Fellow Canadian oil sands developer and Canadian Oil Sands Innovation Alliance partner Cenovus is running a new television ad these days which has caught our eye.
The Cenovus ad may be short on burley loggers but it's chock- full of Canadian accomplishments. Photo credit: iStockphoto
On a basic level, the ad, themed “Canadian ideas at work,” does a great job making us feel proud to be Canadians, sort of like those Tim Hortons' spots featuring small-town rinks, pint-sized hockey players, and proud grandparents.
We think the ad goes further than flag waving, though, and does a great job putting oil sands development into perspective. The ad does this by pointing out a few key things about oil sands which often gets lost in rhetoric more superheated than steam at our in situ operations.
For one, the ad, which opens with the narrator intoning “Canada … it’s spelled with a ‘can,’ not a ‘can’t,” reminds us that Canadians are a tough bunch with a pretty good track record for taking on and overcoming huge challenges. And to both our surprise and relief, the ad does this without resorting to well-worn clichés often deployed to strike a patriotic chord. Toothless hockey players, burley loggers and tough-as-nails fisherman are all thankfully absent.
Watch the Cenovus ad.
The ad also points out that oil sands development is really not that different from other nation-building mega-projects of our past.
Like construction of our national railway, the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System or even the TransCanada Highway, oil sands development is a huge undertaking fraught with challenges.
Harsh environmental conditions, difficulty securing labour and materials, political and stakeholder opposition, and daunting scope and scale are but a few common hurdles.
Canadian innovation helped conquer past project challenges and can again be harnessed to responsibly and economically transform oil sands into much-needed energy.
And like nation-building projects of yesteryear, oil sands development promises to deliver social and economic benefits that ripple right across our nation.
As we explored in a previous OSQAR, the benefits of oil sands development are massive and projected to extend well beyond Alberta. While the magnitude of future impacts are being debated, there’s little doubt present spending on oil sands goods and services is already making a difference here and around the world.
Consider, for example, that in 2010 alone Suncor:
- Paid $1.978 billion in royalties, including $681 million directed to the Alberta government related to oil sands royalties;
- Paid about $1.2 billion in taxes to governments in Canada and internationally;
- Spent $9.4* billion on goods and services in Canada, the United States and abroad;
- Spent $277 million on goods and services from Aboriginal businesses serving the Wood Buffalo region.
So, from one Canadian to another, thanks Cenovus for reminding us about our great country, our track record of impressive technological achievements and what we as Canadians and oil sands developers can accomplish in the face of adversity. The next double-double is on us.
* Excludes spend on goods and services in Libya and Syria.
