Juno News - Energy CEO exposes Ottawa’s unjust transition

00:00:00.000 i'm sitting down with michael binion now you wear a number of different hats normally i speak to you

00:00:16.240 in your capacity as executive director of the modern miracle network but we do things a little

00:00:20.620 bit differently today i thought you're also the ceo of questair which is one of canada's many

00:00:24.840 successful companies in the energy sector whatever hat you're wearing it's always good

00:00:29.600 to talk to you well thank you and i think you need to see me in the cowboy app yes yeah all sorts of

00:00:33.820 get ups i believe well let's talk we've been discussing the just transition with you and

00:00:38.980 some of your colleagues while we've been here but let me just first ask what your company is doing

00:00:44.380 in this space that's a bit unique right now yeah well i i appreciate the compliment that we're one

00:00:49.780 of canada's many successful energy companies but we're far less successful than we think that we

00:00:54.920 believe we deserve to uh we started our company as a as a high risk exploration company looking for

00:01:00.860 giant gas fields and unexpectedly although you know of course it's like it's like i say to my

00:01:07.320 friends when i sink a 60 foot pot they tell me i'm lucky i said well i was aiming at it um so we were

00:01:11.940 aiming and finding a giant field but we did it's the only giant shale field that one company found

00:01:18.660 and also captured and it's the utica shale in quebec and so it's a it's a multi-billion dollars

00:01:25.320 at 25 tcf of gas it would be like churchill falls for 70 years that's how big it is and we've been

00:01:31.860 stymied from developing it due to quebec politics uh it's been an effective ban so for 13 years i say

00:01:39.500 i always thought the hard part was fighting and i've now realized producing it's even harder so we'll

00:01:43.440 talk about those issues in a moment but i mean one of the recurring themes that comes up here is that

00:01:47.260 the demand exists the demand doesn't go away all of the problems that are the barriers that are put

00:01:52.080 up by the activists are trying to limit supply but the demand is is growing and and certainly is is

00:01:58.200 maintaining so when you're prevented from unlocking these resources as you say all it means is that

00:02:04.180 some other supplier that is not as diligent at following these regulations and complying with the

00:02:09.500 laws and the spirit of the law they're the beneficiaries of it yeah that that's certainly

00:02:14.120 and i think an important argument that we've made just like when it's so true of our leap and

00:02:19.800 and our discovery in quebec and and this was a flummoxing thing to find and and i'm not sure

00:02:27.160 people really realize it but i've had uh i've had people i i've had dinner with stephen gilbo i've had

00:02:33.720 i've had uh patrick bonad uh the head of greenpeace in quebec uh world wildlife fund suzuki i've had them

00:02:40.840 all tell me as i said that we if we were to produce local gas it would be a material reduction

00:02:48.560 in canadian emissions and in the end they said we don't care because we want quebec to meet its

00:02:54.520 targets and your project is going to increase quebec emissions even as it reduces canadian

00:03:00.460 emissions so i this is something that i learned in 2011 2012 years before the cancellation of gateway

00:03:08.600 this is why we've been i think at the leading edge of these discussions corporately and politically

00:03:13.160 is because it would be because of under realizing early that they don't it's all about meeting targets

00:03:21.800 and and i guess to some extent virtue signaling rather than make a real difference that argument

00:03:27.640 for us in quebec if we produce local gas you emit like a really large reduction in canadian emissions

00:03:33.000 it's true for the world too if canada produces more the world emissions go down because we're more

00:03:39.800 environmentally uh efficient you emphasize the word stated when you said the the stated objectives what

00:03:46.680 did you mean by that well in part this the stated objection objective is to reduce global emissions

00:03:53.720 and yet they're against projects that would do that because at the end of the day they want to be able

00:03:59.720 to say i met a local target and they don't and the and seemingly don't it's not a priority or i don't

00:04:06.600 want to say they don't care but it doesn't seem to be a priority but the globe's emissions would go down

00:04:12.760 if canada would just produce more aluminum or more gas or more lng the global emissions would go down

00:04:19.560 even though canada's might go up a bit but is it a global problem are we supposed to be acting locally

00:04:26.360 and thinking globally but i don't when i say stated that's because i'm not so sure that they really

00:04:32.600 want to think globally in their local outlets the the government has said that the just transition

00:04:38.040 i mean they presented it basically as a fait accompli as though they're already going to do

00:04:42.120 this it's just a matter of mitigating the harms and effects on you know jobs to people that are

00:04:46.680 currently working in this space have you seen anything from their proposals that have been put forward

00:04:52.520 so far that suggests there will be a soft landing for the scores of canadians that will be out of

00:04:57.320 work if this dream comes to fruition yeah i mean i just can't imagine i mean i i'm chairman of a of a

00:05:04.280 brief services company and we we're over in papua guinea i mean we're we're giving amazing jobs to people

00:05:09.960 we we literally take people to the grass huts in the jungle and it's hard to imagine it's true we're

00:05:14.600 in the highlands of papua guinea we bring people out of the jungle we teach them how to drive a truck how

00:05:19.640 to run a crane ultimately over 15 years we've brought them up to the point where they're the

00:05:25.000 the driller which is the work for the supervising manager of the entire break operation these are

00:05:30.200 500 million dollar operations and we've got local indigenous papua guinea people running these things 0.99

00:05:36.200 these are these are incredible jobs i i just can't even imagine telling those people in papua guinea have

00:05:41.960 now got themselves out of grass up in a grass hut in the jungle or a canadian here go from your 150 to

00:05:48.200 250 000 job running a rig and go sweep snows it just doesn't make sense i i mean to talk about the

00:05:55.400 canadian context here for a moment with indigenous concerns and that there are some legitimate

00:06:00.920 indigenous communities that have concerns about this but i find oftentimes indigenous issues are

00:06:06.120 elevated by activists that would be opposed to the projects in general and i think that's i'd say

00:06:10.760 true of quebec you've done a lot to forge relationships with indigenous communities that really

00:06:15.720 want these projects really want this development yeah in our in our corporate uh you know i i do this

00:06:21.000 a lot in in sort of advocacy and in discussions around our industry in our country in general but

00:06:26.440 my company i i wouldn't think i'm proud of is that what we do at quest there is fully fully aligned with

00:06:31.400 that i have uh an mou with the with the woolenac in in quebec we have uh a cooperation agreement with the

00:06:39.720 u tribe in utah where we we we've got um we we've got um uh we're doing an agreement here at calgary for

00:06:46.040 a new project we and and and of course the work that we've done in papen new guinea with indigenous

00:06:51.080 people i think is is world is is world um um uh book leading right uh so we you know we we have walked

00:06:59.480 our talk on that and i'm i'm a real believer that uh we need to partner with our first nations uh for so

00:07:06.760 many reasons um one practical uh they're no they're on the land um two just it's the right thing to do

00:07:14.600 it's wrong that we have or people in canada on lizard we have we've done so little effect we've

00:07:20.440 got a lot to try to change it we've found very little that's effective in changing it to go back

00:07:24.600 to quest here knowing what you know now about the regulations and the hurdles and the bureaucracy and the

00:07:32.120 the barriers would you have done it if you were to go back and had that chance to do it again yeah

00:07:38.920 it's interesting i was at a friend's cabin in quebec at the lake and and i was explaining what

00:07:44.440 we were doing with our gas field and so on and so forth and and he says you know michael if you want

00:07:48.280 to do something new in quebec you got to start when you're young and i said to him because it's

00:07:52.200 gonna take a long time and i said you don't understand i did start when i was young um yeah so when i go

00:07:57.640 back and it's it's been a fascinating experience i mean you know i say to people i mean if there

00:08:03.480 hadn't been a moratorium at quebec i'd never want to learn french but i now speak setting flu

00:08:07.960 with the french uh i would have never really learned about how quebecers look at the history of

00:08:13.320 canada different than albert i would have never really thought about um that that the alberta view

00:08:19.880 of canada is is just our view of canada because i didn't realize quebecers think completely 1.00

00:08:25.080 differently for them the company started in 6008 for us it started in 1886 the railroad for ontario

00:08:30.680 it started with the you know with the sort of 18 with the 1840 rebellion yeah and for others it

00:08:36.360 starts in 1867 like what but canada is for people is what it starts for you and and i and it's a mosaic

00:08:43.880 people think differently so i none of these things i wouldn't have started in political advocacy to try

00:08:49.080 to uh to try to promote canada as a world leading source of environmentally friendly energy energy

00:08:54.760 all of these things came out of that um if i was to do something different i think the mistake

00:09:00.120 that i if i was going to fix one mistake in quebec is when the environmental opposition started i would

00:09:06.360 have immediately said okay stop let's just put a hold on this but it's hard when you're running a

00:09:10.920 public company to go to your shareholders who are all excited about the fact that they're going to

00:09:16.120 make all this money out of this massive discovery and then say well just wait but it's been an

00:09:22.680 example of the hurrier we went the behinder we got and um it would have taken a lot of courage to tell

00:09:28.840 our shareholders we're putting a hold um and i didn't have it at the time and knowing what i know

00:09:33.320 now i would have had that courage and said stop and don't press this forward with the population

00:09:39.080 until they're ready and that's the tragedy of all of this i mean i know people may want to vilify

00:09:43.320 you know oil and gas ceos but a lot of these are are not the giant giant giant corporate entities

00:09:48.680 these are businesses that are relatively small in in some senses and when you look at that i mean

00:09:54.600 the number of companies that would not exist the number of people that would not be employed the

00:09:59.000 number of people that could just pick up and say i'm just going to focus on utah i'm just going to go

00:10:02.920 to the united states i'm not even going to worry about canada because it's too much of a hassle

00:10:06.440 that's a real tragedy and what the government's doing here well what's canada's strategic

00:10:11.400 advantageable this is what i feel practically from a national perspective this was just my own

00:10:15.320 company is that you know we we are a country with with massive resources very few people that need

00:10:22.440 them to you need them and we have the shortest trade routes to europe you know don't i guess don't

00:10:29.560 count russia for some obvious reasons you know and maybe let's just leave norway out they can't supply

00:10:33.400 it itself for now united states and northern asia we are in the capper seat canada should be talking now

00:10:41.000 it's it's time you know the people said the 20th century blog to canada well it didn't really it

00:10:46.360 belonged to our senior partners and we were the junior partner punching above our weight in world

00:10:50.360 war ii korea and peacekeeping and and and now now maybe on global environmental issues but you know

00:10:56.840 we're looking to try to be world leaders there too but but always as a junior partner but where

00:11:02.120 we're at right now we can beat the senior partner the american european and northern asian communities

00:11:06.920 india we have decent trade routes to india even they need what we have and if we were astute

00:11:13.800 about our strategic advantages in the world we would step up as the senior apartment if you don't treat

00:11:20.120 us well e you won't get what you need and we have what you need and you should want it from us we're

00:11:27.560 responsible you know like you know what the what is something a speaker really just you know you don't

00:11:33.720 need to send that the national guard to canada right so uh you can count on us to be reliable

00:11:39.720 but not only that socially responsible it's not just that you can count on us unlike russia right

00:11:45.480 now you can't even count on to deliver on contracts for for so it's not just that you can count us to

00:11:51.720 deliver on a contract and keep our our agreements you can count us that we use the profit of that not to

00:11:58.600 fund terrorists we use it to build hospitals to build a better society to to build a culture

00:12:04.680 that's aligned with your values so why would you want to deal with anybody else and why aren't we

00:12:10.120 taking that and making canada the senior respected partner in the world because everybody else we need

00:12:15.240 canada as a therian call to canada and if leaders people should listen to it michael binion always a

00:12:21.400 pleasure thank you thank you thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show support the program by

00:12:26.120 donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - February 04, 2024

Energy CEO exposes Ottawa’s unjust transition

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