Many in the crowd left happy after a half-hour talk between the Alberta and Saskatchewan premiers on Wednesday at the Weyburn Oil and Gas Show.
Jason Kenney and Scott Moe took part in a panel together in front of the show’s luncheon crowd.
They talked about the oil and gas industry and the challenges the two provinces share, and both took a few opportunities to make derisive comments directed at the federal government.
People in the crowd seemed to like what they heard, many using the words “awesome,” “excellent,” and “fantastic” to describe it.
Craig Bates works around oil and gas and likes the theme he heard of building the industry back up.
“The energy sector has been hurting for a lot of years and no one’s coming to help us out, so clearly we’ve got to start helping ourselves, so this is absolutely fantastic,” said Bates.
Mel Miller was in the crowd as well. It makes him feel good that Saskatchewan oil and gas seems to have an ally in Kenney. Miller said the industry is still hurting.
“You hear it from a lot of producers, they’re cautiously optimistic now but they’re still once burned, twice shy,” he said. “They’re very, very cautious at spending their money, and I can understand why; you don’t want to get sunk.”
According to Miller, a few years ago you couldn’t get a parking spot or a seat at a restaurant along Estevan’s main street around 6 p.m., but now nobody’s around. He said you could shoot a cannon down Main Street.
Dan Rashovich has similar stories. He said his company just laid off people last week, and a friend’s company in Edmonton did the same.
Rashovich thinks another premier joining in and supporting oil and gas is awesome — but he wasn’t jumping to any conclusions.
“Right now, it’s still kind of preliminary, right?” he said. “At least there’s people fighting, trying to do the right thing. I guess you have to have some hope and optimism.”
The overall impression from the pair’s day was one of co-operation and interest between the two provinces. They signed a memorandum of understanding to put together a working group to harmonize the regulations around service rigs in both provinces.
The premiers did a lot of cheerleading for the industry in their remarks and gave a few broad ideas on how things could be fixed, but in many cases the answer was that they’ll talk to and make requests from the federal government.
But neither appeared to not have a lot of faith that would work, commenting on how the federal government hasn’t wanted to talk.
Once the two wrapped up at the Weyburn show, they left to have their first bilateral meeting in Wilcox, where Kenney was raised and went to high school.