Juno News - February 03, 2021


Cancelling Keystone is bad for the economy and the environment


Episode Stats

Length

15 minutes

Words per Minute

188.74622

Word Count

2,925

Sentence Count

126


Summary


Transcript

00:00:01.000 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:00:08.840 Justin Trudeau and Vice President Kamala Harris yesterday had their first official conversation.
00:00:14.420 They spoke about diversity and inclusion. They spoke about climate change.
00:00:18.840 They spoke about all sorts of things, even online hate, but not the giant cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline,
00:00:26.760 which is jeopardizing jobs in both of the leaders' countries and costing billions of dollars.
00:00:32.520 The Keystone XL pipeline apparently no longer a priority, which makes me wonder who is speaking up for the Alberta jobs,
00:00:39.940 the Saskatchewan jobs, the effect of the Canadian economy. Very few people at the federal level.
00:00:45.460 One man who has always spoken up about these things and the importance of the Canadian energy sector
00:00:50.220 is Michael Binion, the Executive Director of the Modern Miracle Network, who joins me now.
00:00:55.480 Michael, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today.
00:00:58.100 Oh, it's my pleasure, Andrew.
00:00:59.340 You know, one of the things that I find to be the most upsetting about this is that
00:01:03.000 we saw the federal government prepare to move mountains when Quebec jobs were in jeopardy
00:01:07.820 with SNC-Lavalin a couple of years ago.
00:01:10.240 But when we talk about the oil sector, which is not just Alberta, but it is a national sector,
00:01:15.480 very few people advocating for Canadian jobs in this area.
00:01:19.220 Yes. Yeah, I mean, of course, we do have a government in Alberta that does advocate for that
00:01:26.160 and others across the country. But certainly our federal government is, you know, I think
00:01:34.300 we've heard the Prime Minister talk about the Great Reset. And I noticed in the readout from
00:01:39.420 the or from the summary of the conversation with the Vice President that they explicitly talked
00:01:43.640 about Build Back Better. So, you know, both Build Back Better and Great Reset slogans include
00:01:49.600 a, you know, include a, you know, leave it in the ground component and switching to other
00:01:55.880 forms of energy.
00:01:57.260 One thing that I find just the most bizarre about the Keystone cancellation, which was
00:02:01.960 done by executive order from Joe Biden on his first day in office as president, is that
00:02:07.120 this wasn't actually about some idea, some project that was still stuck in R&D. This
00:02:13.420 was construction already began and the cross-border section, which is arguably the most contentious
00:02:18.940 section of the pipeline, literally in the ground.
00:02:22.780 Yeah, you know, the one thing, and of course, we haven't seen from the Prime Minister bringing
00:02:30.200 up either the legal side of this, which is, you know, there was an approval given, there
00:02:36.920 was a permit and people in good faith on both sides of the borders, the Canadian company,
00:02:41.300 in particular TC Energy, and the government of Alberta, you know, all relied on the agreement
00:02:46.400 of the US government. So there's that one side. The other thing we haven't seen from the Prime
00:02:51.540 Minister is a defense of our environmental record. I mean, a lot has changed since the
00:02:57.940 Vice President was, or since the President was last Vice President and last in office. I mean,
00:03:01.780 that was, you know, four years ago plus. And it's incredible, the environmental progress that's been
00:03:09.760 made, you know, on that pipeline in particular, in the industry in general. And our Prime Minister,
00:03:14.480 as I said, didn't speak up for us on the, just a second, there was an agreement here,
00:03:18.220 and how can you cancel it? Not just that there was an agreement, we've already put billions of
00:03:23.700 dollars into construction under that agreement. How can you do that just under a rule of law and rule of
00:03:28.940 international law? You know, our NAFTA agreements, our former NAFTA agreements, I think, still apply
00:03:34.360 to some of this. And on the other side, just a second, why would you want to do it? We've got
00:03:40.100 best in the world environmental performance here. Yeah, and that's, I think, the most disingenuous
00:03:45.300 part of this, is that the narrative that's been put forward by the Biden administration,
00:03:49.640 by a lot of the people that have been very anti-pipeline, is that you get pipelines or you get
00:03:55.160 environmental policy, and that the two are inherently contradictory, which I've never
00:03:59.820 quite understood, because ending a pipeline does not reduce demand on oil, it just reduces supply.
00:04:06.260 But the supply has got to get there some other way. So you see tankers, you see rail, you see
00:04:10.800 other means of transporting oil that are less environmentally sound than a pipeline.
00:04:15.800 So we know that there's more to the motivations of people. When you do see best in the world
00:04:25.380 environmental performance, incredible progress on emissions intensity, a pipeline for the first
00:04:32.480 pipeline, I think that was going to use 100% renewable energy to run the pipeline. I mean,
00:04:37.060 this would have been a world leading example of low emissions pipeline. I mean, all of the
00:04:45.780 people really did care about transitioning our energy systems globally to something better
00:04:53.440 in the future, they would want that. They would be celebrating what Canadians are doing as best
00:05:00.340 in the world environmental performance, reducing emissions, and not taking the best in the world
00:05:06.420 off the market, only so the worst in the world can sell more. And the net effect can only be more
00:05:11.980 emissions. So how can they possibly, where's the logic if we're doing this to reduce environmental
00:05:18.320 impacts, but the impact of this is going to actually be increased global environmental impacts.
00:05:25.240 Yeah, and I guess that's where even the narrative that they put forward as being the justification for
00:05:30.200 this doesn't really hold water. But at the very least, we're talking about a level of employment
00:05:36.320 that is desperately needed right now. I mean, this is now a government signing a death warrant for jobs
00:05:41.620 at a time when private sector jobs are already facing immense strain because of the COVID pandemic.
00:05:49.140 Yeah, and I think we see this from the Trudeau government too. I really had thought when the,
00:05:55.980 you know, with the pandemic crisis, which has affected all of us so much, right?
00:06:00.120 The, the, we would see a return to pragmatism. What's the, what's the best way to solve the,
00:06:08.600 you know, the pandemic crisis in the short term, but also to help people get back to work? I mean,
00:06:14.160 this is, you know, families across, across the country who've, who've been, who've been hurt,
00:06:18.840 and many of them, many of them losing life savings, et cetera. So let's, let's, how do we get them back
00:06:24.560 to work? And instead of a return to pragmatism, it seemed to be, what a great opportunity to double
00:06:29.780 down on ideology. And what a great opportunity for us to convince people to, to, to, to destroy an
00:06:38.680 industry, to destroy a whole sector of jobs. So it's, it's, it's a, it's a surprise, surprise. I would,
00:06:45.500 I would go so far as to say I was a little bit shocked even that we didn't see a return to pragmatic,
00:06:49.120 a pragmatic approach to, and, and have Canadians all come together. Let's solve this crisis together.
00:06:55.240 And that's, and, and, you know, we've talked about it. We're all in this together. I mean,
00:06:58.200 people made that we're all in this together. Well, if we're all in this together, why are we
00:07:02.000 destroying an industry with world leading performance or working together with the U S
00:07:06.400 government to destroy an industry with the world leading performance makes, makes no sense, but it is
00:07:11.040 an example of, you know, ideology over, over pragmatism. When you say ideology though, that is, I think,
00:07:16.760 very telling because this is not just against pipelines, but it's actually a fundamental rejection
00:07:23.040 of oil as a source of energy, but they don't have an alternative. I mean, even the renewables,
00:07:28.960 they talk about like, Oh, well, solar and wind. I mean, these are not things that are capable of doing
00:07:34.320 what oil and gas are. So is there actually a, what comes next to the activists that are trying to go
00:07:41.140 after pipelines? Yeah. Well, I, I, I guess I look at them and say, well, would it be possible for
00:07:47.340 one country, you know, Germany, Denmark, Canada, you know, one of the, one of the rich G7 or OECD
00:07:52.980 countries say, well, we're going to go off oil as a demonstration to the world of an ideology.
00:07:58.460 So I mean, so, okay, well that, that, that seems like maybe that's possible, but if we're looking at
00:08:04.020 this as a, that we truly look at this, we've got a global issue of, of, of emissions and we've got a
00:08:09.440 global issue of population growth and all of the, all of the impacts that that's, that has on our
00:08:13.880 environment, how, how do we manage that better globally? Well, then this makes absolutely no sense
00:08:18.900 whatsoever. You know, our industry in Canada, you know, are, are coming up with real world solutions
00:08:26.640 that will make the global problem better. And we have a government saying, no, we just want to see
00:08:34.000 lower emissions in Canada. We don't, we don't care if that would cause higher emissions globally.
00:08:38.500 We just want lower emissions in Canada. I wrote a paper on this, you know, effect called carbon
00:08:43.020 leakage when, and, you know, very simply carbon leakage is when, you know, your policies at home
00:08:49.760 reduce emissions here, but the net effect is you increase, you actually just move them somewhere
00:08:54.680 else and the emissions go up. So it's also referred to as a green paradox, but Canada's living it.
00:09:00.380 We're, we're, we're implementing policies like our, our seen, seen in cooperation with the Americans on
00:09:07.580 cancelling this pipeline. We're implementing policies here that may reduce emissions here,
00:09:13.420 but they will cause global emissions to on a net basis go up. Because as you mentioned,
00:09:18.340 we're going to, that oil is going to be replaced by someone. The, the U S refineries in that part
00:09:23.160 of the world will, uh, their other two options are Mexico and Venezuela. Does, is there anybody that
00:09:28.180 thinks that the environmental performance of Mexico and Venezuela is better than ours?
00:09:31.600 Yeah, you raise, uh, I think a really important point there. And it is interesting because we,
00:09:35.820 we, we hear all the time that, you know what, we can't have local solutions to climate change and
00:09:40.580 emissions because these are global problems. It's a global phenomena, but the reality is that
00:09:46.340 countries are competing with each other, even within countries, states are competing with other
00:09:50.200 states. Provinces are competing with other provinces to be competitive. So if a country does do this
00:09:56.120 whole utopian idea, take the Paris climate agreement and, and fall, fall, follow through with those
00:10:01.740 plans and, and go above and beyond, all that really does is allow for someone else to be the
00:10:06.840 beneficiary of these jobs. And it's not to say that countries should do nothing, but I think there
00:10:10.980 needs to be a lot more celebration of the point that you've raised, Michael, which is how much the
00:10:15.240 private sector has already advanced on these issues, uh, much quicker than I would add many governments
00:10:21.120 have. Yeah. I, you know, I think that that's exactly right. And you know what I would say as
00:10:28.180 well is, I mean, I think people in industry and I, and I'll count myself, you know, among those people,
00:10:32.540 but you know, some of the bigger companies, Suncor, CNRL, et cetera, I think that they have really
00:10:37.880 embraced this idea that we do need to transition our energy systems, but on a realistic basis, looking
00:10:43.540 at the global problem of supplying global energy to a growing population, they've realized that that
00:10:48.560 future energy mix is going to include hydrocarbons and which is not to say we should be against
00:10:53.160 wind, right? You know, right energy in its right place. In some places that's wind. In some places
00:10:57.720 it's hydro, nuclear, uh, solar. And, and as technology changes, the right energy in its right place will
00:11:03.680 change as well. But, you know, I think a lot of people are recognizing that solar and wind, you know,
00:11:09.140 the technology is advancing quickly. We're all hearing about that all the time. What seems to be going
00:11:14.160 unnoticed is that I think that oil and gas industry is innovating even faster. You know,
00:11:19.120 we're, we're under pressure to provide, you know, a product that's, that people have come to rely on.
00:11:24.100 It's, I think, I think an excellent product from its, from its just physical components and what it
00:11:29.760 can do for whether making plastics for hospitals or, or compact energy for transportation. But we've
00:11:36.020 been making unbelievable progress on reducing the emissions. And, and I don't, I don't want to,
00:11:41.980 I don't want to ramble on here, but the other thing it's not, people are not talking about is the,
00:11:46.380 the, some of the advances on the consumption side. So I'll make a little bit of a, um, a bold statement
00:11:53.340 just for effect here, but it's possible that oil and gas is closer to zero emissions and solar and
00:11:58.540 wind. Now I'll explain that point because it's a bit of a bold statement, but the reason for that
00:12:03.340 is that we're getting close to being able to capture carbon. We're, we're finding ways to use CO2 as,
00:12:08.940 as a feedstock for other products. So, uh, you know, um, the company, my company and some other
00:12:15.100 companies are getting close to zero emissions production. So, I mean, that's a whole, I've
00:12:19.660 opened up a whole can of worms there, Andrew, and I don't want to ramble on, but, uh, I think people
00:12:24.140 are not noticing just how amazing of solutions the private sector is coming up to, uh, coming up with,
00:12:31.100 and, and I, and I'm getting back to the point of ideology. I sometimes think that the people who are
00:12:35.980 doing this for ideological reasons only want government solutions and, and in fact are unhappy
00:12:41.740 with the fact that the private sector is coming up with solutions and maybe even better ones.
00:12:45.900 Yeah. Because I know that if I were to bring up the point that you just raised about some of these
00:12:50.460 innovations, people are going to discount it and not even want to hear it because, oh, it's coming
00:12:54.140 from an oil and gas company. And I I've already seen just the comparisons that people make between
00:12:58.780 oil and gas companies and, and others, just these big evil corporate overlords on these. But,
00:13:03.260 but the reality is, uh, private sector solutions should be encouraged because
00:13:07.900 the argument for a government response is only if a response can't come from anywhere else.
00:13:14.460 Right. Well, I mean, what, what, you know, who, who's shocked that, that the private sector,
00:13:19.580 if properly motivated, and of course that goes to what you said, some of the opponents say, but
00:13:24.220 if properly motivated, who's shocked that the, that the market and private enterprise
00:13:28.460 is better at coming up with technical solutions and for, for problems than the government is like,
00:13:33.900 who's shocked by that? Hopefully almost no one. Right. The question comes down to can, you know,
00:13:38.780 is, is, is the private sector actually properly motivated? And, and, you know, the, the people you
00:13:43.740 refer to are saying, well, you know, you guys only care about making profits. So why would you care
00:13:47.660 about the environment? But I, you know, I, I would make two points there. One is that,
00:13:52.860 you know, people, the people that work in our industry, you know, live, you know,
00:13:57.660 there's 800,000 people, 800,000 families across the country that, that rely on the oil and gas
00:14:03.980 industry, either for a direct job or an indirect job. And, you know, these people live across the
00:14:08.940 country. They're people just like you, me, people listening to this show, they live in, they live in
00:14:14.140 neighborhoods with us. So why would we think those people don't care about the environment just as
00:14:19.180 much as you do? And, and, and I mean, these people work in our companies, I know them,
00:14:23.420 of course they do. You know, they love to go hiking on the weekends too. So, but the other,
00:14:28.380 the other point is, is that it's, I think it's become quite clear and I, and I want to give some
00:14:32.380 credit to the environmental movement here. And, and, and, and you can distinguish in the environmental
00:14:37.900 movement, there's those people who are, you know, I think genuine, and I think there's those people
00:14:42.540 who are only caring about ideology, but, but there's been a lot of good people in environmental
00:14:46.860 movement who've made the case for why we have to care about this. They made the case for why there
00:14:50.860 has to be taxes and regulations on some of these issues. Industry and the market are just responding
00:14:56.780 to those things. We're realizing now, if we want, you know, if we want to get investment, if we want to
00:15:01.580 be profitable in a new world of higher regulation and taxes, well, we've responded to that. I don't
00:15:06.940 think people are noticing just how fast that innovation is happening. Michael Binion,
00:15:12.620 the executive director of the Modern Miracle Network, joins me. Michael, always a pleasure.
00:15:17.020 Thanks for coming on and shining the light on this. No, no. Great. Anytime, Andrew. Thank you for,
00:15:21.500 thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton Show.
00:15:24.540 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.