Alberta businesses can bask under a bright fiscal sun with the Progressive Conservative government back in power, says Premier Ralph Klein.

But as bright as the future might be, it may not include tax breaks for businesses.

In his final opportunity to address Calgary’s business community before Albertans headed to the polls, Premier Ralph Klein rolled out his party’s economic plan that highlighted efforts to increase north-south trade, new research and development funding for value-added products, and increased access to venture capital.

Klein told a Calgary Chamber of Commerce luncheon that his plan is “a good economic strategy that is contained not only in our three-year business plan, but also in our 20–year strategic plan.”

Ralph Klein said PC policies make economic sense

While many points echoed the value-added strategy first unveiled this past April, he still managed to surprise the sold-out chamber crowd by announcing efforts to boost trade between Alberta and the behemoth economy to the south.

Klein says his government will push hard for a customs union with the United States, to make shipping products south easier and thereby increasing access to larger markets.

“The idea is to co-ordinate efforts to create a ‘smart border’ crossing where trucks carrying goods and products can clear customs in a more efficient manner,” he told reporters following his address.

The premier he will work with the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region, the Western Governors Association and Western premiers to harmonize regulations so that trucks don’t have to change axles and weights as they travel. He said the initiative would obviously involve the federal government.

“So, yes, there would have to be negotiations with the federal governments, but relative to weights and measures those are usually state and provincial matters.”

Another component of the economic plan includes implementing a value-added strategy focused on a number of key sectors such as energy technologies and services, value-added energy products, agri-food, building products and wood products. It also targets tourism, information and communications technology, health industries and bio industries, and environmental technologies and services.

“It’s a plan to add value to commodities because we know . . . at some point or another we’re going to run out of oil and gas and we’ve got to develop a value-added strategy particularly to add value to our agricultural products,” he said.

The Klein government will also develop mechanisms to encourage companies to develop Alberta technologies into saleable products. The premier said this would require collaboration among governments, researchers and research institutions, and businesses.

“We will also work with the technology and investment sectors to create competitive mechanisms to encourage investment and increase access to venture capital within the province,” he said, although he failed to elaborate on how this would be achieved.

He said his government hopes to develop an international recruitment and immigration strategy to support the province’s economic development.

For example, under a memorandum of understanding signed with Ottawa earlier this year, the federal government will examine requests to recruit temporary foreign workers up to 12 months in advance of an expected shortfall in labourers for the oilsands. Employers must first provide proof of a shortage of skill needs as well as evidence of efforts to train and recruit Canadian workers – including aboriginal Albertans – and have notified relevant unions.

“The availability of research dollars means that new technologies are being developed in Alberta all the time,” the premier said. “Yet, all too often, they’re being commercialized elsewhere, taking the talent that created them and the opportunities they generate out of the province.”

Appealing to the mostly partisan crowd to “hire him, not fire him” by voting him in for his third term as premier, he lauded the results of what he called his government’s pro-business record: the lowest unemployment in the country, the highest disposable incomes, and the highest standard of living.

Klein noted that Statistics Canada reports Alberta’s per capita GDP growth has accelerated away from the national average between 1997 and 2003, from 117 per cent of the national level to 140 per cent.

But in a brief question and answer session following the speech, Klein was asked if Alberta businesses could anticipate a cut in corporate taxes. He declined to respond to the question, saying a decision will be made “in the context of all other considerations.”

Klein says that he must first pore over the results of the It’s Your Future study, which queried Albertans on spending priorities now that the province’s debt has been paid off.

“We will make sure we have the most competitive tax regime in the country,” Klein said, adding that, as matter of policy of his government since 1993, taxes will never rise and that “if they move it all, the only way they will go is down.”

(John Ludwick can be reached at ludwick@businessedge.ca)