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Video Stories - Dave Bursey - Transcript

Hi my name is Dave Bursey and I used to be counsel with the National Energy Board back in the late 80s and early 90s. I just wanted to congratulate the Board on 50 years. Félicitations (Congratulations) That's quite an accomplishment.

And as I was thinking back over the history of the Board, I was reflecting on my experience at the Board and I remember the work and the people. First on the work, I remember arriving at the Board, and at the time I worked there the Board was in Ottawa in the Trebla building on Albert Street, and being a bit of a historian I was quite interested in the name of the building and how it had come about and somebody explained to me that it was actually just Albert spelt backwards. And that was my first introduction to the code that you had to learn when you work in the energy regulatory field, there was an awful lot of TLA's, three letter acronyms and I was guided through my experience with the leadership of Sandra Fraser and Jean Morel who were in the legal department and at that time Roland Priddle was the Chair of the Commission and I remember him well in terms of his remarkable abilities, his tremendous skill and his knowledge in that role. And I worked on a number of hearings that took me across Canada and I got to see many interesting parts of Canada. Also worked in many different types of hearings, the GH hearings - the gas hearings and the OH hearings - oil hearings and the RH hearings - the rate hearings and also a few of the MH hearings which were just miscellaneous. That's where the code broke down; we didn't have names for them. And throughout that experience it was incredible to think of the types of projects that we worked on. The NEB was involved in shaping the political and economic and social landscape in the energy industry for many years and it was very interesting to work on projects that were right in the centre and that you'd read about in the newspaper.

But throughout all of that what I remember most is the people. There were some great friendships that I developed there and I got treated very well and I'm still friends with many of the folks that I worked with at that time, we became very close friends. And also since we were working in an area where learning the code and all the different words I also got a code name early in my career. It was the result of an unfortunate haircut and one of the fellows I worked with, Rick Graw, decided that my nickname should be Spike from that time on and there's some people that still call me that and I can identify them from that time period.

So I, again I wish the Board very well and I hope for another 50 years. It was a great pleasure and an honor to work there and I look forward to seeing many of you at the celebration.

Thank you.

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Date Modified:

2011-10-26