Learn English with Bill Peters. Bill Peters delivers an impromptu speech at the Calgary International Energy Summit, where he pays tribute to the people of his home province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and reflects on the oil and gas boom of the late 1980s.
00:00:00.000speaking of energy just a little screech I should tell you it's very uncomfortable
00:00:13.080being here I'm not used to being in rooms full of achievers and of course with all
00:00:21.780the talent that you've assembled I guess the idea of Jim Davidson to get me here
00:00:26.560in the first place was that you needed some structured anti-climax at some point in the
00:00:30.880evening that's me before I even do anything I will ring in I was looking at all of this I mean
00:00:38.560the setting the way that this has been placed out the great screens the entertainment and I thought
00:00:44.000back to one of my first engagements which was the Lions Club in Joe Batts arm and this is not the
00:00:50.520Lions Club of Joe Batts arm you guys and it's not a praise to the people it's the ones that done
00:00:57.480it here you have really put on a superb superb performance I should begin by acknowledging of
00:01:09.300course Madame Premier and I believe also Madame leader of the opposition gentlemen you will
00:01:16.860realize the way the world is going now I also think you should give Mayor Nenshi just a little
00:01:32.340smidgen extra of the applause I know he deserves because he has so strongly resisted the almost
00:01:39.660ferocious draft that's coming from Toronto they want to trade speaking of Toronto I should thank
00:01:53.760you just for the invitation to be here I know I'm an outsider in the province that does a lot of things
00:01:58.440and it is according to Newton's law you may remember he said that one body however wretched cannot be in
00:02:08.320two places at the same time so the fact that I'm on this stage now means that I'm not currently in Toronto
00:02:16.320which is about a moral and hygienic elevation I have because the time is short I have two things that I really
00:02:30.320really wish to do and it's because a the premier and members of government are here industry is here the mayor is here this is not some shtick it's something that I've waited a long time to find the best group to say it to it's going to be compressed I'll say it in less than a minute and a half or two but I want
00:02:52.320you to do but I want you to know I really really do just how absolutely deep how intense I mean what I'm about to say it's compressed I can't fill it out but I will say it this way 1992-93 Newfoundland got an arrow in the heart
00:03:14.320the fishery on which for 500 years we built the entire life of the province soul body and mind was shattered 31,000 people in a single day were out of work which just to give your proportions if you were in Toronto when you picked up the global mail some morning and I hope you don't
00:03:38.320and read 660,000 people were out of work overnight you'll understand the scale of the economic shock and there's where the great compression comes in you're the energy industry you're the government you're the citizens citizens of Alberta Newfoundland would have been crushed you do not understand and
00:04:08.300and I haven't time to explain just how savage that shock was it was much more than economic it was much more even than cultural and it went to individuals and families but by the genius of providence or by the great initiatives and energies of this province that was at the beginning of your boom and though it does not get often registered
00:04:38.300thousands thousands thousands thousands thousands not only from my province but from other provinces too here's what it is I want to say to premier leader of opposition industry mayor of Calgary do you know how much social misery how much dislocation of individual families how many divorces were postponed how much dignity of the individual was received
00:05:08.280restored because instead of leaving a great pocket of 31,000 families out of reach Alberta and I mean it Alberta absorbed over time so much my closest friend went through divorce loss of house loss of job in a nutshell came up here houses back marriage repaired he's making more money than some of you
00:05:36.280here's my point and I'm saying it out loud even though I'm chewing up time for another message
00:05:43.280I think as a Newfoundlander as a Canadian it would be very nice to say for sparing Newfoundland a
00:05:54.280a psych a trauma a trauma of the deepest kind and for being there at the precise moment when this input was most necessary Newfoundland says thank you to Alberta
00:06:19.280I have a second message too but I was watching some of these rock and roll videos and they really
00:06:26.280really are splendid I'm just wondering when you're bringing on Neil Young
00:06:32.280you know I saw that he was giving advice on the oil sands from the back of his 1959 Lincoln Continental
00:06:48.280being shot from two helicopters you know something I wouldn't take advice from Neil Young if he was talking about the bare naked ladies but his information on what goes on here on the sophistication on the technological miracles on the amplitude of effort and industry and invention
00:07:17.280he's not even in the same age he's not even in the same age and then this week there must be an IV drip of idiocy down in the states this week Robert Redford whose last movie hit occurred at the same time that Tolstoy was learning to read
00:07:40.280he's also saying to you oh it's the dirtiest oil in the world look at some of your films man
00:07:47.280here's my message because I do have one and I'm going to concentrate it because this is an audience that really should hear it and it is an audience I need to screech both political industry worker
00:08:07.280and citizen it's a point not only about Alberta it's about the whole of the country
00:08:14.280and here's this one of the things that as an outsider I have no skills I'm in journalism okay as an outsider to your industry one of the things that has alarmed me puzzled me robbed me of the innocent sleep that my otherwise wonderful conscience would allow me to have is why this industry and to a degree this province I know the premier is here
00:08:21.280Stand so silently at times when you are made a target here