Alberta’s Energy Minister apoligized for comments made at a Calgary luncheon suggesting out of work oil and gas workers may want to try moving to British Columbia to find work.
Marg McCuaig-Boyd was answering a question about what the government is doing to mitigate job losses and keep people in the energy sector when she mentioned what she now undoubtedly regrets.
“I want to apologize that I misspoke a little and it was never my intent to encourage people to leave Alberta, in fact we want Albertans to stay in Alberta,” she told 660 News. “It was with reference to the question about people losing their jobs and what are we doing about trying to mitigate those job losses.”
“We’ve recently created an Economic Development and Trade Ministry, and it has four mandates; economic development for small and medium sized enterprises, trade and investment attraction, the science and innovation sector as well as strategic policy and corporate services. They’re going to be looking at ways to do some job creation and support those who have lost work,” she said.
“It’s been tough, and as I mentioned, I can just go by the local hotel and I can tell by how many service trucks are in the parking lot, how well things are going for the oil patch,” she said.
“It’s been tough on everyone this year.”
“For my part, we’re trying to create more markets, trades and international trading markets. We’re certainly working on those pipelines because that’s key for Alberta, we need that market access to get our product to tide water. So that’s where we’re putting our efforts right now, hopefully we’ll get those going real soon.
“Again, I apologize that I misspoke and caused some angst for people and I want to reiterate, we don’t want Albertans to leave, we want them to stay here and be part of our workforce,” said McCuaig-Boyd.