The 2023 Airdrie Business Breakfast and Economic Update took place on Thursday, Nov. 16, attended by more than 120 community members and business owners.
Hosted by Airdrie Economic Development, the annual event was kicked off with a welcome by Mayor Peter Brown and the economic update by Sara Chamberlain, team leader of Economic Development.
“People continue to invest in Airdrie, buying homes and choosing to make their lives here,” said Chamberlain. “We’re seeing significant investment from developers that are advancing the establishment of new communities and new amenities.”
Over the past year, Airdrie celebrated many milestones including surpassing the 80,000-population mark, the opening of the 40th avenue interchange, an increase in housing diversity, and the adoption of a community revitalization levy for downtown.
Chamberlain outlined some exciting non-residential and industrial projects ongoing in the city such as commercial expansion in Sierra Springs, the expansion of the Costco distribution centre, and the construction of FortisAlberta’s new operations centre in Highland Park.
Some of the growth statistics highlighted in her presentation include:
Impacts of inflation and global trends a common theme for guest speakers
Claire Fan started off the guest speakers for the morning. She joined RBC as an economist in 2019, with her role focused on analyzing growth and inflation projections, labour market and demographics trends in the Canadian and U.S. economy. Her presentation touched on the recession and the outlook for the upcoming months and years.
She said that while some of the supply chain stresses have been relieved, businesses are still feeling the strain as they’re able to pass fewer costs on to the consumers because of the easing on demand.
She also touched on inflation, saying that many consumers are expecting costs to raise higher than they are, due to the highest cost increases being seen on items they purchase the most, such as groceries. Despite this, household spending is more showing resilience than expected. However, she said unemployment rates are drifting up and inflation is here to stay.
Next to speak was Brock Dickinson, economist and “Entrepreneur-in-Residence” at the University of Waterloo. At last year’s breakfast, Dickinson’s talk, “the End of the World as we Know it” looked at how global trends including increasing armed conflict, high inflation, workforce shortages and supply chain collapse are rewriting the rules of the economy. This year he followed up on his analysis and spoke to communities like Airdrie are impacted by these trends.
One of the new global trends that will impact businesses in North America is large population trend changes in countries like China following the COVID-19 pandemic. These population changes may have a long-term impact on labour costs and the costs of good.
He also spoke on inflation being driven by food and energy prices, both of which are having an effect on Canadians.
To close out the event, Wes David shared lessons learned on his journey from being a professional bull rider, to heavy duty mechanic, to TV personality. Now the owner of Fishing the Wild West TV, the most watched Canadian Fishing show in Canada, David spoke on the importance of forward thinking and setting goals.
“The first thing I learned from bull riding was how to do (positive) self-talk,” said David, adding that by looking forward and tackling change one step at a time, he has learned to weather uncertainty and career evolutions over time.