‘What Nancy said’ sets off chatter among local business leaders
The chattering classes — if that term even applies in places like Calgary — have been abuzz, perhaps even aTwitter, in recent days with “what Nancy said” after she received an award as Alberta’s Business Person of the Year.
Nancy is, of course, Nancy Southern, the president, chief executive and deputy chairman of the Calgary-based family business that has become the international conglomerate ATCO Group.
And “what Nancy said” was to offer her opinion on a number of public policy issues in Canada, from health care to unemployment. For example: “Unemployment insurance and the propping up of uncompetitive manufacturing in the heavily populated regions of Canada is harming, not helping, us achieve the Canada we all want,” she told the audience at the Alberta Venture magazine event last week.
Afterward, I repeatedly heard from journalists who had been asked by business leaders in the city if they had heard “what Nancy said.”
Given the response of some in the audience, I had to find out. As any journal- ist in Canada will tell you, wading into politics can be dangerous business for captains of industry. Just ask Belinda Stronach, Gwyn Morgan or J.P. Bryan.
Regardless of the merit of their ideas, there is typically an uneasiness among many Canadians about the motivation of business leaders when they address public policy issues. Are they looking out for the best interests of Canadians, or their shareholders?
Southern’s political remarks came in a prepared speech titled Canada’s Opportunity in 2012 and Beyond.
It was her comments about immigration policy and unemployment insurance that I found most provocative.
“It is such a waste in my mind,” Southern said, “to have to pay to bring people from outside of Canada for limited amounts of time to build and operate our resource projects, infrastructure and service industries at the same time as we are paying people unemployment insurance so they can stay where they are and take from taxpaying workers when work is available in other parts of the country.”
Presumably, Southern is saying if people in the Maritimes, Quebec and Ontario had their unemployment benefits cut off it could resolve the challenges around labour, and the rising cost of labour is a big issue for companies in Western Canada.
It makes a lot of sense. Economic migration has been a fact of life throughout history.
Canada has 7.5 per cent unemployment nationally, compared with 4.9 per cent in Alberta. A large local workforce is especially important for fast-growing companies such as ATCO, for example, but there’s more to maintaining a vibrant national economy than simply providing labour for an overheated regional economy.
Maybe the buzz was more about the messenger than the message.
“There are wonderful opportunities for individuals and families where jobs are being created,” she said. “Maybe it’s a bit colder, but did our forefathers, the people who came to this great country, come because they were promised lake cottages and a government that would pay for them to live without working?”
Nancy Southern is the daughter of a self-made multimillionaire industrialist. She went to university in her hometown and has never had to wonder about her employment options or relocate to find a job.
Southern is, by all accounts, a very capable executive — Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose called her a “respected” and “savvy” member of Alberta’s business community in acknowledging the award — but it was essentially her birthright to lead ATCO.
Of course, politics and business is a two-way street.
As Southern was weighing in on Canadian politics, former Alberta premier Ed Stelmach is offering advice on the oil and gas business these days.
Stelmach returned to his family’s ancestral home (Ukraine, not rural Alberta) to offer advice on how the country could develop its shale gas resources. Given Stelmach’s tumultuous relationship with the oil industry, maybe Southern’s free advice isn’t so bad.
Sure, some of what she said is provocative, but from the time it took to hear about “what Nancy said” to read what she said, I was hoping for more.
I was expecting something big, like in 1996 when Bryan, the outspoken Texan who was chief executive of Gulf Canada Resources, created a national controversy by speaking out on Quebec sovereignty. The brash Bryan offered this advice: “If a small, isolated group of you want to go back to France, we’ll get you a boat.”
We’ve come a long way in 16 years. Southern would offer them flights to Alberta and tell them to get to work.