Many of you will have grown up having your parents read you the children’s story of The Little Engine that Could. It is the story of a small train that took on a job that other larger, more powerful engines refused to do.

All the way up the steep slope, the little engine kept chanting to itself, “I think I can, I think I can,” as it did the impossible. As a province, Alberta has a long and proud history of doing what others think cannot be done.

Thirty years ago, who would have believed that Canada would be producing more than four million barrels per day of oil, the vast majority from the oil sands? The reason that happened was because a group of engineers and business people said,” I think I can,” and found ways to create an economy-building industry, for Alberta and Canada.

We are faced with the same opportunity today, with a different energy source—nuclear. The big difference is that nuclear technology is not new, it is not unknown, and it has long, deep Canadian roots. Ontario has relied on clean, safe and reliable Canadian CANDU technology for decades to power its economy. That province continues to look to nuclear power as the main path to decarbonization and electrification. 

Alberta now has the opportunity to diversify our energy mix, complementing the amazing achievement that has been developed in our province in the oil sands to create a viable path to decarbonization. Achieving that requires vision, but more than anything, it requires a can-do, entrepreneurial spirit to tackle the challenges and lean into the hard work. The development of nuclear power within the province requires the creation of an entire ecosystem that supports future operations and a vision to see nuclear power as bigger than any individual project, and a larger economic generator for our province.

In Alberta, we know how to build big and we have the proven engineering and construction talent to do mega projects, but we need the desire and the will to take the necessary first steps into a new industry.

But the road is well worth the effort. There are enormous economic benefits to the development of a large-scale nuclear power plant in the province. In a report published by the Conference Board of Canada, a 4,000MW plant would bring more than $90 billion to the Canadian GDP and $29 billion in tax revenue over the life of the project, and create 33,500 full-time equivalent jobs over nine years of construction along with 3,500 long-term jobs during its 70-plus years of operation.

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