With just weeks left in his turbulent tenure as premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney is looking beyond his province’s borders.

The outgoing premier was in Toronto Wednesday as part of his government’s effort to raid the workforces of the country’s other urban hubs on behalf of Alberta’s fast-growing tech sector. In a phone call Tuesday, Kenney spoke to The Logic about the acute need that’s fuelling the recruiting drive; his advice for the next premier; and his regrets around how he eliminated a key tech-sector tax credit. 

Kenney launched the Alberta is Calling marketing campaign in August. The premise is simple: Skilled workers frustrated with the cost of living in Toronto and Vancouver should move to Alberta, where housing is affordable and commutes are comparably brisk. In Tuesday’s call, he rambled off housing market stats: the average cost of a detached home in the Greater Toronto Area is $1.2 million, he said, compared with $430,000 in Calgary and $360,000 in Edmonton. (In each of the three markets, the prices are actually higher.)

A tech worker living in a “shoebox apartment” in downtown Toronto and paying $2,000 a month in rent can relocate to Calgary or Edmonton, “where there’s a booming tech sector, and find the same apartment for 800 bucks.” 

Kenney’s pitch comes as Alberta flirts with a potential economic boom. Oil prices are soaring, tech investment is rising and the energy sector could see massive expansion in areas like hydrogen and carbon capture and storage. New capital investment in the Edmonton region alone, a major hub for petrochemicals, could surpass $60 billion in coming years, Kenney claimed. 

“We have the fastest-growing economy in Canada and fastest-growing job market. We’re also diversifying with huge growth in tech, film and television, petrochemicals, manufacturing, you name it. But our biggest challenge now and into the future is a shortage of skilled workers.” 

He recognizes that not everyone will buy his pitch. Toronto and Vancouver “have certain benefits,” he acknowledged. But he rejected the premise that Alberta suffers in the eyes of the workers he wants to attract from a perception as a “redneck province” with regressive political inclinations and limited economic opportunity outside of oil and gas. 

“First of all, we’re proud of our western heritage and frontier attitude, which I think generally makes our culture a meritocracy,” Kenney said. “There’s not a lot of prejudice built up in Alberta because there’s not a lot of history; we’re the newest part of the New World.” 

“Is Alberta perfect? No—tell me somewhere that is. But I think when it comes to diversity and inclusion, we’ve been actual leaders in Canada long before other provinces.” 

Kenney, who announced his resignation in May following a caucus revolt over his government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, has sought to reverse any such perceptions about Alberta, in part by trying to build out its innovation economy. His United Conservative Party often boasts about the capital invested in the province during their time in power, including billions of dollars from tech giants including Amazon Web Services, IBM and Indian IT company Infosys.  

But Kenney’s record on tech is hardly unblemished. Soon after taking power, the UCP nixed the NDP’s Alberta Investor Tax Credit program, prompting widespread criticism from people who viewed it as a key support for the tech sector. The decision even fed into the online storytelling platform Wattpad’s decision to choose Halifax over Calgary for its second headquarters, according to The Logic’s reporting.

Kenney now acknowledges the policy was the result not just of what he called the need for “tough fiscal decisions” in the face of deficits, but of a lack of communication between his government and the province’s tech industry.

“I’ll admit this: when I was developing our 2019 election platform, I really wanted a robust section on innovation,” he said. “We had some good ideas, including the startup visa with our provincial immigration program, but we didn’t have very good connections with people in the tech sector in Alberta.” 

“I guess that would be my advice to the next government: listen to the tech sector, because it’s helping to lead the economic recovery.” 

Though the UCP government never reinstated the Alberta Investor Tax Credit, it introduced various other programs aimed at attracting investment and workers. Kenney attributed that decision to his fundamental disagreement with the structure of the credit, which he claimed was “moving risk for venture capitalists to the taxpayer.” 

Kenney has adopted  a leaner, more small-c conservative approach to building up the tech sector in the province, unlike what he called the “massive cheque-writing machine” of the Quebec government that spends “hundreds of millions of dollars … picking winners and losers.” 

“We think that creates an unequal marketplace,” he said. 

“Our approach, as much as possible, is to create the optimal macroeconomic conditions because—call me a right-winger if you want—we Albertans believe that markets, at the end of the day, are the best approach.” 

The UCP government has instead favoured tax credits or policies aimed at cutting red tape. A lighter regulatory touch is also core to the “pro-business approach” the UCP is using to attract crypto companies, according to The Logic’s reporting, which the government hopes will bolster its diversification efforts. 

“We get approached, it seems, almost every week by a new proponent that’s interested in exploring potential operations in Alberta,” he said. “There are some regulatory issues that we’ve been trying to work through around so-called “behind-the-wire” cell supply and generation. It’s a complex policy area.” 

For his part, Kenney said his understanding of the crypto industry is mostly focused on how the province can provide energy supplies for miners, likely through power purchase agreements with major suppliers. 

“I’ve got to be honest with you, I don’t fully understand cryptocurrency markets, but I do understand the need they have for mining and processing,” he said. 

Kenney views his current bid to attract talent as part of a broader migration of Canadians into the prairie province, similar to the way that Texas has drawn workers away from the “over-taxed, over-regulated” state of California. 

“We are more capitalist and we’re more free-market enterprise oriented, and we don’t apologize for that.” 

Sky-high oil prices have provided Alberta the biggest fiscal cushion in its history, and Kenney acknowledges there is “legit concern” that Alberta might lose sight of its efforts to diversify its economy through innovation. But he believes the province can avoid the pitfalls of its past, particularly as tighter environmental policy and ESG investment restrictions have begun to put real pressure on oil and gas producers, calling into question the longer-term viability of the sector. 

“I know that there are some, maybe on the hard right, who just imagine we can wish away all of that change. And there’s some on the hard left who want to shut down oil and gas overnight. But I think most Albertans get that we can and should do both, that the two are married, that ensuring a longer-term future for our energy sector depends on innovation and green tech.” 

Correction: An earlier version of this article said Jason Kenney spoke to The Logic on a Wednesday. In fact, it was on a Tuesday. The Logic regrets the error.