Gurpreet Lael is the President and CEO of the Energy Services Association of Canada (ESAC), an advocate for Canadian energy, and has been busy since the election in Washington, D.C. talking about tariffs, the incoming government, and some of the things the new Prime Minister Mark Carney will have to do to set things straight here in Alberta with not only the energy sector, but also Canada-U.S. relations.
00:16:34.560And, you know, the social license to operate, if that actually matters, why would you be pushing Canadian companies into non-democratic countries to do trade?
00:25:05.500Wow. And then in addition, as you may have seen, there's a number of international pavilions here on the show floor from all around the world and delegations here.
00:25:18.180So it's really got an international flavor to the convention this year, which is great to see.
00:25:24.400Yeah, Edmonton, when we originally launched the event, we're in our fourth year, was just some of the amazing momentum that was happening here in the region.
00:25:35.500You've got two things, the launch of the Greater Edmonton Region Hydrogen Hub, which at that time was really gaining some momentum.
00:25:44.320And what we do at DMG is we look at markets like that.
00:25:47.500There are some amazing independent conferences, but we look at see how we can really bring that together into one major convention, which has the opportunity to get that scale, which will start to attract across Canada and international participation and really drive some of those things that are going to be key to growing the economy, such as international investment in things like new projects, opportunities for opening up new markets.
00:26:17.500markets, for export of our energy here, and lots of other reasons.
00:26:23.940I mean, one of the ones that I'm most passionate about is just talking about hydrogen and what
00:26:29.060that means to the everyday consumer and the everyday citizen here in Alberta, because
00:26:35.460like a lot of new energy, there's just so many questions around that.
00:29:11.520um the cp cp rail first not first hydrogen there's a couple of them but hydrogen locomotives
00:29:18.200yep um so really starting to see those and it's really really exciting for this community that's
00:29:24.100gathered here today to talk about um what's next and how do we continue doing the right things in
00:29:30.580governments and private industry that right mix of international investments and and uh local
00:29:37.660support to ensure that we continue uh this exciting growth trajectory that's uh one thing
00:29:44.460that struck me is um like you're saying the the independent business like the this really seems
00:29:49.420to be a grassroots uh momentum you know coming up and edmonton is kind of a place to do it because
00:29:56.700it's like you said it's got the industry and it's got a lot of these interested and the government
00:30:01.500smaller blares but um this show is really a precursor to the energy show in calgary this
00:30:08.460is our yeah for dmg this is our first uh big big uh convention of the year and yes we are um
00:30:15.900looking forward to the global energy show canada coming up uh june 10th to 12th in calgary um
00:30:22.300which um does have a segment of hydrogen as part of that but um that event wow sean i mean that is
00:30:29.660the entire 360 spectrum of energy that's coming together, Canada's national energy events.
00:30:40.780The excitement is clearly building in the market there with so much going on right now,
00:30:46.540whether that's in the day-to-day news that we sit down and follow international and domestic
00:30:54.220politics and potential for policy. And really driving the core of that on that show, which is
00:31:02.820the conversation, which is being hosted by Peter Mansbridge. But you can expect all of those issues
00:31:09.360and many more to be on the table because the big, some say crossroads, I'll say question is,
00:31:16.020what is our direction as a country going to look like over the next five years? And what's our
00:31:21.680opportunity to really build out Canada's energy vision together. And the show will attempt to
00:31:31.460answer some of those questions, to have the industry themselves come forward and put that
00:31:38.480on the table. And that's going to be very powerful, we think, at the right time in June,
00:31:44.220just post-election with some important findings that will ideally land on the desks of those
00:31:54.060policymakers to say, here's some things we should look at as far as strengthening not just our
00:32:01.120energy infrastructure, but things that lead to those bigger questions that Canadians are talking
00:32:07.540about coast to coast as sovereignty and strengthening our economy and Canada's energy
00:32:13.540opportunity i would you know i was uh just going to mention that i like what you said about it
00:32:19.140being at a crossroads and uh it comes at a pretty good time because we've got some
00:32:25.780lng canada we've got the trans mountain expansion so even though i would say that we're maybe a
00:32:32.260little bit late to the party here it's uh it's at an inflection point where we could really
00:32:38.660take it it could be a blessing in disguise well yeah um you know some of the um i mean look we
00:32:46.600i think it's there's energy and there's the there's other resources here we know that we
00:32:51.480are blessed here as a country with an abundance of resources we know that there's a global market
00:32:57.900um uh that's looking to um to buy those resources and so i think a lot of the focus now is how do
00:33:06.540we build those cost-effective modes of distribution, such as you mentioned, like LNG Canada or
00:33:14.100war pipelines? How do we move our energy across the country, being such a magnificent, large
00:33:21.220country? We've got, of course, many more energy resources here in Alberta. We want to get those
00:33:26.680to markets in Canada, which are utilizing resources in many cases at a higher cost or
00:33:35.100importing from other jurisdictions where we could be providing Canadian investment in jobs
00:33:41.540right here for our sector. And helping them reduce their own emissions
00:33:45.860through technology and cleaner sources of energy. That alone is Canada's LNG opportunity to, yes,
00:33:53.260displace emissions in other parts of the world. It's a very exciting time. And back to the
00:34:01.480the global energy show in June in Calgary that's that I think that's first order that's on the
00:34:07.700table that we'll be talking about and you know that's what's driving I think our best conference
00:34:13.320program and highest caliber speakers that we've seen at that event in in more than a decade sure
00:34:21.140you know last year was pretty tough to talk thank you you know whether you know the Saudis yeah1.00
00:34:27.200everybody kind of came to the table yeah yeah we um we have a record as i mentioned perhaps
00:34:32.720a record number of international pavilions but speakers uh from around the world and alongside
00:34:39.280major ceos and policy makers um more speaker announcements to come as we do in our in our
00:34:46.640exhibitions and some big ones uh over the next uh seven weeks as we lead into um to the global
00:34:53.360energy show excellent and uh as you were saying too as we were talking it's not just oil and gas
00:34:58.720you're you're saying there's going to be a big nuclear component this year yeah um the you know
00:35:03.640the event is is strong has a strong representation from oil and gas from you know major producers
00:35:10.020on the exhibition floor and um you know such an incredible industry represented they're
00:35:16.660strongly supported by all the major associations in oil and gas as well but in addition to that
00:35:23.220nuclear has become a big part of the event both delegates attending the show can expect to meet
00:35:32.400nuclear companies from from korea who's come in with a korean nuclear association
00:35:39.760companies like westinghouse speaking you've got x energy you've got terrestrial energy so you've
00:35:49.240really strong representation there um and in addition to that um you know one of the conferences
00:35:55.400taking place is the energy influencers conference uh new energy is a growing part of the event and
00:36:03.080that um does encompass uh renewables but you're also looking at um lots of companies in the
00:36:09.000geothermal space which has been making um quite a bit of news lately especially here in alberta
00:36:15.800um and um and and others um so it's it's really has that full spectrum and you know at when you
00:36:23.700walk through the exhibition floor um you know we sometimes tend to think of them as you know as
00:36:29.540kind of separate right you know oil and gas to do but um you get those sectors in a room um they're
00:36:36.120that alone there's a tremendous amount of uh industry collaboration investment and otherwise
00:36:42.520Because in the end, it's all about how do we create energy that's affordable, that's secure, that's accessible, both here in Canada and then our energy that we can we can export to many parts of the world that don't have some have none of those things in their energy mix.
00:37:02.660And we have that opportunity here in Canada to provide a bit.