A leading futurist has given representatives of municipalities and counties across Alberta a forecast for the future.
Richard Worzel, who spoke at the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties Conference in Edmonton last week, told delegates he isn’t a fortune teller but can predict the state of the future based on several factors, such as agriculture and technology.
Worzel said agriculture is the first major driver of change in communities.
China and other developing countries once considered Third World countries are rapidly increasing their populations’ food intake, which increases demand.
For Canada, that means the outlook for agriculture’s future is better than it’s been in the past.
“That doesn’t mean it’s all good for farming,” Worzel warned. If market prices are high so are input prices.
Traditionally, farmers focused on what Worzel calls the Three Fs of farming: food, feed and fibre. Now three additional Fs — fuel, industrial feed stocks and farm-aceuticals — have been added to strengthen and provide opportunities to the industry.
Oil and gas is another major industry for Alberta, because of middle class developing countries.
However, Worzel says there is an oil reserve in the United States that has to potential to produce more barrels of oil that what the entire world has previously used.
The United States could become a country that exports oil rather than importing it. “The future of our oil sector may not be as great,” said Worzel, comparing it to agriculture.
Technology is the third industrial driver.
Within the next 10 years computers will double in speed every 12 months and people will be able to purchase computers 1,000 times faster than those of today.
The aging of Alberta’s population is another factor affecting the future. While Alberta has a fairly young population when compared internationally, it has three large population groups preparing to move to new stages.
The first group, mature Canadians, born in 1940 or before, are now seniors and need support for physical and mental impairments. “These impairments can no longer be ignored,” said Worzel.
The second group, the baby boomers, Canada’s largest population group is getting to the age where they may be starting to look at retirement. “But we baby boomers always change the rules. The boomers are changing the rules on retirement too,” said Worzel.
With the aging baby boomers, Worzel says there’s the potential there won’t be enough money to pay the pensions. “You municipalities shouldn’t bank on getting more money from Edmonton.”
“The biggest generation in history is about to enter the red zone and that is going to drive the costs of health care through the roof,” Worzel added.
The third group is the children of the baby boomers — the echo generation — and they’re in their late teens to mid-30s.
Worzel says once the echoes have their children, Canada is going to see a sharp decrease in its younger population.
Worzel warned municipalities about being cautious about overbuilding schools because the young population could “drop like a stone” and may never fully recover.