Northern Alberta oilfield contractors say all they want is a fair, open and competitive work environment. What they are hearing from the provincial government is not reassuring.
That’s the word from Northern Alberta Contractors’ Association spokesman Dave Redgate. Following public and private meetings with government officials in the last week of February, Redgate says he’s not feeling very optimistic.
Despite assurances of ‘win-win’ solution by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development (AAND) Minister Pearl Calahasen, Redgate says he’s, “not convinced the department sees a role for contractors in a fair and open business environment in the future.”
Calahasen and a team of government employees met with the Slave Lake & District Chamber of Commerce on Feb. 25. The next day Redgate was in Edmonton meeting with AAND officials. He says the meetings did nothing to dispel the impression among contractors that an open, competitive business environment in the oilpatch isn’t the government’s top priority.
Redgate says Minister Calahasen and her team did a fine job of showing their competence at the Chamber meeting. But he says the Chamber’s earlier call for Calahasen’s resignation had nothing to do with her performance as a minister. Rather it had everything to do with her performance as an MLA in representing all her constituents fairly. She has yet to answer those concerns, Redgate says.
Redgate claims the contractors association’s position is quite straightforward. It wants the right and the freedom to compete for work on Crown land. It seeks to exclude nobody from the same right and freedom.
On its face it’s difficult to find a flaw in that argument, but that hasn’t stopped some people of accusing the contractors of racism, a charge Redgate finds both absurd and upsetting.
“Why is it such heresy to ask for fair and equal treatment?” he says. “Why have we had to go to such lengths?
The lengths include the hiring of an “almost full-time” lawyer to represent the association. That lawyer was sitting in on further meetings with government officials last week to represent the contractors’ concerns.
“Hopefully we can make some progress,” says Redgate. “At least get an outline that establishes if there is a role for us… and how to achieve that.”
Otherwise, Redgate predicts that many northern Alberta companies will be forced to make “some very serious business decisions.”
Some already have. Since access to Crown land on so-called ‘traditional territory’ became an issue several years ago, revenues have dropped 40 to 60 per cent for oilfield contractors.
“Businesses are failing,” he says. “Town economies are being impacted."

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