00:02:09.200Thank you very much, and I'm thrilled to be speaking with you.
00:02:12.360I would like to highlight that I think over the last several years I've watched your program and feel that you've created a very balanced way of looking at the issues in Canada and that you actually hold people accountable to their words.
00:02:58.480I feel very excited about the deal, and I think things take time.
00:03:04.280Everybody wants the answer today, tomorrow, the next day, but I view it as steps, and I think Prime Minister Carney's words of building trust, the capital markets want to see the steps, they want to establish the trust, so I'm quite excited about the pushing along of this key project on the MOU pipeline.
00:03:27.140there's a couple of different parts of it there is the pipeline part there is the carbon tax part
00:03:33.440there is the carbon capture and storage part um the carbon tax is still going to be going
00:03:40.600up significantly six and a half times what it is now um john mckenzie of synovus is someone who
00:03:47.180called it out and thinks that well we don't we don't need that that the world has changed
00:03:53.220For the longest time, it felt like the oil industry in Canada asked for a carbon tax as a way to say, see, we're good, we're legitimate, now please let us develop our natural resources.
00:04:05.600Do we still need the carbon tax in the new era that we see ourselves in, when the whole world is thirsty and demanding oil that doesn't come from a dangerous spot, you know, such as Iran, the Strait of Hormuz?
00:04:18.060I think it's all about balance when you look at it. We seem to go from these crazy right, left, forward, backward positions. And I think balance, balance in the negotiations. And I think it's a reasonable balance has been struck with the carbon tax limits that have been put on.
00:04:42.280Just remember this, the Supreme Court of Canada spoke, and they said the federal government has the right to put a carbon tax on, and that's law.
00:04:53.340So, within that, it was supposed to go much higher, I think, to 170.
00:05:00.940So, I think the balance struck is, okay, we need that and we want that commitment on a sequestration project.
00:05:11.560But when 70 is too high and then phasing it in, I believe, to 2040 is a reasonable way to make it happen.
00:05:20.560I'm not saying John McKenzie's wrong because he has a different perspective.
00:05:26.860But in a balance to get something done and, to your word or Mark Carney's word, establish the trust, I think it's a fair balance is struck on that issue.
00:05:38.400Does it put us in any kind of disadvantage, though, if we are the only major oil-producing
00:05:45.480country that has an industrial carbon tax?
00:05:52.400It definitely puts us at the word disadvantage.
00:05:56.480If the world was going that way dramatically quickly on a movement way too far to the one
00:06:04.320side, having it in place is a balance, in my opinion. So to me, we've struck a balance here
00:06:12.920where we say, yes, you can go ahead with this project, but still have a feel that we are not
00:06:19.480just abandoning the carbon sequestration initiatives and momentum that had occurred.
00:06:26.780So Canada's a leader in many times, we lead in our environmental and regulatory
00:06:32.980positions, we lead the world. So for us to strike a deal for the development of our huge resources
00:06:40.220in Alberta and Canada to be balanced against a reasonable, some might say too high, time will
00:06:48.960tell. But I think a balance has struck and I don't think it makes us more uncompetitive. It just makes
00:06:55.660us a leader in getting a project like this done. It's kind of, I think, a leadership-type position
00:07:03.500is trying to be established. I'd be remiss not asking you about the Pathways Project and carbon
00:07:08.700capture and storage. This is something that, to me, felt like the industry wanting to pay the
00:07:14.060dangeld for years, that this is the price of business, it's what we have to do. Still seems
00:07:20.520like it's the price of business now could be as high as 30 billion dollars that it will cost the
00:07:26.700canadian industry to get this done is it needed anymore it's it's part of that balance that i
00:07:34.420think you want to be able to show the world i have uh children and grandchildren now so i want to be
00:07:40.720able to say that we left alberta canada the world in a better spot i know that sounds kind of
00:07:46.160generalistically, you know, Greenfield and all that bubbly.
00:07:50.040But the truth of it is 10, this is Secretary of Energy Chris Wright about a few months ago,
00:07:57.960$10 trillion was spent over the last 15 to 20 years on ridiculous investments
00:08:06.100and solar, wind, green initiatives that are all being written off,
00:08:11.880all the management teams fired, including the three super majors in Europe.
00:08:16.160that all bent to climate change who have now all lost their jobs, boards replaced, management teams
00:08:21.400replaced, BP replaced their CEO twice. They're all back to oil. So $30 billion to me seems like,
00:08:29.920again, I'm not sure of the number. I don't know if it's the right number or not. But when you
00:08:34.840compare it to, how about clean ethical oil that has the carbon tax and then the emission
00:08:41.760gateway pipeline sequestration project 30 billion to air on the side of the angels on that balance
00:08:51.500it actually uh to me it it sends a amazing signal that canada's both got the resources
00:08:59.420got the plays trying to create a balanced strategy and that we're ethical we're not just
00:09:05.720Throwing out the, there's a good argument for climate change and CO2 sequestration.
00:09:25.620Chris Wright said 1.4% of world energy needs are wind and 1.2% for solar, for $10 trillion.
00:09:36.260Well, I like the feel of, we know our oil works, but let's make it clean ethical oil with the, I don't know the exact numbers as well as others do, but the carbon tax.
00:09:48.720And then you had the Pathways Project. How about developing ours with clean ethical oil under the best regulatory system in Canada for health and safety in the world, for Alberta? I like the feel of that. It feels like I'm not selling my future generation, my kids and my grandkids and your grandkids down the river. We're going to do it ethically. I like the feel of that, to be honest.
00:10:13.900Prime Minister Carney is definitely talking about oil,
00:10:17.600or as he will often just call it, conventional energy,
00:10:20.600although he's getting more comfortable uttering the word oil,
00:10:23.220which he wasn't comfortable uttering for a while,
00:13:01.060And I think that bringing in a Bill C-5 early in the mandate that Mr. Carney got is a signal to the world, and then to your words earlier, establishing a trust that we are going to open up the world to our world-class resources in Canada, our coal, oil, natural gas, pulp and paper, wheat, arable land, water, uranium, potash.
00:13:26.920We have it all, but we've been ridiculously managing our resources for nine years
00:13:33.600under the previous government, wildly inept performance, as you have reported in the past,
00:13:49.380And I think the MOU is an example of, okay, there's a first project.
00:13:54.420The Keystone Light could be a second project.
00:13:56.780So I'm more than cautiously optimistic on this.
00:14:02.340Look, I'm excited about Keystone Light.
00:14:06.100I'm excited about everyone figuring out ways to put more product through their existing pipe or expand without building a whole new system.
00:15:47.440you were looking at summer five, seven, nine, never,
00:15:52.200years of being tied up to try and get a project done.
00:15:56.500And I could tell you foreign investment in Canada
00:15:59.760went off a cliff in the nine-year reign.
00:16:04.000So anything that would be a year approval to me
00:16:08.280is a massive speed up to what was there.
00:16:12.180I'm looking at the UAE and saying, come on, they're doubling theirs in two years.
00:16:16.500And we're hoping to get to an answer in two years and then five years to build it.0.84
00:16:24.160You know, I've made this point several times on the podcast, Paul, that when Mark Carney said we need to think big, act bigger, move at speeds not seen in generations, I applauded.
00:16:34.300And I said, good, this is what we need.
00:19:36.560You seem confident that he's willing to go ahead with this, that he's not hedging bets?
00:19:42.720Well, again, I believe the fact that he didn't even have a majority initially, he's got a
00:19:47.600tentative majority. He's trying hard to weed the incredibly poor performers out and appoint them
00:19:55.820as ambassadors and get them out of the caucus. There's a few more to go.
00:20:01.820Exactly. He's literally, we may need to have a general election on some of these key points,
00:20:08.060but I do think the steps he's trying are trying to show the world, and to your very good word,
00:20:12.940to go back to the start of the conversation, establish the trust. This is, I'm hoping you
00:20:19.240can see it. There's foreign investment in Canada over the last nine years of the Trudeau government.
00:20:24.820So to turn that and get foreign capital coming back in, you mentioned investors in the Middle
00:20:32.460East, investors in Japan and other markets and the United States back into Canada. I believe
00:20:39.580Kearney is trying to establish the trust to bring that capital back.
00:20:47.320Has enough been done at this point to lure a private proponent for the pipeline out of the woodwork yet?
00:21:01.460Because Enbridge has said maybe, but I think that's as far as Greg Epple's gone.
00:21:07.420Maybe. And I think government would step in if needed to, but I don't think that Premier Smith wants to own a pipeline, and I don't think Prime Minister Carney wants to own a pipeline. So where is it at in terms of the industry feeling secure?
00:21:24.880again your your question is very um very good because think back to the debacle that was
00:21:34.800the keystone x up and we both said let's go and i think it was at least a third built
00:21:42.100and then new governments come in and it's abandoned and that capital's hopefully not
00:21:47.900forever wasted and written off but there's an example of no trust and government turning it
00:21:54.640over. So I'm not that knowledgeable, but I would think that pipeline companies, if they can see
00:22:02.320certainty on timelines in particular, and there was that follow-up announcement that Daniel made.
00:22:08.540I think that was about, okay, no, here are the actual timelines that we're agreeing to. And I
00:22:14.260think if you were running a big pipeline company, you'd be, okay, I'm optimistic, but show me some
00:22:21.300timelines because I've got other places I can spend my capital. Canada clearly has the resources.
00:22:27.520Show me you have the will, federally and provincially, to do it. And I think they're
00:22:33.720trying hard. I actually do. I give such credit to Danielle and to Mr. Carney for pushing hard on
00:22:41.460this. And yes, at every step, there's going to be naysayers and people that judge it. But I would
00:22:48.900think it's got to be getting to a point where if they can establish timelines, the big fear for me
00:22:55.660is, and I think if you were running a big pipeline company, you'd go, well, I want to go ahead with
00:23:00.200this. I love Canada's resources. I love building it. But what if that government falls? Or what if
00:23:08.860the U.S. government falls? And I don't want another failed project like Keystone XL.
00:23:14.580well the one thing business hates is uncertainty um and clearly right now there's a bit of
00:23:22.340uncertainty about alberta when it comes to separation um love the province go there as
00:23:28.240often as i can but you know last uh june or july was early july sitting in joey's down off the bow
00:23:37.260river with a couple of people from the energy industry and folks who listen to the podcast
00:24:00.080is that spooking folks away from Alberta's energy patch?
00:24:05.800You know, that is certainly not the type of certainty
00:24:10.260that foreign investors would want to see.
00:24:13.760I'm a believer in Canada. I'm a believer in Alberta. I believe in Alberta within Canada. And I really like the strides being made. I love the fact that Mr. Carney came out and visited with top CEOs in Calgary, established Bill C-5, asked for the list of projects, announced the MOU after good hard work with Danielle on the MOU pipeline, have come out with this second announcement.
00:24:42.540So I want to be a big, I want to believe.
00:24:47.860And as you said, I'm not a believer in separatism.
00:24:51.840I don't want to have that as part of the feel.
00:26:54.060They knew that nobody was effectively hunting them.
00:26:56.700They knew they had escaped justice, that they were going to die in their beds.
00:27:01.000When I give talks at law schools is that the charter ultimately is empowering a minority, and it's empowering a minority that's a guild across the country, and it's a fairly elite guild, and the guild is lawyers.
00:27:09.960Families who were split by referendum and brothers and sisters who never talked to each other for years after the referendum because they were so angry at each other because of the emotions on both sides.
00:27:22.620The reason he was assassinated was not because he was trying to put a satellite into space,
00:27:27.560but because the gun that he was creating had other applications that made him and the gun very dangerous.
00:27:37.800It's finally here. A new season of Canada Did What?
00:27:41.640Host media podcast that revisits the big Canadian political events you might think you remember
00:27:47.000and tells you the real story you never knew.
00:31:32.740recognizing that the Bill C-69 was effectively a sterilization of almost any type of project in
00:31:41.220Canada for the last nine years and foreign investment dropped off a cliff. And not just
00:31:46.840for oil, that was mining, that was forestry, that was everything. Exactly, exactly. So Bill C-5,
00:31:53.640and in a prior life I used to be a lawyer, but I'm not anymore, so I'm not giving legal advice.
00:31:58.980I'm just saying the federal government has the plenary power under—it always had this power called POG, Peace, Order, and Good Government.
00:32:07.880If things are in the national interest, the federal government can move and enforce them.
00:32:13.460And there'll be special interest groups all have to step aside because this is in the national interest.
00:32:19.580Well, Bill C-5 that liberals put in, the Kearney liberals, is just a solidification, if you ask me, of saying projects of this magnitude that are our key to our country, we can't keep running up our debt.
00:32:34.700We can't keep issuing paper at historic levels on our M1-M2 money supply.
00:32:39.960At some point, we have to open up our resources.
00:32:42.340So I think Bill C-5 has to answer Adam's point about Bill C-69 and the No Pipelines Act. So it's a pretty bold step was taken with a minority government by Mr. Carney early in his mandate.
00:33:00.160Within a month, I think he had that bill passed, and there's only so much he could do when he had a minority, and as you said, some malcontent still left over from the horrible era of the prior government.
00:33:20.240So, to me, that's a positive sign that they are serious about opening our country up, and he has a very narrow majority.
00:33:28.960But like you said, he has some malcontents in his own caucus.
00:33:33.120So clearly there may have to be an election vote on this with this as one of the major issues to get him or Pierre a majority so they can truly put through a national project that's in the best interest.
00:33:50.040Before we turn to the issue of dealing with First Nations opposition, British Columbia is saying that they will not allow this to go forward.
00:34:03.840They are acting, Premier Eby, as if he has a veto.
00:34:07.780You mentioned peace order and good government.
00:34:09.900We know what the Supreme Court has said in the past, that they do not.
00:34:13.240But are you concerned that there is, while there may not be an actual veto, that there would be an effective veto due to politics at play?
00:34:28.920it comes down to your very good question right there at the end if the federal government has
00:34:36.460the plenary power under peace order and good government and or bill c5 then the bulldozers
00:34:43.840are going to move and you'll see it if you saw it in trump's first term when keystone xl was
00:34:50.100approved it might even have been obama i'm not sure but when it was approved it went ahead and
00:34:57.600And there were Aboriginals, there were others that were, you know, Indigenous people coming out and saying, oh, we have a treaty right here, we have this or that, and it moved.
00:35:11.280At some point, you have to have the resolve to do it.
00:35:14.960And my biggest fear would be without a majority and Mal could tend to sit back in his caucus.
00:35:21.540Does that give Carney the resolve he needs to do it?
00:35:25.920Because I think Danielle has the resolve.
00:35:28.980Again, she doesn't have a huge majority either.
00:35:31.860So you nailed almost the crux of the problem there.
00:35:35.440Even if we do go, are we going to let a province decide what's in the national interest for Canada?
00:35:43.280It shouldn't happen, but unless the federal government has the resolve, then I think it is questionable.
00:35:55.920Well, and then even if they decide to bulldoze the province of British Columbia and say, you don't have a say, there's a divide within First Nations communities.
00:36:07.000So you think back to Northern Gateway before that was canceled, they had equity and participation agreements with 31 different communities along the route.
00:36:17.640They had the majority of people supporting them, but there was always someone willing to say, oh, no, no, no, they don't speak for the band, I do, or we're hereditary chiefs, things like that.
00:36:37.860One of those groups goes by the name of Coastal First Nations, which makes it sound like they are a group that represents all the First Nations along the B.C.'s coast.
00:38:43.000but it was incredibly good for Canada.
00:38:44.780Our GDP went from 900 billion a year to 1.7 billion.
00:38:50.200And we didn't have silly immigration policies
00:38:53.160He's reducing the effect of it on GDP per capita, which is your standard of living.
00:38:59.120And for 30 years, Canada enjoyed the highest standard of living jump right alongside the U.S. in the world.
00:39:06.600Another one he said, this is former Prime Minister Mulroney before he died at this meeting,
00:39:12.840he said another example, the Constitution.
00:39:16.280You can't get a harder opposition than Rene Levesque saying, I am not going to join this Constitution.
00:39:23.160And they worked out the subject to clause in the Constitution.
00:39:30.180But when they were sequestered in Charlottetown in a huge hotel, he would not let the 10 or 11 premiers at that time, 12 it would be, I guess, or 11 or 12 today, but he would not let them leave.
00:39:57.340And so that is, we have to have statesmanship show up.
00:40:01.660It's not going to be easy, but the premier of BC for a national interest pipeline, he should squawk if that's his calling.
00:40:10.920But at the end of the day, it should be done what's in the best interest of all Canadians.
00:40:16.000And it is, guys, for us to open up some of the biggest oil reserves on the planet, as you said, at a time when the world is thirsty for oil, it's at some point we have to start showing statesmanship and doing what's best.
00:40:32.560And there's going to be special interest groups that are not happy with this.
00:40:35.560And then you have to go, there's a famous saying, I was so scared for my job that I quit doing my job.
00:40:44.160and politicians want to get re-elected.
00:44:27.120So the U.S. major basins for oil in particular are starting to roll over,
00:44:31.680and Canadian oil is seen, and you've seen Shell just bought ARC for $22 billion.
00:44:38.660Aventa bought NuVista for $15 billion, I believe it was.
00:44:43.140So you're seeing deals get done already where people are going, okay, Canada's back, we're ready to put our money back into Canada. So I love the feel of that. And hopefully, as you said, we can, you know, deliver those barrels to a thirsty market.
00:45:00.540One of the things that I'm hearing now is that the province is getting close to a deal with Pathways. They may start out smaller than 30 billion, but they will start and go from there.
00:45:10.220no it it like 30 billion sounds pretty damn daunting to me so i love the idea start at
00:45:17.800modular let's start with 20 of the project and get it going and then get the mou pipeline going
00:45:24.020and then we you know ramp it up we don't have to spend it all this year and and bankrupt ourselves
00:45:30.200but start the project on a pilot basis we do a lot of that in the oil industry start a pilot
00:45:35.160get it going get it proved up learn from it that's how the oil sands were developed they
00:45:39.520didn't start out at four million barrels a day. And it feels good that we phase it in as the
00:45:46.440demand for oil goes up, the MOU pipeline. We take Canada from five and a half million barrels a day
00:45:51.940up to six, seven, eight, and we expand the project as we go. That feels like a good start by Danielle
00:45:59.220to do it that way. Paul Corbin with Surge Energy. Thanks so much for the time.