Freedom To Innovate: An Open Letter to from Alberta’s Tech Leaders to Premier Danielle Smith

Dear Premier Smith,

Congratulations on your new role as Premier of Alberta.

In the past few weeks, we’ve enjoyed watching Ontario react to the government’s “Alberta is Calling” campaign, which highlights the thousands of open jobs in the tech sector. We are the business leaders creating those jobs, seeking to drive growth and prosperity for Alberta and for Canada.

But we cannot have a strong tech sector in Alberta if our provincial regulatory system does not allow tech companies here to be competitive.

The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA) has taken the aggressive position that software engineers must be regulated, and subject to onerous, restrictive, and unnecessary certification requirements. APEGA is actively targeting companies in Alberta with legal action to restrict us from using globally competitive job titles and descriptions.

“Software engineer” is a globally accepted standard job title for people who build software. You will find software engineers in every region that is serious about growing a tech ecosystem — from Toronto and Vancouver to Silicon Valley, New York, London and beyond. In this new remote work environment, we compete against giants like Facebook and Amazon in all these regions to hire software engineers, data science engineers, security engineers and many other roles critical to growing our companies.

Talent is the most important input to our businesses, and the inability to compete for it is an existential threat. If we cannot effectively compete for the best employees while headquartered in Alberta, we must seriously consider whether this is a place where our companies can succeed.

The “Alberta is Calling” campaign encourages skilled workers to move to the province, but the truth is that if people want to work as a software engineer, they may need to move somewhere else, and so too might the companies that employ them.

We recognize the importance of APEGA’s role in regulating professional certifications and designations in the interest of public safety. The term “software engineer” is not itself a certification or designation, and it should not be the role of a regulator to determine who can and cannot use common language in the normal course of operating a business.

We need leadership from you and your government on this issue. This is a classic case of regulator overreach—tech companies shouldn’t need the blessing of a regulatory body to build an app.

As leaders of technology companies who do business in Alberta and beyond, we are calling on you to act and remove the regulatory red tape that prevents us from being able to compete on an even playing field with global giants for talent.

Without action, we risk long-term damage to the competitiveness of Alberta’s technology sector and tarnishing our province’s reputation as a place where businesses are free to innovate, grow and thrive.

As the leaders behind the fastest-growing technology companies in the province, we look forward to working with you and your team to accomplish shared priorities of job creation, economic development, and making Alberta the best place to raise a family, build a career, and grow an innovative business.

As you settle into your new role, we ask that this be one of your first priorities as Premier. It’s important for our future as an economic engine and innovation leader in Canada.

Sincerely,

Cory & Nicole Janssen — AltaML — Edmonton, AB

Kelly Schmitt — Benevity — Calgary, AB

Nicolas Beique — Helcim — Calgary, AB

Sam Pillar — Jobber — Edmonton, AB

David Edmonds — A100 — Calgary, AB

Ash Esmaeili — Aimsio — Calgary, AB

Cam Linke — Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute — Edmonton, AB

Rohit Joshi — Brightsquid — Calgary, AB

Court Ellingson — Calgary Innovation Coalition — Calgary, AB

Amir Reshef — dealcloser — Edmonton, AB

Scott Nye — Digital Alberta — Edmonton, AB

Michael Wilson — DrugBank — Edmonton, AB

Malcolm Bruce — Edmonton Global — Edmonton, AB

Catherine Warren — Edmonton Unlimited — Edmonton, AB

Alice Reimer — Fillip — Calgary, AB

Taran Singh Kainth — Flahmingo — Calgary, AB

Jeff Lawrence — Granify — Edmonton, AB

Rishi Patel — Keeran Networks — Edmonton, AB

Andrew Chau — Neo Financial — Calgary, AB

Kyle Johnson — NeuroSoph Development — Edmonton, AB

Terry Rock — Platform Calgary — Calgary, AB

Sam Jenkins — Punchcard Systems — Edmonton, AB

Aldo Zanoni — Riva International, Inc. — Edmonton, AB

Ashlyn Bernier — samdesk — Edmonton, AB

Colin Bramm — Showbie — Edmonton, AB

Kristina Milke — Sprout Fund — Edmonton, AB

Zack Storms — Startup TNT — Edmonton, AB

Hanif Joshaghani & Tiffany Kaminsky — Symend — Calgary, AB

James Lochrie — Thin Air Labs — Calgary, AB

Dr. Ray Muzyka — ThresholdImpact — Edmonton, AB

Chris LaBossiere — We Know Training — Edmonton, AB

Paul Bellows — Yellow Pencil — Edmonton, AB

Ali Habib — Umay — Edmonton, AB

Jackson Fisk — Goal Zero — Edmonton, AB

Kevin Petterson — Zipstall — Edmonton, AB

Jon MacConnell — Buoyancy Works — Calgary, AB

Susan Groeneveld — Sylvester.ai — Calgary, AB

James Neufeld — samdesk — Edmonton, AB

Jackson Cooper — JAMH — Calgary, AB

Jeff LaFrenz — VizworX Inc — Calgary, AB

Kyle Myck — Dura Digital — Edmonton, AB

Ben Grande — Arbor — Calgary, AB

Matt Wilson — Allied Venture Partners — Calgary, AB

Evan Chrapko — Trust Science — Edmonton, AB

Audrey Charles — Convenient Business Solutions Inc. — Edmonton, AB

Jack Newton — Clio — Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto

Ashif Mawji — ScaleGood Fund LP — Edmonton, AB

Tim Johnson — AccuBytes Inc. — Edmonton, AB

Dr. Husein MoLoo — Purposemed — Calgary, AB

Neil Cawse — Geotab — Toronto, ON

Eric Kryski — Bidali — Calgary, AB

Bobbie Racette — Virtual Gurus — Calgary, AB

Jeff Archibald — Paper Leaf — Edmonton, AB

Brennan Lewis — my-eforce — Calgary, AB

Adrian Camara — Athennian — Calgary, AB

Scott Gravelle — Attabotics — Calgary, AB

Warren Bergen — AVAC Group — Calgary, AB

Steve Liang — SensorUp — Calgary, AB

Nir Katchinskiy — PulseMedica — Edmonton, AB

Adam Ludgate — cirkuit Inc. — Calgary, AB

Greg Burlet — Frettable — Edmonton, AB

Solehin Islam — TechCare Inc. — Edmonton, AB

Jason Suriano — TIQ Software — Edmonton, AB

Mike Zouhri — Painworth — Edmonton, AB

Sandi Gilbert — DealPoint Capital — Calgary, AB

Philip Mackasey — Attona Group — Calgary, AB

Keith Armstrong — Flow Sparrow — Edmonton, AB

Leo Popiel — What’s the Deal? — Edmonton, AB

Bruce Johnson — Vertical City Inc. — Edmonton, AB

Jeanette Jackson — Foresight Canada — Calgary, AB

Matt Nielsen — Fishbone Analytics Inc. — Calgary, AB

William Richards — EasyRedir — Calgary, AB

Wayne Sim — Tauri.ai — Calgary, AB

Chris Izquierdo — Sparrow Connected Inc. — Edmonton, AB

Scott Montgomerie — Scope AR — Edmonton, AB

Guillermo Salazar — IrisCX — Calgary, AB

Ayomikun Kayode — Atadel Inc. — Edmonton, AB

Alina Martin — Be First Investments Corp. — Calgary, AB

Amit Anand — ez enRoute Ltd. — Edmonton, AB

Amirreza Sohrabi — Roshan Water Solutions — Edmonton, AB

David Nedohin — Scope AR — Edmonton, AB

Gezim Hoxha — CommerceOwl — Edmonton, AB

Sepehr Shoarinejad — Koridor — Calgary, AB

Pratik Ghoshal — Skyfri Technologies — Calgary, AB

Eric von Stackelberg — Grow Cycle Solutions — Parkland County, AB

Samuel Hale — Nutrimeals — Calgary, AB

Alina Turner — HelpSeeker Technologies — Calgary, AB

Christopher Micetich — Fedora Pharmaceuticals — Edmonton, AB

Reg Joseph — Health Cities — Edmonton, AB

Vince O'Gorman — Vog App Developers — Calgary, AB

Justin Sharp — CareCru — Edmonton, AB

Jay Gohill — Arcurve Inc. — Calgary, AB

Adam O'Brien — Bitcoin Well — Edmonton, AB

Steve Robb — AFTI (WatchDog) — Calgary, AB

Cameron Prockiw — Nerder — Calgary, AB

Brad Zumwalt — Zinc Ventures — Calgary, AB

Aly Kanji — AZK Management — Calgary, AB

Harish Consul — Ocgrow Group — Calgary, AB

Robert Price — Bōde HQ — Calgary, AB

David Katz — Deep Surface AI — Calgary, AB

Sean Fynn — StellarAlgo — Calgary, AB

Branden Sloane — Zugalu Entertainment — Calgary, AB

Dean Bittner — RUNWITHIT Synthetics — Edmonton, AB

Brigitte Legault — New Idea Machine — Calgary, AB

Quinn Goretzky — Rogue7 — Edmonton, AB

Dornoosh Zonoobi — Medo.ai — Edmonton, AB

Shawnna Leonard — SimplicityKEY — Edmonton, AB

Angela Armstrong — Prime Capital Group — Edmonton, AB

Ryan Lewinson — All Skin — Calgary, AB

Kevin Edwards — SkipTheDishes — Winnipeg, MB

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