Hope for NHL’s return renews optimism

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/05/2011 (5546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s nothing like the impending arrival of the NHL to put a jump into the collective step of the Winnipeg business community.

It’s not a cure for cancer and it’s not going to alleviate inner-city poverty, but somehow it makes us all feel a little better about ourselves.

That kind of low-level euphoria starts to make the bigger picture look sunnier and brighter.

The NHL’s likely return will precede the opening of the city’s first Ikea store, something that even more Winnipeggers were pining for longer than the return of the NHL.

And the new airport terminal that seems like it’s been under construction forever, will be open only a month into the coming hockey season.

It has encouraged the likes of the Globe and Mail to rediscover there is more to Winnipeg than gang violence and cold winters.

It’s amazing what a little NHL can do.

Maybe it’s all we really need — something to change the perspective with which we view the lay of the land.

Because the economic reality in this province is it really does not change much over the years.

Just because the Globe and Mail writes about downtown development does not change the fact it took 25 years of effort to get to the point it’s at now. And it will likely take another 25 years of heritage tax credits and tax increment financing to really create the residential critical mass downtown that is desired.

Home prices keep going up in Winnipeg and you won’t find many locals who buy into the concerns about a real estate bubble after missing out on a decade of rising real estate values everywhere else. The Conference Board of Canada may have provided the most sobering perspective with the release of its quarterly provincial outlook on Wednesday.

Rising mineral and agricultural commodity prices were the bullet points for economic growth in other provinces. But what most captured the attention of the Ottawa think-tank about this provincial economy was the recent $320-million rebate from Manitoba Public Insurance.

That’s not to say there’s not anything else good going on in Manitoba, it’s just that the dynamics really don’t change that much.

One of the best features of the provincial economy is its diversification — but it’s a blessing and a curse.

It’s partly why Manitoba was one of the jurisdictions that suffered least in the recession at the end of the last decade. It’s also why there will not be as strong growth on the upside, either.

On Wednesday, 175 of the business leaders in the province were holed up behind the prying eyes of the media in an exercise to articulate a common economic strategy.

The idea was to come up with a series of “bold” ideas to be used (by the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, which organized the event) to advance the business agenda in the provincial election this fall.

As reliable as the provincial economy is, the business community and others want something more.

Innovation is an overused word to describe the sector that could provide something more.

It’s the buzz word thrown around by economic development officials and politicians alike, referring to sexy, high-paying, wealth-generating technology industries.

But it’s damned tough to generate.

In an op-ed article in this paper this week, Harry Schulz, a longtime technology business development executive in Winnipeg, wrote the private-sector technology cluster in this province is probably a little smaller today than it was 10 years ago.

It’s a challenge not lost on the province. Two years ago, it created a high-level Innovation Council of industry and academic officials to advise it.

Whatever advice it’s provided has not been shared publicly. The province has said it has a $30-million, five-year strategy, but details have not yet been released.

Now that everyone has convinced themselves things really are pretty good around here, it may be the right time to embark on the tricky business of coming up with a real innovation strategy to bump things up to the next level.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca

Conference Board forecast for Manitoba and Canada (Canada in brackets)*:

 

2010 2011 2012

GDP 1.6 (3.3) 2.4 (2.4) 2.3 (2.6)

Employment 1.9 (1.4) 1.5 (1.8) 1.6 (2.2)

Unemployment 5.4 (8.0) 5.2 (7.5) 5.2 (6.9)

Retail sales 5.6 (5.1) 5.1 (4.6) 2.6 (4.3)

Disposable income per capita 1.6 (3.4) 2.2 (2.6) 1.9 (3.0)

* percentage growth rates (numbers in brackets are national averages)

Source: Conference Board of Canada