Former MP has good advice for U of A grads
‘Never stop listening to your own native sense of right and wrong,’ former MP Jim Prentice says
Jim Prentice had two pieces of advice this week for a room full of bright-eyed commerce graduates at the University of Alberta.
The former federal cabinet minister admitted to a twinge of nostalgia as he recalled his own graduation in the same hall 36 years ago.
Raised in the coal town of Grande Cache, Prentice lived in Edmonton as a teenager and is now vice-president of one of the country’s biggest banks.
He was back on campus Thursday to receive an honourary degree and to pass on words of wisdom.
“As you go forward, keep in mind the obligation and the opportunity to give back,” said Prentice, a senior executive vice-president for CIBC.
Though his own father told him to stay away from politics, Prentice ran for office in 2004 and was re-elected in 2006. He stepped down in late 2010 — though he did promise his father he’d leave politics “with his name intact.”
Which leads to his second bit of advice — stand up for your convictions.
“During the journey ahead, you will be confronted by all manner of ethical dilemmas — people telling you to do things you disagree with, to look the other way, to remain silent or compliant,” he told the students.
“The pressure intensifies as you get toward the top — in politics, of course, but in business too and in many fields.”
“It can be difficult to keep one’s bearings. No matter where your career takes you, I would urge you to at all times defend who you are.
“Weigh the counsel of colleagues ... but never stop listening to your own native sense of right and wrong.”
The message wasn’t meant as a comment on current politics, Prentice said later in an interview — though it’s hard not to hear echoes of MP Brent Rathgaber’s recent decision to quit the Tory caucus over his private member’s bill seeking more transparency on civil service salaries. Or the pressures MPs face from the strictest caucus discipline and a controlling prime minister.
For Prentice, those beliefs are the key to success, and came out of his own moment of truth in 2005.
The rookie Conservative MP had barely a year under his belt when Parliament faced the very contentious, divisive Bill C38 — to allow same-sex marriage. The debate across the country was heated, with most Conservatives vociferously opposed.
Prentice knew his own mind, and knew his position was at odds with most of his colleagues.
In the end, only three Conservative MPs voted in favour of legalizing gay marriage. Prentice was one of them.
“I thought my career was over at the time,” he said in an interview. “But it earned me an enormous amount of respect — not buckling under. It was a seminal moment.”
The following weekend, he went to his Presbyterian Church. “We sat down in the pew and soon discovered the subject of the sermon was me.”
After three cabinet posts, Prentice quit politics in November 2010 to take the job as vice-president for CIBC and now commutes to Toronto two days a week from his Calgary home. His name continues to surface as a possible successor to Stephen Harper.
Rumblings of leadership change have been a little louder these days with the prime minister facing heat from several scandals, including allegations of inappropriate spending by Conservative senators and a secret $1-million leader’s fund.
Prentice brushes all that aside, including questions about leadership ambitions.
“There’s not going to be a leadership change any time soon in the Conservative Party,” he said. “We have a prime minister and he will deal with the situation, and meanwhile I continue to enjoy being a banker.”
But Prentice remains very closely engaged on crucial policy questions — finding markets for Alberta’s oilsands, how to get a pipeline through B.C. and how to convince the U.S. to approve the Keystone pipeline.
Getting West Coast access for Alberta’s bitumen and natural gas is “the most significant economic issue facing the country,” he said.
Alberta’s energy exports to the U.S. have peaked and will decline, given the new supplies of oil and gas found south of border, he said.
“We must get to the Asia Pacific,” said Prentice. “The key is dealing with First Nations, and that hasn’t started yet.”
Christy Clark’s election victory in B.C. last month is encouraging, he said, and Alberta Premier Alison Redford has work to do to come up with an agreement — though he dodged a question about whether Alberta has an obligation to share the economic benefits of the pipeline — a key demand of the Clark government.
Meanwhile, in dealing with the Obama administration on the proposed Keystone pipeline, Prentice has some strong views.
Canada must resist pressure from U.S environmentalists to introduce even tougher standards to control greenhouse gas emissions in Canada to get the Keystone approved. Any move to increase Alberta’s $15-a-tonne levy on excess carbon emissions would put the oilpatch at a competitive disadvantage, while U.S. producers would continue to face no carbon levy.
“I’d be very critical of any unilateral moves by Canada to have tougher policies — that would be a mistake.”
Both countries need to move together on a continental agreement on climate change issues, he said — though the Obama administration these days shows no sign of looking for a such an agreement on emissions.
Canada has some of the lowest energy prices in the world, and in the future that could spur a renewal of manufacturing in Ontario, he said.