Home Newsroom 2005 Speeches (archive) McLellan: 2005-09-08

Speaking notes to the Canadian Club of Calgary

Speaking Notes for
The Honourable Anne McLellan

Calgary, Alberta
September 8, 2005

As delivered

Thank you very much. Thank you and good afternoon. It's a great pleasure to be here and to see so many old friends and a few new friends, and thank you all for coming.

My appearance here today comes one week after our province's formal centennial anniversary last week. So today I do want to talk about where our province finds itself at the beginning of its second century. Our centennial celebrations paid tribute to the vision of Alberta's builders and celebrated our remarkable achievements over the past hundred years. Last week while I was in Calgary I took part in the opening of Lougheed House, a national historic site that commemorates our province's and this city's early history, and let me say that I am pleased that the Government of Canada is participating in the preservation of Lougheed House because it is so important for governments at all levels to preserve our history. It helps us understand who we are, where we have been and where we can go.

I know that the former Premier is one of your speakers later this Fall and he and I had the opportunity to spend some wonderful time together talking about the history of Lougheed House and his grandfather, and of course Senator Lougheed was so instrumental in the creation of this province. He worked long and hard with others in and around 1905 in relation to the creation of Alberta. He didn't quite get everything he wanted because he wanted those resources transferred in 1905 and that didn't happen. Peter Lougheed and I said, you know, some things never change.

While Alberta has come a long way since September 1905, some of the traits that define us have remained constant. One article published in 1905 in The Globe newspaper observed, and I love this quote. "An eastern man cannot come west without learning that they never do things by halves."

One hundred years later we see that desire to dream big around us. Alberta has a thriving economy, a highly educated healthy workforce and some of the best universities and colleges in the country. We're wired, computer-literate and urbanized with Calgary and Edmonton ranking high on Canada's list of fastest-growing and dynamic cities, and in fact I don't even think they just rank high, I think they are probably one and two in terms of this country's two fastest-growing urban communities. By any measure, Alberta is the best place to live, to raise your children, work, play and engage in your community.

Now, I do want to say something about recent articles and discussions on talk shows and elsewhere about Alberta's current prosperity. Let me state without equivocation that when Alberta does well, when any province does well, our whole country benefits.

We all know we're celebrating Alberta's one hundredth birthday, but I do want to spend just a few moments now looking just a bit into Alberta's present prosperity because in fact this too is celebrating a significant anniversary. And what I want to talk about is the oil sands and the importance of the oil sands in driving Alberta's prosperity and well-being, and it fits. There are so many reasons, because it was 10 years ago this month that the National Oil Sands Taskforce reported to governments, reported to me as Minister of Natural Resources, reported to my then-colleague, the Minister of Energy in this province, Pat Black, as she then was, and Eric Newell and other members of that taskforce delivered a report to me and to others entitled "The Oil Sands, a New Energy Vision for Canada." I think the key word here is "vision"

The oil sands, as we all know, are a pan-Canadian project. The joke about Fort McMurray being the third-largest Newfoundland city is really not such an exaggeration. In fact, it's absolutely true. It means, the oil sands mean jobs for thousands of workers, many of them in skilled trades, and those workers come from all over this country. Thriving employers and workers with money in their pockets is good for the national economy. We estimate that over 40% of all goods and services supplied to oil sands construction and operation are sourced from outside Alberta.

The order books of companies all across our great land are full because of the oil sands. And I have to assure everyone that the Government of Canada will not put at risk the success of this province or the promise of its resources.

The development of the oil sands, when you think about it, decades ago was a dream. The development of the oil sands is a tribute to a succession of believers and dreamers.

First, there were scientists who were probably accused of being dreamers in terms of the work they were doing. They actually believed that if we drove the parameters of knowledge that they could take what some have described as that “sticky goo” and extract from that sticky goo in the northern part of our province a big part of our economic and social future.

Second, there were the people at Great Canadian Oil Sands who built the initial plants, engineers, pipe fitters, chemists, designers and construction workers.

Finally, there were those who worked to bring about a more equitable tax treatment for the oil sands development, and I have already referenced the task force report that Eric Newell helped assemble and that made the case to us and to the province about the opportunities that existed. And while we will remember, some of you in this room, I remember vividly the federal government was engaged in the very difficult exercise of reducing spending and eliminating the deficit. The then-Prime Minister and then-Finance Minister, who is now Prime Minister, agreed that there was a window of opportunity that we had to take advantage of not just for Alberta, but for Canada.

As a result of the tax changes announced in the 1996 federal budget and the Alberta government's introduction of a new generic royalty regime for oil sands mining, there has been more than $35 billion invested in the oil sands in Fort McMurray and the heavy oil and in oil developments in the Cold Lake and Athabaska areas, and another $20 billion in investments are predicted to come. And I was reminded this morning in my discussions that those numbers are well ahead of any prediction that was made 10 years ago in terms of the investment in that resource, the number of barrels per day that would be produced from the oil sands, and I think it's fair to say the overall economic impact of the oil sands 10 years ago, nobody could have imagined that we would have come as far as we have today.

Dreaming big, ladies and gentlemen, made the oil sands development possible. Just as those who founded our province dreamed big, so too do our modern pioneers and risk-takers. A philosopher some of you may know named Schoppenhauer summed it up best when he said this, and I quote: Anyone can sympathize with another's sorrow, but to sympathize with another's joy is the attribute of an angel.

I am sure, ladies and gentlemen, that our fellow Canadians will sympathize with our joy and share in our anticipation for a future full of promise and opportunity. Jealousy and envy should play no part in the story of Alberta's success. I want to reassure everyone here today that my colleagues in the Government of Canada know that strong partners make for a strong federation. If we accept that Alberta is in a blessed place right now, we need to ask ourselves how do we deal with these blessings to ensure a prosperous future for generations to come.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier, when looking at the people who continued to move to Alberta, even in his time, said the following: We do not anticipate and we would not want that any individual should forget the land or the origin of their ancestors. But he added: Let them look also to the future. Let them look to the land of their ancestors but let them look also to the land of their children. Alberta is the land of their children.

One hundred years on we are blessed with opportunities but we must continue to focus on the future because we are now setting forth on a new one hundred year odyssey. In the field of energy we aren't simply exploiting the vast resources we have, but we're also researching and developing new advanced energy sources such as wind power, clean coal that is turned into fuels, CO2 sequestration. Making investments in innovation and new technologies are ways to ensure that the dividends from our resources will be with us for years to come.

Let's look at the area of research and innovation in our province. The University of Alberta's research in areas like diabetes has made it a leader, drawing recognition from the medical community around the world and improving the plight of those who suffer from diabetes everywhere in the world. The University of Calgary is recognized as a world leader in bone and joint health, which is a growing preoccupation in our health care system as we age as a society.

Alberta is becoming the home to world-leading work in nanotechnology - in fact, we are one of the five centers of its kind in the world. We have an opportunity to develop, in this path, post-secondary institutions that, dare I say, can be and should be the best in the world.

The challenge that stands before us, as Albertans, is great. At the end of the next one hundred years, for what do we want to be remembered? For what will our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren remember us? For Albertans, shaping the future also means shaping the national agenda. Whether it was through agrarian political movements or establishing rights for women, Albertans have played a key part in our development as a country. With its growing population and economic clout, that influence is growing. How we choose to use that influence will help shape not only our province but our country. It does mean that we cannot turn inward. We cannot build firewalls. We must seek to shape and lead the national agenda. We are in a position to dream and the even more enviable position of being able to make our collective dreams come true.

I, for one, will continue to work to ensure that the Government of Canada is focused on Alberta's priorities, whether it is addressing the extraordinary pace of urban development and the infrastructure needs of our cities through our new deal for cities and communities, or working to resolve the closure of the U.S. border to beef exporters, or making sure our children have the opportunity to get a good start in their early years. The Prime Minister and I and our entire government are committed to working to help Alberta achieve its goals, not just for the short term but for the next one hundred years.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, as some of you know, I was to be in Calgary today to welcome Vice President Dick Cheney who was going to come and visit our province on an official visit and in fact we were going to take Vice President Cheney to the oil sands tomorrow because clearly the oil sands are a resource that are not only of enormous benefit to our province and to our country but to North America. We are all aware why Vice President Cheney postponed his visit, because of the terrible tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. I'm not going to talk about our response to Hurricane Katrina this afternoon but I simply want to underscore the fact that Albertans are caring and compassionate people. They supported each other from the very beginnings of this province and before, and they are there to support their neighbors, whether they are somewhere else in this country or around the world, be it the tsunami or now in the south Gulf states.

I want to thank the province and the Energy Utilities Board for the decision it made earlier this week to change regulations so that approximately I think 30,000 barrels of additional production can flow into the United States as part of our contribution to the International Energy Agency's emergency plan. They're missing something like six million barrels a day of crude in the southern states, 10% of their refining capacity. We see and feel the effects of that obviously directly and indirectly.

I have every hope that Vice President Cheney will be able to reschedule his trip and come and visit our province and meet more of the people of this province and understand the huge potential that this province has in terms of ensuring energy security for our country and for North America. But I do want, and it would be inappropriate for me not to acknowledge the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina and the challenges that our neighbors in the Gulf states are facing, and on behalf of the Prime Minister, I want to thank all Albertans for their tremendous outpouring of support for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

My job in the government is, in part, to coordinate the nation's response. We work closely with provinces and local governments like this one, where their urban search and rescue teams are ready to go at a moment's notice. Part of my job is to coordinate that response, so we know what the Americans need and we know what we have to offer and we get it there in the most timely and efficient fashion possible.

So I just want to, in conclusion, acknowledge the tragedy of our neighbors in the southern Gulf states and to thank all Albertans for your contributions, be it in dollars or in kind, to helping us and helping me directly meet our obligation as the United States' best friend and closest neighbor and ally in dealing with what is truly an unprecedented situation in its expanse and in its horror.

With that, while perhaps not a happy note as such, I want to thank you all for listening to me today. I want to wish you all a happy one hundredth birthday. It is an enormously important milestone and it is not only important for Albertans, it is important for all of our country, and I know that this province will continue to play and will play a bigger more prominent role in the next hundred years. This province will lead this nation and it is people like you who built this province. It will be your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren who will build this province for the next one hundred years and who will ensure that our country continues to be the best place in the world to live.

Thank you all very much.