Oil & gas industry rhetoric aside, market driven adjustments - inevitable retrenchment on the natural gas and service side of the industry due to a long bottom in prices will happen in any event - this is Calgary, we get our Fair Share. Ed's from the farm. He knows how to clean up where the bull has been. Fair Share? Check what former Premier Ralph Klein said, what former Energy Minister Greg Melchin said. Alberta Auditor General Fred Dunn's report proves Klein was asleep (who knew) at the switch. Kudos to Premier Ed Stelmach not wasting breath blaming. History books will afford Klein his Fair Share. Meanwhile Stelmach grabs bulls by horns and will get through trouble better than those who've passed the buck too long. Liberal leader Kevin Taft et al, so concerned about blame and doom, miss the key point - which is what to do with our Fair Share of resource royalties - like putting the LRT underground downtown, investing in education and stuffing the Heritage fund for starters.
Expect juniors to be gobbled, continued consolidation and reorganization among income and royalty trusts which should put lots of folks on the street, yet the dynamic duo of recruiting - Brian Arthur and Mark Ross - of Conroy Ross Partners tell me recruiting remains tough during times when consolidation and layoffs suggest otherwise, noting stock options at market-low prices are becoming an increasingly attractive employee retention strategy. . . .
Calgary City Council - the new one, like the last, will have trouble finding solid policy initiatives with both hands, continue to mess up East Village revitalization while begging more Provincial cash; putting the LRT underground downtown is twenty years overdue but found nowhere on their agenda.
Foreclosure, dirty word when it happens to you; bankruptcy, horrible word when it happens to you; recession and downturn worse words - they hurt communities and economies giving everyone their Fair Share of trouble, Calgarians will get their Fair Share next year, for less time with less hurt than most markets in North America . . . Calgary business will quietly rejoice, smart operators with cash will buy weak ones, housing prices will soften, so will office rental rates for a while, we'll get our Fair Share.
Mark Kolke - author, columnist, reader, writer, editor, facilitator, coach, public speaker - writes wherever he is working or playing - he lives in Calgary, plays in Maui, works in Houston, plays in Maui, works in Los Angeles, plays in Maui . . you get the picture. Work, life and play are migrating slowly, inexorably, in the direction of Maui. Whether a crisp journalistic piece or a door-stop weight proposal, he writes as he speaks - clearly, effectively and passionately in the following areas: oil & gas, commercial real estate, hotels/tourism, residential real estate, education, social services, persons with disabilities, retail, golf, government, politics, relationships.
Mark Kolke is a freelance writer and commercial real estate consultant in Calgary. He can be contacted at: MaxComm Communications
