Many Albertans are very nervous about their future. The news headlines over the last few years have been absolutely horrendous – and getting worse.

TECK’s multi-billion dollar oilsands project is toast. “Protestors,” citing pipelines, easily slowed our economy for weeks. Nearly all traditional employment sectors in Alberta are facing cuts.  Males under 25 have a 20% unemployment rate – a nasty double since early 2019.

The provincial budget will be tabled on 27^th of February, and the dire reality of our situation will be felt by many more, especially municipalities and post-secondary institutions.

Is there any hope?

Yes. Enormous opportunity exists for those who refuse to participate in this economic mess. And in this article, I show you a way that few understand.

SETTING THE STAGE

When Jason Kenney won a majority government in 2018, one of his first acts was to create a Blue Ribbon Panel on Alberta’s Finance. Known as the MacKinnon Report on Alberta’s Finances, the independent panel of experts reviewed Alberta’s finances and provided recommendations to bring the budget back to balance.

Some of the key recommendations pertained to advanced education and municipalities. Here is an excerpt from the recommendations. Notice recommendation 5 & 8. Change is coming.

Source: MacKinnon Report on Alberta’s Finances

If you’re in the education space, you need a money plan. Fast.

What about municipalities. Notice the second bullet below?

Source: MacKinnon Report on Alberta’s Finances

That report was completed in August 2019 and a few months later the Kenney government published its first budget. This news headline says a lot about how the media perceived the budget’s impact on jobs.

Source: Globe and Mail October 2019

The bad news kept continuing. In January, Edmonton unemployment was leading the nation.

Source: Edmonton Journal, January 2020

Approximately one in five males in Alberta under 25 is currently unemployed.

Source: CBC December 2019.

The situation in Calgary barely needs explaining, but the Mayor of Calgary is quoted in the Wall Street Journal saying the Calgary downtown Office Vacancy Rate is over 30%.

CONFUSION BEGINS

If there was any sense of immediate hope in Alberta, it was TECK Resources multi-billion oilsands project in Fort Mack.

However, the project needed to be approved by the federal government. After the last federal election, Albertans fired all of their Alberta Liberal Members of Parliament. Therefore, the majority of Alberta’s fate was in the hands of those living in Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada.

You can image the revolt taking place in the federal Liberal caucus leading up to the decision: environment vs. economy. Regardless of the debate, TECK pulled its application out before the federal government approved or declined the project. More economic bad news hit Alberta.

Albertans are rightly asking Canadians: “like it or not, the world needs oil in the near future, so where the heck do Canadians want to get it from: Canada or abroad?

Confusion: Pipelines

The negative economic news continued to compound regarding protestors and pipelines. As the pipeline blockades continued into its second week, Albertan’s exhaustion with political correctness become evident.

It seemed for a moment that Albertans were ready to fight back. Even the  Federal Conservative Leader candidate Peter MacKay chimed in with this tweet:

But the forces of political correctness are powerful, and the media quickly pounced on MacKay:

MacKay deleted his tweet, leaving some Albertans looking to the sky and shaking their heads.

Albertans are rightly feeling lost. For decades many have left their families out East for a better life. They have driven the dangerous Highway 63 to Fort Mack to earn a pay check. A significant portion of the cheque was deducted in Ottawa taxes, where the funds were transferred to help social services in Quebec and the Maritimes. Now, some of those equalization recipients are voting for foreign oil. Some are actively fighting against Alberta.

The Western Standard ran this headline about the Bloc Quebecois.

The truth is that many people in Canada are against Alberta’s resource development, even though they use fuel in cars, in jet fuel, and in plastics.

Faced with losing their jobs, Albertans are looking at each other and saying, “what the heck is going on?” “What should we do?”

Hope on the Horizon

On the flip side of this war on fossil fuels is a massive opportunity that will be funded by grants from government and corporations.

Governments will be using billions of dollars in government grants to help solve these pressing problems, such as employing youth or fighting climate change.

You can be sure of one thing: where governments have a crisis, they will use grants to try and solve it.

I’m not asking you to like it, but I am asking you to understand it.

As subscribers to my VIP Gazette email list know, the government is pouring out cash in these areas.

In the last Gazette issue alone, we covered several of these grants, including this one for municipalities:

The Electric Vehicles for Municipalities (EVM) program provides funding to municipalities to assist their transition to a fleet of electrically-fuelled Electric Vehicles (EVs). The EVM program supports more efficient and lower greenhouse gas emitting vehicles, EV Charging Stations, and Feasibility Studies that enable informed decision-making.

Millions of dollars of grants are also being poured out to help youth get jobs. When the government reads headlines about 1 in 5 males in Alberta unemployed, you know grants are available.

But few people understand grants. When I called a grant agency just last week about a program to hire youth for summer (not Canada Summer Job Grant), the grant delivery organization revealed to me they have more money to give away than they can spend – but they need access to companies to apply!

How crazy is that?

And these are just two short stories about government grants.

PRIVATE SECTOR IN THE GRANT GAME

Just a week ago the Amazon founder jumped into grant game announcing a $10 billion fund to fight climate change. Here was the post:

Can you see the last paragraph that says “grants?” Grants are the easiest way to allocate capital.

Now some astute readers might be asking, “why are businesses getting into the grant game. Is it some side passion?”

Maybe, but I believe it’s a risk-mitigation strategy as well.

The environmental left is very smart and use every trick in the book to  support its cause, and their members are winning by a landslide. Just read the TECH withdraw letter from Fort McMurray as one piece of evidence.

As a result of this battle, the private sector is now jumping into the climate change fight in a huge way.

In an insightful piece written by Washington Post journalist Dino Grandoni, he writes that, “Climate activists have staged protests at JPMorgan branches in recent months over the bank’s outsize role in underwriting the oil, gas and coal industries.”

The article provides a fascinating insight in these two paragraphs:

Since President Trump’s election in 2016, environmental groups have turned their attention to Wall Street banks, insurance firms and other private-sector players as their increasingly urgent calls to address climate change have largely fallen on deaf ears in the White House and the GOP-controlled Senate.

Climate activists “have been looking for other ways to stop the growth of the fossil fuel industry,” said Ben Cushing, a climate campaigner at the Sierra Club. “Getting major Wall Street firms to take climate change seriously is important no matter what party is in power.”

What does this mean for you?

It means governments and corporations are under attack, and both entities will use government grants or private grants to show the environmental left that they are doing their part to combat climate change.

It’s a massive economic opportunity that astute Alberta post-secondary institutions, entrepreneurs, municipalities, and non-profits should be all over.

But here’s what is crazy: most aren’t maximizing their potential in grants. Most people are too busy with their head down, even though they are getting run over by this train. Few people take the time to educate themselves on grants, but grants could have a positive impact on their bottom line.

Another way out of this economic mess is possible.

First, you can get control of government grants in your organization. I publish a private grant newsletter twice a month that tracks millions of grants in each issue.

One Alberta University is already loving its value and understanding its potential:

“We absolutely love our subscription to the Alberta Gazette!…I know that there will be many funding opportunities for us over the next several months through Alberta Grant Gazette!” Jelena Bojic Director, Community Relations – Concordia University of Edmonton

You can sign up for the gazette here and start getting control of grants in your life: https://albertabusinessgrants.ca/gazette-checkout/.

Second, you can get educated on grants. Grants combine government, politics, protestors, climate change, youth, and more. They are complicated, but those who seek to understand them will excel in this changing economy. My new book The Ultimate Guide for Winning Government Grants: 100 Golden Grant Rules can be found here: https://albertabusinessgrants.ca/100-grant-rules/.

Third, many Albertans reading this article are feeling confused about our current political and economic climate. Ottawa feels more like a foe than friend. For many Albertans, Quebecers feel more like an economic enemy than partner in confederation.

Is it time for you to pivot?

All levels of government are trying to help with grants, even the City of Calgary with its OCIF grant program.

Source: Calgary Herald October, 2019

To all the entrepreneurs, municipalities, and post-secondary institutions in Alberta, government grants provide a real and prosperous way for you to excel during these challenging times. You don’t have to like it, but I hope you are beginning to understand it.

Sincerely,

David Kincade

Grant Writer & Publisher Alberta Grant Gazette

Author, The Ultimate Guide for Winning Government Grants: 100 Golden Grant Rules

davidk@albertabusinessgrants.ca

780-297-6177