Adam Legge is optimistic about Alberta’s future but somewhat worried about Canada as a prosperous and vibrant nation. As president of the Business Council of Alberta (BCA), Legge is the eye, ear and voice of Alberta’s business community – and though he sees and hears a lot of positive things, he cautions about potential missed opportunities. Alberta, he believes, has a lot going for it, so long as the moment is grasped.
“Alberta has so much of what the world needs,” Legge says from the BCA offices in downtown Calgary. “Whether it’s energy, food, critical minerals, forestry products, artificial intelligence, skilled people. I can’t think of a place that has more of what the world needs than Alberta.
“But can we meet the urgency of the moment?” he continues. “Can we tackle some of the longstanding barriers? Early in 2025, the country was united in working together to deal with threats from the U.S. We were talking about dropping interprovincial trade barriers, buying Canadian, one Canadian economy. But as some of the trade threat has subsided, we’ve seen many go back to their corners and some provinces advocate for conflicting positions.”
The million-dollar question remains: will we actually build national projects? Will we see projects approved and built quickly enough to capitalize on the needs of the world?
“What worries me is we will go back to sleep on the urgency of the moment and miss the window on everything from natural resources to defense to artificial intelligence,” he warns. “We need to keep a sense of urgency, followed by action.”
Thus is one raison d’être for the BCA: be the voice of the province’s top business leaders to drive and push practical solutions for prosperity in Alberta and Canada.
Launched in 2019 with five founders – Ron Mannix, Mac Van Wielingen, Nancy Southern, Dawn Farrell, Hal Kvisle – the BCA was formed to provide a unique private sector voice for provincial and federal policy. The initial membership included 20 companies. Legge, whose previous role was CEO of the Calgary Chamber from 2010 to 2017, was tapped to lead it.
Today there are 142 member CEOs that form the council, and their companies range from oil and gas, real estate, construction, technology and telecom, agriculture, financial services, manufacturing, aviation and aerospace. “We’ve got members in Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Medicine Hat and Fort McMurray,” Legge notes. “We’re in great shape starting our seventh year.”
Born and raised in Vancouver, Legge’s post-secondary education includes a business degree with a specialty in land economics from UBC. “I wanted to be an urban designer, so I came to the University of Calgary to do my graduate degree in urban design,” he recalls. “But I was told very quickly that my design work was ‘bad done poorly’! So I moved into the public policy side of urban planning.”
He worked part-time at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) while completing the last year of his master’s degree, then joined full-time for another seven years. Legge’s work focused on economic development and found him working with then-Calgary mayor Dave Bronconnier on the restructuring of Calgary Economic Development (CED). Legge was hired as the new director of Research and Business Information for CED in 2004. He stayed until 2010 when he moved to the Chamber.
After seven years at the Chamber, Legge left in 2017. He spent a year working part-time to build out a donor-funded program at the Haskayne School of Business, wrote a book – called Making Remarkable – and did presentations to Chambers of Commerce around Canada and the U.S.
At the BCA, Legge’s role spans three interconnected areas that reflect the Council’s CEO-led model. “One is member engagement, to understand our members’ business priorities and challenges,” Legge explains. “I bring that back and work with the team to develop policy solutions or to create opportunities. Third is working with government to address those challenges and opportunities at a policy or legislative level.”
Legge and the team of 10 at the BCA engage with the 142 members (and the larger business community) in a variety of ways: direct engagement, at member meetings three times per year, member surveys and informal communication. “We’re constantly scanning the external environment to find the common issues,” he says. “We don’t advocate for any specific vertical industry. We’re more macro, big-picture, long-term strategic business environment advocacy.”
Once an issue or project is identified, a task force of roughly 10 to 14 members is assembled to guide the BCA’s work in that area. “They’ll help us understand the issue, propose solutions, and turn that into something that we can deliver to government and the public,” he says.
The BCA produces major taskforce reports a few times per year, as well as smaller analysis pieces throughout the year. Its podcast is primarily centred around C-Suite Unplugged, where CEO members tell their story. The BCA also plays an active role in shaping discourse – engaging media and stakeholders to advance evidence-based policy ideas and content and respond to emerging economic and policy developments.
“Successful advocacy at the provincial and federal levels is due to deep understanding of the Alberta economic environment and our relationships in all levels of government,” Legge notes.
In Alberta, the UCP government created an innovation capital working group which Legge co-chaired. “We put forward a series of recommendations on behalf of our members and a broad stakeholder base,” he says. “So far, the government has adopted five of seven recommendations.” On skilled trades too, the provincial government has followed recommendations from the BCA on how to resolve a growing shortage of skilled trades workers.
“On the federal side we’re part of a chorus of voices with respect to things like scrapping the emissions cap or dealing with the clean electric regulations,” Legge continues. “Particularly in the regulatory reform space, we’ve had a significant impact on the evolving improvements in Canada and are continuing to push for regulatory reform to ensure efficiency and ability to help attract investment.”
The number one business priority for members in 2025 was the investment climate in Canada. Legge notes that Alberta’s economic performance leads the country and is projected to continue in 2026, due to resiliency in the face of economic challenges.
“Alberta has come through relatively unscathed with respect to the trade situation,” Legge notes. “99.9 per cent of the things that we export to the U.S. are CUSMA compliant – oil and gas, petrochemicals, agriculture products, a little bit of manufacturing – so we’ve not faced the tariff impact that say Ontario is facing. That has been a real blessing. We are also still a relatively strong destination for both international and interprovincial migration. That population flow continues to grow the economy.”
This has been felt, he notes, in Calgary and Edmonton’s housing sectors, which are building upwards of twice as many new homes as back in 2019. This compares to Vancouver and Toronto where the housing sectors have ground to a halt.
“We have a better than average performance on the tariff side, continued population inflows and great deal flows with venture capital that is continuing to hit record levels,” Legge says, “plus some nice diversification in the economy with new data centres, a growing aerospace hub at YYC and AI in Edmonton. That has underpinned Alberta’s performance.”
Of course Alberta’s population grew by about 500,000 people since 2022, a rapid influx which put tremendous strain on everything from housing markets, schools, health care, public infrastructure and services, and government coffers. Legge notes growth has slowed significantly in the past year, which will enable public services and infrastructure to catch up.
“Our recommendation to the federal government is to continue to keep the numbers more manageable,” he offers. “Government needs to ask, ‘Do we have the housing? The infrastructure? The schools, teachers, doctors and nurses?’ The federal government really should put more power in the hands of the provinces on immigration and shift the scoring system to favour skilled trades.”
The BCA also advocates for proper fiscal guardrails when it comes to the federal debt, as well as a full and comprehensive tax review so that Canada can become more competitive with the U.S. “We have an incredibly uncompetitive tax environment,” Legge laments. “We need to address things like corporate income tax levels, capital gains taxes, incentives for investing in technology, research and development, incentivizing people to work and invest here. Canada needs a comprehensive tax review.”
When it comes to municipal governments, BCA members want safe and vibrant communities, efficient growth and development, and economic strength and financial stewardship. “I was very happy to see Mayor Farkas and his colleagues keep the property tax increases to a relatively digestible increase,” he says. “The next four-year budget cycle will be an opportunity to drive greater accountability and efficiency on the financial side.”
On energy, Legge is encouraged by the MOU signed in November between the federal government and Alberta. “It was a sea change in the tone of the relationship,” he opines. “Alberta has long been victim to biased public policy against our primary industries of oil and gas, agriculture and resource industries. I applaud Premier Smith in her drive to get the MOU done. To see a Prime Minister agree to a deal that has the potential to enable Alberta to grow its oil and gas production, get a pipeline to the West Coast, access new markets, is something we couldn’t have imagined a year ago.”
While there is optimism, Legge points to a number of things that still need to happen: “We need to agree on a carbon price structure. We need to continue to fix the regulatory approval system, address the tanker ban, and work with B.C. and Indigenous communities to get agreement on a project. While it’s positive, we need to see more things happen to drive investment.”
This requires Alberta to keep the pressure on and the momentum going so that we can get projects built.
“Our members are very keen to see the MOU continue in its spirit, setting a positive tone for 2026 that hopefully results in a West Coast solution for a new pipeline and Alberta data centres,” Legge says.
So, there are reasons for both optimism and worry, though arguably more optimism than in the past several years. Will Alberta and the rest of Canada seize the moment together and, with urgency and purpose, build the national projects to strengthen both economies into the future?
If Legge and the BCA have any say in the matter, absolutely yes.