On Feb. 19, 2019 Devon Energy announced it was exiting Canada by the end of the year no matter what. In its news release, it talked about how great the US market was. It made no mention as to why it was leaving Canada outside of strong US plays.
We have a number of Devon Canada employees that live in Cochrane and many are a big part of our community. It is sad to see another group of people put under intense pressure and stress not knowing what the future brings for them and their families.
But should this shock us? Should we be surprised another foreign company is leaving this country? Under the incompetence of the NDP and Federal Liberals should we really be outraged?
There is a story about the lily pad in the pond that highlights what we are dealing with in this province and country. As the story goes, there is one lily pad on day one. On day two there are two. Day three there are four. Day five there are eight and so on and so forth until the pond is full and starts to die. The lily pads double every day for 29 days. On day 30 the pond is full and dies.
The people responsible for the pond see the lily pad on day one, then two on day two and then four on day three but do nothing to stop the doubling. Because, to them, it isn’t a problem, it is only a few lily pads. To them, the pond has more space than there are lily pads. However, on day 29 they realize the pond is now half full, tomorrow it will be full. They never notice until it is almost too late.
Devon Canada leaving is day 29 of the lily pad problem for the province. The lily pads had been doubling day-by-day over the course of the NDP’s incompetent governing. Did the NDP do anything to stop the doubling? Of course not, in fact, they made it worse and hastened the doubling. ConocoPhillips left and Shell and Murphy and Marathon and Statoil and Total and now Devon. Double, double, double one more day and the pond is dead.
This NDP government should have seen the problem after the first exit when as the lily pads first began to double. They should have listened to those that shouted from the rooftops this was a problem. But they didn’t. They made it worse by increasing costs and then not understanding how things were not improving. “Geez,” they said, “we have more lily pads today. Still not a big deal.”
We’re on day 29 and the pond, Alberta, is in critical condition. We cannot allow the NDP to continue governing this province. This must be stopped. Strong leadership would have recognized the problem after the lily pads doubled after the first three days. The UCP will have that strong leadership. They will see the problems before it becomes unmanageable. They will not let the lily pads take over the pond.
Kevin Wilson
