Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at ATB Financial, Bruce Edgelow, spoke on the state of the energy industry in Alberta Thursday afternoon at the Red Deer and District Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

Leadership on the province’s biggest issues including, pipeline access and availability and climate change is something Edgelow said he is concerned about.

He said leaders in the province and even the country are too far apart when it comes to decision making and until they can meet somewhere in the middle in terms of long-term energy solutions, progress will continue to move slowly.

“Leadership is needed to find our way to what I would coin as the magic middle and out of that will come positive decisions.”

“But as long as we stay polarized and don’t have leaders who are prepared to step in and do the right thing for our nation, things are going to continue to be muted.”

Edgelow said the blame shouldn’t be put on the current government, but believes they just need to work together rather than against each other.

Another issue he tackled was the future of oil patch workers.

With the cost of oil at about $50 US per barrel, Edgelow said margins are still slim and oil companies aren’t prepared to pay the workers, which means rig workers are opting to find jobs in other fields.

“Be comfortable in doing what they are doing because prices are going to take a while to come back and they’re not willing to sacrifice.”

“These guys have had their heads handed to them and they got families they are raising and they can’t afford to come back on a temporarily bases only to have things turn back on them.”

Edgelow also said if the province can get their act together related to pipeline access and get a long term energy solution such as Liquefied Natural Gas he believes the province would create an increase of 5 to 10 per cent in jobs.