Oilsands Sector Rescued Newfoundland: Rex Murphy

If the oilsands sector needed a morale boost, it came from an unlikely source recently.

CBC journalist and commentator Rex Murphy, the keynote speaker at an event co-hosted by Leah Costello and the Economic Club of Canada on Friday, reminded those in the industry of the importance of their work.

“Remember the good that you are doing. If you are acting faithfully and with integrity, exercising the skills you have in the task you’ve been paid to perform, feel extremely good about it. You’re on the crest of the most exciting development on this continent,” he told the Calgary audience.

In a lengthy speech covering a range of issues, Murphy thanked the industry for throwing a lifeline to Newfoundland, exhorting those in the industry to take pride in their work, and take the criticism of their opponents with a grain of salt.

“Don’t buy the indictments of your enemies,” he said, reciting a list of the industry’s critics that included David Suzuki, Al Gore, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and much of the North American environmental movement.

Should those in the oilsands sector be inclined to forget their own contribution, Murphy recalled the scenario Newfoundlanders faced when the province’s fishing industry collapsed in the early 1990s. When Ottawa imposed a moratorium on the cod fishery, 20 years ago, roughly 31,000 people across Newfoundland were put out of work.

Many, if not most, had spent a lifetime in the fishery, often with little formal education, and the layoffs affected men and women of all ages. Yet, within two or three years, many who had lost jobs began heading West, eventually finding jobs in Calgary, Red Deer, Edmonton and, of course, the Fort McMurray area, where many Newfoundlanders work today.

They didn’t come just from Newfoundland, Murphy said. “From all provinces, from all over the country, people headed up to this miracle in the oilsands, and we had the first real bonding of people from all provinces in a single work project.”

“You forestalled a major social calamity,” he said. “The East Coast barely took a skiff from the worst disaster that befell them since Confederation. You saved us from the recession, and gave us a shield against the wind of a violent economic storm. You rescued the social life of at least a third of the Dominion. You should be on the stamps. Don’t you understand that?”

In recent years, Murphy noted, people have complained about Canada’s lack of great, national projects akin to the Canadian Pacific Railway. “They keep babbling about ‘where are the great 19th Century projects [and] where’s our railway for the 21st Century?’”

Yet, he argued, had today’s environmentalists lived in the 19th century, most great projects would never have seen the light of day. “Do you think, if there had been a Suzuki Foundation, Elizabeth May, the Sierra Club and all that tribe around in the 19th century, there would have been a railway? They would have been fighting for the return of the Pogo Stick,” he said.

“If the insane, almost suicidal impulse [against industrial] development … was present in the 19th century, you would’ve had no railway. They would’ve had blockades [and] environmental assessments every six [railroad] ties.”

Yet, recalling the hard times his province saw following the cod fishery’s collapse, Murphy asked where the environmentalists were then. “When Newfoundlanders lost their jobs, did the Sierra Club stand up? Did they say, ‘Hey, we’ve got 5,000 [unemployed] people over here, let’s collect some more money?’ Did the Green Party say, ‘we have a couple of thousand jobs out here in B.C.?’ I didn’t hear that.”

Today, as environmentalists continue to oppose the oilsands, he questioned what they expected from the industry. “Shut down the oilsands? Sure. What is it, 100,000 jobs now? Send all those men and women home? Amputate their career plans? Leave thousands of children wondering what has happened? Put a hold on the energy requirements of this country?”

Instead of dwelling on criticism of the oilsands industry, those involved should recall its importance in the context of Canada’s current national life, he argued.

“You are a playground for a refashioning of the Confederation of the 21st century, and there’s no other place in which citizens from all of Canada are getting such realistic knowledge and contact with one another than they’re getting here [in Alberta],” he said.

“The biggest thing you should be exulting about is that, with capital, patience and negotiation, you put this [industry] together. You advanced the technology, extended the frontiers of exploration, and brought in new technology, but most of all, you provided jobs.”