HARDING: Twelve years of labour stats confirm left-leaning governments are bad for Alberta

If you thought the Alberta economy did better with conservative governments in Edmonton and Ottawa, you're right — and there's fresh statistical proof of your hunch.In addition to writing for Western Standard, there’s another hat I wear: Research Fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. In this capacity, I recently did a study titled Twelve Years of Labour in Alberta: A Tale of Three Political Eras to probe labour statistics from October 2011 through last November. My study focused mostly on the growth of the working-age population, of employees, and of total pay and salary in various sectors. The examination yielded both surprising and unsurprising findings.The Alison Redford/Jim Prentice PC term in Alberta coincided with a Stephen Harper majority government in Ottawa. Despite a sharp decline in oil prices and the devastating High River floods, Alberta witnessed a 25 per cent surge in employee compensation, significantly outpacing the national growth rate of 15.7 per cent.Alberta also exceeded national growth rates in the working-age population (8.3% vs. 3.7%) and employment (6.7% vs. 3.5%.) However, this period also experienced a significant 49 per cent rise in male unemployment. Surprisingly, population growth has done little to change these numbers since 2015, though they grew slightly under the NDP and shrunk the same amount under the UCP.Alas, the Rachel Notley NDP term was every bit the disaster private-sector, right-leaning Albertans remember it to be. She took office in May 2015, a few months before the Justin Trudeau Liberals took over in Ottawa. Alberta has never been the quite the same.The NDP’s tenure introduced stringent emission limits on oil sands and cuts to the firefighting budget, which led to the catastrophic Fort McMurray fire. The employment growth rate during the NDP term was just 1.9 per cent, while total wages and salaries contracted by 6.5 per cent. Next door, people employed in B.C. grew 12.6 per cent in those four years.The United Conservative Party (UCP) era ushered in a resurgence of economic activity. Under the leadership of Jason Kenney and Danielle Smith, Alberta began to pick up the pace.How so? Well, total wages and salaries went up 21.3 per cent and construction wages by 35.1 per cent despite the global pandemic. This marked a significant recovery from the NDP’s tenure, during which construction wages plummeted by 34.8 per cent. Even so, Alberta has still trailed the rest of Canada since Trudeau took office. Total pay (people times individual wages) has grown more than three times as much in the rest of Canada as since May 2015 (48.1%) than in Alberta (13.4%).Believe it or not, the resource sector is equally bad. The 3.6 per ent growth in Alberta’s mining, oil, and gas extraction sectors, trails the 14.8 per cent national growth. Clearly, the 'no more pipelines bill' and other onerous federal policies have also meant no additional jobs or growth in the Alberta energy sector. Pursuit of net zero emissions means net zero economic growth for Alberta.In 2010, Trudeau said, “Canada isn’t doing well right now because it’s Albertans who control our community and socio-democratic agenda. It doesn’t work.” If a prime minister believes Canada functions with Alberta in the back seat, would he ever let it take the wheel? It’s highly unlikely.But if the M.P. for Papineau doesn’t want Alberta to get ahead, whose growth would he welcome? Quebec’s, of course! From October 2011 to November 2023, Quebec has seen employment grow 36 percent faster than its working-age population growth. By contrast, the number of working-aged Albertans has grown 34.5 percent faster than those actually working. Only Newfoundland had worse numbers.One thing Alberta has done well is show commendable restraint in the growth of its provincial and municipal bureaucracy, particularly during the economically stagnant NDP era. Less welcome has been the stagnancy in the growth of self-employed people. There are only 7,000 more self-employed Canadians now than there were 12 years ago. To Alberta's credit, most of this growth was found in Alberta.Unfortunately, the public sector has gobbled up the self-employed’s shrinking piece of the employment pie--and gotten paid more handsomely along the way. Across Canada, total federal civil service pay shrunk 6.8 per cent under Harper, only to grow 70.3 percent under Trudeau. These stats differ only slightly in Alberta.From October 2011 to November 2023, Alberta’s agricultural sector has seen an 82.5 percent increase in wages and salaries, significantly outperforming the national average. However, agriculture’s success is now threatened by federal net zero carbon emissions initiatives, threatening the stability of Alberta’s sole surviving pillar against Ottawa’s intrusions.Workforce participation trends in Alberta also raise concerns. Over the past 12 years, non-participation rates in the workforce grew by 63.9 percent for men and 39.8 percent for women compared with 26.2 percent and 18.2 percent respectively, nationally. This gap is growing more quickly in Alberta than in British Columbia and Saskatchewan, and the question is why. Although indigenous employment rates across Canada tend to trail the rest of the population, that gap is almost non-existent for those who get post-secondary education. The fact Alberta has a higher percentage of indigenous does not explain the employment/population gap. Did Albertans retire earlier, having made better money in the oil patch? Did the province attract more people than could be gainfully employed? Is the underground economy flourishing?So many questions remain. While the UCP has initiated some economic recovery, Ottawa’s policies are at odds with Wild Rose Country and it shows. The path forward for Alberta involves navigating these challenges, advocating for fair policies, and leveraging its economic strengths to ensure sustainable growth and prosperity.All this to say, the stats show what many Albertans already know: the less Ottawa gets in its way, the better.

HARDING: Twelve years of labour stats confirm left-leaning governments are bad for Alberta

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