgary over the years, which would be helpful to guide the infrastructure bank’s strategy.
Private capital pools have also been very important in recent years in funding the development of new companies in the energy sector.
In other words, the lawyers and bankers in Calgary really get this stuff and have strong relationships with their Toronto colleagues.
This is a city with the second largest number of head offices outside Toronto, a highly educated and young workforce and tremendous engineering, design and construction expertise. But somehow all that doesn’t matter — at least not enough.
Choosing Calgary would have given the city a much needed moral boost.
Beyond the empty office towers that offer great space at decent rents, Calgary’s unemployment rate — 9.3 per cent in April — remains the highest of any major Canadian city. Toronto, on the other hand, has an unemployment rate of 6.7 per cent.
By snubbing Calgary, the federal government has essentially said the following: we approved two pipelines for your biggest sector. Be happy with that.
Never mind that the infrastructure bank could have been another part of the goal of diversifying the economy and led to other opportunities. By not giving Calgary the nod it entrenches the exposure to one sector; a situation municipal and provincial leaders are trying to change.
It’s fine to support a company like Bombardier and lend it more than $300 million, but it’s not acceptable to make Calgary the headquarters of the infrastructure bank. Could someone let us in on that secret?
This could have been great for Calgary. It could have been hugely symbolic.
After decades in the Liberal political wilderness it would have served as tangible recognition the city has the intellectual horsepower as well as physical setting — including airport connectivity — as the site of an important Crown corporation.
Instead, the government’s default was to Toronto, which has long been inside the Liberal tent.
It all calls to mind Marlon Brando’s memorable line from On the Waterfront — “I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody ...”
The way things played out — and in spite of all the efforts put into making the case for Calgary — you have to wonder if we were ever a contender.