Stelmach and Emerson Both Speaking at Oilsands National Buyer/Seller Forum

There is an amazing amount of activity in and around the oilsands these days. Deferred projects are back on the front burners, mergers are happening and foreign investment is looking aggressively for places to play. The impact of the oil sands development in Alberta, across the country and throughout North America and now infiltrating into Asia has been the focus of many project conversations and contract negotiations for at least a decade.


The Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association have been sponsoring the National Buyers and Sellers Forum for a decade now too. It brings people into Edmonton from all over the world to look at how they can participate in the opportunities inherent in Alberta‘s oil sand development. To underscore the importance of future oilsands development Premier Stelmach and The Honourable David Emerson, Chair of the Premier’s Council for Economic Strategy are both speaking at a National Buyers and Sellers Forum dinner on March 23 in Edmonton.

The theme for this year’s NBSF is aptly entitled “The Maturing of the Oil Sands.” I like the theme because it has a few nuances around the concept of maturity. There is enough longitudinal experience with the oilsands, as well as recognition that it is more than economics but also an environmental and a social concern.

Consistent with the theme, Premier Stelmach will be speaking on his government’s priorities with particular attention to the new Competitiveness Act. David Emerson will be making the first public presentation on the progress of the Premier’s Council for Economic Strategy as it delves into the unique challenges and opportunities for the future wellbeing and prosperity of Alberta.

There is an estimated $1Trillion of economic value to be created by oil sands development in the next decade. Environmental responsibility and energy efficiency are rapidly emerging part of the corporate culture and consciousness in oil sands development. The recoverable oilsands, using current technology, and at current commodity prices is a $25Trillion asset.

This oilsands asset is owned by each and every Albertan and we each individually have a $4.5million stake in the potential of that resource. This is not just a get rich quick opportunity. But it is an enormous opportunity for individual Albertans to realize the benefits and burdens we have carry to ensure we can be proud and profit from its proper exploitation.

As the owner of the oilsands, every Albertan needs to become more aware, informed and engaged in the public policy discussions on it responsible and sustainable effective development. I am a big fan of oilsands development but see it as an integrated social, ecological, economic and political set of issues and opportunities. Government is our agent and proxy holder and it supposed to serve our best interests. Industry is our tenant and contracted to develop the resource for the benefit of investors, markets and the greater good. That will only happen if citizens are duly diligent, engaged and informed enough to insist that these goals are all served.

I will be doing a future blog post on the Premier’s remarks and Chairman Emerson’s comment too at the dinner to try and add to the light and reduce some of the heat around oilsands development. I hope this will help Albertans get tuned in, stay tuned in and make sure that government and industry are in tune with the hopes and aspirations of Albertans around proper development of our oilsands.

BTW if you are interested attending in the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association NBSF, you can register here.

Reboot Alberta is Getting Momentum

When I see Letters to the Editor like this one by Alan Hayman I get the sense that there is a real possibility of serious citizen's movement forming around a more progressive political culture in Alberta.  This is independent proof for me that the Reboot Alberta Citizens Movement exists and is growing.  The conservative culture wars between the reactionay Stelmach government and the reductive Smith wanna-be government is waking up and unnerving the somnabulist centre of the Alberta citizenry. 

We Albertans have had a pretty easy ride for quite some time. We have become dis-engaged, complacent queiscent and querulous in our relationship to our govenment and governors.  We have recently come to the realization that it is our province, our govenment and our resources and our responsibility to do something about the direction and desitination that the reactionary right is pushing our province.  We are now becoming respondant instead of dispondent as we see the unrealized potential and unrequited response to crystallizing concerns of citizens over the legacy w of environmental degradation and debt we are leaving our children.

The tired old and tedious tendency to see everything as right and wrong, left and right, us and them, winners and losers is past its prime and turning into something very dangerous in our new interdependent global reality.  We need to get past the pro-forma political positioning of traditional partisan poliitics that sees choices between the idealization of the welfare state or the ideology of the markets as the only optoins open to us.

We need a pragmatic progressive political culture that builds on the strengths of the welfare state and the marketplace but also finds ways to overcome their weaknesses. We need citizens to reinvigorate and to return to the public life of a vibrant democracy.  Fear-mongering and an epidemic of ennui are not viable go-forward attitudes for Albertans.

Join the Reboot Alberta Citizen's Movement and be the change you want to see happen You only have yourself to blame if it does not happen.

Alberta Venture Magazine "The Right Call" Column is On-Line.

Here is the link to the March edition of Alberta Venture magazine and The Right Call column on business ethics that I often contribute to.  This month we tackle about what to do with an employee who publicly expresses views in conflict with a company's mission.

This month the other contributors are Heather Douglas the CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and Janet Keeping, President of the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics and Leadership along with our noble leader and author, Fil Fraser. 

Alberta Venture also did a review of the book Green Oil written by my business partner Satya Das. 

Is Violence and Abuse of Women and Children a Significant Concern for Albertans?

With Karen Bigelow’s breakthrough as the first female to win a Directing Oscar I guess we can assume all is well with the plight of women in the world and International Women’s Day is no longer needed. NOT.


On a much more significant and serious note but with much less buzz here is a piece from Mother Jones that showed up in my mailbox this morning on violence against vulnerable women in the world. The hypocrisy of the American’s proposing to domestically pass such “international” legislation may be one focus to view this effort. Even though they will not, for example, sign on to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child or the International Criminal Court I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that this “International Violence Against Women Act” is well intended, not just naïve and hypocritical as it appears at first blush.

The problem of violence against women and children is growing especially in poor and countries devastated by wars (Afghanistan) and disasters (Haiti). The evidence is that violence, exploitation and abuse of women and children is growing. I don't know what to suggest as solutions but I know others who do.  I sure do recognize the seriousness of the problems but wonder where the pressure will come from to make serious changes on the ground and not just pandering political photo-op efforts.

Is Canada doing its share to help solve the problems? Prime Minister Harper mused months go about dealing with the problems at the upcoming G20 meeting in Canada this summer. Nothing much has come from his re-calibrated government on the subject since - except to say that foreign aid will be frozen.  Will anyone follow up and stand up on these issues for women in Canada and abroad?  Or are we just so disengaged and disillusioned with democracy that we just can't be bothered!

The Reboot Alberta survey of progressive’s values found that 85% of us a concerned about abuse of women and children around the world as one of the Creative Culture questions we canvassed. Of course there is an amazing amount of work to do about these issues right here in Alberta too but the problems are not mutually exclusive due to geography or culture.

I wonder if anyone in the Reboot Alberta movement will be picking up on this concern of violence and abuse of women and children and making it a matter of political importance. In the meantime happy belated International Women’s Day.

Reboot Alberta Survey Helps Define Progressive Values in Alberta

One of the directions coming out of the Reboot Alberta launch event late last November was a request to get a better understanding about what we meant by the term “progressive” in a 21st century Alberta context. Part of that exploration was a number of blogs and discussion papers posted on the Reboot Alberta website under the “What is a Progressive” link.


Another part of the exploration of “What is a Progressive” was a conjoint survey to study some value preferences that progressives see as important to guide and drive policy advisers and politicians when they make laws, regulations and public policy pronouncements that impact the lives of Albertans.

The survey tracked 22 such values using a most/least approach to determine the highest and lowest values that progressives believe should be applied to how we are governed. The survey also asked some attitudinal and satisfaction questions and asked about some engagement questions about Alberta too. It also looked at the influence of the participants and inquired about if survey participants were cultural creatives too. The survey results also give some significant insight in what it means to be a progressive in Alberta these days.

A total of 544 people completed the survey between January 30 and February 11, 2010 and a pretty distinct and consistent picture of what is an Alberta progressive emerged. The top five values progressives want to see used to guide and drive politicians were overwhelmingly dominated by Integrity, Honesty, Accountability, Transparency and Environmental Stewardship. Over 90% of participants have one of these values and their #1 choice. This consistency of progressive beliefs about what are the important values to judge how well we are being governed is very strong.

I was curious if these values were rated to high is because they are so obviously foundational to good government that they would of course rise to the top. Or was it because the perception is that yes they are important but there is a sense we are not seeing them applied now so that is why they are the most crucial governing values. I surveyed the 124 people at Reboot2.0 with those choices. Rough count was about 80% at Reboot2.0 had done the survey. An even larger number at Reboot2.0 believed these values were most important because they felt they were lacking in how we are being governed today.

That straw vote at Reboot2.0 pretty much determines the reasoning for the dominance of these values and provides some significant focus where Alberta’s progressives thinking about politics, governance and power in our province these days.

The next grouping of important value drivers for progressives in Alberta who did the survey was Wisdom, Well-being, Equity, Fiscal Responsibility and Respect for Diversity. When you add these values to the top five you start to get a substantial sense of what progressives in Alberta are thinking and paying attention to their relationship with democracy, politics, government and governance. On Sunday Morning participants at Reboot2.0 were asked to look at this group of values and use them to share what they saw as a preferred vision for Alberta. I will share those outcomes and their implications for the political agenda in Alberta in future blog posts as well.

I will also share the outcomes of the Influentials assessment and the level of Cultural Creative engagement of the survey participants. Influentials are the 10% of the general populations whose opinions matter to the rest of us as we try to make sense of a complex and fast changing world. The Reboot Alberta survey participants are astonishing Influential with 88% of them qualifying in the survey. That means if the progressives in the Reboot Alberta movement ever start using their influence they will be a force for any political party, government, governing agency, board or commission to pay close attention to what they are saying. That influence is already being shown given the rapid rise of participation and awareness of Reboot Alberta in the 100 days or so since it came on the scene in late November 2009.

The alignment of progressive Albertans with the growth or the Cultural Creative component of society is also extraordinarily strong. Paul Ray has done extensive work on defining and tracking the growing power and potential of cultural creatives to influence the society we see emerging in Alberta. Again a full 86% of progressives who took the survey were overwhelmingly in sync with the values of cultural creatives. The 18 value elements Paul Ray uses to test for qualifying as a cultural creative were used. I will deal with some of those elements and the implications for progressive values and the future of Alberta in follow up blog posts.

The survey tested the level of satisfaction and personal engagement participants had towards the province. This was perhaps the most interesting aspect of the survey findings. It shows that progressive Albertans are kind of iffy about what they say about living in Alberta and if they would strongly recommend people move here. But they are overwhelming committed to the future of the province and believe their personal actions are contributing positively to the future well being of the province. That coupled with a very strong sense of dissatisfaction with how we are being governed currently and a belief that the government is not listening nor considering the opinions of progressives.

This all makes for a very volatile political future for the province espeically IF Alberta's progressives decide to engage, use their influence and start forming into an activist citizen’s movement.  That would be a new force to drive some serious changes in the direction of the political culture of our province.  It will be an effective counterbalance the more radical social conservative, social libertarian and short-term shallow fiscal and environmental policy thinking we have seen happening in the province.