Liberal find a new way to stop pipelines: Blame sexism
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
169.23064
Summary
Robbie Picard of Oil Sands Strong joins me from his home in Fort McMurray, Alberta to discuss shutting down the Trans Mountain pipeline and fighting a documentary crew that came to his home town of Fort Maclean, Alberta.
Transcript
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Hello Rebels, you're listening to a free audio-only recording of my show, The Gun Show.
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My guest tonight is Robbie Picard of Oil Sand Strong.
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Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion is on hold yet again for more legal wrangling.
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What does this mean for the federal election that was just called today?
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I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
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You know, I'm noticing an alarming trend these days.
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It's pretty recent, and it's built on the tried-and-true template
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of calling anyone to the right of Chairman Mao a racist or alt-right with no evidence whatsoever.
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If you oppose the carbon tax or radical environmentalism or the foreign funding of these radical environmentalists,
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Just yesterday, when Jason Kenney, the Premier of Alberta,
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announced the details of his new inquiry into the foreign funding attacking Alberta's oil patch,
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Amnesty International came out and said that tracing money back to foreign billionaires
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would somehow violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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I've seen a spate of articles lately detailing the trials and tribulations of female environmentalists,
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and the articles have tried to blame Donald Trump, Premier Jason Kenney, and my guest tonight
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for any manner of inconveniences, real or imagined, or abuse, real or imagined, directed at these women.
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Robbie Picard held up a sign at the unveiling of Premier Jason Kenney's Energy War Room
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that called the founder of Forest Ethics and Stand Earth the enemy of the oil sands.
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And given that she's dedicated most of her life to shutting down the oil sands,
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I think that's a pretty fair assessment of Sephora Berman.
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And yet the media is painting that event as some sort of misogynistic attack
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from Robbie, who happens to be gay and Métis and from the place Berman called Mordor.
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So my friend Robbie joins me tonight to discuss these new shut-upper-y tactics
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and the cancellation of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline one more time
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and how he took the fight to a documentary film crew that came up to Fort McMurray.
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Stay tuned for the interview we recorded yesterday afternoon, coming up next.
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Joining me now from his home in Fort McMurray is Robbie Picard from Oil Sand Strong.
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There's a heck of a lot to talk about right now, but first I want to talk about you
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because you fought back when a documentary film crew came to Fort McMurray
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and you decided that these people aren't going to come to your town,
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tell lies about your town without any sort of opposition or pushback from the locals
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Yeah, you know, I wasn't entirely sure what, I guess, what they were trying to do.
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And so I organized a small group of people to kind of just say, like, I can't even count.
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Like, apparently there's another four documentaries about Fort McMurray being filmed right now.
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But I just wanted to say, like, look, why are you guys constantly flying here
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and, you know, asking questions about the tailings upon wanting to tell our story
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or wanting us to tell you our stories at the same time?
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I mean, are you going to tell it from a center point of view
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and kind of just kind of be factual or are you going to put a slant on it?
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And also I said, like, you know, it kind of gets old after a while
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Like, Jamie, the CBC reporter here, she did a story right after,
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And I was very, like, on point, and I respected that.
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But the interesting part was that we were in the –
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I tried really hard to make this little town hall work,
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and it was raining, and I was real busy with my marketing company.
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And one of the things I'm doing right now is, like, I'm just –
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like, that morning I was buying an antique blender
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But it was really – actually, it was from 1974.
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Anyway, so I was obsessed with buying this blender.
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So I had one of my camera guys there, and we were going to film it.
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And before my camera even got out, the host, who was nice,
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put the camera in my face and started asking me about my lesbian post.
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First time that has ever happened in person ever, ever in person.
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And then I said to her, I said, you know, this was the interesting part.
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And instead of saying, well, you're a hypocrite because you're taking a plane,
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I said, what is the harm if that oil in that plane or the fuel, the diesel,
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whatever, the jet fuel, what's the harm if that came from our great,
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And it kind of was like, she's like, you're kind of right.
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And at the end of it, they were kind of defending, hey,
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So it was definitely an interesting encounter that honestly could have went
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But from now on, when they come, I want them to understand that, like,
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You know, she's like, Robbie, you made that lesbian post.
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All you care about media and how dare you criticize media.
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Or don't you think that's hypocritical that you're criticizing media?
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And I'm like, well, I'm not saying that media can't cover stories.
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What I want you guys to do is understand that this has an impact on us.
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Like, I mean, every time we turn around, there's, I mean,
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Some do, some have an amazing time and they, they do good work.
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But there's always someone come in here to kind of talk about us.
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And I have given, like, myself for the past five years,
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like, when they come, I give them the best to her possible.
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I mean, I had a strange one where this one girl,
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she went and played the violin at an abandoned oil sands site.
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You know, she came in from New York City to play a violin.
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But it was the first time I think, I think we're kind of like, I think we're at that point now.
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Are you simply just going to fly over the tailings ponds and then take your video?
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And if so, well, then we're going to at least stand up and say, look, like,
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there are people here with lives that this is their community and they care about it.
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And honestly, like, we're just trying to get about our business.
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We're trying to figure out what we're doing about our low housing prices.
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Like, I mean, it's, you know, it's definitely an interesting world we're in,
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but I'm happy that there was a little bit of bite back.
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And I think you're probably the, here's the thing.
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You do this out of really the goodness of your heart.
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You're really not getting paid to confront these activists that come into your town.
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Um, but you're the only one who organized the pushback.
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And that's disappointing to me because you have an MLA, you have an MP and a mayor
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who they're getting paid to defend your community.
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Um, and I hope after seeing what you were able to do on really a moment's notice,
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um, that they sort of take up the reins and do what they were elected to do.
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And that's defend the best interests of Fort McMurray.
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Um, I, I do hope, like, I, I want more, like, I'd like to see more support at these events
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Like, if this was Calgary, you'd have a lot more people.
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Now, next thing I wanted to talk to you about, of course, is the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion
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that has once again been put on hold so that it can go through more legal wrangling.
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Apparently six, um, new appeals are going to be heard.
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Um, and the main criticism, at least from me, is that the last time the pipeline was delayed,
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the court laid out, now, agree or disagree with the court, normally I tend to disagree
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with these appeals courts, um, decisions on pipelines, but they very clearly laid out
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to the liberals what they needed to do to meet the criteria to avoid the pipeline being
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And they also didn't make any arguments for or against the pipeline.
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And whether or not you agree with the pipeline, certainly it's the government's role to protect
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Ah, I think that it's, um, very rude to call an election on September 11th.
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Um, I'm, it's, uh, we have an election coming up and I'm going to stay nonpartisan like I
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But what I will say is that, um, this pipeline is in our national interest and you, when you
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elect people to office and they take roles of like energy minister, attorney general or
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I understand that for a time period when you're running for elections, like partisan politics is
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just insane, but you want to know that those people have the best interest of the country
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And you really want to believe that they didn't just spend seven point, whatever
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I mean, you're different numbers, but 4.5 to start to start.
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So 4.5 to start, but they're, I think they're projecting close to $7 billion, um, $4.5 billion,
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which is a lot of money, which is, um, you know, which we need this pipeline.
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And you would think that after paying that pipeline and taking our, um, Kinder Morgan out
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of the equation, that this would be a priority and you would have your best lawyers on it.
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There would not be a single, uh, T not crossed or an I not dotted and I'm concerned.
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Um, when you have such, like, we need this pipeline.
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There's, this isn't a, this isn't a want, um, if we don't get this pipeline, what's going
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to happen is you're going to see Alberto like kind of collapse in time, maybe not right
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away, but it will, it'll slowly start to fizzle.
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Um, you're going to see, uh, more investment leave.
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Um, you're going to see a lot of very, very angry Albertans.
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And I understand that parts of Canada are doing good economically.
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Well, that's really easy when, you know, you have a government borrowing money to prop
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Um, but we in Alberta need this pipeline and long-term, I would say four or five years
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from now, the rest of Canada will realize the importance of Alberta.
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Uh, I hope that, you know, it's, uh, if we don't get this pipeline and they try to do
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something, say in a, in a few years, it'll be too little, too late.
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So now it boils down to which party can, I suppose, get a pipeline.
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And, um, I'm, I'm completely sad that this isn't a priority.
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Um, that's not my grinder age and, um, I'm, I, I'm blown away at the fact that this is
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Um, you know, and, and we've been fighting this for quite a while and mostly on our own
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dimes, we don't have some U S whatever organization, trust fund babies, whatever, giving us a check
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for $2 million so we can continue to, uh, do this.
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We're like, I mean, I'm, we're, I'm doing the best I can with what I have, trying to keep
00:14:08.960
Um, I don't have an answer to this, but once again, when you have a government that's been
00:14:13.980
elected, you hope that no matter what happens, that they have the best interests of our country
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Um, and that, you know, when you think about it, what the liberals were willing to do for
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SNC Lavalin, they were willing to literally break the law, um, to do, uh, you know, a
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solid for a corrupt Quebec based company, an engineering firm called SNC Lavalin, uh, an
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engineering firm that once bought hookers for Muammar Gaddafi's son and routinely brought
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him over to Canada to work on his English, um, they were willing to break the law.
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And yet when it comes to something that's in Alberta's best interest, but like you point
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out in the best interest of the entire country, they couldn't even present a sound legal argument
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Um, and they do have the ability to say that this is in the national interest and just build
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And I think that says a lot about, um, how this liberal government feels about Alberta
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and the West who alluded to, um, a $2 million, um, handout to an environmental activist.
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It was given to a woman who fancies herself to be the nemesis of Robbie Picard, Sephora Berman,
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She just got a $2 million U.S. climate award from an American environmental group called
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And she's supposed to take that money to develop a strategic approach to limiting new oil and
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gas development globally to align with the UN Paris Agreement goals of a safe climate, at
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least according to the news release about the award.
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Now, the point I want to make is that if this were Russian money flowing into the country
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for any reason, but if it were flowing into, let's say, promote oil and gas, which the Russians
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They'd love to block our oil and gas, especially our gas.
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But if Russian money were dumping into the country to support things that conservatives
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cared about, everybody would be absolutely losing their marbles over this.
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Berman gets money from the Americans, and nobody's talking about foreign collusion at all.
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Oh, you know, I've had a lot of time to think about Sephora Berman lately, and I'm not surprised
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And honestly, we know who's funding the anti-oil sands, anti-Canadian movement, anti-Canadian energy
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movement. And now that Vivian Krause, you know, she's done her research and we're going to have
00:17:08.780
the inquiry, we're going to find out more. But truthfully, what they're going to do is they're
00:17:12.260
just going to change how they give the money. It's going to be done differently. And I think
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you're going to see more of this type of way of doing it. And I'm honestly, I am.
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I'm disgusted that more people aren't concerned about what has happened here. And there's not
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more outrage to this. We all like, I mean, that $2 million is just part of what she that's what we
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know about. That's not the rest of it. We don't may or may not know about, in addition to her wage and
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all of the rest of the money that they have. We as Canadians, I'm not even going to blame the
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government. Why? We need to say, look, this is our future. And we have to get off this delusional
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notion that somehow that we are going to eradicate fossil fuels in the next 20 years. And frankly,
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if Canada stopped all oil production tomorrow, it would make no dint in the world's carbon
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pollution, period. So my, my friend, Sephora, I don't, I'm trying, candidly, I'm trying to figure
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out what to how to respond to her. So after, you know, I opened the war room, and I held up that
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sign that said, Sephora Berman, enemy of the oil sands. You know, she's constantly, you know,
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bringing up about that she got attacked. Apparently, some guy tried to assault her at an airport. Now,
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that was pre, for the record, pre, that would happen two years prior to the war midsend.
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You know what, I want, I want to, I want to talk about that. So before we skip ahead, actually,
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I had, I actually brought up the article on my computer, because it is so unbelievable,
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in that I literally do not believe it happened the way she described. It's part of an article from
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the National Observer called the Campaign to Silence Sephora Berman. And she, she points out,
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or she alleges, that after she was appointed to the oil sands advisory group, so before Jason Kenney
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even announced that he's going to run for the leadership of the PCs, then win the leadership of
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the PCs, then unite the parties, and then run for the leadership of that party, and then win as
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premier. She alleges that somehow Jason Kenney and Donald Trump, who also at the time wasn't president
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yet, are somehow, due to their rhetoric, responsible for an alleged assault that happened to her in one of
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the most surveilled buildings in the entire country. And I can't even believe journalists are letting her
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get away with saying that, this. She says that she was at the Edmonton International Airport,
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and this, these are her words. So I'm, imagine this is on the departure side, through security. So she says,
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she was assaulted at the Edmonton Airport. A huge man came toward me, yelling at me, and then he grabbed me,
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started shaking me, and there was spit flying into my face. I was scared. I twisted away from him, and ran into the
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women's bathroom, and hid in a stall for a long time. She ventured out in time to board her flight. The man had
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gone. I absolutely, I'm saying it right now, I don't think this happened. Airports are watched and surveilled in
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real time. There are literally people sitting watching monitors. She wants us to believe a ginormous
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spittle-faced monster, big foot of a man, grabbed her in the Edmonton Airport, throttled her until she
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writhed and twisted away, and then ran off sobbing and hid in a bathroom. And this man just sauntered off
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and got on a plane. I, it's unbelievable. And yet the media just lets her say these kinds of things.
00:21:17.540
It, we see it all the time. We're seeing it again with Catherine McKenna. In an attempt to silence
00:21:22.960
everybody who's critical of the carbon tax, she's saying, well, this, this rhetoric, this being
00:21:30.800
critical of me, is somehow morphing into super misogyny. And this is just the, it's the new
00:21:37.740
shut up. They used to call us racist. Now we're sexist because we don't like the carbon tax. And
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anything goes. Any manner of story that they just say without proof, apropos of nothing,
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everybody just believes it like it's the gospel of Mark. I don't get it.
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Um, okay. So, um, sorry, I was on quite a tangent there. No, no. And I, I'm going to actually,
00:22:01.120
I've got a, I got a good response for this. Okay. So, um, I'm going to leave Catherine McKenna's one.
00:22:06.460
I'm going to set that aside because, um, that one, I don't, I have never, I've never, I've never,
00:22:12.240
I've never done a meme on Catherine. I've never, I've never, I don't, I try to stay nonpartisan.
00:22:17.720
The, oh, I've taken the odd shot at Trudeau when he, you know, dresses up as Mr. Dress Up when he goes on
00:22:22.660
an India trip and the fact that we don't have a pipeline. Um, but what I will do is I'll, I'm
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going to, I'm going to, I'm going to take this to another level here and I'm actually going to
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include you in this. So Sapporo Berman, for instance, like if somebody, if somebody, here's
00:22:37.220
my message to Sapporo. Okay. So I, I completely get it. Sapporo, you and I don't agree and like
00:22:42.220
each other. And I, I'm actually quite impressed that you got $2 million for your rackets. Um, I mean,
00:22:47.540
you have made an amazing, amazing career, um, you know, trying to shut down the industry
00:22:53.640
that we're trying to protect. And I mean, you're ahead of us right now. I mean, wow, $2 million
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to fantasize about how you're going to get rid of fossil fuels. Good on you. But if somebody
00:23:06.240
grabs you at an airport, um, call security and get them arrested. And I find it really
00:23:17.040
funny how there's this outrage or something that no one saw happen. Uh, I'm not saying
00:23:21.620
did or didn't, I wasn't there, but you could probably actually, I mean, I imagine airports
00:23:26.600
keep security footage for a very, very long time. You probably can name the time and date
00:23:31.480
of your flight and you can probably find the perpetrator who grabbed you and spit in your
00:23:35.100
face or, and go from there. And, and when it comes to people being physical, there needs
00:23:41.580
to be a, not a double standard. So I have a friend of mine who is a reporter who was at
00:23:46.560
a woman's rally and some guy, um, physically, you know, tried to punch her, punched her camera
00:23:53.100
and the camera hit her in the head. It was all on tape and very few people on the left gave,
00:23:58.280
uh, gave a sweet about it, even though she was, uh, clearly a female. And the entire video
00:24:04.720
was quite passive. Hey, what are you up to? Why? You know, it wasn't even a typical thing.
00:24:09.200
And that was on tape. And what did my friend do? She did everything within her power to get
00:24:14.400
the guy exposed. So support, you have massive reach and you've got $2 million in the bank
00:24:18.880
or you have access, uh, you know, do something, um, call and find out who this guy was. Um,
00:24:26.400
but at the same time, and this is where I'm struggling because, um, I never want anyone
00:24:32.580
to hurt support or Berman, support or Berman. Um, and frankly, um, my idea for calling her
00:24:37.620
enemy, the oil sands came from Chatelaine magazine and Chatelaine magazine did an article where she's,
00:24:43.180
they said she's a, how did support or Berman become, um, the oil and gas number one enemy?
00:24:48.560
Yeah. And they are that that's unreadable feminist garbage Chatelaine magazine. So if it's okay for the
00:24:54.740
feminists at Chatelaine magazine to say about her, then it's not sexist when you say it,
00:25:00.560
my gay matey friend. Am I being sexist by not fighting the same fight? Uh, I don't, um, I,
00:25:06.460
I don't care who my opponent is. I'm fair. I, I try to fight fair. Um, I try not to be too personal,
00:25:12.800
but I'm also not scared to stand up to anybody. And, um, I've stood up to David Suzuki. I've stood up
00:25:17.940
to Mike Adima. I've stood up to most of the green, the Greenpeace crew and Fonda.
00:25:24.740
Yes. Leonardo DiCaprio and Neil Young. I mean, it's not, to me, it doesn't matter if someone's
00:25:29.200
a woman or not. And frankly, I don't, most of my mentors, my business mentors, people in Fort
00:25:34.100
McMurray are all females, business people, successful people. Um, and then pretty easy
00:25:38.940
to work with. I recently actually had a really good conversation with the former energy minister,
00:25:43.300
Margaret McCraig-Boyd. Then I, um, met with the current energy minister provincially. I got posed
00:25:47.900
to the post picture with both of them. Um, I'm, you know, I've, I've, I've, I've worked with Rachel
00:25:53.400
Notley to best of my ability when she was premier. I've tried to stay nonpartisan. So, but I'm not
00:25:58.940
going to be silenced. And I think it's a very vicious thing to silence people by accusing them
00:26:03.820
of, uh, doing things. I'm like trying to imply that what am I supposed to do? Like if, if someone's
00:26:10.400
a woman, I'm supposed to take it like softer and not say the same things I'd say to a guy.
00:26:14.220
Um, I don't think that's, that's how it is. I think if you, if your support department is a
00:26:19.300
public figure, she's very, very, I mean, it's hilarious. She's like, she does a post on Twitter.
00:26:26.140
She's like, um, call to war basically. Like, um, I don't know what the, what it was. I can't
00:26:31.340
remember. Yeah. She's like a sort of a war cry. Um, warrior up warrior up, right? Okay. You're
00:26:37.200
worrying up. And then if someone calls you out and says, well, your enemy, the oil sands, all
00:26:41.180
less misogynistic. And, and, um, if someone's threatening you, Sephora and call 9-1-1, you know,
00:26:47.800
take care of, take care of that. And if you're at an airport, I mean, that should be easy.
00:26:51.780
Don't run to the bathroom, pull the fire alarm, go get security, do what you need to do,
00:26:56.460
but don't scream, scream, say, get your hands off me, like protect yourself, you know? Um, and I,
00:27:03.040
and, and, and I, I don't quite know what the angle there, and I really hope that it's not,
00:27:07.080
you know, just to silence us. I mean, um, I think that, uh, I think that we're in a time
00:27:15.060
where you're going to have a lot of people that are very upset about what's happening.
00:27:19.200
And, um, it's great that Ontario and Quebec are doing decent after, because Alberta did
00:27:24.640
decent for so long, but people are terrified. And frankly, for all of your support, for all
00:27:31.320
of your environmental activism you've done, um, you haven't created one job in Alberta.
00:27:37.160
It's not like any of this. I mean, if you look at, we have a free market system. So if you had
00:27:41.380
an energy source tomorrow, I don't believe, I mean, if, if suddenly, okay, all this energy
00:27:45.980
source was going to replace oil tomorrow, you'd see it. You're not. When you're seeing windmills
00:27:50.780
not work in Germany, going back to coal, you see that they've spent trillions of dollars
00:27:55.380
on the so-called green energy, which is horrible. You see what's happened in Ontario with the
00:28:01.980
power rates going up and people can barely feed themselves. So it's, it's a very interesting
00:28:07.820
time. And, um, respectfully, I mean, um, I don't certainly don't want anyone to threaten
00:28:13.600
her, but I'm not going to stop my advocacy out of fear because I'm not, I'm, I'm, she's
00:28:19.820
my opponent on many, many issues. I, I was trying to find common ground, like something
00:28:24.020
we could agree on. It's hard to agree with, on, with her. It really truly is. I've watched
00:28:28.880
every video she's ever done. And then there's just not a lot, not a lot there to work with.
00:28:35.020
Now, the last thing I wanted to talk to you about today, since you're being generous, so
00:28:40.360
generous with your time, I'm going to take up a little bit more, um, Amnesty International
00:28:44.660
today. I remember when they used to care about people who were wrongly imprisoned, getting
00:28:48.760
like the downtrodden out of like thought criminals, um, people who were political prisoners in
00:28:56.000
the developing world, imprisoned by oligarchs, that sort of thing. Today, they are standing
00:29:02.700
up in favor of foreign billionaires and their ability to dump millions of dollars into Canada
00:29:09.480
at activists like Zipporah Berman. Uh, they say that Jason Kenney's, um, inquest, let's call
00:29:18.980
it into foreign funding and foreign meddling in the Canadian economy and specifically in,
00:29:24.700
uh, blocking Alberta's oil and gas development. Um, they've said that the energy war room is deeply
00:29:35.480
concerning and they say these initiatives to protect Canada's economy somehow undermine
00:29:42.840
and violate a range of Alberta's human rights obligations. Standing up for foreign billionaires
00:29:49.280
while Albertans lose their jobs, their homes, their families, and everything they ever worked
00:29:54.920
for. What happened to Amnesty International? Um, I'm going to blame, I'm going to blame Fort McMurray
00:30:02.560
on this. Um, and here's what we failed to do. Um, um, I'll even take some of the responsibility.
00:30:11.380
Clearly, people at Amnesty International have this notion that there's something wrong happening
00:30:19.400
in Fort McMurray. They think that there's all these people that for some reason don't have
00:30:23.360
good paying jobs or First Nations that, um, own, you know, half a billion dollars of a Suncor
00:30:29.780
tank farm. Um, um, they somehow think that this isn't a good thing. They somehow think that what
00:30:36.420
is going on in Fort McMurray is bad. And we've done a really, really lousy job of articulating what
00:30:44.180
we are to the world. And as much as I'm trying my best, and we are getting better at it constantly
00:30:49.780
to put a better message out there, we, as Canadians, as Albertans, and as people who live in Fort McMurray,
00:30:55.780
we need to really stop letting this happen and fight because, um, our lives are comfortable.
00:31:02.480
They're not as comfortable as Sapporo Bermans, but they're pretty comfortable here. Um, and I think,
00:31:07.140
but there's a lot of uncomfortable. There's a lot of people losing their jobs. There's a lot of
00:31:10.780
poverty in Alberta right now. If we don't get our message out there, I mean, there's, we've allowed
00:31:17.240
this Sapporo Berman and Mike Kadima and all of these people to paint this picture of who we are
00:31:24.660
to the world and clearly Amnesty International. I mean, they need to have their heads examined
00:31:29.240
if they think it's a bad thing for our premier to actually give, um, to care about the future of the
00:31:36.660
province. Um, I, you know, I respect a lot of what Rachel Notley did, but the one thing I strongly
00:31:42.040
disagree with is this notion of social license. So clearly that's a big failure. Um, if we don't
00:31:50.140
get a pipeline built, if we don't get market access, the United States will slowly, slowly,
00:31:56.060
um, become, um, well, they're only are really our only customer. Um, but they're going to become,
00:32:02.300
they're going to buy our oil for cheaper. We're going to sell it less and less, and we won't have
00:32:06.180
a market. So, um, this is the war room. I mean, if it does anything, um, with the inquiry, it'll open
00:32:14.460
up, okay, what is happening here? We all know what's happening. It'll just make it more black and
00:32:18.980
white. And I respect our premier for having the courage to actually try and do something. Um,
00:32:29.760
it's not an easy thing to do, but like, you know, what we all know what's wrong. I mean,
00:32:34.020
the people, the documentary people, they said it too, like, we don't have a problem with your oil.
00:32:37.620
Now, whether they come out in the movie or whatever they're, whatever they're doing with it,
00:32:41.120
I'm not entirely sure, but I, I'm telling you right now, like, it's just, we, we here in Alberta and,
00:32:49.540
and the rest of Canada, we really got to step up in this and not accept what's happening. And it's
00:32:53.980
hard because they come at you from every different angle. They work on multiple strategies, multiple
00:32:58.900
fronts. Um, I mean, it's, but it's, it's not right. And it'd be really nice to get a united
00:33:06.840
message. It'd be nice if all Canadians on this one topic about energy sovereignty agree and get the
00:33:15.580
message out there. So clearly, I mean, Amnesty International, for them to say that they have a
00:33:20.380
bad impression and that comes because we're not loud enough. I mean, you have Naomi Klein today in New
00:33:25.640
York with Greta Thunberg. I mean, Greta is such a brilliant climate expert, you know, with all of
00:33:31.180
her vast experience and knowledge. Um, I mean, very sarcastic. Um, uh, you know, that's the paint,
00:33:38.280
the picture they're getting. Like, I mean, Naomi Klein's with Mayor Bill de Lazio. She's painting this
00:33:42.680
picture. Well, Amnesty International, all those places, like they, they spend a lot of time in New
00:33:45.920
York and that's what they're hearing. So, I mean, we need to say, we need to spend a lot of time,
00:33:54.720
energy, educating the world on us quickly and simultaneously build a pipeline. And, um, the,
00:34:02.240
whoever the government is in six weeks, um, after this election, they need to put the pipelines,
00:34:09.540
even two pipelines as in the national interest, the same as the railroad. And if that happens,
00:34:16.060
and maybe we have a shot, but if we don't get that and we continue this nonsense that we're doing now,
00:34:22.220
I don't know. And Amnesty International, I mean, we, we're the greatest country in the world,
00:34:26.420
um, for many reasons. Um, people talk about, like, I had a conversation the other day about
00:34:32.600
all these people, you know, immigrants saying, well, you know, Canadians, they're not accepting
00:34:36.460
as immigrants and all this stuff. And I'm like, well, the way I look at it, the way I look at it
00:34:40.740
is this, if our country wasn't great, why are so many people trying to get into it?
00:34:44.780
Same with the States. If America wasn't so great, why are people trying to get into it? If Mexico is
00:34:48.960
better than the States, why would they just stay there? We're very lucky in America, Canada and
00:34:53.580
America for this time period are probably the greatest two countries in the world. We still
00:34:58.520
have a very good capitalist society. And if you work hard, you can get ahead. And, and if you're,
00:35:05.000
if you screw up, there's social programs for you. It's almost the perfect balance. And if we don't
00:35:10.320
protect it by protecting our economy and our future and our, um, infrastructure to get our
00:35:18.560
oils to market, we're going to be screwed. And I don't know why they're trying to screw us so bad,
00:35:23.880
but partially is because we're a very big country with a very small population. And what we achieve,
00:35:31.240
what we achieve with what we have is amazing, but we need to, we need to, nevermind just explaining
00:35:36.080
it to the world. We need to believe it ourselves. And we don't. I think we need to explain it to
00:35:42.800
some of our fellow Canadians, our fellow Canadians in British Columbia, our fellow Canadians in, uh,
00:35:49.720
Quebec. I think, um, we haven't done a lot to educate them, um, on how, how they benefit from a
00:35:58.480
wealthy Alberta. Now, Robbie, I want to give you a chance to, uh, tell everybody how they can find
00:36:06.060
the work you do, um, and support the work you do because like I pointed out, most of this,
00:36:12.580
all the, uh, most of the advocacy, advocacy you do is out of pocket. It's real simple. Um,
00:36:19.020
go to oil soundstrong.com and buy two shirts and a hoodie, and then make sure to wear it at your
00:36:24.600
government, uh, local government building, like the Senate and get your picture taken.
00:36:31.400
That's fantastic. Robbie, thank you so much for coming on the show. And we'll talk again soon for
00:36:47.620
I think Premier Jason Kenney said it best when he responded to the busybodies at Amnesty International
00:36:54.960
this way. He said Amnesty International used to actually fight for releasing prisoners of conscience.
00:37:00.780
Now it's fighting to protect foreign funded billionaires from transparency when they're
00:37:06.680
funding a campaign to landlock Canadian energy. Kenney also said Amnesty International should be
00:37:13.920
more concerned about the world's use of oil from countries with poor human rights records like
00:37:20.780
Saudi Arabia and Russia instead of Canada. Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight. Thanks so
00:37:26.820
much for tuning in. I'll see you back here in the same time in the same place next week. And remember,
00:37:32.720
don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think.