The Monday night majority election victory hammered out by the federal Liberals has left Calgary’s business community in a cautious, wait-and-see mode.
But as Prime Minister Jean Chretien moves ahead with his next mandate, he should look at quickly making overtures to the West, says Calgary Chamber of Commerce president Kevin Gregor.
“My fear is that this has been such a malicious campaign, there has to be a lot of fences mended to get the country to work together,” says Gregor. “It will serve the ruling government well to come and reach its hand out to show they represent all people.”
But Gregor suspects the new majority Liberal government will not feel pressure to deal as quickly with regional issues as they might have with stronger political opposition. He believes the bitter nature of the election campaign effectively quashed any chance of discussing issues important to the business community, other than taxes.
“Most of the business people I know felt that, because of this malicious campaign, they really haven’t heard anything. The platforms didn’t come out, and when they did, you heard: ‘That’s not really what they mean,’ ” Gregor says.
“The issues weren’t on the table, and I think people are feeling very frustrated because they were not able to hear substantive differences of opinion.”
The chamber will continue to press the federal government to adopt the mini-budget as soon as possible, he adds. “The budget is going to be the biggest issue short term. We would want to see that mini-budget introduced, and all the tax breaks that were talked about to become a part of that.”
Calgary’s high-tech sector is also unsure of what to expect from Chretien now that the election campaign — and its promises — are over.
“None of the (parties) really spoke a lot about the whole technology sector,” says Charles Reichert of Calgary Technologies Inc., which promotes the economic development of local technology companies. “It’s a very unclear situation at this point.”
While former Industry Minister John Manley was a strong proponent of the sector, the technology community will have to wait to see if Brian Tobin remains in the portfolio, or who will be appointed, he adds.
David Paterson, executive director of the Canadian Advanced Technology Association Alliance (CATA), is confident that the government will continue to promote Canada’s high-tech sector.
“We think the government has realized the importance of the high-tech sector,” he says. “They understand the new economy is where the fastest growth is . . . I don’t think it’s an issue that’s just going to fade away, I think it’s going to become more prominent.”
He adds that the alliance plans to continue to lobby the government on issues including competitive taxation, support for research and development, and pressing ahead with pro-e-commerce initiatives.
Another Liberal majority is bad news for taxpayers, says Walter Robinson, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF). “It’s not a partisan thing, but we’re going to get more of the same in terms of a one-headed agenda,” he predicts.
Robinson wasn’t surprised that issues took a back seat to political posturing in this election campaign. “Everybody owes (former Prime Minister) Kim Campbell an apology from 1993 when she mused that election campaigns are not the place to discuss complex policy ideas,” he says. “She was absolutely right, unfortunately.”
The CTF will also be pushing for voting and electoral reform in the new year, as Monday night’s results highlighted “the failings of our antiquated and highly unfair first-past-the-post voting system,” says Robinson.
