CALGARY - Energy-rich Alberta is preparing to pick a new Tory leader to replace Ralph Klein, but for an important part of the province's oil community the key leadership contest to watch is unfolding elsewhere, in Venezuela.
Some polls in the country point to a stunning erosion of support for strongman Hugo Chavez, putting opposition candidate Manuel Rosales within reach of winning the Dec. 3 election.
Many remain skeptical that Mr. Chavez, a socialist allied to Cuba's Fidel Castro and a fierce critic of George W. Bush, can be ousted.
But if Mr. Rosales takes the helm, labour-tight Alberta stands to lose at least some of the hundreds of skilled oil workers who left Venezuela for jobs in Calgary, Edmonton and Fort McMurray after being fired in 2002 by Mr. Chavez from Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the national oil company, for opposing government interference.
The close presidential race "is on everybody's lips" among Venezuelans in Alberta, said Pedro Pereira Almao, a former heavy oil research leader with PDVSA who is now co-director of the University of Calgary's Alberta Ingenuity Centre for In Situ Energy.
Mr. Pereira Almao is not planning to return, but some will if there is a change in government, he predicted.
"Many of us have the 'mal du pays,'" he said. "Everybody loves to be near family."
A Rosales-led government would "improve significantly" the climate for oil investment in Venezuela, Enrique Sira, leader of Cambridge Energy Research Associates's Andean Energy Advisory Service, said from Caracas yesterday.
"He is more pro-progress, and whoever wants to invest and develop and grow production, I am sure will be looked upon in a much more favourable way, regardless where companies come from."
Support for Mr. Rosales, the former governor of the oil-rich state of Zulia, has grown in recent weeks as he dares Venezuelans to oppose Mr. Chavez. His campaign slogan: "Risk it."
With the country's previously fractured opposition now unified behind him, the 54-year-old former farmer is gaining momentum among the country's poor, previously Mr. Chavez's stronghold, for proposing a state-issued debit card called Mi Negra that would allow them to draw money from the country's oil revenue.
The Mi Negra proposal has been particularly well-received as Venezuelans grow angry with Mr. Chavez for spending Venezuelan's oil revenue abroad, from Cuba to Ecuador and Argentina, to buy influence.
"In the last six weeks, Rosales had three marches, and the last one was in Caracas and drew half a million people," said one observer, who asked to remain anonymous. "Chavez, his rhetoric has gone from [U.S. President George] Bush-bashing to, in the last 10 days, bashing Rosales as a puppet of Bush. A change in rhetoric shows Chavez is under pressure. His rally, they had to rent buses and pull public workers into it to make it look good."
There are concerns the election could turn violent if Mr. Chavez uses intimidation to discourage opposition supporters.
Mr. Chavez fired 22,000 PDVSA employees, or 70% of the company's workforce, for participating in strikes four years ago. The oil workers, many of them highly educated abroad, were then black-listed and prevented from taking jobs with any other oil company in the country.
Mr. Pereira Almao said he wouldn't return to PDVSA, even if Mr. Rosales is elected, because it's no longer the company he knew.
Many jobs have been filled by political appointees and he expects the transition back to a market-based culture to be drawn out and difficult.
In addition to tightening the government's grip on PDVSA, the government's main source of revenue, Mr. Chavez passed hydrocarbon laws that increased taxes and royalties on extra heavy oil to the point overall costs are now higher than in Canada, Mr. Sira said.
"We do not believe that in the future, this new fiscal framework will be conducive to new grassroots development," he said.
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