After briefly describing his riding for his fellow MPs, Harper discussed Alberta’s changing economy. He also demonstrated that Albertans would not soon forget Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program and its negative impacts on the province.

“We have experienced the ups and downs that Alberta has had in the past decade largely through and because of our dependence on the oil industry,” he said. “In spite of that there is a broadening of our industry in Calgary historically from agriculture to energy, now to services. This broadening reflects our entrepreneurial spirit in the west, in Alberta and in Calgary in particular.”

Harper then continued.

“This growth in the view of most Calgarians, I think I am safe to say, has been not so much with the help of government as in spite of it and in spite of the federal government in particular. I was a newcomer to Alberta when a distant government imposed policies that brought an end to the boom times that brought me to Alberta to begin with. Of course I am referring to the National Energy Program. No Canadian can live through an experience like that without it influencing greatly his or her thinking about government and about our country. In spite of that thinking and in spite of the drain the federal government has often imposed on Albertans, Albertans have never wavered in their patriotism or in their optimism about the future.”

You can reach his speech in full at this link: https://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.debates_HOC3501_01/79