Brad Anderson

Alberta Chamber of Resources

2/19/2016

BUILDING ON THE PAST

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Alberta Chamber of Resources Script for 80th Annual General Meeting Shaw Conference Centre, Edmonton, Albert February 19, 2016

Building on the Past Brad Anderson

Thank you, Leon, and good morning everyone.

It’s my job, this morning, to look back on the ACR’s first 80 years of operations. I won’t keep you

too long. For one thing, you’ll have lots of other opportunities to learn about our history, today. And for

another, as a geologist, I’m not too bad a historian about the Cretaceous Period, but I’m not so hot at

much faster-paced human history. And the history of the ACR is nothing if not a history of people.

In going over the historical record, it all made me feel that I was a part of something bigger than

just me, my times and my priorities. It instilled in me a huge sense of responsibility to live up to my

predecessors. This is a very old organization that has intersected and affected the lives of hundreds of

thousands, maybe even millions, of people over eighty years. We owe our livelihoods to the past.

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A couple of things had to happen the way they did for us to be together in this room. The first is

the transfer of jurisdiction over resources from the federal to the provincial government in 1930, as

depicted here with the signing of the agreement. That’s Prime Minister McKenzie King with Alberta

Premier Brownlee to his left.

I won’t go too much into the history of this. But just note, for now, that it was one of the key

events in the history of our province, and that if it hadn’t happened we would exist, if at all, as a regional

office of a national organization.

As it was, about six years after this photo was taken, the Alberta Chamber of Resources was

founded. And, sequentially, that’s the other thing that had to happen. Someone had to recognize the

need for and establish an organization like this one.

One of those people was Hubert Somerville. As described in this article, which we wrote a few

years ago, he played a key role in the transfer, and a persuasive subsequent role in the formation of the

Chamber. For decades afterwards, as Deputy Minister of Alberta Mines and Minerals, he was a special

representative on our Board. And, as I’ll show you in a moment, he was our President in 1976.

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Incidentally, by the time of our incorporation Mr. Brownlee’s government had yielded to that of

Premier William Aberhart’s. Brownlee was of the United Farmers Party, Mr. Arberhart of the Social

Credit. And, as you can see from this table, we’ve worked with quite a variety of provincial governments

over the many years of our operations. We’ve spoken a lot about change, lately. But it’s not like we

haven’t seen it before.

We were formed, not as the ACR, but as the Edmonton Chamber of Mines, and about a month

later as the Alberta and Northwest Chamber of Mines, concerned mostly with the supply of southern

labour, goods and services to the hard-rock mines of the northern Territories. And, then, during the war

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years, we broadened the scope to include a broader suite of resources—energy products, for one. Again

to get a bit ahead of myself, we reincorporated as the Alberta Chamber of Resources in 1977.

Name Affiliation Start of

Term

Robert C. Marshall Crown Paving and Construction Co. Limited 1936

John Michaels Provincial News Limited 1941

Charles E. Garnett Gorman’s Limited 1942

Walter A. Macdonald Edmonton Journal 1943

Lt. Col H.E. Pearson Taylor, Pearson & Carson (Edmonton) Limited 1944

Clarence D. Jacox Great Western Garment Co. Ltd. 1946

John A. Allan University of Alberta 1947

William J. Dick Unknown 1948

Alex M. MacDonald Gainers Limited 1950

Julian Garrett Northwestern Utilities Ltd. 1951

Dennis Kestell Yorath Northwestern Utilities Ltd. 1952

R.V. MacCosham MacCosham’s Storage and Distributing 1953

A.M. Berry (Matt) Ad Astra Minerals Limited 1953

D.J. Avison Imperial Oil Limited 1954

Thomas P. Fox Associated Airways Ltd. 1955

J.C. Dale Canadian Utilities Limited 1956

E.O. Lilge University of Alberta 1957

William V. Wilkin Wilkin Insurance 1958

Edgar Andrews Cawker Morgan Nicholson Limited 1959

Carlton (Carl) W. Clement Clement, Parlee, Wittaker, Irving, Mustard & Rodney 1960

Lew W. White Imperial Oil Ltd. 1961

George Gray Canadian Industries Limited 1962

Geoffrey C. Hamilton City of Edmonton 1963

Vernon B. Hayward Hayward’s Lumber Co. Limited 1964

Harold E. Lake Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited 1965

Lloyd Evans Wilson Futurity Oils Ltd. 1966

C.H. Pardee Pardee Equipment Limited 1967

David Ritter Jacox Northern Division, Pacific Western Airlines 1968

Egerton Warren King Canadian Utilities Limited 1969

Edward (Ted) Eversley Bishop Bishop & McKenzie 1970

W.B. (Bruce) Hunter Northern Transportation Company Ltd. 1971

Hugh J.S. (Sandy) Pearson Century Sales & Service 1972

Stanley A. Milner Chieftain Development Co. Ltd. 1973

Lawrence O. Olsen (Buck) Hamilton & Olsen Surveys 1974

Norman A. Lawrence Associated Engineering Services Ltd. 1975

Hubert H. Somerville Alberta Department of Mines and Minerals, Deputy Minister (retired) 1976

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Here’s a list of our presidents from 1936… you’ll find a copy in your program. I’ll make just a few,

quick observations from this list.

One obvious one is that we’ve had a lot of presidents. By this list I count Leon as our 62nd… and

our 59th. Ron, welcome as our 63rd! We don’t have eighty because, for one thing, the term changed from

one year to two in the mid-1980s.

As today, a lot of these people were among the brightest lights of their times:

We had the publisher of the Edmonton Journal during one of the war years

John Allan was a luminary in my field, the founder of the Geology Department at the U. of A.

Matt Berry was one of Canada’s “most famous airmen”

Name Affiliation Start of

Term

Charles Murray Trigg Trigg, Woollett, Olsen Consulting 1977

Fred R. Dorward Dorward Enterprises Ltd. 1978

C.R.S. Montgomery Numac Oil & Gas Co. 1979

Don L. Flock University of Alberta 1980

Richard H. Ostrosser Westmin Resources Limited 1981

Elmer W. Brooker EBA Engineering Consultants Ltd. 1982

Don M. Murray Atcor Resources Ltd. 1983

Neil Colvin Sherritt Gordon Mines 1984

Dennis Love Syncrude Canada Ltd. 1986

Gordon Willmon Imperial Oil Ltd. 1988

Mike Supple Suncor Oil Sands Group 1990

Erdal YILDIRIM Canadian Occidental Petroleum 1992

Eric Newell Syncrude Canada Ltd. 1994

Jim Popowich Fording Coal 1996

Pat Daniel Enbridge Pipelines 1998

Ron Laing Inland Cement 1999

Bill Hunter Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries 2000

Art Meyer Enbridge Pipelines Inc. 2002

John Zahary Harvest Operations Corp. 2004

Roger Thomas Nexen Inc. 2006

Tim Ryan Ainsworth Engineered Canada LP 2008

Gord Ball Syncrude Canada Ltd. 2010

Leon Zupan Enbridge Pipelines 2012

David Middleton Penn West Exploration 2012

David Corriveau Shell Canada Energy 2013

Leon Zupan Enbridge Pipelines 2013

Ron Kruhlak McLennan Ross 2016

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And, as I mentioned, Hubert Somerville was a former Deputy Minister of Alberta Mines and

Minerals

Murray Trigg was president during our 1977 transition year. And, for now, I won’t go any further

down the list, because I still know many of those who follow and could sing their praises all day…

The other list I’ll show you is a shorter one: my predecessors and I. There are just six of us, which

yields an average of just over 13 years of service each. I’ve been here for 16 years so you might say I’m

three years past due.

Mike Finland was a famous flyer and mining engineer credited with the discovery of the Con

Mine. Bud Chesney, a mining engineer, helped out as Assistant Manager in the late sixties before taking

over in 1971. He yielded to Harold Page in 1977. Harold was a chemical engineer, Suncor Executive, and

the perfect choice to usher the Chamber into a new age. And Don is my immediate predecessor and

long-time hero. Don’s here today.

I’ve left Leonard Drummond for last because I’d like to focus there for just a moment or two. I’d

like to try to gauge how far we’ve come over the last eighty years, by imagining what would happen if

we could bring someone, like Leonard Drummond, forward in time.

To do that, I need to tell you just a little about him and the ACR’s earliest days.

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Here he is, on the left, in 1948, with former President Robert Marshall, I assume at the AGM for

that year.

He was born in Winnipeg in 1880. That makes him a contemporary of people like Helen Keller

who, faced with the severest kind of adversity, conquered it. “Optimism is the faith that leads to

achievement,” she said. “Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” I know these words to

inspire one of our new directors, Corey Goulet of TransCanada. And I don’t see why Mr. Drummond

might not have been the champion of optimism, faith and achievement as well.

He went to the School of Mines at Kingston and also Queen’s University, where he graduated

with a B.Sc. in 1903. He worked in the coal industry in Nova Scotia, and later ended up in Alberta

working in the mining department of CP Rail. In 1920 he entered into private practice as a consulting

engineer.

Leonard helped form the Chamber to create opportunities for local businesses and countless

unemployed persons in the midst of the Great Depression. And it was a very courageous and optimistic

path to take… especially for him, since he was the only one staking his salary on it—and, closing in on

sixty, he would not have been a young man at that point.

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In his report of the first Chamber air tour in 1936, he noted that “The subject of transportation is

very vital to those operating in the northern areas,” and this motif plays loud and clear throughout his

term and, you could argue, down to our times with Craig Clifton and his ACR Transportation Committee.

In the interests of time, I’m going to cheat Leonard’s legacy a bit by fast-forwarding to 1962.

He’d passed away by then, with management passing to Mike Finland. But I think Leonard would still

have recognized the Chamber based on the services it offered as described on the back of the 1962

annual report.

And let me say, as an aside, that although, yes, mining was the focus of things like the air tour,

dig a little deeper and you’ll find abiding and growing references to a resource base much richer and

more diverse than that.

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To stick somewhat randomly with 1962, on the Board we had representatives from the

transportation, legal, service, steel, and energy industries, among others. The oil sands were beginning

to become newsworthy with good reason. There was a page devoted to electric power—hydro, diesel,

steam, and coal for Wabamum. The basket of minerals included silver, lead, zinc, iron, copper, nickel,

and uranium, not all of it from the North. And beyond business, other reports around this time begin to

speak of environmental responsibility and ways to bring about greater degrees of aboriginal

participation in economic opportunity associated with resource development. “Mines” featured in our

name in capital letters, but our interests were sectorally diverse, even then.

So, Leonard would have found some comfort in 1962. But what about 2016?

Well, using our current strategic framework as a symbol of our times, I think he’d be most

disappointed with the disappearance of the employment service and the narrowing of our focus away

from the territories. To a smaller extent, and Mike Finland to a greater one, he would likely be

disappointed as well by the grounding of the air tour.

The vilification of the resource industry from some quarters these days might confuse him.

Resources made quality of life in his day better—and given the war years that he lived through, he might

even have gone so far as to say they helped keep us from tyranny. But these treasures were not easily

won and the pioneers who found and unlocked them would have been among his best heroes, as they

are for me.

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Mostly, though, I think he’d be pleased.

The speeds and variety of modes of moving people and products around, and the size and

distance of markets, might amaze him, but he’d be pleased, I think, to see that transportation still plays

such a key role in what we do.

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I think Leonard Drummond would be thrilled to learn about all the good things that we’ve done

over the years in the field of education, some of which are depicted here. That’s MIAC top left, and

DIAC—the Dam Integrity Advisory Committee—bottom left.

Under Don Currie’s watch and in partnership with the department of Alberta Education, we put

together International Comparisons in Education: Curriculum, Values and Lessons, in 1992, that explored

the links between education and economic excellence.

And that’s Ernie Wirtanen, bottom right, receiving the ACR Uncommon Friend award from Jim

Carter in 2002; Jim had honoured him that year for his “heartfelt generosity and uncommon gifts to

others as a result of what his colleagues [had] dubbed Wirtanen University,” now called the George

Wirtanen School, which is about to graduate its 998th student later this month. These are high-potential

pre-apprentice electricians who might not otherwise have had a chance to make something of

themselves, and a great example of society and economy winning thanks to the visionary efforts of

business.

Actually, John Gullion, who turns on the lights in the morning at the Wirtanen Foundation, is

here today. As a bit of an aside, although an aside relevant to the history of this organization, John tells

me that he got a job in his younger years with the Gunnar Mine through the Chamber employment

service in 1958. I’d say that our single service to him has now been repaid 998 times over, and that’s an

excellent return for everyone. Thanks John.

Including its leader, Andy Neigel, much of the team from CAREERS: The Next Generation, an

outfit we started in the 1990s, is here today. And they’re still doing great work placing thousands of

students in the trades.

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Aboriginal engagement and inclusion—represented, for example, in our work shown on this

slide—would have made sense to Mr. Drummond. And so would having, for over 25 years, aboriginal

business leaders on our board of directors helping to guide us. Joe Dion is our newest director; but our

partnership runs back at least as far as the times of leaders like Dave Tuccaro and Doug Golosky.

And then there’s innovation, which could be depicted in a thousand different ways. But let me

choose a landmark moment in the history of this province: Leduc Number One. That’s John McDougall’s

grandfather on the left… for all I know, Leonard Drummond might have been there the very same day.

And, the point is, we’ve done nothing but get better at resource development since then.

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Leonard Drummond, too, certainly would have understood the role that technology played in

resource development, and although he might have had some difficulty wrapping his head around the

technicalities of some of today’s resource industry innovations, I think the Oil Sands Technology

Roadmap would have made it onto his top-ten reading list. The size of things—workforces, projects,

investments—would have stunned him, but he’d understand better than most the linkages and

synergies between organizations like the ACR and the Construction Owners Association of Alberta. And

the vision of the ACR Task Force on Resource Development and The Economy—the potential of $700

billion incremental GDP growth by 2020—would, again, have stretched the limits of his imagination.

Having said that, there were big projects in his day that resonate to this day… like the Alaska

Highway which began construction in March 1942 and, after a fashion, was completed by October. It’s a

bit apples and oranges, I know, but try to get anything done these days anywhere near that fast. I think

he’d be stunned at how long major project approvals can take 80 years on.

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He might have been particularly amazed at what’s happened in the oil sands. He referred to the

resource in 1937 as the “tar sands,” not then a pejorative. He understood the deposits to be “of almost

unlimited extent.” That his chamber—as best exemplified by the work of its National Oil Sands Task

Force and the signing of the Declaration of Opportunity twenty years ago—had played such key role

unleashing their potential would have delighted him, perhaps, more than anything down through our

80-year record.

We spread our wings and grew beyond our beginnings, and I think, like a doting parent, he’d be

proud of us for doing that.

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And, finally, to bring it as up-to-date as I can, I’d like to draw the connection between the work

represented on that last slide, and the work represented on this one. Leon referred to it earlier, and that

is the recent finding of the Alberta Royalty Review Advisory Panel that Alberta’s oil sands royalty system,

as recommended by my ACR predecessors almost exactly twenty years ago and implemented not long

after, with a change in rates in 2007, is essentially state of the art. I was working elsewhere at the time,

and so can take no credit for the work of the Task Force—although I was Director of Oil Sands Policy for

the Alberta Department of Energy when we passed the generic oil sands royalty regime. The way the

ACR handled itself back then attracted me to the ACR.

And credit to Erdal Yildirim, pictured here, who helped set the Task Force up in the 1980s and

carried it through to the release of the report in 1995.

As represented by the Panel’s review—and all the credit to them for doing such an excellent

job—it is as fine an example as I can think of, of our truly standing on the shoulders of those who came

before us.

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As for the future? The agenda says I would look forward, but Leon’s going to do that. And,

besides, with John McDougall and all the others, we have a great roster of speakers coming up who will

also address, I think, some of the key pillars of our future success.

One last thought: “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision,” said

Helen Keller. And vision, rarely in short supply the last eighty years, will carry us through, with your help,

the next twenty to our hundredth anniversary. Thank you.