It is a great honour for me to have been asked to assume the role of Chancellor of this University.  I am a native of Northern British Columbia, having been born and raised in this region of Canada, in Prince Rupert to be precise.  I spent the first eighteen years of my life in Northern B.C. and in those years experienced much of what it has to offer.  I recall celebrating my fourth birthday in Bella Coola; summer holidays at Lake Kathlyn near Smithers.  I first visited Kitimat when all that was there were a big river and a First Nations Village.  The same was true of Kemano.  In my teenage years I became familiar with the coastal parts of this region. 

My first real job consisted of installing and servicing radiotelephones on fishing boats and fish camps, hitchhiking the coast from Prince Rupert to Namu on fish packers to do the job. During my undergraduate years at UBC I worked on a seismic crew in the Peace River country, in the Clear River area and later up the Alaska Highway as far north as the summit and Muncho Lake.  On that crew, I was the guy who loaded the dynamite into the holes.

Over the years since leaving the North to pursue an advanced education and several careers I have learned many things.  One of the most important of those is that talent and world-class capability can come from anywhere. In this, the twenty-first century, it is important that we ensure that this precious resource – the intellectual capacity of our young people – has access to advanced education at the highest level no matter where they live and grow up.  This university is a monument to that principle.

I am excited to return to the North after so many years to play a role in advancing this institution along the road set by those visionary people, some of whom are here with us today, who were so persistent in causing this institution to be created and would accept nothing less than a full degree-granting university that would ultimately take its place as one of the world’s most innovative centres of higher learning. After fifteen short years of operation, UNBC is well on its way to achieving that objective.

In the world today there is an emerging challenge.  The three generations of humans represented in this hall today, because we have had the good fortune to live in a developed economy, have had the privilege of living in a time when the prosperity and quality of life is the best it has ever been in the entire history of our species on this planet.  One has to ask why that has been the case.  I would submit to you that the principal reason for this happy state of affairs is that we have had access to large quantities of readily available, relatively inexpensive energy.  Think of all the things that make your life what it is and how dependent they are on the ready availability of convenient, affordable energy.  Ladies and gentlemen, that is about to change, and it is this change that will define the 21st century.  We, in British Columbia, are extremely fortunate.  We live in one of the most intrinsically energy-rich regions of the world.  That is not true for most of the world’s people who depend on a fossil fuel based energy system, driven by resources from elsewhere, for their prosperity.  As large developing economies such as China, India and Brazil, struggle to reach our enviable lifestyle the demand on the world’s energy resources is increasing and as that demand approaches and ultimately exceeds the finite available supply of conventional energy resources, the price of energy will rise and become unstable thereby affecting everyone’s quality of life.  The effects of global climate change, some of which are readily apparent in the forests that surround this city, are related to humankind’s consumption of fossil fuel to generate electricity in most regions of the world.  The current energy system that powers the prosperity of human civilization is unsustainable.  Our global energy system will have to change.  It will happen in this century and that is today’s big challenge.

The answer to this challenge lies in the entry of renewable energy sources such as wind, biomass, solar, geothermal, and so on into the mainstream of energy generation around the world.  British Columbia is one of the few places on this planet that is richly endowed with every renewable energy source known to man and the bulk of that is in the northern part of the province.  This represents an economic opportunity for our province and especially for its North to become a supplier of renewable energy and its associated infrastructure to the world.  But to meet this challenge another resource is required.  It is called brainpower, and that is where our universities come in.  The infrastructure, technological and social challenges of revamping the world’s energy systems are gigantic.  They will require much new knowledge and innovation.  UNBC is well placed to assume a leadership role in this task.  It resides in one of the most energy rich places in the world.  It has already branded itself as “Canada’s Green University.”  The opportunity is there for the taking.