Juno News - March 24, 2021


Energy advocate exposing well-funded anti-oil activists

Mentioned
Deidre Garrick Andrew Lawton Show Stephen Buffalo Keystone XL Jane Fonda Bill C-63 Churchill
Erin O’Toole Takes Aim at “Deniers” Immigration increases despite closure of border

Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

150.01

Word count

1,995

Sentence count

97


Summary

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

In this episode, I'm joined by Deidre garrick, an independent energy advocate, to talk about her research on the opposition to oil and gas development in the Arctic region and the work she's done to expose the hidden agenda behind it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
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.