Stephen Harper Reflects on Alberta Roots and Canada’s Energy Industry

An excerpt from Stephen J. Harper’s memoir traces his move to Alberta in the late 1970s, the experiences that shaped his conservative views and his 2006 election victory. Harper also argues that government decisions have hindered Canada’s oil and gas sector and harmed the economy.

Sherwood Park News has reported:

Stephen J. Harper says his move to Alberta during the late-1970s oil boom shaped his political outlook and his sense of home. In an excerpt from his memoir, he recalls arriving in the province in search of work, seeing the effects of the National Energy Program and later celebrating a Conservative election victory in Calgary. He also sets out his views on Canada’s oil and gas industry, arguing that government decisions have blocked projects and weakened the country’s economy.

Harper’s memoir, *Here for Canada: The Memoirs of the 22nd Prime Minister*, is being released this week. Postmedia Alberta community publications received permission to publish the excerpt ahead of publication because it concerns Alberta. The excerpt is written by Stephen J. Harper.

Harper writes that he moved to Alberta as the oil boom was underway, expecting it would be easy to find a job. Like many young people at the time, he was trying to decide who he was and what he wanted to do. He says he has never questioned the decision to move.

By the summer of 1981, when he left Edmonton for Calgary, Harper had lived in Alberta for almost three years. He says he enjoyed Edmonton and came to like Calgary even more, while increasingly thinking of Alberta as his home province. He writes that the province’s atmosphere changed his worldview.

Harper describes Alberta as vibrant, dynamic and entrepreneurial, with a culture resembling the best of the United States. He contrasts that with what he calls the anarchic and sometimes violent aspects of American society, describing Alberta as orderly, polite and Canadian. He also says old wealth and connections count less there than in Toronto or Montreal, making it a place of opportunity.

Working in Alberta’s energy sector gave Harper a close view of business and its contribution to wealth and social well-being, he writes. He says holding a job, paying bills and paying taxes changed his perspective. That shift was already underway when the Trudeau government introduced the National Energy Program, or NEP.

Harper says he watched Alberta’s unemployment rate rise by about 10 per cent in six months after Ottawa decided to reshape a major industry. He characterizes the move as government overreach by people who did not understand what they were doing. The experience, he says, left a lasting impression and helped define his ideas about the appropriate role of government in the economy. Those views drew him toward conservatism.

The memoir excerpt also revisits election night in Calgary on Jan. 23, 2006. By early evening, Harper writes, it was clear the Conservatives would win, although not by a landslide or with a majority. Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin had said before the vote that he would concede if his party did not win the most seats, so Harper’s team knew it was heading toward government.

When all ballots were counted, the Conservatives won 124 of 308 seats. Martin’s Liberals fell to 103, the Bloc Québécois was down slightly to 51 and Jack Layton’s New Democratic Party rose to 29. André Arthur, described by Harper as a conservative Independent, also won in the Quebec City area. Harper says he would become Canada’s 22nd prime minister, with parliamentary arithmetic that allowed any one opposition party to support a Commons vote.

Harper recalls a crowded and hectic hotel suite in Calgary as results came in. His family was present: his mother; brothers Grant and Robert; his wife, Laureen; their children, Ben and Rachel; and in-laws and cousins from both sides. Many other people came and went, he writes, too numerous to recount and too blurry to remember clearly.

He says he had to contain his emotions, stay focused and prepare an acceptance speech, even as he felt exhilarated and exhausted. The work ahead was already on his mind and would begin in the early hours of the following day. Still, he writes that he was swept up in the celebration at the Calgary convention centre.

From the stage, Harper saw family, university friends, former colleagues and campaigners. Jim Hawkes and Preston Manning were there, along with people who had worked with him since 1988. Given his serious and analytical temperament, he says others reminded him to enjoy the moment. Harper writes that he was elated and did enjoy it, but that the victory belonged to everyone who had helped bring it about.

The final section of the excerpt turns to the energy industry. Harper argues that a clear majority of Canadians have consistently supported oil and gas because they rely on the products at affordable prices. He says Canadians are sceptical of claims that green jobs can easily replace oil and gas employment, and he rejects peak oil forecasts as a fantasy. He also argues that a large-scale energy transition remains far off and cannot be imposed by decree.

Harper asks why Canada became, in his view, the only major oil-producing country seeking to dramatically scale back its own industry. He writes that people he met outside Canada wanted to buy and invest in Canadian oil and gas, and were puzzled that the country seemed unwilling to enable that activity. He identifies the federal government as the main obstacle, while also pointing to provincial governments that can block development within their jurisdictions. He says provinces cannot stop the interprovincial movement of energy resources.

He also criticizes court decisions and what he calls activist judges for impeding projects on the basis of a duty to consult Indigenous peoples. Harper contends that this duty has not appeared to include Indigenous groups that support resource development, which he says make up the vast majority when they have a stake in a project. He adds that proponents are willing to provide such a stake.

Harper cites several cancelled or stalled projects. He says Malaysia’s Petronas shelved its liquefied natural gas project after repeated obstacles from British Columbia’s NDP government. He says the Trudeau government rescinded approval for Northern Gateway without a scientific basis and raised regulatory barriers that led TransCanada to shelve Energy East.

He also discusses Keystone XL. Harper credits the Justin Trudeau government with completing the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, but qualifies that praise because Ottawa bought out the private sector proponent and completed the work at nearly six times the project’s original cost. He says the reason for that route may become clear someday.

Harper writes that U.S. President Barack Obama withheld approval of Keystone while Harper was prime minister, contrary to U.S. environmental assessments, but did not reject it because he understood the effect that would have on relations with Canada. That changed after the 2015 election: within days of the Trudeau government being sworn in, Obama rejected the project. Harper describes the Liberals’ opposition as perfunctory.

He concludes that Canadians and the national economy have borne the losses from the country’s energy policy. Harper says energy resources and the industry had been among Canada’s greatest strengths and core economic engines under Liberal and Conservative governments alike. He argues that, until the Justin Trudeau government, the sector also helped prevent working-class incomes from eroding as they had elsewhere, by offsetting traditional manufacturing job losses with blue-collar work in resources and related industries. Harper links the decline in real per-capita living standards over the past decade with Trudeau’s stated desire to phase out the energy industry.