Thanks for the feedback. I hope it does get built, but with the weak economy I'm sceptical. If they have 75% sales then I could be wrong, which is what i hope.
My Dad is presently in a state of semi-retirement. He was laid off when things took a turn last year, but I don't think he's done for good. He's simply been enjoying some relaxation. He's a 40 year industry veteran. He's seen it all since coming to the city in the 70s. He's a very involved U of T alumnus and just came back from doing some lectures out there a few weeks ago and I caught up for lunch with him last week (at that vietnamese place
) and he made some interesting points that have be questioning our perceptions about the economy.
He said, the last time that oil was in the $30s, most companies were profitable. I know this doesn't take into account changes in the production mix towards higher cost resources that like fracking or the oilsands, but his point was that $100 barrel oil hides a lot of mistakes. And that while things have noticeably cooled off from the heady days of the Summer of 2014, are things really that bad overall? He also said that perceptions out East are that the city is burning to the ground. How has that perception leaked into our own through media stories?
I'll point to some
Statistics Canada Figures about January. The overall Canadian economy grew by 0.6% which is the fastest growth since October. And deeper in the data it says that Oil & Gas extraction has grown for the 4th consecutive month. At a rate, 1.4%, significantly higher than the national economy as a whole. Oil field services also rebounded after a very rough December.
I also looked at ATB's Chief Economist Tood Hirsch's
outlook for Q1. He's estimates that the Alberta Economy shrank by around 1% last year and will shrink by 0.5% again this year. That's province wide, and I have to think there are other parts of the province considerably more heavily effected than we are. So rather than retracting it sounds like things for Calgary are probably mostly static at the moment. Todd is also calling for $50-$55 dollar oil by year's end, but I think that's an educated guess. I know he wasn't calling for $29 dollar a barrel oil for the end of 2015, but there we were none the less. Anyway, for comparison, in 2009, the Alberta economy shrunk by 5.5%.
Even with that mixed bag of news, look around. There's lots of construction ongoing. No one is anticipating that the province's population will stop growing either. Things aren't at the torrid clip of the high boom times but nor is this as bad as the 2009 recessions of the early or mid 80s. Companies like Oxford which is owned by OMERS (a pension plan) have very long term time horizons are continuing to invest here. There may be a few things going to the shelves which may have otherwise moved forward, but I think as it stands there will be plenty for people like us to watch out for.
We might have to leave the 300m+ fantasy towers for another year though.