|
Angus Watt with Club President Loida Lumanlan This week our club was pleased to welcome Angus Watt, founding member of Angus Watt Advisory Group and Senior Advisor for National Bank Financial as our speaker. Angus began by telling us that the coming year will be very challenging for Canadians to find a path forward. The current economic climate in the US with Republican supporters who want to return to the type of economy we had in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, with lots of blue collar jobs, clashes with other Republican supporters who promote the new age of technology and it’s use of artificial intelligence and this will create challenges. He then proceeded to present and discuss graphs showing how various Canadian economic indicators have varied over time such as Interest and Mortgage Rates, Stock Market Values, Rates of Inflation, Commodity Prices, National and Provincial Fiscal Policies and Debt, Money Supply, Immigration, Provincial Population Changes, and Supply of Electrical Power all affect how our economy in Alberta and Canada will do in the coming year. He then spoke in particular about how the supply of electrical power varies across Canada and the effect this will have on our economy here in Alberta. He said that with the conversion to electric vehicles and the advent of Artificial Intelligence, which has the potential to be an economic driver, will challenge power supply and the cost of power across Canada. The challenges will vary from province, but the bottom line is we currently have no excess power generation in Canada, the provinces that currently generate more power than needed sell it to the US. Provinces that have the flexibility to generate more power at a reasonable price will have an advantage in the new AI economy. This means that Alberta has an advantage, as building a gas powered generator is much easier than building a new hydro dam. Electric power generation will become the latest ‘Gold Rush’ and has the potential to become a big driver of our economy in the future. Angus then showed how Alberta has an advantage compared to the other provinces in terms of fiscal debt and population growth. He said that Alberta already sells it’s main exports, grain, oil and gas in US currency. In closing he said that as a result, when considering the overall effect of Tariffs, Fiscal Policies, Immigration, Currency, Power Supply and Artificial Intelligence on the Alberta economy, we, in Alberta, are looking at a stable future. We would like to thank Angus for his very interesting and insightful presentation. |
.png)
