Melvyn Reginald Knight (born July 30, 1944) is a Canadian politician who served as the Minister of Energy of

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

from 2006 to 2010 and as a Progressive Conservative member of the

Legislative Assembly of Alberta The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is the deliberative assembly of the province of Alberta, Canada. It sits in the Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton. Since 2012 the Legislative Assembly has had 87 members, elected first past the post f ...

for the riding of Grande Prairie-Smoky from 2001 to 2012.

Early life

Mel Knight was born July 30, 1944, in Beaverlodge,

. His father worked for

Northern Alberta Railways Northern Alberta Railways was a Canadian railway which served northern Alberta and northeastern British Columbia. Jointly owned by both Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway, NAR existed as a separate company from 1929 until 19 ...

, and Knight grew up in the

Peace Country The Peace River Country (or Peace Country; ) is an aspen parkland region centring on the Peace River in Canada. It extends from northwestern Alberta to the Rocky Mountains in northeastern British Columbia, where a certain portion of the region is ...

. He graduated from Hillside High School in Valleyview, and worked as a

roughneck A roughneck is a person whose occupation is hard manual labor. The term applies across a number of industries, but is most commonly associated with the workers on a drilling rig. The ideal of the hard-working, tough roughneck has been adopted by ...

and repairing equipment before earning his certification as a

journeyman A journeyman is a worker, skilled in a given building trade or craft, who has successfully completed an official apprenticeship qualification. Journeymen are considered competent and authorized to work in that field as a fully qualified employee ...

mechanic A mechanic is a skilled tradesperson who uses tools to build, maintain, or repair machinery, especially engines. Formerly, the term meant any member of the handicraft trades, but by the early 20th century, it had come to mean one who works w ...

. He worked for drilling and petroleum companies until 1970, when he founded his own firm, Knight Measurement and Control, which eventually employed 55 people. He retired from this company in 1996. In 1972, he moved to a farm south of Vallyview, where he raised cattle and grew

forage Forage is a plant material (mainly plant leaves and stems) eaten by grazing livestock. Historically, the term ''forage'' has meant only plants eaten by the animals directly as pasture, crop residue, or immature cereal crops, but it is also used m ...

commercially. He bought a service station in 1974 that later operated as an

antique An antique () is an item perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance, and often defined as at least 100 years old (or some other limit), although the term is often used loosely to describe any object that i ...

shop (later shut down when the MD purchased the land for road access). He is also active in real estate.

Municipal politics

Knight served as a municipal councillor for the

Municipal District of Greenview No. 16 The Municipal District of Greenview No. 16 is a municipal district (MD) in northern Alberta, northwest Alberta, Canada. It covers the full extent of Division No. 18, Alberta, Census Division 18, and with an area of , it is the largest municipal ...

Provincial politics

Electoral record

Knight first sought provincial office in the 2001 Alberta election as the Progressive Conservative candidate in the riding of Grande Prairie Smoky, where incumbent Progressive Conservative Walter Paszkowski was not seeking re-election. Knight was easily elected, taking more than two-thirds of the vote against three opponents. He was re-elected by smaller margins, although still with majorities, in the

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

and

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

elections.

Backbencher

As a backbencher in

Ralph Klein Ralph Philip Klein (November 1, 1942 – March 29, 2013) was a Canadian politician and journalist who served as the 12th premier of Alberta and leader of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta from 1992 until his retirement in 2 ...

's Progressive Conservative caucus, Knight moved a number of government bills. The first was 2003's ''Electric Utilities Act'', which made some changes to the government's

deregulation Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a ...

of the province's

electricity market An electricity market is a system that enables the exchange of electrical energy, through an electrical grid. Historically, electricity has been primarily sold by companies that operate electric generators, and purchased by consumers or electr ...

. Much of the debate around the bill was about whether the government's deregulation had worked well to date. The bill was passed on a party line vote, with Knight's fellow Progressive Conservatives voting unanimously in favour and the opposition Liberals and

New Democrats New Democrats may refer to: * New Democratic Party, a social democratic party in Canada * New Democrats (United States), the ideological centrist faction of the Democratic Party ** New Democrat Coalition, the related caucus in the United State ...

voting unanimously against. Knight also sponsored the ''Securities Amendment Acts'', separate bills with the same name from different years, 2005 and 2006. The first of these was designed to harmonize the

securities regulation A securities commission, securities regulator or capital market authority is a government department or agency responsible for financial regulation of securities products within a particular country. Its powers and responsibilities vary greatly fr ...

with that of other provinces. It was supported by Liberals Rick Miller and

Bill Bonko Bill Bonko is a Canadians, Canadian politician and former member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. He was first elected in the 2004 Alberta general election, 2004 election as a Alberta Liberal Party, Liberal in Edmonton Decore, but was def ...

, who considered it a step in the right direction. New Democrats gave it a mixed reception, with Ray Martin agreeing that it did make some improvements, but with his colleague David Eggen trying to kill it on third reading, saying that what was needed was a supra-provincial securities regulator. The 2006 edition of the ''Securities Amendment Act'' implemented further harmonization, and passed with little debate. The ''Securities Transfer Act'' of the same year consolidated and harmonized the province's rules for transferring

securities A security is a tradable financial asset. The term commonly refers to any form of financial instrument, but its legal definition varies by jurisdiction. In some countries and languages people commonly use the term "security" to refer to any for ...

, and passed with all-party support. In the 2006 Progressive Conservative leadership race, Knight endorsed eventual winner

Ed Stelmach Edward Michael Stelmach (; born May 11, 1951) is a Canadian politician who served as the 13th premier of Alberta, from 2006 to 2011. The grandson of Ukrainian immigrants, Stelmach was born and raised on a farm near Lamont and fluently spea ...

Minister of Energy

When

became Premier in December 2006, he named Knight to his cabinet as Energy Minister. In this capacity, Knight oversaw some of the Stelmach government's most contentious policy issues, beginning with the government response to the Alberta Royalty Review, which recommended dramatically higher royalty rates from companies extracting oil in Alberta. The government rejected many of the review's recommendations, but did increase royalty rates by approximately 20% (25% less than recommended by the panel). These increases were criticized as too low by the opposition Liberals and

and as too high by some industry groups and

Paul Hinman Paul Hinman (born 1959) is a Canadian politician and businessman who is currently the leader of the Wildrose Loyalty Coalition. He was the leader of the Wildrose Independence Party of Alberta from 2020 to 2022, and was the leader of the Wild ...

, the Wildrose Alliance Party's leader and sole MLA. Knight also dealt with the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board affair, which resulted from the June 2007 revelation that the EUB, a government-mandated and appointed body responsible for regulating energy resource development, pipelines, transmission lines, and investor-owned electric, water, and natural gas utilities, as well as certain municipality-owned utilities, admitted that it had hired

private investigators A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI; also known as a private detective, an inquiry agent or informally a private eye) is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private investigat ...

to spy on landowners who opposed the construction of a major power line in the

Rimbey Rimbey is a town in central Alberta, Canada. It is located at the junction of Alberta Highway 20, Highways 20 and Alberta Highway 53, 53 in the Blindman River valley area approximately northwest of Red Deer, Alberta, Red Deer and southwest of ...

area. Even as Stelmach defended the use of investigators, Knight called on the EUB to explain itself. He ordered a judicial investigation into the issue, to run parallel to an investigation being conducted by provincial Information and Privacy Commissioner Frank Work. After Work's investigation found that the EUB had violated provincial law and infringed on the landowner's privacy, the opposition parties called for Knight's resignation. However, when Stelmach unveiled his new cabinet after his victory in the 2008 election, Knight remained as Energy Minister. The major legislative initiative of Knight's time as Energy Minister has been the ''Alberta Utilities Commission Act'', which became better known by its order paper designation, Bill 46. The bill split the EUB into two parts, the Alberta Utilities Commission (responsible for regulating utilities) and the Energy Resources Conservation Board (responsible for regulating oil and gas). The legislation was controversial, as elements of the EUB's governing legislation that provided for public notice and consultation in the event of energy construction projects were missing from the new entities. Opposition parties and activists protested the bill, but it passed through the legislature with the support of all Progressive Conservatives present. Knight has also presided over the appointment of an expert panel charged with evaluating the possibility of introducing

nuclear energy Nuclear energy may refer to: *Nuclear power, the use of sustained nuclear fission or nuclear fusion to generate heat and electricity *Nuclear binding energy, the energy needed to fuse or split a nucleus of an atom *Nuclear potential energy, the pot ...

into Alberta. He was exposed to criticism when, in response to a question from Liberal leader

Kevin Taft Kevin Taft (born 9 September 1955) is an author, consultant, speaker, and former provincial politician in Alberta, Canada. Prior to his election, he worked in various public policy roles (1973–2000) in the Government of Alberta, private and n ...

about why the panel did not include representation from environmental groups, he asserted that the

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an American environmental organization with chapters in all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded in 1892, in San Francisco, by preservationist John Muir. A product of the Pro ...

supported the use of nuclear energy in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

; in fact, the Sierra Club opposes the use of nuclear energy and does not operate in Europe. Knight apologized for his error. In the government's 2008

throne speech A speech from the throne, or throne speech, is an event in certain monarchies in which the reigning sovereign, or their representative, reads a prepared speech to members of the nation's legislature when a session is opened. The address sets fo ...

, it asserted its intention to provide funding to expand Alberta's

biofuels Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels such as oil. Biofuel can be produced from plants or from agricultural, domestic ...

sector. Knight asserted that this expansion would not result in increased

food prices Food prices refer to the average price level for food across countries, regions and on a global scale. Food prices affect producers and consumers of food. Price levels depend on the food production process, including food marketing and food di ...

for Albertans.

Personal life

Knight is married to Diana, and the pair has three children. He is a volunteer hockey coach and is active with his local gun club and petroleum association.

Election results

2001 general election

2004 general election

2008 general election

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Knight, Mel 1944 births Living people 20th-century Canadian farmers 21st-century members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta Canadian businesspeople People from the County of Grande Prairie No. 1 Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta MLAs Members of the Executive Council of Alberta Farmers from Alberta