Q&A
Q: Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has campaigned against the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. What do you say to British Columbians who say we assume more of the risks for fewer benefits?
A: Your mayor and I see eye to eye on many, many things. We disagree on this one and that’s fine. That’s his prerogative to disagree. … At the end of the day, the whole concept of nation-building is about balancing different perspectives and different points of view and figuring out what’s right for the nation as a whole. And in this I believe that you’ve got to let the science do its job and trust in the process. And if the process is bad, fix the process.
Q: There are fears here that once the Site C hydroelectric dam is built, we will have a surplus of power. There has been talk of providing power to Alberta to help phase out coal power and electrify the oilsands. But there seems to be some opposition to that in Alberta.
A: I think that’s fading away pretty quickly. There really is a very interesting opportunity, especially as we’re working to green our grid in Alberta, to be able to work together. And I really hope there’s the political will to be thoughtful about this. Should it [Site C] get built, I think it makes a ton of sense to look at how we can integrate the grid in northern Alberta and northern British Columbia that way.
Q: Calgary has been very successful in attracting corporate headquarters. Just recently, diamond miners De Beers Canada and Dominion Diamond Corp. announced relocations of their head offices from Toronto and Yellowknife to Calgary. Are you here to poach our companies?
A: For the last six years I’ve been travelling across Canada saying, ‘I’m here to steal your children,’ because we really had a labour shortage. And now we’ve gone from the lowest unemployment rate in Canada to the highest in under two years. So now I’m not here so much to steal your kids – I’m here to steal your money.
Q: Can you expand on that?
A: If I am a big business in downtown Vancouver and I want to expand, I might be priced out of this market. I just might not be able to get space out here. I might not be able to hire people here. So rather than go offshore or go to the U.S., I would love it if companies looked within Canada. It would be great to have that expansion happen – whether in Calgary, Edmonton or Halifax – within the country.
Q: How important is Vancouver as a port city to Alberta’s and Canada’s economy?
A: That port is indescribably important for the Canadian economy. If that port shut down, it’s not too much to say the Canadian economy would be paralyzed, and I’m not sure a lot of Vancouverites actually think about that very much and think about the vast amount of commercial activity that happens at that port.
Q: Calgary has its own inland port. Alberta has been working with the Port of Vancouver to improve logistics. Can you expand on that?
A: [Calgary is] at the intersection of the Trans Canada Highway and the CANAMEX Corridor. There’s no stoplight between north of Edmonton and Mexico. Calgary’s ideally situated as a distribution centre for the western United States, for all of western North America. The reason that’s really interesting for Vancouver is that much of that material comes through this port. If we can integrate that … that’s really a very powerful nation-building thing that really benefits Vancouver and really benefits Calgary, too.
Q: You were the first Muslim mayor elected in a major city in Canada. Given what president-elect Donald Trump has said about immigration and Muslims, what do you think of what happened south of the border on November 8?
A: “I finally managed to get tickets to the Broadway musical Hamilton for my birthday in February in New York, so I’m kind of hoping he doesn’t have time to enact his ban between his inauguration and my birthday. But more seriously, there’s a very important role for Canada to play right now. We remain a place that values pluralism and that values diversity, and there aren’t so many places like that left in the world. And I also think the prime minister is going to have a very important role in the world because he’s almost the last man standing who talks about this stuff. So right now, more than ever, the world needs Canada.
“When Microsoftopened their big office in Vancouver, they weren’t even subtle about it. They said very clearly that this office can serve as kind of a holding pen for people who are not able to get their visas to the U.S.
