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Showing posts from May, 2015

Why don’t resource people fight harder for their livelihood?

An activist asks - "What's with you people?!" By: Stewart Muir, Executive Director - Resource Works Article originally published in the Yukon News on May 13th, 2015, and can be retrieved here:  http://www.yukon-news.com/letters-opinions/why-dont-pro-mining-yukoners-fight-harder-for-their-livelihood/  Article can also be found on Resource Works website:  http://www.resourceworks.com/standing_up?utm_campaign=weekly_may27&utm_medium=email&utm_source=resourceworks  Coming from a global hotbed of environmentalism (Vancouver), when I travel I usually find myself in places that are far less tuned in to the currents of activism.  Not so when I made my first trip to Whitehorse, where the people I met made it feel like I was coming home. The questions people are asking in Yukon, the concerns they're airing, would not be out of place in Vancouver, birthplace of Greenpeace.  So too is the polarization I found, where it seems like loud voices on both

Canadian Energy Opportunity at Risk

By: Cody Battershill Article originally featured in CAODC's Spring 2015 edition of their magazine, The Hitch.  Your job is important to you and even more critical to your future plans. Things like going on vacation, buying a new car, starting a family and even owning a home are all contingent on our jobs.  As much as you might value your job, there is an entire industry with people employed with the explicit goal of taking your job away. Lobby groups whose entire purpose, entire business model, is to get you fired. They work full time with big budgets to ensure that you don't drill another well; that you, don't dig in the Oilsands, and that you don't get the opportunity to work hard for a good wage in Canada's oil and gas sector.  One Oilsands company that recently delayed a project saw a paid employee of one of these lobby groups cheering and celebrating that 70 Canadians had lost their jobs. "POW", "BAM" and other celebratory remarks

Practicing Safety

Article originally published in Energy Processing Canada's March/April 2015 edition. Visit them online at northernstar.ab.ca  Oil and gas worksites can be dangerous places because workers operate heavy, moving equipment and sometimes handle dangerous substances. Industry employees and the numerous contractors who work together can be severely hurt or there can be fatal incidents if they are inexperienced, untrained or inadequately supervised.  The responsibility for work site safety is a shared responsibility, however the regulations place specific responsibilities on the owner, operating companies (lease holders), and the prime contractor. The responsibilities require them to ensure that new, young, inexperienced and transferred workers have received a general safety orientation prior to accessing any active work site, and to provide those organizations with assurance that workers are receiving the required orientation that addresses the OHS requirements. A stro

A Strategic Approach to Stakeholder Communications

CAPP Speaker Series featuring Deryck Spooner: April 1st, 2015 Below is the speech and presentation by Deryck Spooner, Senior Director for External Mobilization for the American Petroleum Institute in Washington D.C. The entire speaker series video, featuring the audio for Deryck's speech can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GuIxc0aVLE  Deryck Spooner – Thank you for inviting me to come from the U.S. to wonderful Calgary, the weather is beautiful. I actually didn’t bring a coat or nothing, so I’m really happy about that. I think in D.C. now it’s about 60 degrees, very close to what you guys have here. Looking across the audience, I am very excited because I do see a lot of young people like myself, which means things are changing within the oil and gas industry, and that’s a good thing. I also see a lot of females in the industry and it’s important that we do diversify our industry. I’m really excited about that.  What we are going to talk about today

Alberta Traffic Safety Focus for April: Speed

The following was published by Traffic Safety Alberta. Every month they have a new focus, April's focus is on Speed, and the 2015 calendar can be found here: http://www.saferoads.com/pdf/TSP-Calendar-2015.pdf  May's focus is on Young Drivers and Distracted Driving, it can be found here: http://www.saferoads.com/index.html  Our traffic safety focus this month is on Speed . Speeding doesn’t always kill. Brain injuries are one of the most common injuries that results from speed-related collisions. One in four fatal crashes involves a driver travelling at a speed unsafe for the prevailing road conditions. ·          In the last 5 years, 467 people were killed and 12,036 were injured in collisions involving unsafe speed. (2009-2013); ·          In 2013 , 26.6 per cent of fatal collisions involved a driver travelling at an unsafe speed; ·          Speeding can cause long-term consequences that may affect you and your family; ·          When you slow d

Ten Insights for Communicators in Energy

Article originally published in Energy Processing Canada's March/April 2015 edition. Visit them online at northernstar.ab.ca  Energy is fundamental to our quality of life and the conversation surrounding it is one of the most important of our time – especially because that conversation can be a polarizing, emotional debate in which trust is often a factor.  There is no shortage of factors that impacted the sector this past year, including: Dropping oil prices and energy market volatility not seen in recent history; Energy security impacts in the Middle East and Russia as conflicts in those regions continue; and   The ongoing politicization of the Keystone XL pipeline with U.S. President Obama’s veto of a pipeline approval bill. All of this is underscored by dynamic energy conversations that are ripe with diverse opinions, active opposition, ample media and online coverage, and mixed levels of business and government action. Against this backdrop, it