​​It's summer, and Albertans are enjoying the bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables. But those berries, beets and bananas come at a price.

Year over year, fresh fruit prices are up modestly (+1.4 per cent), but fresh vegetables are up a whopping 7.7 per cent!

Some of the reason why fresh produce prices are up is due to higher transportation costs. Most of our fresh vegetables come from Mexico or California. Fuel costs are higher, and they're being passed on to consumers. The softer Canadian dollar is also a factor.

What can shoppers do?

1. Where possible, buy local. It might not be pineapple or papaya, but our farmers can grow a wide variety of fruits and veggies—and they don't need to be shipped thousands of miles.

2. Grow your own. Many of us already keep gardens, but there's a lot that even high-density urban dwellers can do. It takes a bit of work, but fresh patio tomatoes and strawberries are delicious.

3. Re-discover canning and preserves. There's a reason Albertans have managed to live here for generations—they made it through the winter by canning, freezing and keeping vegetables in cold storage.

We live in a world where strawberries, grapes and lettuce can arrive from anywhere in the world, even in the middle of January. But being price conscious in the grocery store means we take a second look at all of the incredible fruits and vegetables that can be grown right in our backyards.​

Todd talked about this recently as part of The Hoot, a regular radio segment on Calgary Today on Newstalk770 with Angela Kokott and on 630 CHED with J'lynNye and Andrew Grose.

​"We shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us."  -Winston Churchill

Calgary has seen some substantial investment in new buildings lately, many of them public spaces (the National Music Centre, the new downtown library). But there's more to urban architecture than having fancy buildings. There's a strong economic imperative to it as well.

Urban aesthetics matter to the attractiveness of a city, and thus to attracting newcomers. Attracting and retaining people - especially the young, talented and educated people who can go anywhere-is crucial. (In the recent Amazon second headquarters contest, Amazon explicitly looked for cities that are interesting and appealing to young tech workers.)

The question usually boils down to finances—and in the case of public buildings/spaces, how many tax dollars should go to building amazing structures. It's a good debate to have, but the answer must never be "build the cheapest thing possible."

Buildings and public spaces are with us for a long time. Certainly adding millions to the price of a project is a choice we have to make prudently.  But because they are permanent decisions, the public buildings we choose to build should be inspiring and interesting. They should bring people together in community. Ugly, utilitarian structures may be cheaper to slap up, but they come with a higher economic cost in the long run.

Todd talked about this recently as part of The Hoot, a regular radio segment on Calgary Today on Newstalk770 with Angela Kokott and on 630 CHED with J'lynNye and Andrew Grose.

Three key things stand out when taking a “30,000 foot” perspective on Alberta’s labour force:

First is the importance of Alberta as an engine of job creation. The number of jobs in Alberta has–on average–grown by 2.5 per cent per year since 1976. The average for the rest of Canada is 1.5 per cent. That might not seem like a huge difference, but if the number of jobs in Alberta had grown at the same rate as in the rest of Canada, there would be 736,000 fewer jobs in the province today. That’s a lot of additional jobs for Albertans and for the thousands of people from other parts of Canada and the world who have come here to make a better life.

Second, from agriculture and tourism to our universities and entrepreneurs, there are lots of reasons why Alberta’s economy has grown (and will keep growing). But the reason we have been able to outperform the rest of the country on job growth is our oil and gas sector and the economic activity it supports. The walloping our labour market has taken because of the 2015-16 recession drives this point home. Oil prices plummeted and the number of jobs in the sectors that depend on the oil industry shrank.

Third, the recession was painful and we are still feeling it. At 6.6 per cent in March, we had the highest unemployment rate in the country outside of Atlantic Canada. That’s a lot better than the 9.0 per cent we reached in November 2016, but it’s still high by Alberta standards. Alberta also had the longest average length of unemployment in the country in 2017 at 23.1 weeks (up from 14.5 weeks in 2014) compared to 19.6 weeks nationally. What’s more, we are still 28,000 jobs short of where we were in June 2015 (the peak) and this doesn’t account for the fact that our working age population has grown by 3.0 per cent since then.

Why does this matter? As Albertans, we should be proud of the contribution we've made to Canada’s job growth over the last four decades. It is also worth reminding ourselves and our neighbours that when the oil and gas sector falters, our ability to create jobs also falters. Finally, while the recession is over (Alberta’s GDP grew by 4.9 per cent last year), it does not feel that way to everyone and we are not “back to normal” on the job front.

You can find more analysis of Alberta’s labour force in the latest edition of Perch and the accompanying extended report on atb.com/economics

This post is written by guest writer Rob Roach, ATB Financial's Director of Insight.

We know the recession cut deeply into vehicle sales in Alberta. After all, with nearly one in 10 people out of work, motorists were forced to curb spending. But that didn’t stop us from buying cars and trucks altogether--we just altered what KIND of vehicle we bought.

Sales of new vehicles plunged 18 per cent between 2014 and 2016. At the same time, sales of used vehicles rose by 10 per cent. And because the volume of used vehicle sales is almost double that of new, the effect was that TOTAL sales (i.e., new and used combined) barely fell at all.

This switch from new to used vehicles also happened in the recession of 2008-09. In fact, new vehicle purchases were hit even harder. After hitting a record high in 2007, new vehicle sales dropped 27 per cent by 2009, while used vehicles continued to rise. Sales of new vehicles didn’t fully recover for four more years.

The substitution from new to used cars and trucks is not surprising during an economic downturn (that fresh new car smell comes at a price). But as Alberta’s economy gradually claws its way back, new vehicle sales are rising once again, reaching 11 per cent in 2017.

There's always a lot of attention paid to wages and jobs in the oil and gas sector. But what about at the other end of the pay scale? How have Albertans earning low wages fared through the recession and now into the rebound?

Over the last five years, (Feb'13 to Feb'18) workers in the two lowest paying sectors—retail, and accommodation and food—have seen their average weekly earnings increase. But the two have moved in different ways.

Weekly earnings in retail are up 12.2 per cent from five years ago. That compares favourably against the provincial average of 5.6 per cent. However, workers in accommodation and food have barely seen an increase in weekly earnings at all--a small gain of 3.5 per cent. That hasn't even kept up with inflation.

At the same time, total hours are up 0.4 hours for retail workers, and down 1.8 for accommodation and food.

So what's the upshot to all of this?

Trends over the last five years—which involved a nasty recession and a jump in the minimum wage—seem to have been positive for retail workers. They are working a few more hours and earning higher weekly paycheques. But it has been negative for those in accommodation and food. They're working fewer hours on average, and their paycheques have barely risen.

If there's a positive note for accommodation and food workers, it is that there's little evidence to suggest jobs are being lost. Total employment is up 10.3 per cent for accommodation and food compared to five years ago.

​

International trade gets a lot of attention–and rightly so. Alberta’s international exports and imports added up to $181 billion in 2016. But our domestic trade is also significant with $129 billion worth of goods and services exchanged between Alberta and other parts of Canada in 2016 (Statistics Canada, CANSIM table 384-0038). 
 
Alberta is, moreover, a good customer–buying $4 billion more goods and services from other parts of Canada than they sold to us.
 
British Columbia’s exports to Alberta, for example, add up to 44 per cent of its total trade with the rest of Canada while Alberta’s exports to BC represent 23 per cent of our trade with the rest of the country. (Statistics Canada, CANSIM table 386-0003 - Note that the most recent statistics on the trade between specific provinces are for 2014).
 
Our largest trading partner is Ontario. Albertans purchased $35 billion worth of goods and services from Ontarians in 2014 and sold them $27 billion worth in return.
 
Not surprisingly, Alberta’s main interprovincial exports are “mineral fuels” (a.k.a. oil, natural gas and coal and refined petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel and asphalt. These products account for over a third of our domestic exports. Ontario is the destination of about half of Alberta’s mineral fuel/petroleum product exports followed by British Columbia (17 per cent) and Saskatchewan (15 per cent).
 
Finance and insurance services such as investment services, life insurance and auto insurance is the single largest category of imports into Alberta from the rest of the country (12 per cent of our total interprovincial imports) followed by wholesale services (11 per cent), professional services (eight per cent) and transportation services (also eight per cent).
 
A fair amount of food also goes back and forth. Albertans sold $5.4 billion worth of food and non-alcoholic beverages to other Canadians and purchased $5.6 billion in return.
 
Why does this matter? It’s important to remember that we not only buy and sell from other countries but other Canadians as well and the benefits of free trade apply within Canada as well as on the international stage. We should, in turn, be working to keep this trade as open and efficient as possible. It’s also a good reminder for our friends in the rest of the country that Alberta is a good customer as well as a key supplier of critical products and services.

This post is written by guest writer Rob Roach, ATB Financial's Director of Insight.

We’ve talked before about how economic trends play out differently in different parts of our province. With the recession over a year behind us, it’s a good time to see how the recovery has been unfolding and what the “new normal” looks like in different parts of Alberta.

One way to look at this is in terms of population change. Generally speaking, more is better from an economic perspective when it comes population. Population growth is good for retail stores, for construction companies, for house prices and so on. 

When we look at Alberta as a whole, our population is growing and -- for an advanced economy like ours -- it’s doing so at a rapid rate. Alberta’s population is 4.3 per cent bigger than it was in 2014. Canada as a whole grew by 3.3 per cent over the same period and Newfoundland grew by only 0.1 per cent. So we are doing pretty good in this sense.

But not everywhere in Alberta is growing at the same rate. Some places are shrinking.

Looking at Alberta communities with at least 1,000 people, population change between 2014 and 2017 ranges from a drop of 25 per cent in Northern Sunrise County (which is near Peace River) to an increase of 30 per cent on the Tsuut’ina Nation reserve next to Calgary. Our two largest cities, Calgary and Edmonton, grew by 4 per cent and 6 per cent, respectively.

The hardest hit communities in terms of population loss are those that rely heavily on nearby oil and gas projects. Lac La Biche County, which shrank by 22 per cent, and the Bonnyville District, which shrank by 12 per cent, are prime examples. For McMurray shrank by 1 per cent.

The end of coal mining has also seen the populations of places like Grande Cache, Hanna and Drumheller contract.

The fastest growing places tend to be either First Nations communities or smaller centres located near larger cities. The population of Nobleford, a bedroom community near Lethbridge, spiked 28 per cent. Chestermere, Cochrane and Airdrie near Calgary, Spruce Grove near Edmonton, and Blackfalds near Red Deer posted growth between 18 and 27 per cent.

We see a similar pattern with employment. Smaller centres dependent on oil, gas and coal have fewer people working today than they did in 2014.

Why does this matter? The good news is that Alberta’s population has been growing and will likely continue to do so. The bad news is that not every community is growing with many of our smaller centres dependent on the energy sector seeing an actual outflow of residents. So even though our GDP is up, oil prices are up and the population as a whole is up, rural areas that depend on fossil fuel extraction are still hurting.

​This post is written by guest writer Rob Roach, ATB Financial's Director of Insight.