The time has come to move on from talking about diversifying and into action mode, reviving jobs, and creating new opportunities. We need to move beyond the ugly job numbers and COVID doom and get started revitalizing our economy.
With the flood of facts and figures that rush by each day, it is easy to lose sight of the call for action, but we can’t let that delay us. While the job market continues to cast a dark shadow, we have young people graduating with hopes and plans for their future in various fields. The opportunities are there for our making, but we have to get working on it. So, let’s do it cowboy style. ‘stop talking about it and just get things done.’
We recognize. It isn’t up to governments to create jobs. Their role is to offer industry assistance by providing logical business incentives, make introductions to people we don’t already know, and present welcoming policies that create an environment that will encourage investors to feel comfortable and excited to come back to Alberta. We also need more support, fewer regulations, and less restrictions from the ‘far East.’ From an industry lens, a shift in approach has become obvious it is up to us to step up and help rebuild our own economy.
On the ground, a shift in thinking is underway for modernizing and looking at ways to diversify within our own industries and strategize ways to work with others within industry pods. Who knows our industries better than us? We have all invested in technologies over the years and are looking for new advancements to take us to the next level. We know our key fossil fuel industry is not going away, nor is the demand, so that door is wide open to also reinvent themselves by diversifying within. A growing number of companies are also taking this opportunity to invest in each other.
What are some of these industries, you might ask? Construction and home building, which I know well, have several new endeavours underway that are firsts to the Province. Both are based on feedstock from our key resource. Calgary and area has become an ever-expanding distribution hub with new technologies being implemented with each new building. Artificial intelligence is playing a major role in this growth. Healthcare is another huge opportunity beyond hospitals and medical clinics. Expansion into private surgical facilities are on the drawing board. If nothing else, COVID has shown we have the base and talent to be a leader in producing an endless array of needed medical products.
Skeptics of a quick recovery point to everything that could go wrong. So, let’s be masters of our own destiny, prove them wrong and get started.
