Canadian oil patch rolls out welcome mat for old foe, Jean Chretien

Gary Park

Petroleum News Calgary correspondent

Jean Chrétien has gone from pain to gain in the oil patch in less than the two months since he stepped down as Canada’s prime minister.

With dazzling speed, the man who spent 40 years in politics has landed four private sector consulting jobs, the latest as special advisor for international relations with PetroKazakhstan, the Canadian independent which operates solely in the former Soviet republic.

Chrétien, himself a lawyer, had previously accepted jobs with three legal firms, including Calgary-based Bennett Jones, which is heavily involved in the oil industry and includes Peter Lougheed, a former Alberta premier and one-time Chrétien adversary, among its partners.

The transformation of Chrétien has bemused many in the industry, who remember him as a cabinet minister when the Canadian government imposed the National Energy Program in the early 1980s to cap domestic oil prices, costing companies and governments billions of dollars in lost revenues, then as prime minister when he rammed through the Kyoto Protocol on climate change with consequences to the industry that remain unknown.

PetroKaz Chairman Bernard Isautier is counting on Chrétien to help overcome the often troublesome relations between the company and the Kazakhstan government and also help open up new markets, notably in China.

“Once Mr. Chrétien resigned as prime minister, Mr. Isautier felt that by contacting him there might be an opportunity here for both of us,” PetroKaz spokesman Ihor Wasylkiw told reporters.

The two men have known each other for many years, including a period when Isautier was advisor to the French government’s energy and industry minister.

The market gave an instant endorsement to the Chrétien hiring, boosting the PetroKaz share price by 5 percent on Feb. 3, adding C$118 million to the market capitalization.