The Town of Slave Lake should be trying harder if it hopes to get the province’s attention in the dilemma that’s seen many of the community’s oilfield contractors close their doors.
“Is everybody just going to wait around until everybody’s gone?” Kelly Persson asked councillors at their committee meeting last week. “We’ve already lost three (oilfield contracting) companies at least” and the remaining contractors are in dire straits, a frustrated Persson added.
“We need support from our community. Every time we’ve been asked for donations or to do (volunteer jobs with road construction equipment), we’re there. How come we can’t get more support?”
The spokesman for Emil’s Right of Way Clearing – and the Northern Oilfield Contractors Association – also accused Lesser Slave Lake MLA Pearl Calahasen of abandoning her constituents, saying she’s acting only as minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.
Persson arrived late at the meeting so hadn’t heard council’s commitment to Dave Redgate earlier in the meeting.
“We feel your frustration,” Mayor Ray Stern told Persson, “but we can’t force anyone to come back with any more information than they already have."
He reiterated that council is concerned that the ‘clear and open process’ that Calahasen promised is not as transparent as it hoped.
“We haven’t seen an open or a transparent process either, and we’re asking again” to be informed as the process unfolds.
“But we don’t have a big stick we can hold over anybody’s head.”
Late last year the Town met with contractors and representatives from the Aboriginal Affairs department to hear contractors’ allegations. After that meeting, councillors also asked both Calahasen and Premier Ralph Klein to step in and help settle the impasse. The problems that contractors say have been plaguing them for close to a decade have seen local contractors forced off lease sites by First Nations groups or blockades, even though they were awarded those contracts on Crown lands. First Nations groups are claiming the Crown lands as their ‘traditional territory’, saying they have a right to make a living on that land.
In a later interview, Persson pointed to yet another oilfield company was closing its doors.
“I see Hertz (equipment rentals store) is closing. They’re another one — a big part of the oilpatch. How many jobs are being lost there? But the community just doesn’t care, and I’m getting tired.
“And maybe one of these days, we won’t be there either.

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