Prime Minister Mark Carney urges Albertans to keep the province in Canada ahead of Monday’s referendum on separation.
Minister responsible for Prairies Economic Development Canada Eleanor Olszewski supports communities in building resilience and works to advance sustainable economic development across Prairie provinces.
Olszewski can’t overstate the importance of all Albertans going to the polls. “Let’s make sure all our voices are heard. I believe in the strength of our province in a unified Canada. I’m really urging all Albertans to vote to remain.”
When Carney’s Liberals were elected federally, one of the government’s focus was to reset its relationship with Alberta.
“We knew that had been a sore point for a number of years. From the time in which our government was elected, that’s what we sought to do. We’ve worked in partnership with the province of Alberta in the spirit of collaboration. We worked on a number of projects together, one of which is the Pacific Link Pipeline, but there’s a number of others,” Olszewski explained.
Based on studies completed by Chambers of Commerce in Calgary and Edmonton and the Business Council of Alberta, referendum talk has had a chilling effect on employers and business owners.
“It’s made them delay decisions to hire people. It’s made them think twice about investing more money, maybe opening up a second place of business. Based on those studies, there’s been an economic impact on the province already,” Olszewski noted.
Recent published articles, Olszewski added, suggest a lot of physicians have said they would leave the province. “Another study showed a number of Albertans would just leave completely, they’d just pack up and go.”
According to Olszewski, there’s been an economic effect already.
“If there was a decision that was made for the province of Alberta to leave, there’s been calculations done and the province would suffer a severe economic consequence. It’s important to bring this uncertainty and this unpredictability to an end,” Olszewski shared.
With respect to the recent trade war with the United States, Olszewski noted the federal government’s efforts in the last 16-17 months to diversify trade relationships to lessen Canada’s dependence on the U.S. as a trading partner has been successful.
“Those results have borne a lot of fruit in the sense we have more than 20 trade agreements with other countries at the present time. They’re worth billions of dollars to the economy,” said Olszewski. “We’re exporting more to non-U.S. destinations than we have in decades. This tells us our government’s plan is working, and we’re moving away from dependence on the U.S., which at this point in time from an economic perspective, will serve us really well.”
