Enbridge hosts third Tour Alberta for Cancer fundraiser in Strathmore

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Over 1,800 cyclists took off from Strathmore, July 19-20, participating in this year’s Enbridge Tour Alberta for Cancer event in support of the Alberta Cancer Foundation.

The two-day event has been operating annually for 17 years, and throughout its history, has raised over $110 million to improve cancer care in Alberta. 

This year marked the third occasion Enbridge has hosted the event in Strathmore. Max Chan, senior vice president of operations and engineering for liquids pipelines at Enbridge, explained the event has become the single largest fundraising event for the Alberta Cancer Foundation.

“We have close to 2,000 riders in person at the event, but also you have a ton of volunteers … we have probably close to a couple hundred Enbridge volunteers. It is probably the largest Enbridge and family volunteer event that we get,” he said. “It has become a bit of an icon within our company as well and people sign up their families to either ride or volunteer.”

In addition to the ride, which features multiple courses for participants of varying levels, the Strathmore and District Agricultural Society grounds were host to the static portion of the event.

The varying lengths of the event were only recently introduced. On the Saturday, courses ran 65 km, 108 km, and 160 km to ride. Sunday saw riders tackling 70 and 100 km rides. 

“What that has done is also just – it is still a substantial amount of riding for a beginner, or a casual rider, but I think it has just made it more inclusive because where before it was just one big lengthy distance, it was a bit intimidating for folks,” said Chan. “Introducing different distances has made a huge impact to that … but I think what has actually helped too is the Strathmore rodeo grounds are a great location. You can fit everything in there.”

Enbridge itself entered 158 cyclists to participate in the event and raised more than $845,956 to contribute by its own efforts. 

Chan added it is something of an “urban legend” at Enbridge that John Osler, one of the founders of the event, was historically very skeptical of the event ever being able to succeed in a meaningful way. 

Osler, who was on the board of the Alberta Cancer Foundation, launched the event with Vern Yu, who was a long-time executive with Enbridge who had a passion for cycling. 

“I think [John’s] exact words were: ‘this will never work,’ or something along those lines, and Enbridge had the courage to step up as the title sponsor and never looked back,” said Chan. “This is culturally very important to the company. People look forward to this every year. The camaraderie internally, it is just really impressive to watch people come together.”