Nova Scotians Shape Own Future, Says Premier

Public proceeds from the offshore oil and gas sector will be invested in education to ensure Nova Scotians can take advantage of the economic opportunities ahead, Premier Russell MacLellan said today.

"Inherent in every opportunity that gas development presents is the need to prepare Nova Scotians to take advantage," he said in an address at an international oceans conference. "We must invest many of the public proceeds from this development back into the education of our children and their children. Then, and only then, will we be able to say we have truly met our responsibility.

"The legacy we leave, even after the gas is gone, must be Nova Scotians who are ready to meet and to shape their own future."

Premier MacLellan made the comments in a speech to about 150 delegates attending the Pacem in Maribus (Peace in the Oceans) XXVI conference being held this week in Halifax. The conference is the annual gathering of the International Ocean Institute, a non-governmental organization based in Malta with an operational centre at Dalhousie University. Its purpose includes promoting education and research to enhance peaceful use of ocean resources and conservation of the marine environment.

In his address, Premier MacLellan spoke at length about the challenges and the responsibilities as Nova Scotia moves toward developing an offshore oil and gas industry.

"Our challenge is to ensure that Nova Scotians, present and future, benefit to the maximum extent possible from the development of their resource," he said. "Our challenge is to spread those opportunities to Nova Scotians living in every county and community across our province."

The province also recognizes its responsibility to develop the resource in a way that respects and protect the fragile ocean environment. That includes the responsibility to protect the rights of those who make a living from another vital ocean resource, the fishery.

"We accept the responsibility to carry out our activities in a way that ensures our children, and their children, and generations beyond, will be able to provide for their own needs," said Premier MacLellan, "that they, too, will have the opportunity to aspire to their full potential, that they will have the tools they need to make the most of their lives.

"The challenges we face, the responsibilities we accept, are great. And so they should be. The opportunity is equally great."