Calgary’s mayor talks tech in Toronto in effort to continue growth

Mayor Jyoti Gondek along with representatives from Calgary Economic Development and local tech representatives spent the week in Toronto, in the latest effort to drive further growth in Calgary’s emerging tech sector.

The Calgary representatives attended Collision 2023, one of the world’s largest tech conferences, to tout the recent tech take off in the city.

It’s the second time Gondek has attended the Collision Conference, which she said has benefited the city’s reputation as a place that takes tech seriously.

“We’ve been able to reconnect with a lot Calgary-based companies who are profiling the great work they’re doing in the tech sector, but we’ve also been able to tap in to a lot of expertise,” Gondek said.

The mayor and the Calgary contingent also participated in a panel to promote the city, and to discuss how a city becomes a tech and innovation hub.

“It’s well known around the world Calgary has been the Canadian capital of oil and gas,” Alberta Central chief economist Charles St Arnaud told Global News. “I think it’s showcasing that we have something else.

“We have other sectors that are blossoming and are actually hiring and are high value added.”

Although the local energy sector remains critical for the city’s economic success, Gondek said it is also playing a role in tech innovation and economic growth in Calgary.

“We’re investing around $1 billion in clean tech,” Gondek said. “That investment, if we doubled it to $2 billion by 2030 and we ended up at $5 billion by 2040, we would generate 170,000 jobs in that sector, and we would add upwards of $60 billion to the GDP.”

Alberta boasts record venture capital investments over the past six years, with Calgary attracting $647 million in venture capital investments across 64 deals in 2022.

According to Calgary Economic Development, Calgary’s tech startup ecosystem is valued at $5.2 billion, and the city is on track to grow by 1,000 new tech companies by 2030.

But to get to the next stage in becoming a global tech hub, more work needs to be done, according to some experts.

Calgary and Alberta are competing with other provinces, as well as the United States, as U.S. President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act has attracted many Canadian tech companies south of the border with new subsidies.

“We know we have access to venture capital that companies are starting up,” Calgary Chamber of Commerce president Deborah Yedlin said. “We did have an investment tax credit that supported startups, is that something that needs to happen?  It’s a good question.”

Gamemode is a Calgary tech startup that is now based in Halifax.

The video game developer, which made a splash with new content on Minecraft servers, made the move to Nova Scotia a few months ago.

The company’s managing director, Sean Davidson, said the move was due in part to better financial incentives like a digital media tax credit, and the province’s Atlantic immigration program.

When asked what Calgary needs to do to improve its local tech sector, Davidson said it comes down to smaller developers.

“I think that Alberta also kind of shoehorns themselves a lot … into sort of broader software and tech, attracting some of those bigger companies and not so much incubating the smaller companies and smaller talent that could really thrive in Alberta,” Davidson said.

“Part of that as well is just the financial incentives that Alberta doesn’t have anymore.”

Premier Danielle Smith noted she will be working with Nate Glubish, Alberta’s technology and innovation minister, to look into reinstating the province’s digital media production tax credit after it was cut by the UCP in 2019.

“I’ve also put into Nate’s mandate to try and figure out a way to implement a digital media production tax credit — we weren’t able to do it before the last election,” Smith said.

“It’s still very much part of the mandate.”

Smith and Gondek have scheduled a meeting in the coming weeks with plans to discuss tech.

Gondek said she plans to advocate for improved incentives, and to use lessons learned while in Toronto to find opportunities for the city and the province to work together to attract new tech investment to Calgary.

“I’m taking my role here very seriously to go back to talk to the province, and frankly, to the federal government as well, about why we need to be investing more in tech,” Gondek said.

“It is about solving some pretty big and wicked problems that we have; that’s why tech matters.”