Juno News - November 14, 2025Carney backs U.S.-owned LNG project — but still no pipeline
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Summary
The Prime Minister announces a list of major building projects to be considered for fast-track approval. The glaring issue is foreign ownership, particularly of the LNG project, which is being built by a U.S. company in Asia using Chinese steel.
Transcript
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And welcome to Straight Up. I am Mark Petroni, your host. Much Ado About Nothing.
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Well, the Prime Minister announces a list of major building projects to be considered for
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fast-track approval. The list focused almost entirely on critical minerals and energy.
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The glaring issue is foreign ownership, particularly of the LNG project, for instance.
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Billions of dollars will be spent in tax money, the bankroll construction of a U.S. company,
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U.S.-owned company, and will largely be built in Asia using Chinese steel. Let's listen.
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As it stands, Western LNG is the owner of the Xilisim's terminal, and it would be built in Korea
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with Korean and Chinese steel. So how much taxpayer money are we prepared to invest in a project that
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is American-owned and foreign-built? There are different aspects of the project,
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as I said. There is the PRGT pipeline, which is necessary, which is Canadian-owned, First Nation.
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Sorry, can I finish? There is the associated transmission line that comes here. There are
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structures that come with projects that ensure that there is returns to taxpayers through the tax system, as well.
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The question is obvious. Are Canadians going to be the main beneficiaries of these projects,
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or will it be corporate friends and the Prime Minister himself who are the real winners here?
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Loren Gunter has some thoughts, and he'll be joining us shortly. Conservative leader Pierre
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Polyev notes the Prime Minister is really just re-announcing projects that were unveiled years ago
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during the Trudeau government's time in office. Let's listen.
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Yet again today, instead of getting things done, Mark Carney was standing up doing photo ops,
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announcing that he's going to approve a bunch of projects that were already going to happen.
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One of them, the CISN mine in the East Coast. This mine, there was a liberal minister, Dominic LeBlanc,
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who said that his government was going to make sure this project got underway within a year,
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and that was back in 2017. Now today, Mark Carney is re-announcing that same liberal promise.
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There were no new pipeline projects announced, included in Carney's announcement,
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which is a major priority for the province of Alberta. A pipeline through Northern British
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Columbia, a project opposed by the NDP government of that province.
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Aliyev expects the Prime Minister will use BC Premier David Eby as an excuse to block pipeline projects
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The federal government needs to do one thing to unlock our resources, and that is get out of the way.
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The provinces should have exclusive control over permitting projects that are within one province,
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and the federal government has exclusive control over projects that travel between provinces.
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And this latter point is very good, because, you know, some people say,
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well, David Eby is going to oppose a pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific.
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And my answer to that is, who cares? He has no power to block an intraprovincial pipeline.
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So Mark Carney will try to use David Eby as an excuse for not allowing a pipeline to go ahead.
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With so much negative media attention focused on Pierre Poliev's leadership style, some are wondering if
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reporters are ignoring the real story. Conservative strategist Sebastian Skamsky says the legacy media
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should be more focused on the opposition to the budget inside the Liberal caucus itself.
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Let's remember why all of this has been sparked. It's about the
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prospect of the budget not passing. When you have a former minister putting out a very polished
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video describing the good, the bad and the ugly of the Liberal budget, I think it begs a lot of
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questions and I think it should command a lot more media attention. I would recommend, you know,
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your colleagues at the Toronto Star or the CBC to knock on his door and ask a bit more about whether
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Mr Carney can find the votes in his own caucus for his own budget.
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You have word, by the way, that conservative, former conservative MP Chris Dontrema is upset
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after getting booed at a Remembrance Day event in Nova Scotia this week.
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I'm now joined by senior political columnist Lorne Gunter, who is with the Edmonton Sun. Welcome, Lorne.
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You heard the announcement yesterday. Some people are describing it as underwhelming. Others
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are noting that there's an element of concern here around who owns what.
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I mean, Canadian taxpayers are going to be on the hook for billions in terms of construction costs.
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And when you look at the ties to who owns some of these companies, like the LNG firm
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that was announced yesterday in that announcement, some are wondering who's going to be the major
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beneficiary here. Is it going to be the Americans? Maybe the Chinese? Do you have any issues around that?
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Yeah, for sure I do. I mean, I particularly have issues if the Chinese are going to be
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the main beneficiaries. I don't worry as much about the Americans because their involvement
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in the energy sector in Canada has been big from the beginning. We probably wouldn't have
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an energy sector if it weren't for the Americans. But it would be nice to see more of that capital
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stay in Canada. One of the big problems that we have, I think, in Canada is that we don't have
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capital formation. We don't have big pots of capital that people can go to with big ideas
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and have it funded in the country. And part of the reason for that is we've had a lot of foreign
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ownership. But I resist limits on foreign ownership. I'm old enough to remember FIRA,
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the Foreign Investment Review Agency, back when Trudeau Sr. was in office. And it just undercut all
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sorts of projects because there wasn't enough Canadian involvement. And so I'm reluctant to do
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that sort of thing. But I'm also convinced that this announcement yesterday, and especially the one
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in September with the first five, is basically just a PR exercise. I don't think that they really
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intend to get much of this built. And much of it, especially in the first five, those projects are
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already underway. And three of them are almost half finished. So, you know, what is the federal
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government going to do other than come in and maybe lavish a few billion dollars on them?
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Yeah. And as Paliyev noted, one of them was announced in 2017. It was supposed to have been
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going within a year of that. And here we are re-announcing that same thing. So, you know,
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you have to wonder exactly what Carney is thinking, whether people have forgotten about those previous
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announcements or whether people are thinking that this was something special and new. But I guess
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he had to announce something, right? He was under a lot of pressure to do so. Interestingly enough,
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we have Enbridge announcing something here. This looks more substantial, 1.4 billion US
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in terms of an expansion of its pipeline. And that will mean more a heavy oil crude headed south of the
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border. You know, can you maybe give us your take on that?
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In some ways, it's a good announcement. In other ways, it doesn't solve our major problem, which is
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we don't have enough foreign buyers for our heavy oil. And so we have to sell it to the Americans at
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a discount. They know they're our only customer. And so they force deals with us that reflect that.
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You know, we send them oil at probably about a, well, the discount's a little bit less since the
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Trans Mountain expansion opened up in May of last year, but it's still around 12%. And what they do
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with it is they have 25 refineries in the Midwest in the United States. 24 of them are built to handle
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heavy oil from Canada. And so they process oil from Canada in the Midwest for domestic consumption
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around the United States. And then they take their light sweet crude, like their West Texas
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intermediate, and they sell it internationally at a premium. So that's one of the reasons I always
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chafed at the idea that Trump was spitting out at the beginning of the year, that they had a trade
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deficit with us because what we were doing was funding this enormous profit that they were making
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off of their light sweet crude. So, you know, Enbridge is great, you know, let them ship more
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oil to the States. You know, it's 1.4 private billion dollars that's going into it. It's not public money.
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But I think it's also one of the reasons why Enbridge is less keen to get into a pipeline from Alberta
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to the BC coast because they're already expecting to make this big investment in existing pipelines.
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And speaking of that pipeline to the coast, I mean, there was no new pipeline obviously announced.
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I don't think there was a huge shock to anybody, but there is talk of this imminent agreement between
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the feds and Daniel Smith, Premier of Alberta, that we're going to see some kind of agreement coming up
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or movement forward in terms of projects involving specifically Alberta and energy. Is that going
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to happen? Do you think? And to what degree does yesterday's announcement maybe put a damper on that?
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Well, take a look. I think what we're talking about here is probably a two-step process for Alberta. And
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that is they're going to try and sign a memorandum of understanding with Ottawa about what would be
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needed to build a pipeline. And the talk out here is that they'll have to go big into carbon capture
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in order to get the Greens and the Liberal Party to agree to let them sell oil to the rest of the world.
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But the International Energy Agency came out earlier this week and said,
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oil demand in the world is going to go up until 2050. You can have all these fantasies about the great
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transition or about replacing oil with wind and solar, whatever it is. Oil demand is going to go up
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for at least another 25 years. And so it would make sense for us to sell our conflict-free oil to the
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rest of the world. But there's such a green mafia in the federal government that they want us to promise
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there won't be any carbon coming out of that oil. So they want us to have these big carbon capture
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projects. And then maybe they'll decide that we can have a pipeline. But that's just a memorandum of
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understanding. To be really considered a real project, and I'm not even sure this is true, but to be considered
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a real nation-building project, you've got to get on the list. And so even if we get a memorandum of
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understanding, we're still not on Carney's list. So I think this is a delaying tactic in a lot of ways
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by the federal government. Which is kind of what Pierre Polyed was talking about when he said that
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Premier Eby in British Columbia, of course, has continued to be in opposition of that pipeline,
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the Northern Gateway style. I realized it would be called something else, presumably,
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if it's reintroduced. He doesn't want that to happen. And you've got potentially this kabuki
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theater happening between him and Carney, who may be using the intransigence by the New Democrat
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Premier in B.C. to say, hey, I can't do this. I'd like to, Premier Smith, but you've got B.C. next
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door and we can't move forward. Despite the fact that it's the Feds, really, who have jurisdiction on a
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project like that? That's right. The Constitution gives the Feds the right to put a pipeline. It
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doesn't say pipelines in the Constitution, but it says interprovincial trade routes. And so that's
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a pipeline. And that was the power that they used to get Trans Mountain to go through. It was, you know,
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over B.C.'s objections was, no, no, no, constitutionally it was ours to say, yes, it gets to go ahead.
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But I do think Carney's going to do that. And whenever you're talking about Liberals,
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you have to consider the electoral math. They always worry about their reelection. Everything
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they do is driven by how many votes they can get out of it. And they have 20 seats in B.C.
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and they have two in Alberta. And the two in Alberta always are hand by a thread. So their
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calculation about where they could get more seats, where they need to protect their seats,
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always comes back to B.C. over Alberta. And so I think, you know, as you correctly point out,
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Carney's going to use E.B. as an excuse for not giving a pipeline to Alberta.
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That sounds pretty disingenuous. I mean, especially given all the talk of growing the economy. I mean,
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we're in a recession right now. We could really use a project like that. And the fact that we're
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not moving forward to it, you know, it's troubling because there are other political considerations
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around Premier Smith in Alberta. I mean, she's got to look like she's playing hardball with the feds.
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And if, you know, she is seen as kind of accepting this MOU with the feds that doesn't really cover the
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bases in terms of what Albertans want. I mean, could she be in trouble amongst her supporters?
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Steve McLaughlin She could. I think where they're really in trouble, if it gets to that,
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would be a breakaway group that goes to the right of where the UCP is. They're not in much danger of
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support shifting over to the NDP because the NDP would be as pro-green as the feds. So that doesn't
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solve the problem. But if the vote splits on the right, we saw that happen in 2015,
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then you elect an NDP government. And so she has, I'm sure she's very, very conscious of that. And she
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has to, she has to do everything she can to keep that split from happening. So she's talking now about
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having sensitive negotiations with the feds. She's talking about they're still talking. And she's
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trying to convince those of us who are very skeptical about the liberals, that we should hold off
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criticizing her because something's coming. Well, so is Christmas. Well, there could be a referendum
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coming as well, right here, maybe. But we'll have to see because of course, she's under great pressure.
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You talk about the right wing party maybe coming, forming out of dissatisfaction with what Smith has
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done and ongoing intransigence at the federal level. I mean, to what degree would the independence
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movement in Alberta benefit from having the feds not come through on this pipeline commitment?
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Big time. I've said since the talk about separation, after the April election, there was a lot of talk
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coming out of Alberta that, you know, we might have a separatist movement. I kept saying, it's not going
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to prove to be a real threat until Ottawa does something concrete to upset Alberta and rejecting a
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pipeline would be one of those things. So yeah, I think there's a possibility. Would it be 55% of the
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electric? Would there be a successful referendum to separate? I don't see that at the moment, but could
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it take away 15 to 20% of the UCP's support and in the process elect the NDP? I think that's a real
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possibility. So you're saying that this independence movement will run as a party in the next election?
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Well, I think they have to. You know, it's all well and good to go around and set up rallies and talk
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about taking back Alberta and being independent of the feds. But if you look at what happened in Quebec,
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you have to follow that example. And that was the Parti Quebecois finally got elected. They ran as a
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party. They did an election or two where they didn't win, and then they won. And I think you
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have to form a party. There is this thing called the Republican Party of Alberta, which is an
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independence movement. It got next to no votes in a by-election in an area where it should do very well.
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So I think they have to find a different name. I think they have to find a different leader. But if
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somebody who's currently in the legislature and has a little bit of name recognition provincially,
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decides they want to become the leader of a separatist party, it could happen.
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Yeah. And I guess the fear then becomes, could the NDP be the beneficiary of that?
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And you spoke about that earlier. And you've got this kind of urban rural split in Alberta as well,
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where you've got most of the left-leaning votes concentrated in cities where you're talking about
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Edmonton and Calgary to a degree. And so then much of the support for independence and perhaps a right
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of UCP party is going to come in maybe the rural parts, ranchers and the drillers and oil workers and
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all that kind of thing. So you've got potentially a lot of chaos in store.
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If it doesn't navigate this properly and carefully.
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Yep. I think that's, that's a very prescient review of what's going to happen in Alberta
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in the next three or four years. Smith has, she's walking a tightrope. I mean, to some extent,
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so is Carney. I think Carney has a big green caucus within the liberal party that he has to deal with.
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If he wants to keep that, that caucus from drifting back to the NDP. I mean, the only,
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the only way that, that conservatives win nationally, if is, if the NDP are strong,
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because they steal enough votes from the liberals, the conservatives can come up the middle.
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It's the same thing in Alberta, but in reverse, the only way that the NDP can win is if the vote
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on the right is split and then they can come up. And that's exactly what happened in 2015.
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I remember getting in a debate with a political scientist and I said, look, if you just put the
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Wild Rose and the PC vote together, they'd be 52% and they overwhelmed the NDP. And then this
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political scientist said, oh, it's not that easy. It's not clear that the PCs could get together with
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the form. So Jason Kenney came along, put the two parties together and they got 53% of the vote. So it
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was as simple as all of that. So the only way the NDP can, can win is if Smith can't hold her
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coalition together. And that's a real possibility if Ottawa starts making a mess of all of this.
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And it is interesting, as long as you mentioned Ottawa, that they didn't, despite the collapse of
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the NDP in the last election, the liberals could not muster up enough to get a majority. I mean,
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they came close, but then you look at the conservative vote, which was at 41.5%. I mean,
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most years you and I know that would be, you know, that would be enough for a majority government.
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It'd be off the races with 41.5% of the vote. Harper won his majority in 2011 with just a little
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more than 41.5%. And so here, you know, we have to wonder what's going to happen with this. There's a
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lot of uncertainty in Ottawa. I mean, around this budget. I mean, you've heard all the talk around
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opposition within the liberal ranks, some of the whining by some of those who think that there's
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not enough money allocated for, you know, climate initiatives. Are you buying into that? I mean,
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could the liberals find themselves at the wrong end of a confidence vote here around the budget?
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No, I don't think so. I mean, the only people who would benefit from a snap election
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are the liberals. So if the NDP are smart, they will get their tiny little caucus into a minivan
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and go across the river to haul and have some beers while the boat's going on. Because abstentions
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would push the liberals over the top too. The NDP aren't ready. They're in the middle of a leadership
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race. They have no money. They're expecting about a $12 million refund from the federal government
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for the election expenses they spent. But that's not going to come right away. So, you know, you can
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borrow against that, I guess. But they're in real trouble. They don't want to go. And I have to say
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that I don't think the conservatives are right ready for it either. I mean, I don't think there's
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any more discontent in the conservative caucus than there is in the liberal caucus. But Polyev is just
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not popular enough yet with voters, particularly voters in Ontario, to beat Carney out. It would be
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a better race because Trump isn't flapping his gums during the middle of the race and pushing
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people to Carney. But people just like Carney as a prime minister. They think he looks like a prime
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minister. And if they're not paying close attention, and they're not, then he will win. He'll get his
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majority. So I think the conservatives, the bloc, and the NDP have to do whatever they can
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to keep the liberals from losing the budget vote and forcing an early election.
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So you're saying they could, the liberals could engineer their own defeat?
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That's what they did in 74. You remember, under Trudeau, there was a majority government in 68 and
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a minority government in 72. And then in 74, they went out and they ran and won a majority. They
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engineered their defeat in 74 to force an election. And then they went around during the campaign saying,
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oh, the NDP, oh, they caused this election. It's not our fault. You have to give us a majority because
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if we don't have a majority, then the NDP can keep doing this to us. And they would do exactly
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the same thing now. Yeah, I think that has something to do with wage and price controls.
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Dr. Mark Sanfield, Trudeau said, no, not us. And then he went ahead and did it after.
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Lauren, thank you so much for coming on the show. Appreciate it.
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And that is it for this edition of Straight Up. Appreciate you tuning in, my friends.
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Let's do it again real soon, shall we? Bye-bye for now.