Leadership Across Borders

I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada—right in the heart of the energy industry in North America. I have the luxury of not working in the industry but am a keen observer of what happens in it day to day.

In early May, I was invited to one of those breakfasts that promise a quasi-famous speaker and a standard breakfast of eggs, bacon, and fruit. Well, I got the usual fare, but the speaker turned out to be so much more than expected.

Rex Murphy is a radio commentator for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). I had listened to Murphy occasionally and thought he was pretty levelheaded despite the company he kept at the national broadcaster, but still …

Well, Murphy, Newfoundland accent on full display, tore into the anti-oil and gas crowd. Okay, he was preaching to the choir—a conservative group of oil and gas industry types in oil country. Yet, within a minute or two, it was clear this was going to be something different.

Murphy demanded that the oil and gas industry and, especially, its leaders stop accepting the indictments of the environmentalists and those on the left. He wanted to know why the oil and gas industry—which has done so much good in the world—has accepted the accusations of the opposition.
As his voice rose, he pointed out that the oil and gas industry has nothing to apologize for—absolutely nothing. Murphy drove home that the industry provides jobs—real productive jobs— often in places where such jobs are few and far between. He made the case that working, creating something, leaving a legacy are requirements of the human condition: that without meaningful work, life is empty.

As he warmed up to the topic with the crowd now fully awake, he made the case that, in fact, the oil and gas industry saves lives. Newfoundland for most of its existence was poor with low-paying jobs or seasonal ones like fishing. Murphy, while growing up there, had seen the damage done to marriages, families, and community when there just were not enough dollars to go around.

Oil, in Newfoundland’s case offshore oil, changed all that. Families that might have fallen apart under the strains of unemployment were together. Communities that had watched generation after generation leave in search of work were thriving. Businesses were thriving. This is an evil industry?

In full flight, Murphy then turned to the good that the oil and gas industry has brought to society. He talked about the technological advancements (describing the moon shot as a “rubber-band-and-propeller thing in comparison to an offshore oil rig”) and the spinoffs in science, healthcare, and engineering—closing his speech with the point that without energy, modern society is not possible.

As the standing ovation died away, I was left wondering why industry leaders have accepted the indictments of the critics. Why do we make excuses for an industry that has brought so much good to the world—and why do we continue to fight the opposition with facts and figures when what really needs to be told are the human stories?

As I walked out of the banquet room, I realized Murphy had hit the nail on the head. It was time for leaders in the oil and gas industry to stand up to the environmentalists and take on the good fight. Tell the public about the real human success stories of the industry and stop being apologetic. After all, it is the oil and gas industry—and no other—that has built the modern society so many of us insist on taking for granted.

Norman Leach is the Executive Director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Canada-West (AMCHAM). He lives in Calgary, Alberta, where many of AMCHAM’s members are in the oil and gas industry.