Farkas and Wilson spar over whether Alberta independence would hurt economy, investment

CALGARY — The debate over business investment leaving Alberta due to the independence movement continues to grow as Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas has warned that leaving Canada could inflict severe economic damage on the province.In a video released to his official X account on Thursday, Farkas compared the growing independence movement to Quebec’s decades-long sovereignty debate, arguing political division and uncertainty drove major companies out of Montreal and could do the same in Calgary..“There's a reason the Bank of Montreal is no longer headquartered in the city of Montreal,” Farkas said.“It's because years of political uncertainty convinced businesses to invest somewhere else.”He cited a recent Calgary Chamber of Commerce report that estimates Alberta independence could cost the provincial economy up to $62 billion annually and put as many as 175,000 jobs at risk.The report found nearly half of Chamber members would consider relocating their business to another province if Albertans voted to begin a formal independence process in October.At the time of the report’s release, Calgary Chamber president and CEO Deborah Yedlin said in an official statement that, “our business community is sending a clear message — separation has moved beyond a theoretical debate to having tangible effects on business confidence and decision-making.”She also warned that uncertainty surrounding separation could trigger the movement of capital, businesses and workers to other jurisdictions viewed as more stable and predictable, something that Farkas reiterated in his video.“As someone who works every day to sell people on investing in our city, I'm already seeing businesses hesitate, companies delay hiring, and employers looking elsewhere to grow,” he said.“And more than half of Calgary businesses say the separation debate is already hurting Alberta's economy. Nearly all of them say the impact is negative.”.MACLEOD: Big tech, big energy, big investments — why is capital flooding into Alberta?.However, some independence advocates and business leaders argue that the evidence shows investor confidence is moving in the opposite direction of Farkas’ comments and the Chamber’s study.Alberta independence advocate and lawyer Keith Wilson dismissed the Chamber’s survey as unrepresentative of the broader business community in the city."Most businesses are not members of the Chamber of Commerce," Wilson told the Western Standard, arguing the results Farkas cited only represent a small fraction of Calgary businesses and do not reflect wider investment trends in the city and province."The evidence is clear. The only province that is growing is Alberta. The largest investments in Canada are occurring in Alberta,” he said, adding that Farkas’ comments were like “someone staring into the sun and saying it's dark out."When asked why he thought Farkas had made the remarks in his video despite recent signs of a business boom in Calgary and Alberta at large, Wilson said he believes the mayor is either misunderstanding current business trends or advancing a political argument..“All I can say is he's either badly misinformed or he's simply choosing to do Ottawa's bidding,” Wilson said.He also added that resource-based industries such as oil and gas cannot simply relocate in the same way a corporate head office can and cited Meta’s recently announced $13 billion investment to build an AI data centre in Sturgeon County as evidence that capital is continuing to flow."You cannot relocate the third-largest reserve of oil in the world,” Wilson said.“You cannot relocate hundreds of billions of dollars of steel pipe and flare stacks. You cannot relocate some of the most productive agricultural land in the world.”On Tuesday, the Business Council of Alberta released its Alberta CEO Pulse survey, which found Alberta business leaders remain largely optimistic about the province’s economy going forward.Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they expect economic conditions to improve in Alberta over the next year, while only 8% expect conditions to worsen.Over half of respondents also said they plan to increase capital spending and roughly half expect to hire additional workers.The survey also found Alberta businesses are more optimistic than their counterparts in many other parts of Canada, a trend the council said likely reflects “the significant number of recent major project announcements and growing opportunities for the oil and gas sector.”Entrepreneur and investor W. Brett Wilson has made similar arguments, previously telling the Western Standard that investors continue to pursue opportunities in Alberta because the province's underlying economics remain attractive..“What happens in Alberta right now, even with separation noise, [is that] people are investing. People are actively investing,” he said.“My partner and I, or the people that we work with, wouldn't be investing in Alberta if we were concerned that separation was gonna destroy Alberta.”He argued Alberta's abundant natural resources, low-cost energy and strong investment opportunities also outweigh political uncertainty surrounding the independence debate.“The process of separation [isn’t] going to happen overnight, even if there is a vote in favour,” he said.“So there's a lot of amplification, a lot of noise, and the underlying fact is that the economics of investing in Alberta are still compelling... The economics of investing now overwhelms the stupidity of waiting.”

Farkas and Wilson spar over whether Alberta independence would hurt economy, investment

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