Calgary city council green-lights another $90M for Economic Development Investment Fund

Calgary city council has agreed to add another $90 million to the city’s Economic Development Investment Fund.

Council approved the request from Calgary Economic Development at Monday’s meeting.

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The group’s president and CEO, Mary Moran, said, when asking for the funding boost, that the initial $10 million used to launch the fund was a “good starting point.” But, she said more needs to be done to deal with the city’s high downtown office vacancy rate and unemployment rate.

She said the fund should be set up so that it is able to respond quickly to potential opportunities.

“In the film industry, right now, we have an Alberta media fund – which was created to try to attract business into the market –  and they set up three dates to intake into the process,” she said, telling councillors about a recent example where Calgary lost out on a big opportunity.

“We just lost a great mid-size film production because Quebec was able to give them surety that they would get their funding required right away and Alberta wasn’t.

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Moran said at a previous council meeting that the extra $90 million, which would bring the total available capital to $100 million, would create approximately 3,600 new jobs and that the money could be leveraged to attract private sector funding.

Philanthropist Jim Gray, who is on the steering committee for the investment fund, said he’s confident the private sector will buy into the plan.

“I’m convinced – as has happened in other jurisdictions –that private sector money will be found to be partners as the projects mature,” he said.

Coun. Pete Demong said an economic development fund is necessary to bring investment opportunities to Calgary, especially in such a turbulent economy.

“I certainly do not want to be the one that’s sitting on my hands hoping and praying for another boom, he said. “Because we’ve all seen that bumper sticker and to be brutally honest, I’m not sure it’s going to come back.”