Northern Alberta Métis community launches seven new oil sands partnerships to boost economic opportunity

From the Canadian Energy Centre

About 150 kilometres south of Fort McMurray, the Conklin region is responsible for nearly 1/3 of oil sands production

The predominantly Métis community of Conklin has launched seven new business partnerships in a bid to lift its opportunities in one of Alberta’s busiest oil sands regions.

From drilling to heavy machinery and pipelines, the new ventures will bring an economic and social boost to the community of 300 residents about 150 kilometres southeast of Fort McMurray.

“We’d like to focus more on getting local opportunities such as training, employment, maybe some subcontracting, to build the local businesses up and build our people up for local employment,” said Valerie Quintal, president of Conklin Métis Local 193.

“We are going to be planning with each one of them how we could better serve our community members.”

Quintal is also a director of the Conklin Resource Development Advisory Committee (CRDAC), which brokered the deals with companies including Brothers HDD, Gateway Mechanical Services and Surerus-Murphy Joint Venture.

CRDAC was established in 2008 to help the community engage with growing oil sands development in the Conklin region, said CEO Scott Duguid.

The area has become a hub for development using a technology called steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), which involves drilling horizontal well pairs and steam injection to produce oil sands crude.

“It was really developed when a lot of the SAGD development was in the application or the environment assessment phase and there was a huge push for regulatory consultation and engagement with government on regulatory applications for SAGD,” he said.

Métis cultural heritage is displayed alongside a map of development activity in the Conklin region. Photo courtesy CRDAC

The area around Conklin is now home to six major oil sands projects owned by the industry’s biggest producers. This includes Cenovus Energy’s Christina Lake facility, the largest so-called “in situ” project in the oil sands.

As of January 2024, the region produced more than 550,000 barrels per day, or nearly one-third of all oil sands production, according to the Alberta Energy Regulator.

CRDAC has partnerships in place with the big players in the region including Cenovus, Canadian Natural Resources and MEG Energy, Duguid said (including a unique home construction program with Cenovus).

But the new ventures take opportunity to the next layer, with companies that service or work for oil sands producers, he said.

Duguid said the group has partnerships in place with the big players in the region such as Cenovus, MEG, CNRL, and Harvest.

“There’s a fair amount of wealth being generated in the region and out of the South Athabasca oilsands. There’s a lot of work happening,” said Duguid.

“We as sort of a community representative organization are trying to put our hands up with some of these smaller industry players and saying ‘hey, we’re here, we have community members, we have a potential workforce, we may need training, we may need some capacity to ensure that our residents can be meaningfully employed, but we can work with you and for you.’”

The hope is that partnering with these mid-level businesses will provide an opportunity for grassroots Conklin businesses to grow, he said.

Some of the revenue from the partnerships will come back to the community to support social programs such as healthcare, housing, and substance abuse treatment.

“It’s hugely significant for the community,” Duguid said.

Gateway Mechanical Services’ Dean Seiz said the company reached out to CRDAC last year to see if they would be interested in a working relationship.

“Basically, the long-term goal is to see if there are any community members that would be interested in maybe getting into the trades that Gateway does,” Seiz said.

The company, with its head office in Edmonton, provides heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), plumbing and refrigeration services across Western Canada. It has nine locations for regional offices with about 275 technicians.

“It’s a work in progress with Scott [Duguid] and the community to see what’s important to the community to make things work,” Seiz said.

Related Topics:#CanadianEnergyCentre #ConklinAlberta #ConklinMetisLocal193 #ConklinResourceDevelopmentAdvisoryCommittee #MarioToneguzzi

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Published on July 26, 2024

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From the Fraser Institute

By Matthew Lau

To understand Ottawa’s negative impact on Alberta’s economy and living standards, juxtapose two recent pieces of data.

First, in July the Trudeau government made three separate “economic development” spending announcements in Alberta, totalling more than $80 million and affecting 37 different projects related to the “green economy,” clean technology and agriculture. And second, as noted in a new essay by Fraser Institute senior fellow Kenneth Green, inflation-adjusted business investment (excluding residential structures) in Canada’s extraction sector (mining, quarrying, oil and gas) fell 51.2 per cent from 2014 to 2022.

The productivity gains that raise living standards and improve economic conditions rely on business investment. But business investment in Canada has declined over the past decade and total economic growth per person (inflation-adjusted) from Q3-2015 through to Q1-2024 has been less than 1 per cent versus robust growth of nearly 16 per cent in the United States over the same period.

For Canada’s extraction sector, as Green documents, federal policies—new fuel regulations, extended review processes on major infrastructure projects, an effective ban on oil shipments on British Columbia’s northern coast, a hard greenhouse gas emissions cap targeting oil and gas, and other regulatory initiatives—are largely to blame for the massive decline in investment.

Meanwhile, as Ottawa impedes private investment, its latest bundle of economic development announcements underscores its strategy to have government take the lead in allocating economic resources, whether for infrastructure and public institutions or for corporate welfare to private companies.

Consider these federally-subsidized projects.

A gas cloud imaging company received $4.1 million from taxpayers to expand marketing, operations and product development. The Battery Metals Association of Canada received $850,000 to “support growth of the battery metals sector in Western Canada by enhancing collaboration and education stakeholders.” A food manufacturer in Lethbridge received $5.2 million to increase production of plant-based protein products. Ermineskin Cree Nation received nearly $400,000 for a feasibility study for a new solar farm. The Town of Coronation received almost $900,000 to renovate and retrofit two buildings into a business incubator. The Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada received $400,000 for marketing and other support to help boost clean technology product exports. And so on.

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Matthew Lau

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‘Fireworks’ As Defence Opens Case In Coutts Two Trial

Published on July 25, 2024

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Ray McGinnis

Anthony Olienick and Chris Carbert are on trial for conspiracy to commit murder and firearms charges in relation to the Coutts Blockade into mid-February 2022. In opening her case before a Lethbridge, AB, jury on July 11, Olienick’s lawyer, Marilyn Burns stated “This is a political, criminal trial that is un Canadian.” She told the jury, “You will be shocked, and at the very least, disappointed with how Canada’s own RCMP conducted themselves during and after the Coutts protest,” as she summarized officers’ testimony during presentation of the Crown’s case. Burns also contended that “the conduct of Alberta’s provincial government and Canada’s federal government are entwined with the RCMP.” The arrests of the Coutts Four on the night of February 13 and noon hour of February 14, were key events in a decision by the Clerk of the Privy Council, Janice Charette, and the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister, Jody Thomas, to advise Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to invoke the Emergencies Act. Chief Justice Paul Rouleau, in submitting his Public Order Emergency Commission Report to Parliament on February 17, 2023, also cited events at the Coutts Blockade as key to his conclusion that the government was justified in invoking the Emergencies Act.

Justice David Labrenz cautioned attorney Burns regarding her language, after Crown prosecutor Stephen Johnson objected to some of the language in the opening statement of Olienick’s counsel. Futher discussion about the appropriateness of attorney Burns’ statement to the jury is behind a publication ban, as discussions occurred without the jury present.

Justice Labrenz told the jury on July 12, “I would remind you that the presumption of innocence means that both the accused are cloaked with that presumption, unless the Crown proves beyond a reasonable doubt the essential elements of the charge(s).” He further clarified what should result if the jurors were uncertain about which narrative to believe: the account by the Crown, or the account from the accused lawyers. Labrenz stated that such ambivalence must lead to an acquittal; As such a degree of uncertainty regarding which case to trust in does not meet the “beyond a reasonable doubt” threshold for a conviction.”

On July 15, 2024, a Lethbridge jury heard evidence from a former employer of Olienicks’ named Brian Lambert. He stated that he had tasked Olienick run his sandstone quarry and mining business. He was a business partner with Olienick. In that capacity, Olienick made use of what Lambert referred to as “little firecrackers,” to quarry the sandstone and reduce it in size. Reducing the size of the stone renders it manageable to get refined and repurposed so it could be sold to buyers of stone for other uses (building construction, patio stones, etc.) Lambert explained that the “firecrackers” were “explosive devices” packaged within tubing and pipes that could also be used for plumbing. He detailed how “You make them out of ordinary plumbing pipe and use some kind of propellant like shotgun powder…” Lambert explained that the length of the pipe “…depended on how big a hole or how large a piece of stone you were going to crack. The one I saw was about six inches long … maybe an inch in diameter.”

One of Olienick’s charges is “unlawful possession of an explosive device for a dangerous purpose.” The principal evidence offered up by RCMP to the Crown is what the officers depicted as “pipe bombs” which they obtained at the residence of Anthony Olienick in Claresholm, Alberta, about a two-hour drive from Coutts. Officers entered his home after he was arrested the night of February 13, 2022. Lambert’s testimony offers a plausible common use for the “firecrackers” the RCMP referred to as “pipe bombs.” Lambert added, these “firecrackers” have a firecracker fuse, and in the world of “explosive” they are “no big deal.”

Fellow accused, Chris Carbert, is does not face the additional charge of unlawful possession of explosives for a dangerous purpose. This is the first full week of the case for the defence. The trial began on June 6 when the Crown began presenting its case.

Ray McGinnis is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy who recently attended several days of testimony at the Coutts Two trial.