Justin Trudeau's anti-pipeline law was struck down in the federal court as unconstitutional. In an interview with Sheila Gunn-Reed, she and her guest, Robbie Picard of Oil Sands Strong, discuss why this is such a big deal.
00:10:03.100I know a few, you know, gay Palestinian kids who ended up going to Israel because they would have been butchered and destroyed because of their families and religion.
00:10:13.300I mean, that's one of the most homophobic places on the earth.
00:10:16.120And to think that we somehow are, we've lost a sense of decorum, an ability to respectfully disagree, an ability to discuss issues in a mature way.
00:10:30.820And I'm really worried that, you know, like, we have it really good right now.
00:10:38.040And I am scared that if we don't get some common sense back into our government and back into our politics, we're going to lose our minds.
00:10:47.500Like, gay, or sorry, gender identity has zero to do with pipelines and oil production.
00:10:54.920When it comes to Canadian oil, well, I mean, I'm arguably one of the most successful, you know, oil sands, oil and gas activists in the country.
00:11:22.500But my fear is, is that this wokeness that is affecting us right now, it's going to come back brutal.
00:11:31.840And all of these people talking about stuff, if you had a terrorist attack on our soil or something like that, they would be not, I don't think they understand what oppression is.
00:11:41.980So, I urge the world to stop punishing.
00:11:48.200Regardless, once again, Canada only produces 1.5% of all global emissions.
00:11:54.600It is not peanuts, it's fractions of peanuts.
00:11:57.440We should be celebrating our energy industry, building pipelines, building connections, doing economic reconciliation for Indigenous people in a way that has meaningful, does some business and jobs and helps Indigenous, you know, Indigenous people become, you know, business people and success stories, which we have.
00:12:18.640We take that model, we take that model, we spread it around the country, we work on reducing our pollution, recycling more, you know, reclaiming land faster.
00:12:28.380All of that is all in our wheelhouse, which we're doing all the time.
00:12:32.420Gender identity and pipelines are two things that should never be connected in any form.
00:12:37.400And, you know, I don't think we realize the damage that the true deliverables have done.
00:13:02.040But I also hope on all sides, like, you know, in McMurray, on all issues, like, I'm actually brokering a meeting between some politicians here, some Muslims, and a couple people from the pride community to sit down and grow up and speak in a way that you can have disagreements.
00:13:21.240And I'm happy that I think that's going to happen because all sides need to sit down, grow up, and agree to find a path forward.
00:13:32.340You can't do that if you don't talk to your opponent.
00:13:34.300You know, that's a really excellent point.
00:13:37.580It's one thing that Justin Trudeau is really great at is dividing us, demonizing the other side of the debate so that you think, oh, my goodness, why would I want to sit down and talk to somebody?
00:13:48.380I heard Justin Trudeau say on the news is a Nazi.
00:13:55.700They're just people who believe something different than you or see the world through a different lens.
00:14:00.860I wanted to ask you, before we move on to what happens next with C-69, because it looks like the liberals are not going to let it go, I wanted to just circle back to the woke infestation in federal legislation.
00:14:17.620It's not just languishing in federal legislation.
00:14:20.560You were a victim of the woke cancel culture mob.
00:14:24.480You sort of touched on that a little bit when you talked about that post that you made way back then about human rights in the Middle East with conflict oil versus Canadian oil.
00:14:34.740And, of course, the anti-oil side jumped on what happened to you, but so did the hypersensitive pro-oil activists.
00:14:45.720They sort of just hung you out to dry, even though your argument was completely valid.
00:15:09.120And it's sort of like, I'll be honest, you know, I've had plenty of time to go over that post, and, you know, and sometimes I'm like, should I have done it?
00:15:22.18050-50, like, a long-term, I think it did make a mission of, like, it got the conversation about, I mean, we talked about gender equality, you know, washrooms and trans issues in Canada.
00:15:34.840Like, in that side of the world, like, they'll cut off your head if you're gay.
00:15:39.320I mean, there's no kindness or hurt feelings.
00:15:43.560It becomes very physical, and if it's not brutal beings, it's death.
00:15:48.240I think we, on our side, have just become so, you said it when you did that video supporting me and talking about they're feeding the crocodiles, other people, the crocodiles, hoping to get eaten last.
00:16:02.660Like, I am concerned that we are getting to a point where we're, you know, apologizing too much, and we're not saying, like, look, we, our world is the best.
00:16:13.920We're one of the most stable countries in the world.
00:16:15.580We have some of the best regulations, and we're doing good work here.
00:16:19.140I think we need to celebrate that, and our side needs to be far more assertive, far more aggressive, and fight for the right, like, look at Edmonton right now, the homeless crisis.
00:16:33.320Look at this country and all of these encampments.
00:16:35.960I mean, we had a little bit out of Nick Murray, but we're pretty affluent here, and we can handle things a little bit easier, and we're able to pivot and make decisions.
00:16:43.380But, like, I don't think people understand what happens if they do succeed and they shut down our oil and gas industry.
00:16:54.060You're going to have mass people not sure what to do, homelessness, crime, violence.
00:16:59.760We have a really good thing going here, and we need to protect it because it could be the end of our civilization as we know it in this country, and you're already seeing small signs of that.
00:17:13.880I mean, in Alberta, you can still come get a good job and own a home at an affordable rate.
00:17:19.900You can't do that in major parts of the country anymore.
00:17:23.000And I don't think people understand, like, the dream, the Canadian-American dream, that dream of, you know, having a better life for your family, that's at stake.
00:17:33.800And it's to destroy an energy industry, to destroy a sector of the country that helps so many people when all of the work we do as Canadians will make this much difference, I'm blown away by it.
00:17:50.080However, you know, I'm not going to give up.
00:18:15.940But I'm glad that you're listing all the things that you're doing as part of your activism because it sounds like the liberals are not done with their No More Pipelines law.
00:18:26.360They said the current version of the law has been struck down as an unconstitutional overreach.
00:19:11.640When you live in a big city, it's hard to understand how much oil and gas you actually use.
00:19:17.740But you use actually more just existing in the city, even if you're recycling, even if you've got your blue box and you take your bio thing at the cafeteria and you throw it in there.
00:19:29.460Oil and gas is why these cities exist and a strong economy in Alberta, rural Alberta, in Fort McMurray, in Grand Prairie.
00:19:39.840That helps maintain the gigantic cities like Toronto and Calgary.
00:19:47.540And I think, bluntly, you can have a better life.
00:19:52.460I mean, I know so many people in Toronto right now that are basically existing just to pay for rent on something that they will never get ahead.
00:20:01.380Well, I would say there is not a mass emergency for us to give up our energy industry.
00:20:08.600And you should fight for it because, you know, no matter what happens to Justin Trudeau, he's worth, you know, millions of dollars as a world celebrity.
00:20:19.740But when you can't afford a place to live and all these things that you take for granted now, or if you're living in Toronto, you barely have, but you still kind of have, that's at risk with this insane inflation, this insane debt, all of it.
00:20:36.720I mean, it's, I was watching Christina Freeland talk with Pierre Polly and I'm just like, this has been, I've never, you know, in my life seen anything like this.
00:20:46.500I've seen Mal Rooney and Kretchen and I've seen, you know, the fall of the Conservatives when, you know, Kim Campbell had two seats, but I've never seen a government so unaccountable for their actions.
00:21:09.660And sure, you can make the argument that out of the G7, our economy is doing better.
00:21:14.760Sure, you can make that argument, but that's not good enough.
00:21:18.900We need to live in a country that is building the future for the next generation to ensure that they can have the same things and this high debt, high inflation.
00:21:30.140And I mean, when you talk to people about this carbon tax, like people, if they don't drive a car, they don't, they're just so farming and groceries.
00:21:44.020Like they don't understand that that crop has to be swathed and then it has to go through a combine and it's got to go to the granary to the process, a car bill.
00:21:54.140And then it's got to get shipped and it gets made into stuff.
00:21:56.480Like there's all of these steps before it shows up at the grocery and each and every one of those steps is now has a tax on it, a tax that is going to make zero different in the climate of the world.
00:22:09.280And that is, sure, you can make the argument that the grocery stores, you know, they were profiting off of inflation and you can have that big summit.
00:22:17.160But the heart of it is the sheer cost.
00:22:20.560I know so many people whose utilities have tripled.
00:22:24.920Then you take an interest rate goes up on a mortgage.
00:22:28.260Like if you didn't have like a secured, a locked in rate, well, now all of a sudden you're paying 900 bucks a month more, a thousand bucks, 1400 bucks more.
00:22:37.660And that's something that I think this government has really screwed us on.
00:22:41.800So tell us what are you doing next and how people can support the work that you do, because you do this mostly just as a labor of love for the industry and for the people of Alberta and Canada extended.
00:24:03.140That is such a horrible thing that our prime minister did to this, to this country.
00:24:09.960And I can't believe it that you got to give him credit, man.
00:24:14.820Like he can play dirty with a smile on his face.
00:24:18.600But to have it, I mean, all the stuff going on across the world right now, and you can't freely share it if you're on Facebook or Instagram, it's wrong.
00:24:34.540Now, LinkedIn's exploding and there's some beauty there.
00:24:37.620Yeah, I mean, there are ways around it and you have to be careful and, you know, people are flooding over to Twitter because that seems to be where, or whatever it's called now, X, because that seems to be where the news is unfiltered.
00:24:48.460But yeah, and it did blow up in the mainstream media's faces because they thought, okay, great, Justin Trudeau is going to extort big tech so that big tech pays us.
00:25:00.660And as it turns out, big tech just turned off sharing.
00:25:03.800And then the advertising dollars subsequently fell for the mainstream media because their reach was just completely limited.
00:25:12.500So that's what they get for trying to extort the paper boy to pay the paper company.
00:25:17.000Well, and I think the thing too is I don't think people realize that symbiotic relationship because Facebook is actually very personal and it's almost an extension of yourself, right?
00:25:31.040So I would make the argument that social media saved mainstream media in a lot of ways because it was able to make them more relevant.
00:25:42.640Like in McMurray, we had, like we had four murders in the last month.
00:25:47.720I mean, there was a bunch of stuff going on.
00:25:51.380There was a live active shooter in one neighborhood and he got shot, killed by the police.
00:25:55.820And people are trying to share information and it was impossible because like it was, you know, it was a very, he changed the dynamics.
00:26:08.100So like, I really, truly hope that when Pierre Polyev is prime minister, he keeps his word and he gets, he makes it, gets rid of the carbon tax.
00:26:16.620One and two fixes this, this bill in regards to social media, because, you know, it's, it's kind of scary.
00:26:28.860Like, I mean, you got to give Truro credit.
00:26:31.660I think a lot of people treat him as if he's stupid because he's sort of, you know, kind of that ditzy-ness.
00:27:59.040Like, they're so, people are so inundated with hate Russia, hate Russia, hate Russia.
00:28:03.360That all of a sudden, Russia to you right now is worse than the Nazis.
00:28:13.060I just find, like, the last bit here, like, that is a massive embarrassment.
00:28:21.300And, like, you would think, because, like, I know that, I mean, that's how you got East and West Germany.
00:28:29.860I don't know the history of how that war happened, right?
00:28:33.460How does someone in the House of Commons on that level not have an instant flag?
00:28:38.720Like, and that's kind of what I want to get to.
00:28:41.700It's like, I have a marketing company, okay?
00:28:43.480And sometimes I get frustrated when one of my teams, like, there's some graphic that we post for a client that they didn't want a year ago.
00:31:36.300And if our leader is suddenly incompatible with our values, we will get rid of him.
00:31:40.960Even if it means languishing in the wilderness for four years like we did or sitting in opposition for a while until we get our acts together.
00:31:51.260But liberals are tribalists to the leader and to power at all costs.
00:31:56.300That's how, that's my working theory because no matter what, people are going to vote for Justin Trudeau because they vote for liberal red.
00:32:37.960On that note, Robbie, thanks so much for coming on the show.
00:32:41.580I can't wait to get up to Fort McMurray to see you.
00:32:43.500I know I was planning to do it all summer, but I think I'm going to have to drive Winter Roads to see you.
00:32:49.520And, you know, I just can't wait to see what you do next.
00:32:52.480And just thanks for the advocacy work, advocacy work that you do on behalf of families like mine and, you know, hundreds of thousands of other families just like mine all across the country.
00:36:07.360They were cleansing the airwaves of this conservative news outlet that they didn't like.
00:36:15.360So, I guess our disagreement here is really not a disagreement at all.
00:36:21.720It's just, I use the word euthanize because I actually see euthanization as an act of bad and not an act of compassion.
00:36:30.720So, I guess we disagree on tone, but that's it.
00:36:37.420And I also use that to describe what the government did to the Freedom Convoy through the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
00:36:44.240I say they euthanized the protest, which is to end the protest to make sure that there was only one kind of protest in this country,
00:36:56.800and that's a left-wing protest that the government listens to.
00:37:00.140Although, on the flip side, we can do it your way.
00:37:03.640Let's talk about it as an act of compassion.
00:37:05.660I guess the government put itself out of its misery by having that pesky little upstart conservative network called the Sun News Network bothering it and holding it to account.