First, business owners were hit by economic lockdowns that shuttered their livelihoods. Next, businesses were permitted to open but with weighty new restrictions, costly capacity limits and health and safety regulations.
In the wake of these challenges, the Alberta Federation of Labour released a hit list calling on Albertans to boycott more than 150 Alberta businesses.
The challenges are obvious. ATB Financial predicts unemployment will stay high through to next year and returning to pre-2020 levels is several years out. Alberta businesses were struggling before COVID-19. Mass layoffs make headlines regularly. Calgary and Edmonton top the country in office vacancies.
A recent survey from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business showed 60 per cent of Alberta’s small businesses would not easily survive a second round of government shutdowns.
Businesses are hurting. And communities are built on businesses staying strong.
Like farmers in the spring (the ultimate entrepreneurs), Alberta business owners begin with a clean slate and determine that there is a need in the marketplace they can meet, taking risks in hopes of rewards.
Often, activists reduce these rewards to profit and greed. As is usually the case, the truth is much more complex.
Entrepreneurs generate profits by creatively solving problems, delivering products and services their neighbours need. By generating profits, entrepreneurs create jobs and contribute to their communities.
Those profits are in turn reinvested back into their businesses, saved for the next downturn, or injected into their communities. Business owners sponsor local sports tournaments, hospital drives, charities and school initiatives.
Since we have not yet found the seeds to plant a money tree, we need businesses to create jobs that fund government services and employees.
The contribution made by businesses reaches well beyond corporate tax revenue, which made up about nine per cent of revenues for the province in 2019-20, per the first quarter update. Businesses also create jobs that provide personal income tax revenue (24 per cent of the total), funding hospital beds and low-income supports.
They rent or own spaces that generate property tax revenue, paying for schools and town services.
They transport goods on which people rely, like groceries and personal protective equipment throughout the pandemic, and in doing so pay fuel taxes that fund roads and crosswalks.
Recently, the AFL campaigned to boycott some businesses as they contributed to committees that were supportive of a political party. Ironically, the AFL launched its own political action committee, affiliated with another political party, funded by involuntary union dues.
It’s all just politics and everyone is entitled to their views.
But who truly believes hurting or shutting these businesses down would be a ‘win’ for Alberta?
Instead let’s support one another. Support your local businesses and farms. In turn, those businesses will create jobs, support community charities and fund valuable government services.
We all want to help Alberta prosper and leave it better than we found it for our children. We are all working to rebuild Alberta, and the only way we will succeed is by doing it together.
John Liston is a St. Albert resident and president of Alberta Enterprise Group and Paige MacPherson is a policy professional and writer with a Master of Public Policy from the University of Calgary.
