Teck mine cancelled： How this national catastrophe will harm the First Nations who supported it
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Summary
The Tech Frontier Oil Sands Mine was a $21Billion dollar project that would have employed 7,000 people during the construction phase, and offered $70 billion in government revenue over the life cycle of the project. The project itself had gone through 10 years of regulatory hell and met every regulatory condition put before it, including the ones that the Liberals implemented when they changed the rules for regulatory approvals halfway through the process. And yet the project has been cancelled by the company, citing political uncertainty in Canada.
Transcript
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Hello Rebels, I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're listening to a free audio-only recording of
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my Wednesday night show, The Gun Show. Tonight my guest is Robbie Picard from Oil Sand Strong
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and we're talking about the cancellation of the Tech Frontier Oil Sands mine,
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the rail blockades, and coastal gas link. And you know Robbie, he's got lots of opinions and he's
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happy to tell it like it is. Now if you like listening to the show then I promise you're
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gonna love watching it. But in order to watch you need to be a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. That's
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What did it mean for the people of Fort McMurray, Alberta when tech abruptly cancelled its Frontier
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oil sands mine? I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gunn Show.
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The Czech Frontier oil sands mine was a $21 billion construction project that would employ 7,000
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people during the construction phase and offer $70 billion in government revenue over the life
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cycle of the project. The project itself had gone through 10 years of regulatory hell and met every
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regulatory condition put before it, including the ones that the Liberals implemented when they changed
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the rules for regulatory approvals halfway through the process. And yet the project has been cancelled by
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the company. The company cited political uncertainty in Canada and they're not wrong. It's just not a safe
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place to do business here anymore with the Liberals in charge. But what did the cancellation mean for
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the people in Fort McMurray who were counting on this project to go forward? Joining me tonight in an
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interview we recorded yesterday evening is my good friend from Fort McMurray, Robbie Picard from Oil Sand Strong.
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Joining me now from his hotel in Calgary is my friend Robbie Picard from Oil Sand Strong. Hey Robbie, thanks for
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joining me now. I haven't talked to you since the Tech Frontier Oil Sands mine was cancelled. You're from Fort McMurray. Tell me what the
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cancellation of this project means for your community and particularly the Indigenous communities who
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Honestly, I have seen many ups and downs living in Fort McMurray for as long as I have and I've never seen
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more disappointment and devastation on the faces of all my friends, all the business owners I know.
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You know, the Tech project in particular was very special because Tech went out of their way to do
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consultation like no other industry partner has done before. And this was going on for, you know, around
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like 13 years. I mean, it was a big, long process that it had unanimous support from all the Indigenous groups
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and it was lifting the spirits of the community. It is, people, you can't even coin a phrase for how
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devastating it was. Not that it was a real shocker to me, but in a way I had a feeling it wasn't going
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to happen. But I also know deep down how much it meant to everybody in the community. And it was,
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it's been a wake-up call. It's really, really bad. The worst of it was like these so-called
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environmentalists were immediately gloating about it. And it just goes to show you that they do not
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really care about Indigenous rights because if the Indigenous group supports a project, they will turn
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on them in a second. And I think they realize that now. It's unfortunate it's too little too late.
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But, you know, it's not good. It was, it's bad. And it sets the tone. We're hoping not for the future,
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but we're hoping this is not the new normal. But yeah, it's not good.
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Yeah. When I was in Madrid for the UN Climate Change Conference, I saw Sappora Berman and her fellow
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radical environmentalist cohorts there protesting the tech frontier mine when it was
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still a go before it was canceled. And she had with her these groups of Indigenous people who were
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pretty clearly from the West Coast, just based on their traditional garb. They weren't from Fort
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McMurray. But Sappora Berman was happy to bring these folks to Madrid, stick them in front of
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international cameras, and make it seem like Indigenous rights were being trampled on by this
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frontier mine when that couldn't be further from the truth. And in fact, everybody keeps talking about
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reconciliation, reconciliation, you know, participation of First Nations in the economy.
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That's what tech was. That was really how these projects should go forward. And yet we had people
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co-opting Indigenous voices to make it seem like First Nations were against this project when
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it's pretty clear that they weren't. Right on the very day that the project was canceled,
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the Alberta government reached two more agreements with Indigenous groups that were sort of peripherally
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affected by it. I think everybody was blindsided by this.
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Well, I think Sappora Berman's true colors have come out. We know that she will play victim when
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she needs to play victim. She'll be aggressive when she needs to be aggressive. And she never came to
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the tech hearing because we had many protests against her there. And I recall the tech hearing,
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and I recall hearing how excited every Indigenous group in Fort McMurray was. And if Sappora Berman cannot
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get what she wants from them, she'll just find a different Indigenous group to team up with. I mean,
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that's very insincere. I mean, even, you know, Chief Alan Adams supported the project. All of them
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supported the project. I mean, it might have been some last minute stuff going on with the government,
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but overall it had consensus and it wasn't just consensus. They felt like it was part,
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the Métis particularly, like they were just so looking forward to this because they've been left out of
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so many deals. And it was hope. It was hope for the youth. I've never seen anything like it.
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Everybody wanted tech. And there was very, in fact, I never heard of a single group that had
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anything bad to say about it. You're never going to have everything perfect, but tech was as close
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to perfect as it could be. And I mean, the fact that you know, Sappora Berman's gloating about it just
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shows you how up to she really is. And no, I, I don't have a lot of respect for her or any of them
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because they, their true colors are coming out. They want to stop, they want to shut Canada down.
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And when they say shut Canada, they shut everyone down, including all of the Indigenous, you know,
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Indigenous groups that support these projects. If it's BCLNG with the Coastal Gas Link or
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Tech in Fort McMurray or the Trans Mountain Pipeline, they're going to do everything they can to stand in
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the way of our progress. And for what end? Let's say, well, I mean, they are successfully
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winning right now. They're stopping everything. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin's like, you know what,
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here's $189 billion. We're going to build a natural gas plant, not to mention, we're going to
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build a big highway and a pipeline to China. But we sit here, I mean, we always talk about what the
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world is going to look 20 years from now. Well, what are we going to look like 20 years from now,
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if Russia and China and Saudi Arabia have such a hold of the market? Because we know that oil is not
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going anywhere. The needle is natural gas. Natural gas is actually making the world better.
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But we are for some reason going to stop developing our natural resources,
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stop investing in our Indigenous youth. So support a Berman conversion signal is disgusting.
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Yeah, you know, that's really a great point. While Canada is basically shutting itself down,
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because that's really what's happening here. These projects could be going forward,
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if we had a government with a will to deal with these issues, and to just say, no,
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tech has met all the regulations. We even changed the regulations on tech along the way. They still
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managed to meet them. They did everything right. And they still can't get a project built. The
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message to the rest of the world is that Canada is not open for business. Don't even bother. And when
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you see what's happening in the United States, they're having a renaissance in their oil and gas
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industry. You know, when you look at the unemployment rates in West Texas, I mean, it's something that
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as Canadians we can only dream about. You pointed out that Russia's building, Australia is even
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exporting LNG. And where are we? We're just on the sidelines while the rest of the world is eating
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our lunch. And we're the best in the world at this. There are so many Canadian expats working in Russia,
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working in Australia, working all over the world, taking our expertise there to make other economies
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richer while we get poorer at home. I think we also got to really look at like, I mean,
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let's just say, you know, Justin Trudeau gets defeated, and then you have a conservative
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government in there. What are the long term unintended consequences that we're going to
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suffer no matter who's in government now because of such piss poor policy? I mean, it's, I saw a
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picture of this guy was walking this kid in a stroller too close to the tracks, he got a ticket.
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And meanwhile, you've got people lighting, like lighting crates on fire and trying to derail trains.
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And they're like, well, you know, it's like throwing a snowball at a train. Like, I don't,
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I've never had a problem trying to be supportive of different governments that are in power at
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different times. But it's just something that I've never seen before. It's like watching the
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twilight zone. We, we're in a weird position now because we're letting lawlessness become
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the normal and special privileges. I mean, this John Critchamp, he was prime minister,
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he would have stopped these blockades, even if he had to go and get the show and get handy or
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handshake. He would have done something. I would argue that, that Pierre Elliott Trudeau would have
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done something he would have called the army. I don't know where Justin Trudeau's head is at,
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because I've never seen such weakness in a leader before. It's, it's like, he's not all there.
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I don't know if it's weakness. Some people are saying it's weakness and, and I, uh, I could be
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convinced of that. I think this is all by design. I think that he has wanted to phase out oil and gas
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from the very beginning. And this is just a means to an end. He doesn't actually have to do the phasing
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out. He's done his best to do some phasing out through the carbon tax, through increased regulations,
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through, uh, you know, C 69 and C 48, but he's letting the activists do the phasing out for him.
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And he's just not enforcing the law. And, uh, that might be the easiest way politically for somebody
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quite as lazy as him. Um, I wanted to, now you did mention the rail blockades and I think that's a great
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segue into what I wanted to talk to you about next. Um, the rail blockades in, uh, support of what,
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you know, the mainstream media will say the Wet'suwet'en people, but it's really not. Um,
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it's actually rail blockades are disenfranchising the elected band council of the Wet'suwet'en people
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in favor of, I think it's five of eight hereditary chiefs. And it seems as though some of these
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hereditary chiefs are not even legitimate because the pro, um, oil and gas hereditary chiefs were
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stripped of their titles and they were, it's a matriarchal system and it was given to men. And
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so now Justin Trudeau's, um, feminist government is negotiating with these illegitimate hereditary
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chiefs who basically stole their titles from women. I, what's happening right now is so astounding.
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Please give me your take on the rail blockades.
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I think you have a group of, uh, group of indigenous people that for a long time
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have had suffered and they've, they've been in poverty. They don't quite
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grasp the business around them. And when they make a deal, that's going to benefit them. And
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they're going to benefit for their generations and their children and all that. Um, they want this
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and the vast majority of them do, and they voted for it and they support it. And then there's this
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aspect of, uh, I can't really coin a phrase for it, but it's like a certain level of bullying that,
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that that's going on that if it was in any other aspect of society, be considered wrong and frowned
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upon. Um, you can't, you can't run a country like this. It's, it's like preschool. It's embarrassing.
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The vast majority of indigenous people support these, uh, this pipeline, they support the coastal
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gas link. They want the project. They, they acknowledge the project's going to benefit them.
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And then you might have one or two fractions that don't support it, but the ones that don't
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support it are being heavily manipulated by these so-called environmentalists and they're being used
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as political props viciously. I mean, they're like, I mean, I've never seen anything like it.
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They don't care about what happens to them when this, when this is over the long-term negative
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effects. And it's going to be big, but it's, it's embarrassing. And if we as a country don't
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get a grip on this soon, um, I don't know what's going to happen to us. Like I, I know that, um,
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this wouldn't be happening in Donald Trump's America right now. It wouldn't be happening
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anywhere, but for some reason we're, I mean, maybe this is Justin Trudeau's design or Gerald
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Butz's design. I'm not entirely sure, but it's, it's embarrassing that we can't seem to get a project
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done. Yeah. You know, you make a good point when you bring up Donald Trump after Donald Trump was
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elected after what felt like years of protests with the Dakota access pipeline project. I mean,
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and it was, it was massive protests. These, uh, from all across the country, these environmentalists
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just converged on, um, indigenous land and set up basically hobo camps, um, with broken down cars.
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Um, and one, and Obama seemed to let it go on forever. Once Donald Trump came into power,
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he signed the pipeline into life, sent in the army Corps of engineers, cleaned up the mess,
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cleaned up the abandoned cars, rounded up the abandoned dogs. And I think between 90 and 120
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days that pipeline was pumping. And then you see in Canada tech has to go through 10 years of
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regulatory hell just to end up having to cancel because of the political climate in Canada.
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Again, it goes back to that issue of why would anybody in their right mind ever invest in Canada
00:17:01.340
when just to the south of us, sometimes sharing the exact same oil field in the case of the Bakken,
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why would anybody do business here? I, it doesn't make any sense.
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And I think what we've talked about is now becoming reality. Little by little, you're seeing,
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you know, they're succeeding their planet. I mean, let's make no mistake about it. If they succeed and,
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you know, they severely damage our natural resources, we're not recovering from that. And
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there's not going to be new green jobs popping up everywhere. Elizabeth May is going to be the CEO
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of some solar panel company. Support Berman will be out there, you know, like, it's not going to happen.
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We'll be in severe financial trouble. And it will, we will discover what it's like to face
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generational poverty. Or we can say, you know what, as Canadians, as indigenous people, as
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as just basic common sense. If we apply basic common sense to humanity, we can say no, Berman, no,
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Greta, you're not going to come here and bully us and tell us what to do. And get a couple pipelines
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built, get our resources to market, develop it in a sustainable way, and continuously improve on it.
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And that said, there's no such thing as green energy. Every type of energy requires some sort
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of cost. Batteries have tailings because of the rare earth minerals, nickel, everything.
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So Canada really should just be the center of all good things energy and stop this ridiculous fight
00:18:35.420
that we're doing. Because we're losing fighting ourselves and the rest of the world, other countries
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are competitors are winning. It's going to benefit Russia, it's benefiting the states, it's benefiting,
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and they're laughing at us. They look at us like we're just losers. They know that we have more
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resources than all of them. We're the third largest proven oil resource in the world. That's just
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proven. We're not talking about what's in Saskatchewan and we have uranium, we have everything.
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And what are we doing? We're sitting here fighting about it and allowing special interest groups
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to ruin it. And, you know, it's embarrassing that it's at this point, it's embarrassing
00:19:12.380
that we're being duped. And, and I just hope we will wake up. I mean, people in Fort McMurray
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just woke up about tech. I mean, they're all like, wow. And I'm like, well, great, you guys want tech
00:19:23.660
now. Too late. I mean, nothing's just gonna like, you have to fight for what you believe in. You can't
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just expect it to show up and, and take it for granted. And I think that we've done that as a country
00:19:35.100
for too long. And, and I think we've been a bit protected. But when you have, when you have people
00:19:40.700
influencing, um, public policy in the prime minister's office and tanker bans that are not
00:19:47.420
necessary, um, extra regulation to stop pipelines like the Energy East. I mean, I, I mean, if the
00:19:53.980
end goal is to ruin Alberta, well, they're, they're almost there. I wanted to ask you, what message does
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it send to indigenous people when Trudeau deploys a minister to meet with the hereditary chiefs that
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some of one of which for sure is illegitimate, um, over sending a minister to meet with the wet sweat
00:20:20.220
elected band council. For me, I think it sends a message that, um, lawlessness is now the way of the
00:20:29.100
land here. And that what indigenous people, what they vote for really doesn't matter because Trudeau
00:20:36.540
was going to pick what they want. Well, like I remember many years ago, there was a chief by the
00:20:44.940
name of Teresa Spence, and she was on a fake hunger strike. And she's the only person in history to
00:20:49.900
actually gain, uh, weight on a hunger strike. And she was staying at a five-star hotel. And, uh,
00:20:56.540
anyway, turns out the whole thing was because her boyfriend at the time was getting $900 a day from
00:21:01.660
the band for his county services. So I think that the elected chiefs, um, have spoken, they've all
00:21:12.380
voted. The vast majority have supported it. You have to go with that. And I'm like, I don't know what his
00:21:19.980
game plan here is, but if we have this for our society going forward, that, that we can't trust
00:21:27.100
the leadership with these indigenous communities to make their own decisions, which they clearly did.
00:21:31.980
And we're going to act as if people like Sephora Berman can speak on their behalf because she
00:21:35.820
doesn't agree with what they've just did. Well, then we will never get anything done as a country.
00:21:40.780
And we were going to take many steps backwards before we take anything forward.
00:21:44.140
Yeah. It feels like it's environmental colonialism. Um, and I'm, I'm old enough to remember when the
00:21:51.740
radical left was against colonialism. I wanted to ask for your prediction. Do you think coastal
00:21:58.860
Well, I do think so because, um, I mean, I don't, I mean, I don't want to bet on it, but
00:22:07.740
Horgan supports it. Trudeau supports it. Everyone supports it. It's got the most indigenous support
00:22:13.820
that I've ever seen. Um, it benefits, um, all the indigenous people in British Columbia in a way
00:22:20.300
that I've never seen. Um, when I was in Prince George, like I, I would argue that it's more, it's
00:22:26.620
more impressive than Fort McMurray. And here's why it's that, uh, Fort McMurray, like, I mean,
00:22:33.100
there's the, it's the poster child for what reconciliation for indigenous people needs to
00:22:40.140
be. Like, I mean, the vast majority of companies now are owned by indigenous people and the white
00:22:45.740
people are working for them trying to get on with it. It's completely, it's a total success.
00:22:49.980
Um, you don't see racism in Fort McMurray that often. In fact, um, when you have business
00:22:55.820
that is like Nicole Boucher or Doug Glosky or Dave Tucker, you find like they're mentors to
00:23:01.260
everybody. And you don't, I mean, you don't, you don't see it in BC in places. You see a little bit
00:23:07.420
of, of that. So here's my point. My point is that when I was at, you know, Prince George and I saw them
00:23:13.500
talking and they weren't talking about having a multimillion dollar company. They were saying,
00:23:17.500
well, I'm going to get a job and maybe I can get a house. And they were tearing up and it was so
00:23:23.260
emotional to see what they were getting. And in Fort McMurray, it's a different animal,
00:23:28.380
but this was just real. And it's like this, you know, I can feed my kids and I'm going to have a
00:23:33.580
pride and a job. Maybe I'll get a truck and I'm going to earn my truck and Berman and Hedema and
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those losers are going to take that from them for what, for what they've already ruined their,
00:23:44.060
like their traditional way of life with, you know, the fur trade. So what are they trying to do?
00:23:48.300
Like, it's just, it's sick. It's absolutely sick. And
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the environmentalists are far worse than the oil companies. I'm not saying that oil companies are
00:24:00.700
always perfect, but what I will argue is that oil companies there, there's, there's benefit
00:24:05.180
agreements and they try, I know most of the people involved in that, they try, they want to be
00:24:09.500
successful. They want to make sure that these deals have benefits. They actually have training in that.
00:24:14.700
Environmentalists. I mean, just get a bunch of losers from Hastings and you put them onto a,
00:24:19.420
put them onto a side of a road. And then, you know, like that, that's not,
00:24:28.700
Yeah, it's, it's just so sad to see that these folks who just want a future are going to be robbed
00:24:38.620
of their dignity by a bunch of rich foreign funded a-holes. I mean, it's just, it, it makes me sad
00:24:46.060
and sick as a Canadian. Robbie, I want to give you a chance to tell people where they can find you
00:24:53.900
and how they can support the work that you do, because you do a lot of your activism and advocacy
00:24:59.740
for families like mine and for families like so many of my viewers out of your own pocket. So please
00:25:05.500
give yourself a shameless plug, a shameless plug. I don't have my key chains. Um, so well,
00:25:11.260
it's real simple. Okay. So go to oilsandstrong.com and, uh, please buy our bundle pack, which is a
00:25:17.740
key chain, a magnet and a sticker. And those are 20 bucks. It helps. Um, I'm going to be doing a lot
00:25:24.220
more stuff. I'm, I'm going to be making some announcements. I'm teaming up with some different
00:25:27.340
media partners. I'm going to be, um, taking our, uh, uh, Facebook, um, sort of our oil center on
00:25:34.460
website, turning it into something very massive. And I'm going to be traveling a lot of going around
00:25:39.580
the country with most of the projects. But in the meantime, um, we, we finally filled our t-shirt
00:25:44.380
order and I apologize to everyone who ordered a t-shirt six months ago and didn't get it.
00:25:47.740
You're going to get it now. Um, we, I just spent a ton of cash and the order's coming in. Um,
00:25:52.860
we've got a team together and, um, we are going to be going into places like Ontario,
00:25:58.540
British Columbia, and I'm going to be connecting with regular people that want to talk about these
00:26:04.140
issues that are facing candidates. I am going to step up. Um, I've taken a little time. I'm
00:26:08.940
going to try to find another Jane Fonda moment, but I can't sit back and let this happen. I mean,
00:26:15.500
I was talking to, you know, like there's all this controversy about Greta right now.
00:26:19.180
And I was really thinking about this today because there's another version of Greta. You
00:26:24.620
have the concern of Greta now coming out and there's like, there's these two clashing things.
00:26:28.780
And I'm like, what a world we're in right now where we have both sides in being influenced by
00:26:38.780
children. And we're like, well, we have a Greta, we have this and we have that. Bottom line is
00:26:43.900
Greta Thunberg has a lot of influence, a lot. And whether we like it or not, every time she cries
00:26:49.900
on TV with her nonsense, uh, she does. And bottom line is if she succeeds and your family loses their
00:26:57.180
jobs and can't feed the breadwinner, cannot feed the family and put their kids through college,
00:27:03.420
that's what will hit. So we need to stop acting like Greta's or they don't have reach or they don't
00:27:08.860
have impact. They do. And when we sit back, one of my favorite moments is when I confronted Jane
00:27:13.980
Fonda, you notice that like they're, they're protesting tech, not in Fort McMurray. They're
00:27:18.460
in Washington protesting tech. They won't come back to Fort McMurray because if they do,
00:27:23.900
I will kick up a massive stink. And they know that they know that I will find where they are
00:27:28.060
and I'll track them down. Greta, I decided not to, and I'm not sure if that's good or bad,
00:27:33.500
if I'm going to regret that decision when she was in Fort McMurray, I kind of let it be.
00:27:37.020
Bottom line is Greta has hundreds and millions of people who look at what she does.
00:27:41.020
And if she tells our story and she says that these pipelines are bad and tech is bad, um,
00:27:48.620
we're the ones that will suffer. We're the ones that are going to go without because
00:27:52.620
we don't stand up. So I, I have been doing this for a while and I've had some good success. I've had
00:27:57.980
some struggles as well, but it's time to really step up. I believe we do have a future. I think
00:28:03.820
there's a chance of getting trans mountain sun court might be doing some stuff. You know,
00:28:08.140
we can't let this bring us down, but we also have to stop having Stockholm syndrome
00:28:13.020
and assume that the rest of the world thinks we're as great as we think we are because Russia doesn't
00:28:17.900
care. Russia could care less like neither to the States. So we like, if we shut our industry down,
00:28:24.860
we're just destroying the lives of our people that are here. And there is not going to be some giant
00:28:30.060
green bus coming with all these green jobs. Elizabeth May is the CEO. It's not going to happen.
00:28:35.740
So if you care about your mortgage and you care about your kids and you care about your future
00:28:39.900
or your job and that, then fight back. Don't let them destroy everything you believe in. And it's
00:28:46.380
hard because like, it's hard. It's hard because they're on a different, what these guys are willing
00:28:50.860
to do clearly, it makes no sense. A person that has a job and a mortgage and responsibilities,
00:28:58.380
they've got something to lose. The people that are just like, you know, these upper middle class,
00:29:04.540
stuck up rich kids that feel that they need to have like a cause. Well, they don't have like their
00:29:10.140
parents, like they're, they don't have anything to lose. And then if they're picking, I know they pay
00:29:14.460
people to protest. I've been researching this too. A lot of, when you, when you like, when Kean
00:29:19.100
interviewed them and they don't even know what's going through the pipeline, right? Well, that shows
00:29:22.700
how stupid they are. They're not there because they care. They're there because they're getting
00:29:27.020
paid to be there or they're because it's cool, but they're very uninformed. Well, if we're going to let
00:29:31.820
a bunch of uninformed losers that don't understand the difference between the natural gas pipeline and
00:29:37.340
the bitumen pipeline determine our futures, well, then we're stupid. So we have to step up. So my plan
00:29:43.340
and the next bit here is to really step up and get back at it. Um, and it's not easy. Like,
00:29:48.140
I mean, I have a business and I've got responsibilities too, so it's hard, but we
00:29:52.140
have to, and we have to get rid of the Stockholm syndrome and we have to fight back and we have
00:29:57.180
to fight back hard and we have to fight back like we care and we actually value because we do care.
00:30:01.740
We do like in Fort McMurray, when the Métis were the worst hit by this, not, not, not Fort,
00:30:07.980
not, not the ACFN, not Fort Mackay, the Métis. They were hit so hard by tech because tech was
00:30:14.940
finally recognizing the Métis. The first nations always get first all the time, the Métis, not so
00:30:21.500
much. And they were recognizing the Métis. So boom, they finally have hope, jobs, futures,
00:30:28.620
you know, everybody was excited and then just gone like that. I can't sit back and let that happen
00:30:34.300
again. Like we can't, we have to try and fight and we, we can't just assume that tech is just
00:30:39.660
going to, you know, what, what tech is under a constant attack, constant attack. Bear in mind
00:30:44.860
the intelligence behind the, I mean, as much as I, I, I, I, I take credit for them not coming to Fort
00:30:49.340
McMurray. I, I just thought of this when they're in Washington. Do you think tech loves it when Jane
00:30:54.140
Fonda's saying shut them down or Martin Sheen or Susan Sarandon standing their back? Because tech is
00:31:00.780
bigger than just Fort McMurray. Tech has interests everywhere. So we have to say no,
00:31:07.180
Susan Sarandon or Martin Sheen. I mean, what the hell does Martin Sheen know about anything to do
00:31:12.380
in Fort McMurray? I mean, seriously, we have to say, no, we're going to tell our story. And we have
00:31:19.020
to jump in and take those opportunities because Naomi Klein and Laura Berman and all those guys,
00:31:24.380
and when they were on in Washington, they're telling our story. They bring some indigenous people,
00:31:29.100
not even from Fort McMurray to, to, to their act as if they speak on behalf of everybody,
00:31:36.780
Ravi, I want to thank you so much for taking the time today. I know you're traveling for work.
00:31:41.180
And I want to thank you for telling our stories and not, not allowing our Alberta voices and in
00:31:50.380
your case, indigenous voices to be co-opted by a bunch of rich white liberals with no liability in
00:31:57.020
this cause. Whatever decisions come down about oil sands projects, it really doesn't affect them,
00:32:02.860
but it really hurts people like those in Fort McMurray and really all across Canada, but in
00:32:08.540
particular, the West. Robbie, please come back on the show very soon. We leave this too long
00:32:14.700
in between your appearances on the show and best of luck in your future ventures.
00:32:27.180
Foreign funded environmentalist activists are robbing generations of Canadian indigenous people
00:32:33.740
of the dignity of work, the dignity of home ownership, the dignity of entrepreneurship,
00:32:38.780
and the dignity of independence. Generational poverty will be the death of some of these communities and
00:32:45.420
the loss of some of these cultures. It's inevitable. Like Robbie said, the foreign funded actors who are
00:32:52.140
blocking Canadian oil and gas development do not truly care about indigenous people or, for that
00:32:58.140
matter, indigenous rights. Foreign funded actors are exploiters of indigenous people. They don't care
00:33:04.140
about the damage they are doing. For them, it's all a means to an end.
00:33:08.700
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight. Thank you so much, as always, for tuning in.
00:33:13.100
I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next week.
00:33:16.860
And remember, don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think.