The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.
It is beginning to sink in among the Canadian business elite that the economy is going to have to start weaning itself off oil.
The latest quarterly C-Suite Survey shows that almost two-thirds of Canadian corporate executives – including those in the west – feel Canada’s economic policy relies too much on Alberta and its natural resources. Fewer than one out of five say the economy currently has a good mix of industrial sectors.
As the next decade unfolds, priorities must change, they said. Information technology, renewable energy and services will rise in importance to the Canadian economy over the next 10 years, the executives said, outpacing mining, automotive and oil.
David MacDonald, chief executive officer of Softchoice Corp., a Toronto-based technology services firm, said the need for diversification is becoming a strong theme both in corporate corner offices and in Bay Street financial circles. The spate of recent initial public share offerings outside the energy sector is one sign of this, he said. “You are starting to see that even the equity markets are starting to focus on non-resource-based companies.”