Regina– To have a Minister of Energy and Resources from an oil town is one thing, to have him be minister while his home riding hosts the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show is another.
Dustin Duncan is Saskatchewan’s Energy and Resources Minister in addition to his duties as MLA for Weyburn-Big Muddy. He shifted from his previous portfolio as Minister of Health to his current duties last August.
Duncan grew up in Halbrite, just down the road from Weyburn, in an oilpatch family several generations deep.
Pipeline Newsmet with him on May 3 in his Legislature office. Earlier that day he welcomed delegates to the 25th annual Williston Basin Petroleum Conference, and was the keynote speaker at lunch.
So what’s it like being the local boy whose also the energy minister?
Since Duncan was first elected, if there was any portfolio he could work in as a minister, this was the one he had his eye on. “For me, Energy and Resources was the one I hoped that I could look back on my career as something I was able to do.
“It was something I thought about and wanted to do,” he said. “It’s pretty neat, being the energy minister from a community in a part of the province where oil is so important in terms of the local economy. I certainly have people, from time-to-time, that know a lot about the industry, give me some advice. But people have also been pretty respectful about it. I probably don’t get as many calls as I thought I was going to, from people working in the industry, wanting to point things out to me. But they’re there, if I need to pick up the phone and say, ‘I don’t know a lot about this. Can you help me out?’
“It’s been a good experience, so far,” Duncan said.
Asked how Weyburn has been dealing with the downturn in oil, he said, “Weyburn is not unlike a lot of communities. One, it has been through this before, on a number of occasions. I think people, overall, are pretty resilient. I would say Weyburn had a pretty big run-up, over the last number of years, in terms of new people moving to town, new jobs sprouting out, new businesses. Having the most significant pullback in my lifetime, or at least since the early part of my lifetime, has
meant some challenging times over the last couple of years.
“Certainly, you can see it in day care classes, where a bunch of kids who started the school a year ago aren’t there anymore. It has an effect on families and the community at large. I would say that Weyburn, maybe more than other communities, maybe more than Estevan, is a little more diversified in terms of the local economy. So, I think it’s been able to weather it better than others. But, no doubt, it’s been a challenge,” Duncan said.
“We’ve seen some companies that have scaled back their employment. Companies that have made some changes
in compensation and renumeration, and others that have done other things to keep as many people as they can employed.”
As an MLA, Duncan has seen things pick up around Weyburn, and more optimism in talking to people. “Companies are back, looking for employees. Some of the trucking companies are looking for drivers, lease trucks, owner-operators-type of operations. We’re starting to see it.”
With the oil show coming up, Duncan said, “I’ve been running around the oil show since I was a little kid. I have a lot of fond memories of it. My brother and I would run around and collect either business cards or stickers from companies. That was our thing.
“My dad works for a trucking company, so it was always a big deal to see which new piece of equipment was on display at the oil show. There was a time or two when it was the truck that he drove, so that was a pretty big kick, as a kid.
“One of the things, for me, personally, is so gratifying about being in this position now is to be Energy and Resources Minister in the year Weyburn hosts the oil show. That’s the icing on the cake for me.
“I’m looking forward to it, seeing a lot of family and friends that work in the industry. To attend, as the minister, is pretty neat for me.”
Duncan is expected to speak on June 7.
The Keystone XL project has now been approved by the Donald Trump administration, although it still has to get permits in Nebraska, a ruling of which is expected later this year. Asked his thoughts on that, Duncan said, “It directly affects the province in that the longer we have the glut in moving oil to market, whether that’s going south, or west or east. In Western Canada, we’re getting to the point where we’re basically tapped out in terms of pipeline capacity. That causes a differential.
“We have figured out that, at the highest point, that differential costs the Saskatchewan treasury $300 million.”
It’s important in getting Canadian oil to tidewater, he noted. That was a major point in his keynote speech earlier in the day.
There’s been talk of an American border adjustment tax on energy, but few details. If this includes oil, Duncan said it would strengthen the argument of why we need pipelines to tidewater, east or west. But it remains to be seen what the Trump administration is targeting, he noted.
Duncan noted that the Petroleum Service Alliance of Canada has substantially increased its drilling forecast for Saskatchewan. “We’re going to keep engaging with companies and tell Saskatchewan stories. If it looks like 2017 is going to be a better year for capital investment, like it does, we want to attract as much of that as possible,” he said.
