Business leaders throughout the Capital region will come together throughout September to share their ideas about how the region can realize its potential as an innovative economic powerhouse.
The Capital Region Board (CRB) is organizing a series of focus group sessions to ask business leaders what the economy should look like in 2050 and what kind of opportunities they want future generations to have.
Called the Economic Roadmap, the initiative seeks to form a 40-year vision by holding between 10 and 12 regional meetings, including one in St. Albert on Sept. 14. That session will include invited business leaders from St. Albert and Sturgeon County.
“I’m expecting that there’s going to be a great deal of opinion and knowledge about our region and what it will take to keep it economically successful in the long-term,” said CRB chair Chris Sheard.
The information gathered through the focus groups will form a report and recommendations — due by the end of next March — that will be presented to the province and the 24 municipalities that form the CRB, Sheard said.
Sheard feels business people are best positioned to comment on the region’s economic future because they live and breathe the present economics every day. The intent of the meetings is to gather broad-based opinion that’s wide ranging, high level and long-term, he said.
“If you don’t plan, then the risk is that things will either happen in a haphazard way and not yield the desired result or things won’t happen at all,” he said. “The hope is that we can identify the direction for the region and the needs that will take us there.”
St. Albert business and tourism development director Larry Horncastle had one day to provide the CRB with a list of invitees from St. Albert. He came up with 24 and hopes to see 15 to 20 actually attend.
Horncastle expects that different sectors will evolve in their own way as the years progress. The main question, he said, is what will drive the economy in the future.
“I think one of the things they’re trying to look at is can we rely on oil and gas as being the driver of our economy for the next 40 years?” Horncastle said.
Kyle Reiling, manager of economic development for Sturgeon County, hopes the process brings more clarity to development in the region.
“I’m hoping from this roadmap we’re going to get a clearer approach … do we develop certain [business] parks for the benefit of the region or do we all go about our own business developing our own little parks?”
