Fourteen years ago, I moved to Calgary. I didn't grow up in the oilpatch, although my father was a veteran of the energy industry. I came for work, the way a lot of people do, and I assumed the city would be a chapter. Instead, it became home. That happens here more often than you realize — Calgary has a way of adopting you.
I've spent most of those 14 years close to one event, the Global Energy Show, and I've come to think of it as something more than a conference. It is, in the truest sense, a gathering of believers.
A History of Persistence
The show is 58 years old and began with an idea from Jim Gray. A pioneer of the Canadian oil and gas industry, he wanted to put Alberta's energy sector on a stage at a time when much of the world had never heard of it. There was a long stretch when the case for Canadian energy was compelling on paper and frustrating in practise. The geology and engineering was world-class. The people were world-class. And still the infrastructure stalled.
Pipelines waited. Approvals didn't come. Capital, which is patient with almost nothing, went looking for certainty elsewhere. In those years, the Global Energy Show got smaller. The conference rooms were quieter. But the show never went dark.
Through those difficult years, the delegates kept coming. The exhibitors kept booking. Engineers, students, suppliers, financiers, Indigenous leaders and families with generations of careers in industry kept showing up. They are a community, and they refused to quit on Canadian energy.
A Turning Point
What a difference a year makes. Canada has loaded its first LNG cargo from the Pacific coast. More than $100 billion in major projects are formally in motion. A country that spent a decade arguing about pipelines and infrastructure is almost unrecognizably united around the idea that energy is not a liability to be managed but a foundation of our sovereignty, prosperity and our standing in the world. We are comfortable saying the words out loud: Canada can be an energy superpower.
I'll say what a lot of people in this city are feeling but are too gracious to say. The believers were right. The community that kept the lights on at the Global Energy Show through the lean years were not stubborn, they were early.
Global Recognition
Now the world is coming to Calgary to catch up. The Global Energy Show brings tens of thousands of attendees, hundreds of exhibitors and delegates from more than 100 countries. This year alone, it's expected to bring an estimated $70 million in economic activity to Calgary, fill our hotels and restaurants, and support tens of thousands of jobs across the city I now call home.
My colleagues and I have always understood our role. We don't own this event. We steward it. It belongs to that community, and to this city. The believers were right all along.
