Canada West Foundation Blog

By: Larissa Sommerfeld

Pipelines, robocalls and economic angst seem to be dominating headlines these days. Yet, there’s an important topic that’s missing from the limelight—water.

Everyone knows that water is essential to our survival and our way of life. What would our national sport be without the ice? But how often do we make the connection between healthy ecosystems and a strong economy?

Not often enough. As economic development in western Canada continues to ramp up, it’s critical that we’re as mindful (if not more) of our water and the broader environment as we are our economic prospects.

Across western Canada, water is integral to a wide range of economic activity including fisheries, shale gas development, irrigated agriculture, oil sands development, and potash and uranium mining.

Yet, there’s a sleeping water policy giant that will be waking up in due course. Climate change, extreme weather, increasing demand for energy, food, commodities, decreasing water quality (often due to effluent discharge and agricultural run-off), depleted sources, mindless water consumption, aging infrastructure, and the drainage of wetlands are all placing immense pressure on our water supplies. If we don’t start mitigating these strains, we’ll have some real trouble on our hands.

If western Canada is going to continue to be a great place to live, we need to constantly be thinking one step ahead. Our economic activity in the natural resource sectors (energy, potash, uranium, agriculture and aquaculture) is projected to grow in the coming decades. This is great news for our economy, but only if we become even better stewards of our water. The time is now for water to take priority on the policy agenda, up alongside energy, health and education policy—before we get to a breaking point.

Water allocation (of which addressing Aboriginal water rights will be key) will be one of the most challenging policy issues in the years ahead and there’s no beating around the bush—it will have to be addressed because water is a necessary component of the western Canadian economy. Canadian author Marq de Villiers once said that “the trouble with water is that they aren’t making any more of it.” We’ve got to protect what we have, not only to keep our ecosystems healthy, but to sustain our economy as well. We have a finite supply of water so it makes sense to find ways to maximize how it’s used so it can meet the increased demand with the same amount of water. This is something we should all care about because our livelihoods depend on it.

Read more about water and economic development in our new report, Stress Points: An Overview of Water and Economic Growth in Canada.

By Tom Carson, Director of the Manitoba Office

While there remains one more hurdle—selling 13,000 season tickets within three weeks—Winnipeg appears destined to bolster western Canada's presence in the NHL by adding another team. Yes, western Canada, with almost 31% of the nation’s population will have four (or nearly 60%) of Canada's seven NHL teams.

In 1996 when Winnipeg lost its NHL franchise, several economic factors drove the end of the city's presence in the league. These issues have since been minimized throughout the years, which should secure Winnipeg’s position in the league going forward:

The Winnipeg Arena was considered to be the finest facility in western North America when it was built in 1955, when Winnipeg was Canada's third-largest city. The Arena was renovated in 1979 and expanded to accommodate 15,565 people. Owned by an agency of the City of Winnipeg, it did not provide the revenue potential that owners needed nor the modern amenities and entertainment potential expected in today's facilities. In contrast, the city's new arena (2004) is a full season multiplex owned by True North Sports and Entertainment Limited, the owners of the new hockey club. For hockey, it can accommodate 15,015 people, which is not large by NHL standards (the smallest of 30 NHL arenas ranging from 16,234 to 21,273 seats). However, size is not everything: five NHL clubs had lower than 15,000 average attendance in 2009/10, many of them were substantially lower.

The 1996 ownership of the Winnipeg Jets did not have the means to backstop the growing financial risks that came from the rising salaries and operating costs associated with NHL expansion into the US. By comparison, True North Sports and Entertainment has spent the past decade learning the market, done its due diligence and the ownership team of David Thompson and Mark Chipman has the means and knowledge to support a team in the current Western economy, provided that the fan base is as strong as Manitobans believe.

The Canadian dollar was very weak in 1996. NHL hockey salaries were paid in US dollars and in Canada, every player's salary dollar cost the club at least $1.36. Prior to the negotiations that ended the 2004/05 lockout the NHL had no luxury tax, revenue sharing, salary cap or salary floor.

Manitoba's population was 1,134,000 in 1996, and the capital region of Winnipeg was 684,100. Today, after posting its highest growth rate in 40 years, the estimated population is projected to stand at 1,250,900 with the CMA at 764,200. Although it has the smallest NHL population by at least 250,000, the region is a deeply knowledgeable and committed hockey population.

All in all, a stronger Canadian dollar, a well-designed new facility, a province more confident in its economic future, a growing population, a greater local sense of pride and a rabid fan base are all pieces of the package that make this potential NHL franchise far different from the one Manitobans lost in 1996.