Juno News - April 22, 2024


Danielle Smith slams Trudeau’s “costly” climate agenda

Mentioned
Boris Johnson Higgs Andrew Lawton Show Stephen Guibault Danielle Smith Steven Guilbeault Hilary Cass Lindy Michael Binion Tony Abbott Colin Craig Wab Canoe Manitoba
Feds won’t say if corporate welfare is working Blaine Higgs on parental rights, gender identity, and being labelled “far right”

Episode Stats


Length

18 minutes

Words per minute

181.71

Word count

3,417

Sentence count

205

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I sit down with Alberta s premier, Danielle Smith, to talk about her carbon tax and why it needs to go. I also get to hear her take on the federal government's carbon tax, and why she thinks it should go.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Give it up for Premier Danielle Smith, that was wonderful, thank you.
00:00:17.100 Don't let the media tell the story is the great cue for the journalist to come on stage, by the way, so thank you for that.
00:00:22.780 Just to give a bit of disclosure, Premier Smith and I have known each other for many years.
00:00:27.260 We used to work together in radio and now I'm a podcaster and she's the Premier, so take from that what you will.
00:00:34.620 But whenever Andrew would sub in for me when I was on the air, when I came back, I got a ream of text saying,
00:00:40.880 oh man, I like Andrew so much better, can't we have him instead?
00:00:43.860 Yeah, I was her guest host, which I'd have to check the constitution, but I believe that means I'm acting Premier in Alberta,
00:00:51.060 because I've never formally been released from that.
00:00:53.520 But you ended on the carbon tax, and I spoke about this a fair bit yesterday with Premier Higgs,
00:00:59.520 who I'm glad was not tired of me after that interview that he's returned.
00:01:03.380 And you have said so much and have been such a strong voice on this,
00:01:08.660 and that comment about it being a syntax on productivity I quite like.
00:01:12.340 But I have to ask how those arguments do not apply equally to the gas tax,
00:01:16.980 which in Alberta has gone up this year, has gone up again within the last couple of weeks.
00:01:21.740 It treats something that for a lot of Albertans is necessary, driving around, as though it's an elective choice.
00:01:29.460 Well, you'll see that we added a tax on electric vehicles, and when we put that $200 tax in,
00:01:37.240 we calculated it as being essentially the equivalent of what an average driver would spend in fuel tax,
00:01:43.160 so that electric vehicles are paying their fair share of our road maintenance.
00:01:47.260 That's what the connection is in most provinces, between the tax we charge.
00:01:50.860 That's originally how it began.
00:01:52.980 And then the federal government layered on their $0.10 a litre tax.
00:01:56.320 And of course, Stephen Guibault doesn't want to build roads anymore.
00:01:58.820 We're zero for nine in our province in getting cost share.
00:02:01.700 I don't know if Premier Higgs has had any better luck on that.
00:02:05.080 But then they've also now levied on, I think what amounts to $0.17.6 in the carbon tax.
00:02:11.280 And then on top of that, they charge GST on all of it, so they're charging tax on tax,
00:02:15.080 which is, I think, another $0.7.5 at prices the way they are today.
00:02:19.220 So, yes, we do accept $0.13 a litre to pay for roads, and they accept $0.35 to essentially pay for nothing.
00:02:27.080 So, I would say that I cannot sacrifice our need to gain revenue, to build roads,
00:02:33.360 to make room for them to continue with a punitive tax that does nothing.
00:02:37.600 Because a couple of things, I'd say.
00:02:40.040 The argument that they make that it will encourage people to change behavior,
00:02:44.780 they completely undermine because Stephen Guibault admitted that the carbon tax isn't going to have an effect until 2060,
00:02:50.420 which means we're all paying punitive taxes until then.
00:02:53.560 And there really just aren't options.
00:02:55.220 I talked to any of the automakers and the auto dealers.
00:02:59.540 If you wanted to go out and switch to an electric vehicle tomorrow to avoid the tax,
00:03:05.000 you couldn't because there aren't enough of them being produced,
00:03:07.880 and the infrastructure isn't in your home to do it,
00:03:09.680 and the infrastructure isn't there for a public charging station to do it.
00:03:12.760 Hydrogen vehicles as well.
00:03:14.580 We have 100 of them in Alberta.
00:03:16.580 We've got a 5,000-car challenge.
00:03:17.960 But if you wanted to go out and buy a hydrogen zero-emissions vehicle,
00:03:21.380 you couldn't because they're not producing enough of them.
00:03:23.740 If you wanted, in my province, where I think 90% of the homes are heated with natural gas,
00:03:29.320 you simply couldn't switch to a heat pump because they don't work in minus 35,
00:03:34.320 and you can't get insurance if you do without having a backup of some other type of heating.
00:03:39.380 So all it is, then, if there isn't a reasonable way to switch to an equal or lower-cost option,
00:03:46.560 then all it is is a punitive tax on consumers.
00:03:49.460 That's the reason why they're different.
00:03:51.900 But when the Alberta...
00:03:53.040 Fair, fair.
00:03:55.580 But when the Alberta government offered fuel tax relief,
00:03:58.720 those issues you described were still there,
00:04:00.440 and it was a recognition that life was unaffordable.
00:04:02.640 And unaffordability comes in layers.
00:04:04.260 There's inflation, carbon tax, fuel tax, general cost of living.
00:04:08.540 So the crisis of affordability is still there.
00:04:12.120 Well, let me say, when we brought through our relief program,
00:04:15.320 our gas prices in our province were $1.89.
00:04:18.200 So our tax is 13 cents.
00:04:20.620 So that would have taken it down from $1.89 down to $1.76.
00:04:25.900 And right now, today, gas prices in Alberta are $1.58.
00:04:31.140 So we will continue with our program that when oil prices go beyond $90,
00:04:38.600 we'll take that tax off again.
00:04:39.840 In fact, I'd love to see the federal government do the same.
00:04:42.360 Make it variable so that when the prices get up above a certain level,
00:04:46.340 we're all paying more because of that.
00:04:47.860 Take the tax off at that point so that you're not adding to the problem.
00:04:50.960 And I should mention that we remain, along with Saskatchewan,
00:04:56.440 the second lowest in the country in our overall price of fuel.
00:05:01.600 Manitoba followed our lead, reduced the carbon tax,
00:05:05.420 or took their fuel tax off after Wab Canoo got elected.
00:05:08.940 But the other provinces, I think British Columbia,
00:05:11.760 who are the poor souls from British Columbia facing $1.98?
00:05:14.880 They couldn't afford to fly here, actually.
00:05:16.920 That's why there aren't more of them.
00:05:18.480 That's why.
00:05:19.240 So I would say we are trying to be variable
00:05:22.540 because we also have to run a balanced budget.
00:05:25.320 And that's the first promise that I made to Albertans.
00:05:28.580 And that extra $0.04 a leader that we added back on just on April 1st,
00:05:33.240 that's the difference between us running a $400 million surplus or not.
00:05:36.720 So when those additional revenues come in, absolutely.
00:05:39.400 Our strategy is to give the money back to Albertans.
00:05:41.620 A couple of nights ago, Boris Johnson was on this stage with Tony Abbott,
00:05:45.540 and they had a spirited discussion on climate policy.
00:05:48.440 And Boris Johnson had made a comment, which some people have asked me about,
00:05:52.780 and I wanted to get your thoughts on, that basically it's Pascal's wager.
00:05:55.920 So we should accept that, oh, maybe global warming is a big hoax,
00:05:59.520 maybe it's an existential threat.
00:06:01.680 But he said basically there are no costs to acting as though it is something that is a grave and pressing threat.
00:06:08.840 And then I noted, I think it was yesterday on Twitter, Stephen Gilbeau had met Boris Johnson and was praising him,
00:06:15.400 which is inherently the endorsement you don't want.
00:06:18.320 But I reject that premise, and I assume you do, Premier, as well,
00:06:22.260 that going along with this, and to be frank,
00:06:24.400 going along with what Boris Johnson's government did in the UK, is without cost.
00:06:28.520 Well, if you try to accelerate things, as Stephen Gilbeau wants to do,
00:06:33.440 net zero power grid by 2035, net zero vehicles by 2035, net zero homes, that's the new approach.
00:06:40.600 You think this accelerator fund is altruism?
00:06:43.200 It's not.
00:06:44.180 They want net zero homes, which I think will ultimately mean no one's allowed to hook up to natural gas.
00:06:49.460 You all have to have heat pumps.
00:06:51.040 You're not allowed to be able to have electricity that comes from an emitting source.
00:06:54.840 That's where I think they're going with that.
00:06:56.800 So I'm already, if you can imagine, what's it going to cost you to buy a new car?
00:07:00.420 What's it going to cost you to change out your home heating?
00:07:02.700 What are the extra costs associated with building net zero construction?
00:07:07.480 What's the cost associated with taking all of our home heating off of the natural gas system
00:07:14.300 and putting it onto the electrical grid?
00:07:16.780 One of our leaders in Alberta says that's a $70 billion cost.
00:07:20.820 What's the cost associated with upgrading our grid
00:07:23.180 so that you can plug in more than two electric vehicles in a home?
00:07:26.380 Because if you put two vehicles on a home city block, your transformer will blow.
00:07:33.040 So you need to upgrade your transformer, which is $40,000.
00:07:35.740 And that right now is going to the cost of the third guy who ends up buying the electric car.
00:07:40.660 So how much has that transformed over our entire system?
00:07:44.580 Probably hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars.
00:07:46.760 I think it was $1.6 trillion, in fact, that was estimated to implement the Guibo vision
00:07:52.980 of everything being on the power grid, your car, your heating, as well as current electricity
00:07:58.700 from all sources, including industrial, and then having all of that be from non-emitting sources.
00:08:04.900 So yeah, it's very costly when you're trying to do that.
00:08:07.780 Now, the approach I would take is I have no problem with a transition away from emissions.
00:08:12.980 We do this all the time.
00:08:14.200 We found clean ways to be able to take sulfur dioxide out of coal plants
00:08:18.940 so that we could address issues of acid rain.
00:08:21.520 We found ways to find an alternative for chlorofluorocarbons to address ozone.
00:08:26.360 And I believe that we're already seeing with carbon capture utilization and storage
00:08:30.040 in some of the incredible mines that we have that we'll be able to find a way to capture the CO2
00:08:34.980 and turn it into useful products, which has been the history of our industry.
00:08:39.640 But it is a transition away from emissions.
00:08:43.420 It is not a transition away from the production of oil and natural gas.
00:08:48.540 A barrel of oil provides 6,000 different products for us now.
00:08:53.400 How are we going to be able to have lubricants?
00:08:55.900 How are we going to be able to have petrochemicals?
00:08:57.440 How are we going to be able to have food-safe materials?
00:08:59.820 How are we going to be able to have medical-safe materials if we don't have petrochemicals?
00:09:05.880 How are we going to have roads to drive our zero-emissions vehicles on?
00:09:10.100 Because they're made of asphalt, which comes from the bitumen that is produced in Alberta.
00:09:14.340 So the approach that I believe the left is taking is defeatist.
00:09:19.340 It doesn't look at the incredible innovation that we have, the brilliant minds that we have
00:09:23.600 who are able to take what are traditional waste streams and turn them into something valuable.
00:09:28.080 And I see Michael Binion is here, too.
00:09:30.800 He has done some great work in elevating and showcasing.
00:09:34.640 He's saying with Second Street, I don't know if Colin Craig is here.
00:09:36.840 Elevating and showcasing the kind of products that are being made out of CO2.
00:09:41.760 So in my province, Heidelberg is a cement company that is going to take the CO2,
00:09:46.800 embed it in their cement, and make a stronger concrete.
00:09:49.660 And they'll be the first net-zero cement plant in the entire world.
00:09:52.940 Dow Chemical has, yeah, truly, Dow Chemical is taking the CO2, working with a company called Lindy.
00:10:01.920 The Lindy is creating hydrogen, and then they're burying the CO2.
00:10:05.360 They'll be the first net-zero petrochemical plant.
00:10:08.740 And then on top of that, we've already got Air Products, which is taking the CO2, burying it,
00:10:12.620 and doing net-zero hydrogen.
00:10:15.160 That's what an emissions-reduced world looks like.
00:10:18.600 But all of that takes time.
00:10:20.220 You cannot snap your fingers and have innovation.
00:10:22.940 But I think it's our job as government to champion what it is the industry is doing,
00:10:27.000 to support them so everybody knows that there's a different way of doing it.
00:10:29.840 Like, that's the theme.
00:10:31.420 The guys on the left have a single-minded approach to how they want to do things.
00:10:37.300 They identify a problem.
00:10:38.460 They propose solutions that make it worse.
00:10:40.580 And then they fear-monger that, oh, look at those guys on the other side.
00:10:43.380 They want to do nothing at all.
00:10:44.540 Couldn't be further from the truth.
00:10:46.160 We identify the problem.
00:10:47.200 We identify solutions that will actually work.
00:10:50.060 And then we support our industry and those non-profit players that we believe will get there.
00:10:54.860 Making it worse is actually the headline of the broadband conference just down the road there.
00:11:00.660 Well, you said energy transition.
00:11:03.380 So I guess transition is a logical segue to the next topic here.
00:11:06.200 Let's discuss your approach to gender in Alberta because I discussed with Premier Higgs yesterday how New Brunswick was the first to really go into this terrain.
00:11:14.840 But Alberta was the most extensive in terms of what you proposed because you didn't just talk about parental rights and consent and knowledge in an education context.
00:11:24.060 You also extended it to sports and also to the health care sector when, you know, interventions, medical interventions are concerned.
00:11:31.500 And we haven't seen the legislation.
00:11:33.380 So I'm hoping you can provide a little bit more detail in what you hope to achieve.
00:11:36.860 And one particular aspect of this is the protection of single-sex spaces, so women's shelters and also prisons, you know, or jails, rather, in Alberta.
00:11:46.020 I mean, are you proposing something where biologically male inmates who identify as female would not be permitted to go into female jails?
00:11:55.280 Well, look, let me tell you my starting point because I've talked with many transgender individuals over the years from the first time I got into politics all the way through when I was on radio until as recently as yesterday
00:12:06.980 because we've got transgender conservatives that are fellow travelers with us who want to give us advice on implementing the policy. 0.89
00:12:13.720 But the issue that I began with was, are we giving good medical care to those who do transition?
00:12:21.960 Because in our province, we don't do the surgeries.
00:12:25.700 We have people fly out to Quebec to receive surgery, and then they fly back home, and we don't have good post-operative care.
00:12:34.400 In fact, a lot of these surgeries have complications, and so that was one of the starting points.
00:12:38.880 Those who have decided to transition as well need lifelong support for hormone treatment and also lifelong support for the consequences that might happen of doing that transition.
00:12:51.200 And so then you get, so that's where it was, where it began, is how do we give good medical care for those as adults who make that transition?
00:12:57.480 But then you have to have the conversation at what age is the right age to make those decisions.
00:13:02.520 And if you look at Dr. Hilary Cass, the Cass report was just released in the UK, and she listed the most comprehensive review of the medical literature and the science behind this.
00:13:15.200 And what she discovered, quite frankly, is there isn't very good science.
00:13:18.500 So notwithstanding what the left like to tell us, there isn't good long-term data about how many kids go on puberty blockers and whether it impacts their future fertility and at what age.
00:13:28.840 There isn't long-term information about what happens to those kids by the time they reach 25.
00:13:34.000 Do they continue with the transition? Do they detransition?
00:13:37.000 They don't do that kind of study.
00:13:38.640 And so they've said, let's take a pause.
00:13:40.900 We're not going to assign puberty blockers as a matter of course, and we're going to be a lot more deliberate in going through and making sure that you're part of a medical team when those decisions are made,
00:13:52.520 as well as that there's long-term studies on it.
00:13:54.680 So we're watching what the emerging scientific evidence is in the world.
00:14:00.220 This is science.
00:14:01.680 The left says they believe in science.
00:14:04.360 This is what science looks like as you follow the information where it goes.
00:14:07.400 So that's where we began.
00:14:08.140 And then, of course, because the first step of transitioning is changing name, changing pronouns, dressing on the opposite gender, 0.91
00:14:18.460 you cannot be out to your entire school community, and the only people who aren't allowed to know are your parents.
00:14:25.920 You can't have that.
00:14:28.060 And that's important context, but will that protect single-sex spaces?
00:14:31.620 Let me answer your question.
00:14:33.580 So one of the transgender individuals I spoke with has not transitioned below, and she likes to go for spa days with her girlfriends, 0.96
00:14:41.580 and there's locker rooms where she just told me it wouldn't be the same experience for me if I had to be in a separate locker room
00:14:48.580 and not be able to be out with my girlfriends.
00:14:50.000 I think the issue is modesty, that you cannot, if you have not been fully transitioned, then you shouldn't be exposing yourself in female-only spaces 0.96
00:14:59.960 because no one should know.
00:15:02.240 You should either be behind in a washroom stall or you should show modesty, and then it doesn't become an issue.
00:15:09.860 It's when there is, when women feel that they're private spaces, when they're alone and they're naked, 1.00
00:15:15.420 that's when they want to make sure that their places are protected.
00:15:18.960 So at the moment, I have not seen anything.
00:15:23.400 I've not seen anything in Alberta that leads me to believe I have to do anything about that.
00:15:27.420 So I'm not going in that direction.
00:15:28.860 And is that the same for jails as well?
00:15:30.840 Correct. I haven't seen anything.
00:15:32.120 I mean, I'm watching what's happening internationally and what's happening in the rest of the country,
00:15:37.860 but in our own province, I haven't seen anything that rises to it.
00:15:40.940 Because remember, in provincial jails, I think it's two years less a day that you serve,
00:15:44.860 so I have not observed any emergence of problems that might happen that I'm seeing elsewhere.
00:15:50.920 As we close here, what's the message from Alberta to Ottawa that you want to bring while you're here?
00:15:59.120 Well, you may have seen this week.
00:16:01.020 I introduced the stay out of my backyard bill.
00:16:05.020 It's the Provincial Priorities Act.
00:16:07.260 Thank you.
00:16:07.480 My message to Ottawa is that federal politicians, and the Prime Minister in particular,
00:16:19.220 should do his job and stop trying to do my job.
00:16:22.920 That's what the message is.
00:16:25.160 And I don't know if Premier Higgs would have said the same thing,
00:16:32.820 but when we meet as premiers, the really interesting thing is it doesn't matter whether it's NDP or Liberal
00:16:38.960 or Progressive Conservative or UCP or Saskatchewan Party.
00:16:41.860 We all come from different parties and different perspectives,
00:16:44.020 but we are united in that the federal government should stay focused on the things which they need to do.
00:16:49.280 There's lots of things they need to do.
00:16:50.620 They need to shore up national defense so that we're not an international embarrassment.
00:16:55.260 They need to make sure that our foreign policy is aligned with our allies instead of our enemies.
00:17:00.900 They need to make sure that they're expanding international trade
00:17:05.940 so every single one of our ten provinces and territories can get our product to market.
00:17:10.420 They need to build critical infrastructure like the Trans Mountain Pipeline,
00:17:17.000 which is going to be getting to the finish line.
00:17:18.760 That is the kind of things that they should do more of.
00:17:21.620 They should be building ports.
00:17:22.900 They should be building rail lines.
00:17:24.200 They should be building highways, Stephen Guibault.
00:17:26.800 They should be making sure that they are living up to their obligation and their treaties with First Nations.
00:17:32.200 They should be funding health care on reserve, mental health and addiction treatment on reserve,
00:17:37.140 water on reserve, building out economies on reserve.
00:17:40.880 They should make sure that the value of our dollar is not diminishing internationally.
00:17:44.760 They should make sure that they can process passports efficiently.
00:17:49.360 They should make sure that the Pearson Airport is a lovely experience to go through
00:17:54.740 and that all of our airports are operating efficiently.
00:17:58.980 There is no shortage of things that the Prime Minister can do.
00:18:03.680 It's not a boring job.
00:18:05.640 So, when you see in Alberta that we are going to take a posture more like Quebec,
00:18:18.840 which is no thank you, we don't need your policy advice on school lunch programs,
00:18:23.160 on pharma care, on dental care.
00:18:26.500 That is, just give us the money and trust that we'll be able to deliver on this.
00:18:31.540 That's the approach that we're going to take and we're going to be pretty vocal about doing so.
00:18:36.040 And I hope to see some of the other Premiers do it.
00:18:38.220 Premier Danielle Smith, thank you very much.
00:18:40.500 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:18:42.900 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.