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Peter Lougheed took a managerial approach to economic affairs, which very much reflected the spirit of the times
Peter Lougheed, who died, much honoured, last week, was very good to me, both as a topic and, on one occasion, as an unpaid publicist. It was the fall of 1979. My first book, The Blue-Eyed Sheiks, had just come out and I was on a promotional tour in Calgary. Premier Lougheed was due to give a speech in the city and I decided to turn up and give him a copy.
Mr. Lougheed not only graciously accepted the tome, but — to the astonishment and delight of both myself and my real publicist — proceeded to take it with him to the podium, hold it aloft, and even read snippets off the back cover!
In an attempt to give some idea of the petroleum wealth that was flowing Alberta’s way, I had compiled a list of the lengths of time it would take the province to buy certain assets. They could, for example, have snapped up General Motors of Canada with 188 days provincial revenue, and the Montreal Canadiens in just two days and 16 hours. The exercise was a little hokey (at least in those two cases). Nevertheless, Mr. Lougheed read out a few of the examples, and was clearly not displeased with such indications of the province’s wealth.
I mention this incident partly as a tribute to his openness and accessiblity but also because I’ve noticed that a number of obituaries in recent days have suggested that the term “blue-eyed sheik” was critical or derogatory.
It was never intended as such. Rather, it was chosen as a catchy title that applied not merely —indeed, not even primarily — to Mr. Lougheed but to the range of colourful and complex characters who inhabited the Alberta oil patch in the booming 1970s. Mr. Lougheed, a Harvard-educated corporate executive and lawyer who had revived the provincial Conservative party and swept to power in 1971, was never a mouthpiece for the industry.
Indeed, one of his primary concerns — which seems ironic now — was that the province’s petroleum sector might be in terminal decline. Nevertheless, he determined to assert the province’s ownership of resources, especially after the first OPEC crisis of 1973-74, when the Trudeau government sought to tax away all the higher revenues from Alberta’s oil exports to the U.S.
This led to his first great confrontation with Ottawa. Industry’s role was to play the meat in the sandwich. Both sides subsequently backed off, heralding a period of spectacular growth for Canadian companies through the remainder of the 1970s. However, these were highly political times and the fastest-growing companies — Dome Petroleum, Alberta Gas Trunk Line (AGTL, later Nova Corp.), and Petro-Canada — were engaged in a complex dance in pursuit of nationalistic objectives.
Peter Lougheed took a managerial approach to economic affairs, which very much reflected the spirit of the times. He believed that the province should take an activist role in upgrading resources locally, and in promoting diversification away from the petroleum business.
For the rest of this article, please go to the National Post website: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/09/17/peter-foster-celebrating-a-blue-eyed-sheik/