Amazon’s snub spurs review of training
Premier vows to look at accelerated high-tech training after Alberta shut out
Premier Rachel Notley says Alberta will look at potentially boosting post-secondary technology in light of Calgary and Edmonton failing to make Amazon’s shortlist for its second headquarters.
But the premier dismissed the likelihood of tax reductions to increase Alberta’s competitiveness in future bids for high-tech investment.
Alberta’s two largest cities didn’t make the cut when Amazon announced its shortlist Thursday, with many observers — including Calgary Economic Development’s Mary Moran — pointing to a workforce lacking in expertise in areas such as computer science and artificial intelligence as a factor.
Notley said Friday it is “a bit of a lesson for us to learn” and there is a need to accelerate access to hightech training for Albertans.
“We have every intention of sitting down with our post-secondary folks and reviewing the decision and looking at whether there is anything we can do to support a more effective direction,” the NDP premier told reporters at an announcement of expanded benefits for firefighters.
Only one Canadian city, Toronto, made the 20-city shortlist of potential locations for a second headquarters for the e-commerce giant.
Moran told Postmedia this week that while Calgary is home to many workers with tech capabilities, their skills are attuned to the oil and gas sector that has long dominated the city’s economy.
“We don’t have the workforce for the future,” she said.
The provincial government says there were about 2,000 graduates in the tech field in 2016-17, with 922 in computer science and electrical engineering from the University of Calgary.
Dru Marshall, provost and vicepresident academic at the U of C, said the school produces about 130 computer science graduates annually but that number is growing and expected to reach 200 in a few years.
Computer science enrolment has grown from 550 in 2011 to 940 this year, while software engineering is also on the rise, she said.
Marshall welcomed Notley’s comments and said the university has a responsibility to ensure its programs are relevant to the changing economy.
She said the Amazon experience has set off a needed discussion on a topic that’s increasingly important as Alberta tries to diversify its economy after a recession spurred by low oil prices.
There is an opportunity to create a tech corridor between Calgary and Edmonton that will involve post-secondary institutions, business and government, said Marshall. The U of C has research strength in areas such as data-visualization, human-computer interaction and information security, while the University of Alberta excels in artificial intelligence.
“Other jurisdictions have done that, they’ve involved those partners in broader-level discussions, and I think in Alberta we haven’t necessarily had those,” said Marshall. “We’re starting to see them in a different kind of way with this economic downturn. And there’s really good potential.”
Amazon’s rejection of almost all Canadian applicants also raised questions about the impact of recent tax changes in the United States.
A massive tax-cut package passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump slashed the corporate tax rate south of the border, putting it at par with the Canadian rates at around 26 to 27 per cent when provincial and state taxes are included, taking away a long-time Canadian advantage.
Notley — whose NDP government raised the Alberta corporate tax rate to 12 per cent from 10 per cent after taking office in 2015 — said that with the two countries on roughly equal footing, Canada still has an edge in attracting investment thanks to policies such as medicare.
She said the government’s preliminary analysis of the U.S. tax cuts suggests “that we remain pretty competitive in Alberta, particularly given the types of exports and the type of investment we’re looking to attract.”
“But we’re certainly going to keep an eye on that.”