You do realize a lot of the people who control capital and investment are more conservative leaning on average, right?
Yup. Sometimes people don’t have good vision for leading indicators. Edmonton’s rocking.
There’s a difference between conservative, and whatever the hell UCP is. I’m talking about Alberta as a brand. And at the moment it’s embarrassing. Calgary has a stronger brand than Edmonton because of head offices, the mountains, the zoo, Calgary tower, and maybe to a lesser extent nowadays, the olympics? Edmonton is just the “other” city in the province of buffoons.
Embarrassing to who? People like you and people who think like you -but there are many people who don't think like you. Actually, if you leave Edmonton and this forum most people aren't embarrassed by the UCP and thats why then win elections in this province - people you snobbishly refer to as "buffoons". I think its embarrassing for Canada that after 10 years of the worst government in the nations history, almost zero percent GDP per capita growth over the past 10 years, rising anti-semitism, rising crime rates and crazy catch and release crime policies, ridiculous anti-resource policies that actively try to prohibit our number one industry in this country (hence our low GDP per capita growth) - and so many scandals I can't remember how many - that so many Canadians are still willing to vote for elite banker climate doomer and tax advocate Mark Carney, who will be a rock bottom disaster for this country. Now thats embarrassing - but thats just the way I think.
Yes, I suspect now many are too absorbed dealing with the messes closer to home to be looking elsewhere.
Like many old stereotypes, the one of Edmonton being left and Calgary right is not completely accurate and things also have changed over time.
I could waste time debunking every single one of these points, but nothing propagates in the vaccum.
The last 3 elections have clearly shown Calgary to be more conservative though. So I’m not sure your point? Calgary isn’t stereotyped as more conservative, it simply is.
The common theme in the institutional realm is that Calgary is all there is in Alberta, and even though Calgary has had a hard time for some time, institutional money is still strong on Calgary. Compare that to Edmonton, where there's been a total exit of many institutions, or institutions avoided Edmonton altogether and poured money into Calgary.
Edmonton and Calgary are amongst the least stable in the country. As just one metric, compare the huge swings in multi-residential vacancy in Edmonton versus the rest of country, and Edmonton is by far the least stable. Run a graph going back as far as you can, thirty years if you can, and Edmonton's line on the graph will have the ups and downs trajectory of a vomit comet. Compare with Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, and to a lesser extent Calgary, and their multi-res vacancy graph lines will look almost as flat as the prairie.
What does institutional mean in this sense?
My point is the two cities have become more similar over the years. If you have been around for a while you can remember a time when Edmonton had a majority of Liberal MLA's and Calgary few or none.
My apologies for being unclear. I'm talking about the biggest financial groups in the country, namely pension funds, life insurance companies, and the like. Some of that money is run in-house and/or though third-party advisors and fiduciaries. You could also add corporations like Brookfield and Kingsett.
Canada may still bear some fruit of Trudeau's labour. Trump pulled the USA out of the Paris Climate Accord and there are some reports that the EU is now opposed to signing long term LNG contracts with American energy suppliers because of it. Who knows, they may have blow up the Nord Stream pipe line for nothing. Moreover, there's nothing wrong with being an elite banker. In fact its probably helpful to have personal relationships with European decision makers. In response to Trump's tariffs, its believed that Carney and the leaders of France, Germany, and Japan got together and orchestrated a sell off of American treasuries last week that destabilized the American bond market last week and forced Trump to relent on some tariffs. It's unclear if PP or anybody in his party has the depth of international financial knowledge and the connections to pull off something like that.