4 Calgary stories to watch in 2017

The past year has seen its share of newsworthy events, from pipeline politics and carbon tax debates, to upset political victories south of the border.

• Calgary stories that made an impact across the country and around the world in 2016

No doubt those stories will continue to grab headlines in 2017, but here arefour other stories Calgarians will be watchingin 2017:

Olympic glory revisited?

The 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary were a turning point for the city, putting Canada's Cowtown on the global stage and leaving a legacy of world-class sporting venues that continue to draw the world's best athletes to train.The games even turned a profit.

So, should Calgary try to rekindle the magic and make a bid to host the 2026 Winter Olympics?

The Calgary Bid Exploration Committee is supposed to give city council an interim answer to that question in January, and a final report by July. Council will then vote on whether to make a bid.

The 17-member committee, headed by former Calgary police chief Rick Hanson, was given a $5-million budget to look into the feasibility of a bid, including what capital investments would be needed, which of the venues from Calgary's '88 Games could be used again and how much funding from the province and Ottawa would be needed.

The International Olympic Committee wants to hear from potential candidates by September, 2017. Itwill name the host city of the 2026 Winter Games in 2019.

There are precedents for cities staging the Olympicsmore than once. St. Moritz, Switzerland,hosted the Winter Olympicsin 1928 and 1948. Lake Placid, N.Y., hosted the Winter Games in 1932 and 1980. AndInnsbruck, Austria, played host in 1964 and 1976.

Alberta PCs choose a new leader

Alberta Progressive Conservatives will choose a new leader on March 18 at a delegated convention in Calgary.

The party has been without a permanent leader since it lost its 44-year grip on power in May 2015 and Jim Prentice stepped down. He died in a plane crash in October 2016.

There are four candidates in the race:

• Former federal Conservative cabinet minister Jason Kenney.
• Vermillion-Lloydminster MLA Richard Starke.
• Calgary lawyer Byron Nelson.
• St. Albert MLA Stephen Khan.

The contest has been a polarizing one, with Kenney running on a pledge to lead the PCs into merger talks with the Wildrose Party and the others vowing to position the party as a fiscally conservative but socially progressive movement.

Two women who had been in been in the running MLAs Sandra Jansen and Donna Kennedy-Glans both dropped out in November after a policy convention in Red Deer that saw allegations of insults and intimidation and spurred a lawsuit over an alleged vulgarslur.

Jansen claimed she was harassed by volunteers from a rival campaign, however a report by an independent investigator later found no evidence that any leadership candidate directed their supporters to target another campaign.

In December, Jansen crossed the floor to the NDP.

Kennedy-Glans said she left the race because there didn't seem to be room in the party for a centrist voice.

Calgary votes 2017

Calgarians will go to the polls on Oct. 16, 2017 and Naheed Nenshi has already said he wants a third term as mayor.

Nenshi cruised to victory in 2013 with the support of about three quarters of the vote, after first winning as the underdog three years before that.

The slumping economy and dissatisfaction with rising property taxes could put a chink in Nenshi's armour this time around, but so far no high-profile contenders have stepped up to take on his purple army.

All 14 incumbent councillors have put their names on the city's candidate registry, but Coun. Jim Stevenson has saidit's unlikely he will seek re-election.

Getting back to business

Will 2017 be Alberta's rebound year?

Many analysts now think we've seen the bottom of the recession and things are beginning to turn around.

Buoyed by the prospect of an OPEC deal to cut production, oil prices have been hitting their highest levels since mid-2015.

There's also renewed optimism in Calgary's core because of Ottawa's approval of two major pipeline projects the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion andEnbridge'sLine 3.

Additionally, U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to resurrect and approve the thought-to-be-dead Keystone XL pipeline, which would provide another way for getting Alberta oil to market.

But the effects of the recession which pushed Calgary's unemployment rate over 10 per cent and left as much as a third of downtown office space empty could linger for years, according to ATB Financial chief economist Todd Hirsch.

He says the jobless rate will likely stay at recessionary levels into 2017.

A TD Economics forecast also says jobs won't suddenly return to the oilpach in the new year, even though Alberta is expected to lead the county in GDP growth at about two per cent.