Growing economy must be focus of new council, says Mayor Knack

Edmonton’s predominant focus for the next four years will be growing the economy, if mayor Andrew Knack has anything to say about it.

During his Dec. 18 year-end interview with Postmedia, Knack said he wants to keep council focused on four key areas: safety, affordability, growth management and economic development.

“Economic development has not been a focus of the city, it’s time to make it a key focus,” he said. “Very early on in the new year we will set a strategic vision. That work really didn’t happen the last four years. That’s going to inform how we’re going to restructure our four-year budget.

“I think what you’re going to see is a narrowing of focus for this council. If we want to do 10 other things, we’re just going to be too scattered and our budget challenges will continue to go on. That means there will be some tough conversations in this four-year budget, because if you’re trying to narrow your focus, by default saying you’ve got to close off these areas. I don’t think we have a choice — either we adapt or we see the same challenges for the next four or eight years.”

Aside from working with council to establish a strategic vision for the city, Knack said he wanted to build on the work of the city’s economic development agencies to celebrate the city’s strengths and culture.

Highlighting that the city is No. 1 in the country for homebuilding permits, he said he wanted the same for business permits, noting time is money and the city would benefit by allowing a business plan get from concept to cash flow as quickly as possible. He also mused about potential tax incentives for businesses setting up in the city.

He sees multiple economic opportunities for the city — the biggest being the Royal Canadian Air Force considering using land near the airport for a new western CC-330 Husky base. Knack said he wants the city to prioritize landing the new base.

“That could be literally hundreds of billions of dollars in this economy,” he said. “I think Edmonton Global might ultimately lead that, but right now it’s sitting a little bit in the abyss — someone needs to bring that in. This is a priority, let’s get it moving, I think there’s great alignment between the premier and the prime minister. We have the land for it. We have a huge military background in our city.”

Building on the work of Explore Edmonton, which with dedicated funding he said is now better-suited to develop the city’s image abroad, will help expand the city’s burgeoning tourism sector. He noted hosting the national youth volleyball championships over the summer spiked more than $40 million into the economy and he sees more opportunities to host major sporting championships as economic boosters.

Another area Knack sees strong economic potential in, is the University of Alberta’s strategic plan, which not only involves expanding the campus but growing the student population from roughly 40,000 to more than 60,000. That expansion will require a lot of support, which he said is a great business opportunity for the city.

“What does that mean for all of our other industries in terms of developing good talent?” he said. “We need to leverage our post-secondaries to further help things like Downtown revitalization.

“Let’s publicly celebrate a lot more of the good in this city. There’s 50 good things happening for every bad thing happening in this city. Why aren’t we talking about those 50 things more regularly? That’s actually how you do things like economic development.

“You’re going to see a heavy communications focus from this office. We want to tell those good stories — I’m not going to ignore the challenges, but I also want to tell Edmontonians about the great cultural communities, business communities and faith communities who are building up such a stronger city. We don’t talk about that enough and we can often be down on ourselves.”

Tech sector is growing

Edmonton’s tech sector continues to grow, which Knack said is another area of strength the city could use to establish economic resilience.

But the city can’t be doing all this alone, he noted. With metropolitan leaders already discussing regional collaboration, Knack said everyone benefits when the region grows with the city.

He added the region needs to recognize economic realities.

“Even if we’re firing on every cylinder and 100 per cent aligned, we are still small in the grand scale of the world market,” he said. “It is why we have to be so deliberate in what we’re doing. It’s why we have to focus on our areas of strength.

“That’s why each of our economic development groups, all of these spots, need to be allowed to really push hard on the areas they have strength in, and there needs to be a co-ordinating body. That to me is going to be the mayor’s office — we need to be the ones to make sure we are guiding everyone in the same direction. The financial realities of our city dictate that. We have to operate together or else we lose out on the global scale.”

Conceding the city may not have the space for a major industrial project the way Leduc county might, he pointed out those businesses still need support services from information technology to accounting, which are businesses the city is far more suited to attract within city limits.

Overall, Knack said he wanted his office and fellow councillors to take a more involved approach to economic development, which may include more travel abroad.

“These agencies need to get out into the rest of the world more often and talk about what they’ve doing,” he said. “(In Calgary) there was often political support behind everything they were doing. When a company was debating where to set up a head office, the mayor was either on the phone or actually out with the trade delegation saying, ‘You need to be here and here’s why, because we’re behind it too.’

“I’m not looking to travel the world for fun, but I want to make sure that between mayor and council we are supporting those groups who are doing a great job.”

ebowling@postmedia.com

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