Juno News - Carney’s pipeline deal comes with a massive bill

00:00:00.000 welcome to the fighter i'm your host chris sims oh my goodness so yeah it sounds like we have a

00:00:13.240 pipeline proposal another one that's actually going to run along the same corridor as the

00:00:18.320 trans mountain pipeline it goes from just outside of edmonton all the way through across british

00:00:24.400 Columbia, Lower Mainland, and out to the West Coast, just south of Vancouver. If that is ringing

00:00:30.520 a bell, that's because that's where the Trans Mountain Pipeline is, the TMX. And you know,

00:00:37.060 what's interesting is that that should have been a lesson. That should have been a lesson for

00:00:42.580 Canadian governments and for taxpayers. Because what happened with the Trans Mountain Pipeline,

00:00:48.000 if folks do recall, we had a private company, Kinder Morgan, saying, we want to spend our own

00:00:56.000 money twinning our own property, please, government. We're going to spend like $8 billion of private

00:01:02.580 company money. In fact, the amount doesn't matter because it was their own money. Who cares?

00:01:06.820 So for years and years, they were getting green lights. And then all of a sudden,

00:01:09.940 they got a bunch of red lights from the Trudeau government in Ottawa. So foot drag after foot

00:01:15.420 drag. They finally choked that project to death. The government did. So the company walked away.

00:01:22.000 In walks the government and says, oh, well, I guess we'll build it then.

00:01:26.640 More than $30 billion later. One of our guests coming up in a second says,

00:01:30.940 by the time the smoke clears on the original TMX doubling, it's going to cost taxpayers more than

00:01:36.520 $50 billion. But as of right now, the latest I saw, it was more than $30 billion. So here we

00:01:41.980 get this announcement, we saw Alberta Premier Daniel Smith and Canadian Prime Minister Mark

00:01:48.320 Carney come out and do this happy little news conference announcing that the Alberta government

00:01:54.340 has given a proposal to construct a pipeline itself from Edmonton out through to just underneath

00:02:02.500 Vancouver. Now, they're saying that they're going to be the main proponent and get this, TMX,

00:02:08.740 Trans Mountain is going to build it. Guys, Trans Mountain is the government. That means

00:02:16.920 you, taxpayers, are going to be paying for this thing. So I dug through the full proposal. I

00:02:24.140 haven't been able to read all 85 pages of the thing yet, but you can find it on the government

00:02:29.020 website. It's kind of hard, but you can get links to it. And here's the financing. See this chart

00:02:35.160 right here. See how it says that the cost is going to be upwards of close to $44 billion there?

00:02:45.160 Yeah, that's taxpayers minus around 10%. So the next time you hear somebody say,

00:02:54.760 oh, this is a public private partnership. The private company is only on the hook for

00:03:01.160 10%. That means you, dear taxpayer, are on the hook for 90% of this project. Now, before I get

00:03:13.140 lots of email and comments underneath here on YouTube, by the way, of course, be sure to like

00:03:17.080 this video, subscribe to the channel, and share with people you need to know. Before I see a bunch

00:03:21.280 of comments saying, I thought you guys wanted pipelines. Why are you anti-pipeline? This is

00:03:25.460 good news. Of course, pipelines are good because it gets natural resources to market and it makes

00:03:30.960 Canadians money. That's a good thing. The bad and stupid thing is blowing taxpayers money on this

00:03:37.100 because we should ask ourselves this question whenever there's some project okay that's being 0.99

00:03:42.400 proposed in Canada. If the government stopped taxing it to death and strangling it would a

00:03:50.020 private company otherwise pay for it? If the answer is yes government needs to get out of the way

00:03:56.820 so the private company can pay. It's simple as that. Taxpayers are now going to be punished

00:04:03.980 by the government because the government is standing in the way. Make it make sense. It

00:04:10.200 doesn't because all the government needs to do here is to get out of the way. So Ottawa should

00:04:17.420 scrap all of its carbon taxes. Its industrial carbon tax, its fuel standard carbon tax, all of

00:04:24.340 the carbon taxes. Okay. And we should get out of the way. The government should scrap those carbon

00:04:30.080 taxes, cancel the laws that are blocking things like pipeline production. Okay. Just step out of

00:04:36.080 the way. Let private companies come back in and regain confidence in Canada. Why are Canadian

00:04:42.400 taxpayers going to be on the hook for this? I did some quick math. $44 billion is a lot of money

00:04:50.920 that could otherwise purchase more than 87,000 houses just in Alberta. Okay. How did we get

00:05:01.820 into this mess? How can we fix this so that taxpayers can save this money and private

00:05:08.640 companies can instead pay for this stuff? Let's find out. Joining me now is a good friend of this

00:05:14.720 program, and he is fired up. Dan McTagg, he is, of course, head of Canadians for Affordable Energy,

00:05:22.400 underline on the affordable line. So what got me was the numbers. And I'm just going to call

00:05:30.000 a spade a spade. Alberta Premier Daniel Smith was asked directly, how much is this going to

00:05:34.960 be taking out of taxpayers' pockets? And she demurred and kind of said something like, oh,

00:05:39.920 well, that remains to be negotiated. Well, in their own document, the submission document,

00:05:45.340 Dan, that they handed in to the principal's office for the photo op, they're saying that

00:05:50.000 this is going to cost upwards of $44 billion. And get this, this public-private partnership

00:05:58.240 cute title, the private company is only on the hook for 10%. Translation, this is going to cost

00:06:06.800 taxpayers a ton of money like over 40 billion dollars money um what was your take on this

00:06:13.360 because it's frustrating because in my brain i'm like pipeline's good um government getting in its

00:06:19.920 own way and costing taxpayers money for no reason bad what was your take well this is the cost of

00:06:25.680 net zero this is why it cost 50 billion bucks to build the kinder morgan friend uh sorry trans

00:06:31.200 mountain pipeline expansion which was once willing to be built by Kinder Morgan at no cost

00:06:36.740 the consumers but you and I are on the hook for 50 plus billion dollars not 33 not 34 the actual

00:06:41.760 numbers are much higher than that at a time which the federal government is running massive debts

00:06:46.040 and deficits which CTF talks about ad nauseum it's critical that we understand and that you found

00:06:52.300 that because I had said for some time the MOU is DOA unless the public picks up the tab that's

00:06:58.400 exactly what you're going to do i hope every canadian understands they're in for tens of

00:07:02.580 thousands of dollars personally this is going to have to be paid and sure there's a payback and we

00:07:07.040 all want pipelines but the reason this pipeline is something that no one wants to touch is because

00:07:11.720 the net zero conditions have been placed on not just the tanker bands decarbonization sequestration

00:07:17.220 underground storage this is really trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and what they're

00:07:24.080 doing is basically saying the world get lost we'll do it because we have direct access especially

00:07:29.180 with our defectors who made it a majority we have direct access to public dollars borrowed public

00:07:34.220 dollars this is not the way to run a country much less try to appease everybody by paying them off

00:07:40.360 knowing you can rob every single Canadian consumer in this country not to me is most loathsome it

00:07:46.020 makes this thing very loathsome I still believe that the MOU now transferred to the MPO under

00:07:52.720 They're very quick, you know, almost clandestine conditions is still DOA because who's going to pay for it?

00:07:59.800 Yeah, we know the public is going to pay for it, but sooner or later, the bond rating agencies are going to call us on this and say this is not feasible.

00:08:09.060 We're paying everything off.

00:08:10.100 If we're not bailing out three billion bucks in condos in downtown Vancouver, we're likely Toronto.

00:08:14.800 We've got 44 billion just sitting around doing nothing.

00:08:17.220 So I think it's pretty clear to me that when you are so rigid in your view that net zero has to happen, and that's just not the federal government, this Premier Daniel Smith, who I admire, having to hold on to this so tenaciously, who the hell is going to buy your overpriced oil?

00:08:33.740 And that's where the economics doesn't make sense here, Chris.

00:08:36.120 Let's parse this out.

00:08:37.420 You want to talk numbers, not just about what we're on the hook for?

00:08:39.720 If you decarbonize it, that's going to cost you $5 or $6 a barrel, and you would then have to pay to sequester to CCUS, carbon capture and underground storage, another $5 or $6, which the public is going to have to pay for.

00:08:53.040 It makes that $56 a barrel WCS, Western Canadian Select, more expensive than WTI.

00:09:00.180 Who wants to buy overpriced oil just so we can go around and be trendy and show our green creds?

00:09:05.400 No one.

00:09:05.680 what's going to happen then if we've got this idea that we're going to produce decarbonized

00:09:13.960 oil which just sounds i mean i'm not a science expert that just sounds crazy to me because

00:09:19.240 i don't know um so if we're going to produce this costly decarbonized oil and we're going to offer

00:09:26.200 it on the world market and then nobody's buying it is this going to be the taxpayer subsidizing it

00:09:33.880 like coming in and covering some of the cost of it in order to artificially lower the price like

00:09:38.620 is that possible like this is so frustrating dan well el bozos gave the government uh carte blanche

00:09:45.820 uh to write any check even if it puts the country in hawk and we are clearly in hawk right now uh we

00:09:51.660 know that our bread and butter uh in this country is the oil uh production and uh export oil and gas

00:09:58.160 but to have conditioned it to the point where it takes really someone's ability to do a Houdini,

00:10:04.400 get out of a straitjacket, is what we're trying to perform here. The bottom line is how far and

00:10:09.080 how deep can you go in committing the Canadian taxpayer to build a project that would otherwise

00:10:14.160 be built by the private sector at no cost and no risk. The other factor here is who's going to buy

00:10:20.600 it? I mean, not only the high price, but you've got to upgrade it somewhere. Either they have

00:10:25.000 upgraders at the other end of the pipe or the other end of you know across the pacific or you

00:10:30.340 have an upgrader built that's going to cost a few more billion bucks my guess is that you're already

00:10:35.160 pricing this oil out of reality out of the world market now the price a time when prices are being

00:10:41.260 short sold we have a serious crisis around the world we're seeing you know what should be 100

00:10:46.360 barrel oil which is what it is physically trading for 68 canada's 56 dollar wcs is going to become

00:10:53.200 very uneconomical very quickly.

00:10:56.020 Don't take my word for it.

00:10:57.020 Economists like Jack Mintz have pointed out

00:10:59.460 that this is why nobody wants to touch this.

00:11:02.520 It's like a bad smell.

00:11:04.040 Nobody wants to touch this

00:11:05.020 because everybody's so trendy about their net zero creds.

00:11:08.740 The reality is what's going to wind up

00:11:10.460 is the taxpayer is going to hold onto this,

00:11:12.760 have to pay for this,

00:11:13.540 and our pockets will be truly net zero.

00:11:17.240 Can you see various levels of government

00:11:19.700 just dumping continuous amounts of taxpayer dollars onto this

00:11:23.000 in order to make that oil affordable on the world market?

00:11:26.260 Like, are we going to pay the difference here?

00:11:27.900 Say this thing gets built, okay, magically.

00:11:30.400 Say this thing gets built.

00:11:31.680 We're on the hook for 40 plus billion.

00:11:33.740 It's actually got oil in the pipe.

00:11:36.620 Are we going to wind up paying the difference

00:11:38.400 in order to make this marketable?

00:11:39.880 Is that what you're seeing in the future?

00:11:41.760 Is that possible?

00:11:43.080 Yeah, I don't think that's possible.

00:11:44.460 I think what's happening is that nothing can be done

00:11:49.740 because you've put regulations in place that make it impossible.

00:11:55.380 And that's the intention for anybody to take this out of the ground.

00:11:57.860 Remember, since 2015, we've been saying there's no business case for oil or gas.

00:12:03.060 Much as we know, that is an absolute fundamental lie of the century.

00:12:07.760 We know that's deceptive, but we continue to hold true to that particular regulation,

00:12:12.760 those devastating policies, which are going to drive up the price

00:12:18.160 and ensure that no one wants to invest in this.

00:12:20.600 So what we have is the government's caught between a rock and a hard place.

00:12:23.520 It's got its green folks and climate fanatics throughout its caucus.

00:12:28.540 They are likely to lose some of them.

00:12:30.700 So they have to come up with the only solution that is there,

00:12:33.180 and that's to access public dollars.

00:12:34.660 Now, I want people to understand this.

00:12:36.160 When they can't get access to decent Medicare,

00:12:38.840 when they're having to go through wait lines,

00:12:40.800 when they can't get services, when they can't get jobs,

00:12:43.140 when they can't get enough money to make ends meet,

00:12:45.940 Just remember, it's because we have pursued, to our detriment, this net zero policy that no nation in this world, not even Norway, with its $2 trillion plus sovereign fund, whatever dare pursue.

00:12:57.620 The fact that we have this narrative, this ideology so rigidly imposed on everything we do, means that at the end of the day, as we voted for the Liberal Party, the Greens and the NDP are the ones that are holding the rest of us hostage.

00:13:10.560 And we're going to have to pay for this, not just this generation, but generations to come.

00:13:13.960 It makes the prospect of doing business in Canada that much more unaffordable.

00:13:18.040 This also sends a message, by the way, to the currency markets,

00:13:20.940 who are basically saying the Canadian dollar is no longer the petrol loonie

00:13:23.420 because we can't produce.

00:13:25.020 And if we produce, it's only because the government's willing to put some money out.

00:13:28.480 It takes 141, 142 pennies to buy a U.S. dollar.

00:13:31.040 That's adding 38 cents a liter to the price of gasoline.

00:13:33.720 Imagine what it's doing to the cost of food and every other commodity,

00:13:36.600 most of which are priced in U.S. dollars.

00:13:38.220 So I think we paint ourselves into a corner here,

00:13:40.780 And it's time for us to recognize that this kind of a stunt is not about elbows up.

00:13:47.520 It's truly going to leave most Canadians and taxpayers ankles up.

00:13:51.340 Oh, my goodness.

00:13:53.020 It's very concerning.

00:13:54.400 And what Dan's saying here is true.

00:13:55.720 To put it bluntly, Canada is rich in natural resources.

00:14:00.400 We are rich, especially in things like oil and natural gas.

00:14:03.860 We are the only country that is actively strangling our own energy sector.

00:14:09.240 like actively through carbon taxes and laws against things like pipelines. What's mind

00:14:17.700 blowing to me is that the government is causing this problem. All it needs to do is to stop

00:14:23.540 causing the problem. So between carbon taxes and their stupid laws, it's made it untenable 1.00

00:14:30.160 for private companies to come put their money here. All it needs to do is to get out of the 0.99

00:14:35.900 way of itself Dan but instead taxpayers are now going to have to spend 40 billion dollars plus

00:14:43.280 because of the government like this does not make sense because I get people calling me saying I

00:14:49.720 thought you guys like pipelines yeah we like pipelines but ask yourself this question whenever

00:14:54.660 there's some sort of a project would this otherwise be funded by private companies if only the

00:15:01.400 government stopped getting in the way? Yes. Then get out of the way and let the private sector pay.

00:15:08.520 It's real simple. Why is it that the government of Alberta is now going along with this? I'm

00:15:14.300 pretty ticked off, Dan. Why isn't Alberta Premier Daniel Smith? Because I feel like I know she wants

00:15:20.660 to. Why isn't she standing next to Scott Moe in Saskatchewan and saying, you know what? No,

00:15:26.020 no carbon taxes ever under whatever circumstances you call them. Stop this.

00:15:30.140 stop this net zero policy scrap your anti-pipeline laws and get out of the way why are we hearing

00:15:36.660 that out of edmonton right now well we're not hearing anywhere uh i would even say the federal

00:15:41.480 conservative party has some concerns about uh you know why it doesn't say anything about net zero

00:15:45.800 everyone seems to be on board because they don't want to touch that with a 10-foot pole

00:15:48.740 the problem however is it's committing the country to almost uh austerity and almost certain uh need

00:15:55.760 for the public to have to bail out any project we do in this country. Tell me what gets done

00:16:00.320 without government. Tell me what gets done in this country without massive dollops of government

00:16:04.500 money. I mean, this is not what I consider a modern, advanced, attractive nation that has

00:16:11.560 all the resources in the world, but has decided that for ideological purposes to tie those up.

00:16:17.020 And by the way, we get warm summers and we get cold winters. And if you have a problem with CO2,

00:16:21.920 which is what this comes down to. Stop exhaling. I don't mean that to be cynical. I mean, the

00:16:27.020 reality is that this is not 2015 anymore. The harsh truth about 2025 is that we are an economy

00:16:34.020 in full decline. Can we afford another 40 billion bucks atop the 50 billion we did for the Trans 0.99

00:16:39.220 Mountain Pipeline expansion? Is it the only way in which we get things done? That's how you want

00:16:43.420 to electrify the country through your net zero fantasies. Are we going to simply cut a check

00:16:47.860 for a couple trillion dollars.

00:16:49.500 I mean, the country is hemorrhaging.

00:16:52.580 The last thing it needs is that we demand it

00:16:55.240 to provide a transfusion for someone else.

00:16:57.460 At the end of the day,

00:16:58.640 we're going to have to make a determination

00:17:00.120 that this is 40 billion bucks of money we can't afford.

00:17:03.800 This is far, for most Canadians,

00:17:05.760 this is by far and away a bridge too far.

00:17:08.420 Never thought I'd see it become the norm

00:17:10.660 of nationalizing pipelines.

00:17:13.720 I just never thought I'd see this happen.

00:17:15.960 Let me try to play devil's advocate

00:17:17.480 it and be as open-minded as I can, Dan. So what if I'm hearing from, say, the Alberta government

00:17:23.880 along this line? Hey, we tried for a long time. Nobody's budging Prime Minister Mark Carney.

00:17:31.400 He's in there for a majority, whether we like it or not in Ottawa narrative. All we can do

00:17:38.080 is pay for this ourselves now. And why not think of it as infrastructure? Because once that oil

00:17:44.560 starts flowing and they start selling it we will make money like the treasury of alberta will make

00:17:49.480 money off of royalties and this will eventually pay for itself what do you say to that argument

00:17:55.120 well i would be more willing to say let's do something with the britcher proposal of the

00:18:00.600 president of the united states and get a million barrels going that way at least um whether it

00:18:05.880 goes to a coastline is a matter that can be negotiated but going through this rigmarole of

00:18:11.360 money we don't have being spent because we have a policy that is so punitive and is so difficult

00:18:18.600 for any nation to adopt, much less Canada, seems to me to be counterproductive. And a pipeline at

00:18:25.180 any cost is a pipeline to nowhere. And I think many people will become on both sides, those who

00:18:30.620 want pipelines, as well as those we know the traditional groups that will come out and

00:18:34.580 oppose this no matter what. The reality is that a decision had to be made. The Liberals cannot get

00:18:39.960 away from their net zero climate uh uh doctrines or religiosity of this uh of this particular issue

00:18:47.200 and we seem to have both the federal conservatives and to electors that the premier of alberta and

00:18:52.260 others seeming seemingly believing that yeah net zero was the way to go by the way who's going to

00:18:56.900 pay the carbon credits do we wind up paying who's going to pay for the sequestration do the public

00:19:01.020 also have to pay for that the pipeline may be one thing at 40 billion as you've discovered

00:19:05.000 but who's going to pay for sequestration are we going to do a boundary dam type situation that

00:19:09.740 we have in Saskatchewan is another 2, 10 billion bucks. What are we talking here? Not just to

00:19:15.060 mention the economics, the practical economics, that these prices added to the cost of oil,

00:19:21.640 Canadian oil, will make it very unattractive. And considering that's heavy oil, which is good for

00:19:27.240 diesel and things you need to make your economies run, unless we build an operator on our side,

00:19:31.720 as I mentioned, or they have one on the other side, not every country has one. Japan doesn't

00:19:35.560 have one so who are we selling to this all for china that's the case why the hell are they paying 0.68

00:19:40.160 for it so what you're saying for the idea of okay think of it as infrastructure because we're going

00:19:47.240 to make royalty money off of it etc and it'll eventually pay for itself is how are we sure

00:19:51.940 it's going to pay for itself because it could become priced out of the market and people won't

00:19:55.400 be buying it is that the issue that's the problem um and of course it can only be sustained by by

00:20:01.380 public finances. This is a little bit like the mother ties a pork chop around the kid's necks,

00:20:06.000 the next to her neighbor's dog, come to play with it. No one wants Canadian oil, not because

00:20:09.900 we don't have it, but because we've conditioned it, made circumstances so economically impossible

00:20:16.420 by our, you know, by our holding so fast to net zero. I mean, think of this as being 2005,

00:20:24.260 would we be that ridiculous? No, we'd have a lineup of people saying, yeah, we'll get

00:20:28.500 your oil to market but today we've said because because we have decided that we have to regulate

00:20:34.420 it right we have uh tanker bands we have not one not two three carbon taxes i refer to the obps uh

00:20:42.080 you know there's a carbon tax to be applied to this one and we also know there's a clean fuel

00:20:45.920 standard which you and i have done a lot of work on over the past several years no country in this

00:20:51.220 world would want to do that to me mark carney is g fan still exists not in the united states where

00:20:55.620 they almost got hit with antitrust and it would have been it would have crippled every U.S. bank

00:20:59.060 for becoming part of it. We have G fans on full display in Canada so when he heads over to Davos

00:21:03.500 to you know swill back Perrier and eat canapes and give these wonderful little bromides and

00:21:11.340 comments remember at the end of the day you're declining standard of living and the amount of

00:21:16.980 tax burden that you're going to accept to do what would otherwise be done for free by the private

00:21:21.260 sector in the real world and capital is lost. And so for that reason, it's a complete hit on every

00:21:26.900 Canadian in this country. And I don't care about the geopolitics of this or the politics within

00:21:30.740 Canada of, you know, pipeline at any cost. We cannot have a pipeline at any cost because pipelines

00:21:35.980 cost. The private sector is willing to look for it, but we seem to have to want to condition these

00:21:41.520 things with, oh, it's got to be trendy. It's got to be green. It's got to be cute. Look, we either

00:21:46.200 accept that argument uh and its consequences which have been devastating for canada or reject them

00:21:51.720 and that's where i would expect it albert and others to do the same i'm hoping here for the

00:21:55.800 conservatives they finally recognize that this is not just a breach too far it's money we can't

00:22:00.600 afford that they finally give up the ship and say that net zero is leading the economy to exactly

00:22:06.040 where it's uh where it is today a country blessed with an abundance of resources that has net zero

00:22:11.480 of a show for it uh lastly and credit where it's due the federal conservatives have spoken out

00:22:17.160 vociferously against the industrial carbon tax which and they've stuck to their guns on that

00:22:21.700 so credit to pierre paulia for doing that um i know it's no i learned the thing yeah yeah but

00:22:27.240 chris we have to be really clear about this uh and that's there isn't one policy not just carpet

00:22:31.740 access several and so we have to say are you for it are you a guest this is not 2015 anymore it's

00:22:38.140 Frudeau calling around saying, hey, we do these things because it's 2015.

00:22:41.600 In 2026, 2027, we know that this was the wrong policy, the wrong approach, and it was detrimental to Canada.

00:22:47.120 And we cannot afford to maintain this idea that the falsehoods of net zero should remain forever.

00:22:53.640 And the last question is, if we allow this one, what about the next one and the next one and the next one?

00:23:00.240 We're just going to normalize taxpayers' money being spent on stuff that should be paid for by the private sector.

00:23:07.320 to what end like we have un money to pay for this i'm really worried about the precedent that this

00:23:12.280 sets well president who pays for it and how are we going to afford that and when when are the bond

00:23:19.260 aid rating agencies going to get involved because they know that if the country is pretending that

00:23:23.700 this is somehow a capital investment but it's still debt how long can they tolerate the this

00:23:28.660 kind of additional it'll take years for this to be paid back i'm not saying it can't pipelines last

00:23:33.340 50-100 years. Look at the existing Trans Mountain pipeline around since 1951-52.

00:23:39.980 But this really has to be put in perspective. Is that everything in this country is by, for,

00:23:45.020 and with the payment of the public? Or are we finally going to get some kind of

00:23:51.260 inducements where we see a country that's extremely attractive and people want to convert

00:23:56.620 their currencies into Canadian currency? As I said, it's the first time in my 30 years of

00:24:00.860 analyzing gas prices where I've actually not seen the petrol looney show up. It's disappeared. In

00:24:05.900 fact, if anything during this crisis with Iran, the Canadian dollar is actually turtled. 137

00:24:11.740 pennies when it started, 140, 142 now. No one believes that anything could get done in this

00:24:17.420 country unless it's done by and for and with the consent of the government. And so I think we need

00:24:22.620 an overhaul, a rethink of net zero. And the last thing we should be doing is lording on to companies

00:24:29.420 with great ideas, the perspective that the only thing you can do

00:24:33.140 is have the government approve it and then spend their money

00:24:36.700 to make things happen.

00:24:38.040 I think in that kind of circumstance, the country is going to see

00:24:41.580 a significant degrade in its attractiveness, and I don't think

00:24:46.000 many people are going to be able to want to buy this.

00:24:47.880 That's why I'm saying the MOU now turned to the MPO is still going

00:24:51.600 to wind up, in my view, DOA one way or another.

00:24:55.240 Dan McTig, Canadians for Affordable Energy, thank you

00:24:58.260 for your continued work on this uh we really appreciate your time and your analysis sir

00:25:03.700 thanks very much chris folks remember um this is what this is all about these conversations

00:25:11.140 here on juno news and with the canadian taxpayers federation speaking to somebody like dan mctagg

00:25:16.980 who for decades has been able to predict the price of gas tomorrow because he understands these costs

00:25:23.700 prices and markets so well, if he is sounding alarm bells on this, that is a serious problem.

00:25:30.980 Last week, we spoke with Dr. Jack Mintz, the economist who works at the University of Calgary,

00:25:36.620 very respected economist, who, to paraphrase him, because he's much smarter than me,

00:25:42.000 was basically saying that a combination of industrial carbon taxes and all of the extra

00:25:47.740 costs of the carbon sequestration plan, etc., etc., that Dan was just mentioning,

00:25:51.900 was going to make it priced out of the market.

00:25:56.000 It was going to make oil and gas coming out of Alberta

00:25:58.660 priced out of the market.

00:26:00.180 And he was sounding alarm bells over that very politely

00:26:03.540 using a lot of numbers and explanations.

00:26:06.600 But again, we have economists saying,

00:26:10.440 ah, this isn't going to work.

00:26:12.380 We have longtime analysts like Dan McTague saying,

00:26:15.860 um, this is not going to work.

00:26:17.940 And I will point out that finally,

00:26:19.700 we have some oil company heads and oil company executives saying,

00:26:24.900 ah, things like the industrial carbon tax and all of the stuff tied up in this MOU

00:26:29.880 is making it completely unattractive for a private company to come into Canada and say,

00:26:37.140 hey, let me spend private company money because oil companies like selling oil. Who knew?

00:26:43.800 That was the norm. That was the norm in this country for decades and decades. And now all of a sudden,

00:26:49.700 bueller bueller like we have no takers to build something like a pipeline and now you dear

00:26:57.380 taxpayer are going to be on the hook for building this pipeline how much is this going to cost

00:27:04.340 and how much debt are we actually in let's find out joining me now is my good friend and federal

00:27:12.100 director of the canadian taxpayers federation franco terrazzano uh franco you and i were

00:27:17.460 keeping an eye on this and when they were making this announcement, which, by the way, was almost

00:27:21.720 7 p.m. mountain time, which was ridiculous. And I couldn't help but notice, Franco, that when the

00:27:27.200 premier was asked, how much is this going to cost taxpayers? She didn't say how much. But then we

00:27:32.700 went and found the funding document that's posted on the Internet, and it says it's going to cost

00:27:38.100 43.7 billion dollars, upwards of that. Can taxpayers afford this? No. And even if we could

00:27:46.820 afford it taxpayers money shouldn't be dumped into a pipeline or any other business uh venture for

00:27:52.300 that matter yeah right so i mean that question's almost moot like even if the government had a

00:27:57.220 bunch of money lying around by the way it doesn't the federal government by the way more than a

00:28:01.080 trillion dollars in debt and you're asking me if we could afford it i mean chris i know you know

00:28:06.480 the answer that but like come on right and like look uh in some of the details that i've seen uh

00:28:11.340 from the government it's like well yeah there's a private company that will have what a 10 percent

00:28:16.300 economic interest is how they call it in the, uh, in the construction of it. And then you have the

00:28:21.940 Alberta government, the federal government on the hook for the rest, i.e. taxpayers in Alberta and

00:28:26.560 the rest of the country. So, I mean, like regardless if we could afford it or not, number one, no, we

00:28:32.060 can't. Governments are broke. Number two, taxpayers' money shouldn't be going into a business venture.

00:28:37.080 And oh, number three, okay. By the way, like I hate to say the obvious, it's kind of unsustainable

00:28:42.420 for taxpayers' money to keep being dumped into these projects, which should be able to go ahead

00:28:48.120 without taxpayers' money if governments just stop getting in the way of things, right? Bad laws,

00:28:53.460 bad regulations, carbon taxes that are blocking job creators from putting their own private money

00:28:58.720 into these types of projects. And now we got governments, you know, putting up these bad

00:29:02.800 laws, these bad regulations, these roadblocks, and then dumping taxpayers' money into all this stuff.

00:29:07.420 I know. It's actually crazy making because the way they were making this announcement,

00:29:12.220 they're like oh yay look a pipeline and then they said oh trans mountain is going to build it

00:29:17.500 guys trans mountain trans mountain is the government you want to try that again yeah

00:29:23.780 you sure you want to lock in that answer speaking of trans mountain okay because you know like as

00:29:28.420 you found those government documents that show it could cost upwards of about 44 billion dollars

00:29:33.300 i mean what happens when reality sets in right just add government okay uh i remember trans

00:29:39.760 mountain the trans mountain expansion i can't believe we're still like kind of going on this

00:29:43.360 i know when the government bought what tmx for about four and a half billion dollars well the

00:29:47.860 price tag ended up ballooning to well north of 30 billion dollars right so i mean upwards of 44

00:29:54.820 billion i mean who knows how much this thing could really uh x you know how how much the cost could

00:30:01.560 really go when you have governments essentially running the show on this thing i couldn't help

00:30:06.980 but darkly laugh when they said, oh, we're going to use Trans Mountain as a pathway.

00:30:13.680 We're going to follow the route of Trans Mountain. Yeah, I bet you will by blowing

00:30:18.980 taxpayers money on something that a private company ought to be doing. We just finished

00:30:24.780 speaking with Canadians for Affordable Energy, Dan McTague, and he's just losing it too,

00:30:30.360 because he's saying, guys, everybody and their dog has been warning you about this this whole time.

00:30:35.140 oil company executives economists like jack mints like they've all been saying um guys if you grab

00:30:41.200 a megaphone and you yell go away at businesses for like 10 straight years yeah they're not going

00:30:48.540 to come knocking right well i've been hearing this for months now especially from the national

00:30:53.060 media being like oh there's no private proponent oh there's no private proponent but that's because

00:30:57.200 of all the bad regulations laws and carbon taxes that are in place right like uh hello like yes

00:31:03.520 this would be a profitable country for for you know this would be a profitable country if it

00:31:08.360 wasn't for like let's call a spade a spade there's some stuff the alberta government's doing like

00:31:12.200 allowing an industrial carbon tax they're not going to let them off the hook but the federal

00:31:16.040 government for years have been putting up roadblocks regulations high taxes okay uh so

00:31:21.680 what's also interesting is that the same day that this was announced between smith and carney you

00:31:26.340 had carney and eb out in bc say hey the discriminatory tanker ban on the west coast is going to stay in

00:31:31.880 place. So let's just run through a non-exhaustive list here, okay? You have the discriminatory

00:31:36.080 tanker ban on the West Coast. You have the no more pipelines law. You have the consumer carbon

00:31:39.920 tax being charged for years. You have the industrial carbon tax still being charged

00:31:43.640 and being cranked up. You have the hidden carbon tax through fuel regulations that Trudeau brought

00:31:48.340 in and that Carney is moving ahead with, okay? You have them move the regulatory goalposts on

00:31:53.920 the Energy East pipeline. You have them reject the Northern Gateway pipeline. When the president,

00:31:58.880 the previous president in the u.s i believe uh pulled the plug on keystone yeah that you got

00:32:03.760 politicians in ottawa barely batting an eye okay you have these massive income taxes massive business

00:32:09.360 taxes and now people in ottawa are like oh i guess we can't get stuff built like this is the problem

00:32:14.880 you have governments road blocking development and then when nothing can get built then they

00:32:20.160 waste a whole bunch of taxpayers money subsidizing the thing in the first place hey how about you

00:32:24.160 you just get it away cut the taxes cut the carbon taxes and end these dumb regulations yeah they've

00:32:30.760 salted the soil of the garden and now they're wondering why nothing will grow makes zero sense

00:32:38.140 i just wanted you to get into the debt a little bit here because it's one thing like you pointed

00:32:43.180 out if we were swimming in cash you know morally and principally it would still be wrong to spend

00:32:47.420 taxpayers money on it, but we're not swimming in cash. Like we have un-money right now. Our boss

00:32:54.000 Todd pointed out, it isn't that they're spending taxpayers money. They're borrowing billions of

00:32:59.460 dollars on the backs of taxpayers plus interest to pull this stunt. So can you just get into how

00:33:05.880 much debt we're in federally and what's that's costing us even just for the interest? Well,

00:33:10.620 it's more than a trillion dollars of debt. Okay. And you just have the Trudeau government in the

00:33:14.900 span of 10 years, double the national debt. Okay. So Canadians, kids and grandkids are making

00:33:19.640 payments on that debt for the rest of their lives. And Carney supposed to be the banker.

00:33:24.180 He could be even worse than Trudeau when it comes to the debt, right? I mean, this year,

00:33:28.720 Carney is already borrowing billions over his own budget. He's going to be borrowing like 65 to 70

00:33:34.960 billion dollars this year. That's what all the records are showing. So he's borrowing tens of

00:33:40.180 billions of dollars every year. He's got zero plan to ever balance the budget and stop borrowing

00:33:44.880 money and the interest charges Chris like there's a ton of waste in Ottawa let me tell you okay tons

00:33:50.040 of waste the biggest waste of taxpayers money is the interest on the debt it's going to be about

00:33:54.740 60 billion dollars this year just making interest payments on that debt that will cost each Canadian

00:34:00.180 1400 bucks okay so the government has taken about 1400 bucks from every Canadian listening to this

00:34:06.160 and instead of that money uh you know going to services you know uh staying in your pocket

00:34:11.480 through lower taxes, that $1,400 that the government is taking from you is going to the

00:34:16.680 bond fund managers on Bay Street just to pay interest on the debt. So this government is broke.

00:34:23.680 And here they go again. They strangled it so long that it stopped moving. I can't help it.

00:34:29.280 I have to give you the Ronald Reagan quote here because it is exactly true.

00:34:33.360 Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases.

00:34:37.160 if it moves tax it if it keeps moving regulate it and if it stops moving subsidize it

00:34:45.720 franco any last words on this like i keep thinking that we can still talk sense into the alberta

00:34:52.040 government but they seem like they have the bit in their teeth here they're running away with this

00:34:55.820 they're insisting this is just like infrastructure what's the big deal um yeah next you're gonna

00:35:01.160 tell me the the volkswagen subsidies for their ev plants are just infrastructure i mean come on

00:35:06.840 uh look you know um i'm talking a lot about carmy here i mean premier danielle smith where her fault

00:35:14.040 was immediately not just saying you know we're gonna do what scott moe's doing we're just gonna

00:35:17.800 get rid of the industrial carbon tax you know smith talked about freezing the industrial carbon tax

00:35:22.600 and then getting on board with carney's industrial carbon tax so smith is uh not blameless here but

00:35:27.880 but I'm just going to focus on Kearney for a second here,

00:35:30.360 mostly because I'm in Ottawa, okay?

00:35:32.320 And look, I'm seeing two things

00:35:34.960 that are really concerning about Kearney

00:35:36.900 and they're probably really the same,

00:35:39.060 but I think two things.

00:35:39.880 Number one, the debt, okay?

00:35:41.280 Borrowing tens of billions of dollars every single year.

00:35:43.340 Going to be borrowing about 70 billion this year.

00:35:45.320 It's getting crazy.

00:35:46.900 We're so far out of this pandemic too, by the way.

00:35:49.360 Like, what's the excuse here?

00:35:51.220 Tens of billions of dollars of borrowing.

00:35:52.600 It's getting crazy.

00:35:53.700 But the second thing is just top-down central planning.

00:35:57.320 yeah okay where the worldview is like oh i know how to spend your money better than you do okay

00:36:03.800 even though politicians government bureaucrats they don't have skin in the game they're thinking

00:36:07.920 about the political incentives not the economic incentives that you know any actual business

00:36:13.120 person on the free market would be thinking about so what we're seeing a lot from cardi

00:36:17.240 is a ton of corporate welfare a ton of you know government getting into the business of business

00:36:22.540 But it all boils down to two things.

00:36:24.800 Number one, their strategy, for the most part, appears to be top-down, bureaucratic, central planning.

00:36:31.680 And their idea, when they do that, folks, this is essentially what they're saying.

00:36:35.780 This is the heart of their argument, is that they think they know how to spend your money better than you do, and they are wrong.

00:36:45.600 Amen.

00:36:46.640 Franco, thank you so much for following the money on this.

00:36:49.880 Folks, hang on.

00:36:51.560 Buckle up.

00:36:52.540 it's probably going to get worse than $44 billion. So Franco, thank you so much for covering this.

00:36:58.900 We appreciate your time. Thanks, Emmer. You bet. Once again, that is, of course,

00:37:03.840 Franco Terrazzano. He is the federal director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. He also,

00:37:09.460 by the way, folks, has his degree in economics. So he's a pretty smart cookie and he knows what's

00:37:14.440 going on here. Folks, what did you think of the show? I could not believe that announcement last

00:37:20.140 night. I could not believe that this was being treated as a victory. I can't believe this was

00:37:25.340 coming frankly out of a UCP government in Alberta. Of sure, of course, pipeline's good. That's

00:37:31.180 fantastic. But read the fine print for five seconds and you realize government is doing this

00:37:37.940 with taxpayers borrowed money plus interest. So how could spending upwards of about 44 billion

00:37:45.160 dollars of taxpayers' money on something that ought to be built privately with private money,

00:37:51.600 how can that possibly be a victory? Let me know in the comments what you think about this,

00:37:56.320 where you think this is headed, and folks, be sure, because you're not going to get conversations

00:38:01.180 that are wide-ranging like this with all of these stats and numbers, okay? Because you're going to

00:38:05.340 get the narrative of the headline that you heard. Oh, public-private partnership. You're going to

00:38:10.380 get a pipeline. Yay. So folks, you're not going to get that kind of coverage elsewhere. So be sure

00:38:16.080 to support outlets like Juno News, which presents independent journalism, independent coverage and

00:38:23.520 analysis. And be sure, of course, to like this video, subscribe to us on YouTube, and most

00:38:30.520 importantly, share this show with people who need to know.

Juno News - July 13, 2026

Carney’s pipeline deal comes with a massive bill

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