Re: Commentary: Fancy hotels inexcusable expense, regardless of reasons
The author complains about Legg’s trips to London to save Alberta jobs, calling them luxury trips at five-star hotels. All flights were economy fares, Legg stayed at Kettner’s hotel, and paid less for a room than TripAdvisor says a nearby Holiday Inn Express costs.
I found 150 five-star hotels in London; Kettner’s was not on the list. Of those 150, three had promotions, offering rooms for slightly more than Legg paid, but 140 of the 150 charged more than $400, and most charged from $800 to thousands for their cheapest room.
Depending on the night, the price Legg paid varied, but cost as little as 190 pounds, or $324 Canadian. This is not a five-star hotel.
When a bank calls Legg and says that they are considering pulling oil companies' lines of credit, is he supposed to say he would rather do a videoconference, and hope he makes enough of an impact to save jobs.
Losing a line of credit would shut down the companies, and cause massive layoffs, but they offer Legg a chance to talk to the board of directors before they do.
During the 2009 downturn, the Royal Bank of Scotland ran out of money, and stopped its line of credit to Oilexco. Oilexco, a very sound company, had to close its doors, and a hundred Albertans lost their jobs.
Do we want a repeat of that? Could you live with yourself, if you saved $10,000, and cost 100 people their jobs? The author also seems to think that oil companies are mostly foreign owned. Eighty-three per cent of oilsands production is from companies with head offices in Calgary.
CNRL produces 1,169,400 million barrels of oil equivalent, Suncor produces 831,000 and Cenovus 520,000. Each of these companies is Canadian, with a Canadian CEO and chairman, a head office in Calgary, and they don’t report to a foreign office. This doesn’t include smaller Canadian companies like MEG which produces 100,000, Athabasca oil with 35,000, Pengrowth with 23,000, Arc with 135,000, Crescent Point with 163,000, and half a dozen others of this size.
Second only to banking, the oil industry is our most Canadian industry. I am just not sure why the author is so against Kenney exposing the truth about who supplies the funds to shut down Canadian companies and jobs in Alberta.
Bob Wilson,
Calgary