 Okay, so to begin, could you please state your full name? My name is David Boucher from Fort Mackay. And your age? 51. And where were you born? Born and raised in Fort Mackay. And when you were little, what did your parents do? When I was little, my parents used to live off the trapline. That's how they raised us children living off the trapline. And how did you spend your days? I spent my days between the trapline and our time in school. Okay. Any interests, things you knew from the get-go you really like to do as a kid? Well, when I was a kid, what I loved doing at the time was playing hockey, ice-dor hockey. And spending time in the trapline and certainly sometimes in school. Defense where I'm at in the trapline. Okay. And so you mentioned school a couple of times. Were you good at school or were there specific subjects you were particularly good at or you really liked? I was good at math and the thing that was difficult for us at school at the time was spending more time in the trapline than in school. So school was kind of difficult. The choice I had by no choice was out in the trapline. Okay. And so growing up going to school, did you figure what you wanted to do, I guess, with your life? Where you wanted to go? Well, at the time when I was living off the trapline to me, the thing I knew at the time was the trapline. It's nothing out there I was thinking of doing different because I'm just used to living out in the bus and spending some time in Fort Makaya is where my home is. Okay. Besides playing sports like hockey. Okay. You ever think maybe you'd go professional with hockey? I always dreamed to be. Yeah. And as far as I made it in school and hockey was in Fort Makaya because we never had any funding back in the day like we have today. Right. Yeah. Okay. So what would you consider to be your first, I guess your first job or after you finished school what would you say you spent your time doing or your first job? My first job after, well, I lost my father back in 1979. I was only 14 year old and when the school dropped off school, 15 year old grade nine. Then after that I was started working for forestry fighting fires. Tala was 18 year old. Then after I turned 18 year old I got my first job at the plans, Syncrude, as I could not later for Syncrude spend four years working for Syncrude. Okay. And as I actually interviewed the ex CEO of Syncrude, Eric Newell. Yeah. Yeah. So when you first started working for Syncrude, looking back at you ever, I guess there must have already been an existing relationship with the OSN industries or certain companies around here in Fort Makaya? Yeah. When I started Syncrude, I started out in a low level running equipment, then spend four years there for Syncrude, then move on to work for another contractor on Syncrude site. It's a first nation company and worked seven years for them running equipment. Then one day I got an offer a job from Fort Makaya group of companies, the first nations I'm from. They offered me a job as a supervisor looking after one of their jobs. And a new mine is called Albion Sands. Then I worked my way up from there as a supervisor and I managed one of the companies at Albion for Fort Makaya and the civil heavy equipment side of it. We used to do around probably about $15 million a month. I was doing business at Fort Makaya at the Albion site. Okay. And what, I guess, what pushed you to start eventually your own company? After I did 10 years at Fort Makaya, I had my company very small at the time and I had a cousin, a cousin family running my business. Like, I had one piece of equipment. Then the one piece of equipment grow into five piece of equipment. It started in 97, 98. By 1999, 2000, I had four or five piece of equipment. Then meeting Nicole went in full time with our companies. We had to resign our jobs where we were working for hours with Makaya and Nicole as a sale and run our business 100% in 2004. Then that's where we kind of go to company from when we started our company full time. Now for someone who comes, let's say who's listening to this and is completely outside of Fort Makaya, Fort McMurray, the industry. What does Boucher do? What does your company do? Our company does a lot of civil work. A lot of road maintenance. We're involved in facility maintenance. We have contracts in five different sites like Curl and the CNRL, Suncor Fort Hills, RMWB, the city of Fort McMurray, and Suncor Faribay. Okay. So do you talk about road maintenance? Do you also do seasonal road maintenance like Snell, for example? Yeah, we do a lot of snow removal, all these highways in North here. And I do a lot of road building, ice roads for Sinovus up at Telephone Lake where Sinovus cut onto their plan to build a site up there. So I do their winter drilling roads every year for the last past 10 years. Okay. I saw a sign coming in saying the roads were probably maintained by Boucher. And coming in you could see they're pretty nice. Yeah, pretty nice. I'll sign it, yeah. We'll make sure we take pride in our work, especially when you see the Boucher signs along the highway. And it's our signs that I make sure we deliver the service and keep the road safe. And so that would be seasonal. Do you do also road maintenance? I'm guessing there's massive wear and tear too with these, you know, 400 ton trucks and things like that. Yeah. Do you guys have to do a lot of maintenance in that sense, fixing roads? We do a lot of grading on the plan sites for the rock trucks and graders that travel on the highways and stuff, the heavy haulers. So we maintain the roads on the plan sites and keep it safe there. When it rains or when it's dry, it's always got to be grading. Yeah. And so throughout your career, what would you say has been your most, I guess, the difficult part of it or a difficult project you've worked on? The difficult, probably the difficult part was when we first started our business. I mean, that was tough. And I mean, running your own business is you got to put in 100% of your time. It's not like you just come and go when you want. I remember not sleeping for three days at one time because of just trying to be, just trying to be one of the contractor delivery service. I know I'm there on the field. I know the work gets done. I remember one night, I was living in Fort McMurray, driving home from CNRL into Fort McMurray, driving down a highway, it's 100 kilometers speed limit. I was doing only 80, just drained out and tired from working three days straight without sleeping. And I mean, it was very tough. It's tough to run your own business now. Like I said, you got to be part of it. Right. Yeah, for sure. Have you had, now knowing success, looking back, would you consider having had a mentor throughout your life? Well, the mentor for me, it's probably just to see in the past of my parents I was brought up with. My father was 14, see what he'd done in the time. He's a do similar thing, run equipment. My grandparents, hardworking people live off the land, never stop working. That's just the way they live and make money to feed their kids. And to me, I come from a family that's very strong and loves working. And back in those days, we don't have computers like what they have today. So there's no time for sitting in there and playing computer games or telephones or texting stuff that we don't have back in the day. It's just work work. Right. So they taught you a great work ethic. Yeah, even when I was with Fort Macai, a group of companies, I had a guy named Jim Carbree. He was my CEO of the company at Fort Macai. He mentored me very much how to run a business. And he gave me an opportunity to take this ball and run with it. And I had this opportunity to be a mentor for him that gave me a chance. And I used to run a big business for them at Fort Macai. And I'll be inside. Good. You're good? Yeah. Okay, so when you began your career, whether that was, we can even start with firefighting, things like that. But then with the, especially with the oil sands industry, how present or absent were indigenous people in the workplace? And did that change through time? You know, that part is always there. I mean, Fort Macai is in the heart of the oil sands. I mean, after probably the late 80s, trapping kind of went away. And oil sands was there. And there's only way that the people in the community of Fort Macai could feed their children is working in the oil sands. And more people in the community started working in the oil sands just to live their lives in a good way. Because back in the day, it was just only off the land and that kind of went away a bit because of the market of the fur. The market of the fur is not there anymore like it used to be. Yeah, you said it was around the 80s where that kind of changed. It's kind of changed, yeah. Was there a lot of animosity between your first nations and your oil sands industries? Or was it kind of like a good transition? It was a good transition because like our Fort Macai first nation got lots back in the oil sands just to be part of that and working with the oil companies. And everybody went from that source of wind for both sides and gives our community more job opportunities for the people that stays in the community. And did you play a role, I guess this company as well, but did you play a role in linking indigenous communities or groups with specific industries? Well, I was a consular in Fort Macai for eight years and I was involved with other first nations making agreements with Fort Macai, when I was involved with Fort Macai. So yeah, I was involved in quite a bit of that and of course with industry itself. What would you say you're proudest of his work as a counselor? My proudest thing I've done for a consular was growing up as a kid. I used to shovel outdoor arena in Fort Macai, three feet of snow, five o'clock in the morning before school starts at nine with a hand shovel to make sure the arena is clean for the kids that's when school's done at 4.30 everybody just go out and play their hockey game. And my job when I was a consular, my goal was to build indoor arena. And I got that done. I made a consular, let's build arena for Fort Macai. And so we did build arena. Before the arena was built, I myself and the wife of our company we bought a Zamboni for the Macai arena. And we made sure that Zamboni was there before the arena was built so they have Zamboni to work with when the arena is completed. That was my big goal and it was huge for us. Good, good. And as you mentioned, you love hockey as a kid, but there wasn't that much, I guess, support or popularity for it here or money for it. Have you seen it grow? Has there been an uptrend? Yeah, I mean like back in my time in the 70s, 80s there were no funding and no sponsors and I used to just victim hockey gloves with like outdoor gloves. There wasn't hockey gloves because we had no funding. Nobody supported us. Now today I got children and three boys played hockey and all the money, I mean, they have everything they need to play the game and all the sponsors they get and it's different. And I mean, everything changes for a good reason and my kids all went to school, all graduated with three older boys, a daughter and back in my day I didn't have that support so I didn't finish what they finished today but I made sure they all went through school at the time I had no choice not to be in school. Because your father's down there? Yeah. Living off the land is different. Yeah, it takes a lot of hard work at times. Because I mean, if your parents live off in the land you have to go and live with them. It's just the way it is. Back in the day now, I wouldn't see my self and my kids through living off the land because there's nothing there for them now. But we still go out there. I got a cabin north of Fort Maccay. I got a nice cabin in Fort Maccay Reserve and we go there quite a bit and I got a nice fishing company. Yeah, I was going to ask if you still do live off the land a little bit. I still do off the land and so my little eight-year-old what's about and how I was raised up and continue some of that. And where do you live normally? Do you live in Fort Maccay? I got a house in Fort Maccay in Fort Macmary where my kids go to school. And throughout your career have you ever joined any professional organizations? We talked about you being a counselor at Fort Maccay. No, I just sit on boards. Fort Maccay's got about five boards and I sit on about three boards for them. One of them is like Fort Maccay Group Companies and on three other ones are joint ventures. Do you ever think of becoming a counselor again? I think about it and you know it's we're so busy in Boucher what we do and it's very hard to take on two roles and I like to focus 100% in Boucher. Now I'll move on to a few opinion questions. Pretty interesting. So do you believe there's a disconnect between the natural resource world and or industries particularly and indigenous people and how has it changed for the decades if it has or hasn't? To me I don't see it change a whole lot. I mean I know what's all happening around here with the given pipeline and go ahead. To me in the big world is probably the good thing that ever happened. I mean us in Canada we got to move our oil somewhere and if we don't have this pipeline we don't move this oil anywhere and it doesn't make sense as buying oil from some other country that we have here in Canada and to me it's a win-win for everyone. I know it's very tough for us First Nations people especially when something like this with the pipeline going through their lands it's an issue but in the day like we all win out of it. It's a big win. And this is a mouthful question but in your opinion and this could be very broad it could be across Canada but when we talk about this industry whether it's oil sands or mining in your opinion are there any events people, inventions, contributions, disasters anything really that must be mentioned when talking about the history of the natural resources in Canada? No the biggest thing is environment and I know very our industry partners around Makai here have been very good with the environment anything goes wrong or something is going to come up they always give our communities notice if any change is going to be made so in that part we're always aware of what's happening it's not like we don't get surprises So you'd say generally it's affected the countries generally quite in tune with the environment and has that changed your time because that often comes up in my other interviews as well but often the oil sands for example especially the oil sands will get criticized or people picture them as being this very polluting industry which to some extent it is but with time you also hear great innovation and a lot of reducing a lot of things to help the environment more like sync with their buffalos that's a good sign they're reclaiming the land and we have buffalos there that's owned by Port Makai and there's something they're doing there to reclaim the land they're covering it back over whatever they've done there same thing I've seen they've got a man made lake and it's full of fish in there and it's pretty much normal I mean the environment is different systems we have now so the pollution is getting better I know it's probably not the best but it's getting there I know there's going to be more technology coming up and it's going to get better if we go along I asked about the disconnect between Indigenous people and the natural resource industries but this question I asked everybody do you think there's a disconnect between the natural resource industry with Canadian people do you think people understand enough or appreciate enough the natural resources well I think they appreciate enough they could do more I mean the biggest thing is communication with independent people because that's a big thing and the more you give good information to the First Nations people it makes it more better and how they could plan their communities last question and then I'll just finish with a few closing questions how do you see the future of Canada's resources and its relationship with all its people and industry are we on the right track are we doing the right things we're pretty much on the right track like I said earlier the biggest thing is these pipelines we went through two pipelines and one of them came to Morgan and I mean it's it's better to sell our oil and get oil from different countries than we have here in Canada and it's good for our economies jobs and everything that happen in Canada by doing this it draws more jobs for people and of course everybody will have a job it pushes more opportunities and a few closing questions what would you say you're proudest of in life and we can divide that and two we can say proudest of in life and also proudest of professionally well proudest in life is never ever thought in my life would I have a very big successful company as big as this there was never ever my business plan and very proud of what we've done me and my wife we accomplished very good stuff and how many people we employed and feed children, families and all different province and BC and Newfoundland Nova Scotia we employ almost 900 employees and I'm very proud to say that we did good in our lives and how many other families we feed and I'm guessing you mentioned a few east coast provinces I'm from the east coast myself and I know I have a lot of friends who work out west and actually he's from Newfoundland we have a lot of people from Newfoundland and the officer and out in the field so yeah it's great all great people and last thing if you were speaking to someone much younger like a kid or a student what would be the most important life lesson or piece of advice you'd give them moving forward? well to me for example my kids always want to know if they want to when they take the company over to me my take is tough and I wouldn't want to see my kids go through what we went through to run a company like we have today because it's very stressful times are tough at one time and I remember when we had to almost close our doors because we're on red 250,000 because things didn't go right and it's very tough and like to me if I told anybody that wants to run a business they got to put 100% into it not just 20% of it and I mean it's very stressful if you're not part of it that's my opinion to other people that I know there's so many people out there always want to run their own business but it's times could be tough right yeah and I was going to ask you whenever oil like gas gas prices are affected things like that sometimes you'll see job fluctuating in the oil sales industry does that often directly affect you guys or do you still kind of business as usual for you guys we had our ups and downs there's few times when oil prices drop like even in 2008 we felt the pinch we had to lay off some people at the time I mean and everything drops off and the prices drop and of course all our market changes and it's tough when you have to lay off people that's been with you for a while feel it yeah do you have anything else you'd like to add no I hope I'm very part of it I could help out with this interview and it's great well thank you