Juno News - Energy advocate exposing well-funded anti-oil activists

00:00:00.000 A lot of the subtext around energy discussions is on energy independence and there's no denying

00:00:12.380 it. This isn't just some standard little political fight like anything else we see,

00:00:17.020 but there's a bigger agenda that's often at work here from people that are hell-bent on

00:00:21.940 not just minimizing, but in some cases destroying the energy sector in Canada.

00:00:27.020 And one aspect of this that hasn't gotten a lot of coverage is the battle in the Arctic

00:00:31.980 region. But I want to talk about oil and gas sector development and the energy sector a

00:00:36.100 little bit more broadly here. Deidre Garrick is an independent energy advocate who's done

00:00:40.760 tremendous research on this that you'd think the mainstream media would be doing, but certainly

00:00:45.240 aren't. She joins me now. Deidre, thanks for coming on. Good to talk to you.

00:00:49.020 Well, thank you for having me, Andrew.

00:00:50.700 Now, I've had the opportunity to hear you speak about some of your work a couple of months back,

00:00:55.140 and I said I wanted to get you on the show because you're delving into things that, as

00:00:59.120 I mentioned, a lot of people simply aren't. What got you looking into this, first off?

00:01:04.800 Well, actually, it was a friend who had mentioned to me that they have some evidence to suggest

00:01:10.560 that perhaps there is some sort of concerted effort happening in the Arctic to constrain or

00:01:17.820 just choke off shipping in the Arctic altogether, which had sort of come out as a result of Bill C-48,

00:01:26.700 the West Coast tanker ban. And so over a number of months, I sort of started delving into things,

00:01:34.440 just really doing simple Google search searches. So you're absolutely right. I mean, this is something

00:01:40.860 any media outlet could have found. And so once I started to sort of peel back the layers of the

00:01:48.460 onion, then I could start to see that there really was, you know, very material funding going to some

00:01:55.320 well known NGO groups, I could see that yes, there is potentially something here. They're quite

00:02:03.960 sophisticated in that they're not always entirely transparent about what their plans are. But once

00:02:11.240 I discovered that the World Wildlife Fund had received about $900,000 US in funding from the

00:02:20.200 Switzerland based Oak Foundation, with the express purpose of trying to put in regulations to constrain

00:02:28.120 shipping and to stop development in the Arctic. I knew that there was a story here, there was something

00:02:33.880 more going on than what people might see. And I think, as we all know, with the egress constraints,

00:02:42.760 pipeline constraints going east and west, many people in the oil and gas sector and energy sector,

00:02:49.480 you know, it could be transmission lines, etc, are looking at different options, including the Arctic.

00:02:56.360 So the Port of Churchill and Port Nelson have been on the radar for a number of years.

00:03:01.800 And so that was the other reason I said, well, you know, if there is an effort to constrain shipping

00:03:08.680 out of the Arctic, maybe this just isn't an option that we have. And it appears that there,

00:03:15.880 there could be something here. And so I'm trying to sort of understand what is happening up there.

00:03:21.160 One thing we saw this is going back to, I think, early 2020 with Tech Frontier is that a lot of

00:03:28.520 companies just don't want to deal with political fights, they want to come there, they're in the

00:03:32.600 building industry, they're not in the politics industry. So the resistance you get from activist

00:03:37.240 groups, well funded activist groups, as you note, can actually have an effect if companies are finding

00:03:43.160 that they're having to spend all their time on lobbying and political capital and not actually putting

00:03:48.840 things in the ground.

00:03:49.880 Absolutely. I think there is a real misconception out there that oil and gas industry, you know,

00:03:58.600 big oil, as it's often termed, spends millions and millions of dollars lobbying and fighting to just

00:04:06.040 sort of develop freely and destroy the environment. And that's just simply not true. We know that

00:04:13.960 NGOs have received millions of dollars in funding with the express purpose of trying to stop

00:04:20.440 development. Oil and gas companies are doing what they can to run their business to develop their

00:04:25.640 business. And so you're right, lobbying and activism advocacy is not a strength of the industry. I always

00:04:35.880 say the industry has never had to advertise to sell its products. So we've never had to be advocates and

00:04:42.920 try to try to explain why that product is valuable. And so I think that's why the messaging

00:04:48.760 maybe has gotten away and why there has been such successful pushback.

00:04:54.360 And one point as well, just on that dollar value. So this is just one particular grant that you've

00:04:59.560 mentioned, the World Wildlife Fund getting $881,000. In a lot of cases, that's more than is going towards

00:05:07.720 promoting these projects. Oh, absolutely. You know, I'm an independent energy advocate. I've done my

00:05:15.640 writing, my research, my presenting all on my own time and dime. I haven't been paid. And there's many of

00:05:24.200 us like me out there just trying to educate and get the message out. So let me ask then about the Arctic

00:05:32.440 specifically, because we often hear so much of the discourse around a lot of the more lower Canada,

00:05:38.600 well, not not in the sense of Quebec, but lower Canada in the sense of geographically,

00:05:42.920 projects, you know, Keystone XL, Enbridge, Trans Mountain, what's happening in the Arctic?

00:05:49.560 Well, there are two groups right now. One of them is called the Peacemaker Pipeline Project,

00:05:56.200 which is led by the First People's Pipeline. They received $500,000 in funding from the Saskatchewan

00:06:04.680 government in September of last year. And that's to look at the feasibility of building an energy

00:06:11.960 corridor to the port of Churchill. Now, there's also another group called the NISTENON Group that is

00:06:20.680 looking at building an energy corridor of pipelines, transmission lines, as well as rail to Port Nelson.

00:06:30.280 So we know that there there is an active interest in in the energy sector in general, not just oil and

00:06:37.160 gas, but energy to to find some egress options to to go up to the Arctic. However, we can see through

00:06:46.440 what's publicly disclosed on the NGOs websites that they are actively looking to constrain shipping,

00:06:54.840 stop any sort of development, particularly oil and gas. That's the other very, very transparent

00:07:00.600 about wanting to stop oil and gas development. And they also want to get rid of all diesel and

00:07:07.880 heating oil use in the Arctic and replace it with renewables. For the most part, wind and solar are

00:07:14.280 listed as the two main sources. But we do know that they are trying to replace any survey diesel or

00:07:22.040 heating oil stoves or heating sources with biomass. Now, the other thing is, we know that they are

00:07:31.720 actively working with the government to try and implement marine protected areas, marine refuges,

00:07:40.200 create culturally significant marine areas, anything that will end up constraining shipping, if not

00:07:47.240 completely choking it off altogether. There is a map that I found online that has the entire Hudson Strait

00:07:59.880 listed as a culturally significant marine area. And so, you know, that could potentially mean no shipping

00:08:08.120 there, no traffic of any sort, meaning that if you have any sort of an energy corridor to Churchill or

00:08:17.880 Port Nelson, you can't get in or out. So it really renders all of that work futile.

00:08:24.760 One thing that I would ask about here, because a lot of the language around this is couched in terms of

00:08:31.880 very good sounding things, you know, significant marine areas, marine refuge, marine protected areas,

00:08:37.400 no one wants to think of destroying wildlife and natural habitats in pursuit of money. What's the response to that?

00:08:45.240 Well, honestly, the oil and gas sector in particular has been known, it's very, we're very transparent about

00:08:54.280 it. We do spend a lot on environmental protection. I think there is a huge misunderstanding, that, you

00:09:01.880 know, the oil and gas sector just goes in and destroys the environment and just doesn't care, gets

00:09:07.960 what it wants and it just walks away. And that's just simply not true. In Canada, there's a lot of

00:09:14.920 really strict regulations, even though it's regulated by province, you know, our three main oil and gas

00:09:20.840 producing provinces, BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan, do a very stringent environmental regulation. And so,

00:09:28.840 I, you know, I think it's just a misconception that we don't care. You know, we, we have tanker

00:09:38.280 that are very sophisticated, that prevent spills. And so I think to go out and say that, you know,

00:09:46.440 we have to cut all of this off is, is really, I think, misguided and misinforming the public in

00:09:53.480 general. And one point as well, to bring it into the realm of federal politics is that the federal

00:09:59.080 government, which we know has, has never met a regulation on the energy sector it didn't like,

00:10:03.800 has set a target, which again, does not get a lot of coverage at all, as far as how much of Canada's

00:10:09.240 water it wants to preserve and protect, again, sounds noble on the surface, but they want to

00:10:13.960 increase that. And when you talk about that map, which we put up on the screen, that will only

00:10:19.400 shrink the areas in which this sector can work.

00:10:21.960 Yes, absolutely. And I want to be very clear, I support conservation,

00:10:30.040 or I even support a diverse energy mix where it makes sense. So this isn't about me just being very,

00:10:38.120 like, pro development with no consequences. And I think that I'm fairly representative

00:10:43.800 of the oil and gas sector in general, but that's not, that's not what I want. And so, yes, I think

00:10:52.360 there are very legitimate reasons to put certain regulations and conservation areas in place. However,

00:11:02.120 I agree with you, when we start to just create these ginormous conservation areas,

00:11:10.280 then it really does impact development, and that impacts all Canadians. You know,

00:11:15.880 if indeed there is no development allowed up in the Arctic, that really does impact the ability for

00:11:22.120 Indigenous communities to get jobs and to prosper. And I think that that is part of the conversation

00:11:30.520 that is left out when these groups go up and try to, you know, get rid of oil and gas development

00:11:38.040 and implement, you know, renewables and other things like that.

00:11:42.200 Well, that's actually a tremendously important point, because in the media, the discourse around

00:11:47.320 this is that you've got oil and gas sector versus Indigenous communities, because you do have a few

00:11:52.600 Indigenous communities, especially out in British Columbia, that are very much devoted against these

00:11:59.080 sorts of projects. But the Indigenous communities where the projects are taking place almost exclusively

00:12:06.200 are supporting them. And that seems to be true in the north as well.

00:12:10.520 Yeah, absolutely. I think that there have been some very courageous, vocal Indigenous leaders who have

00:12:17.720 spoken up in support to try to say, look, there is another side to this story. You might have seen

00:12:24.440 that there was a leader that just spoke out against Jane Fonda protesting Line 3 in the oil sands, Stephen

00:12:35.240 Buffalo from the Indian Resource Council. He's a really strong advocate.

00:12:41.880 So we are seeing that, but I think those voices are not being heard enough. They're not being given the

00:12:49.080 platform to present a different side to this. And I think that's a disservice to the conversation in

00:12:56.040 general. Deidre Garrick is an energy advocate, talking about the stories that more people should.

00:13:01.880 So happy to play my small part by talking about them with her. Deidre, thank you so much for coming

00:13:06.360 on. Great to speak with you. Well, thank you so much, Andrew. I really appreciate this.

00:13:10.520 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - March 24, 2021

Energy advocate exposing well-funded anti-oil activists

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