Juno News - January 07, 2026


EXCLUSIVE： Poilievre sits down with Juno News to make the case for pipelines

Topics
pipeline and oil competitiveness Carney pipelines
Guests
Conservative Party
Mentioned
Mark Carney Nicolas Maduro Pierre Poilievre Edmundo Gonzalez Danielle Smith Maria Karina Machado Prince Rupert Bill C-63 Kitimat Gateway Paulie
Freeland’s Ukraine side-gig sparks conflict-of-interest uproar Canada Is Running Out of Time

Episode Stats


Length

15 minutes

Words per minute

152.56

Word count

2,353

Sentence count

151

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode, Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poutine joins me to talk about the impact of Venezuelan oil on Canada's energy supply, and the need for a new pipeline to the Pacific Ocean to carry Venezuelan crude to the US Gulf Coast.

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 .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 And welcome. We are joined by Conservative Party leader Pierre Polyev.
00:00:09.460 Pierre, I know you're very busy. Thank you for taking the time out to join with me today.
00:00:14.260 Great to be with you, Mark. Thanks for hosting me.
00:00:16.520 All right. So you've got an op-ed in today's National Post with this headline,
00:00:20.620 Kearney must approve a pipeline immediately. Venezuelan oil is coming,
00:00:26.340 and the Liberals need to stop blocking Canadian energy development.
00:00:30.940 Well, let's listen first to the Prime Minister respond to a question about the possibility that
00:00:36.020 Venezuelan oil could, well, displace or replace some Canadian exports to the United States. Let's listen.
00:00:44.040 In our view, and we're working towards this, that Canadian oil will be competitive because it is low risk.
00:00:51.300 Clearly low risk. Low cost, the marginal cost. There's been huge progress in getting down the cost.
00:00:58.300 And low carbon, which is what the Pathways Project carbon capture will bring.
00:01:04.640 And that makes Canadian oil competitive, Canadian oil competitive for the medium and long term.
00:01:09.200 Now, when I hear that, Pierre, I think that the Prime Minister thinks nothing really has changed
00:01:14.900 since the arrest of Nicolas Maduro and the takeover of the Venezuelan oil industry by the United States.
00:01:20.480 What do you think?
00:01:22.960 I think he needs to get out of the way.
00:01:26.500 Because of his policies, his keep it in the ground caucus and liberal agenda,
00:01:32.620 his policy has been to keep about half of our oil in the ground,
00:01:38.300 if you believe his own writings in his own book from just a few years ago.
00:01:42.360 And he opposed the last proposed pipeline to the Pacific.
00:01:46.900 He also continues to support high industrial carbon taxes on our energy sector.
00:01:52.820 Our oil is not low cost or low risk.
00:01:56.980 The biggest risk to our oil production is the Liberal government,
00:02:01.300 which killed the, for example, $20 billion Tech Frontier mine,
00:02:05.940 killed the Energy East pipeline, the Northern Gateway pipeline,
00:02:09.820 and has imposed countless other anti-energy policies
00:02:13.420 that make it a very high risk proposition to invest in Canada.
00:02:17.020 The second thing that is wrong is that he doesn't seem to understand
00:02:21.460 how heavy oil markets work in the Americas.
00:02:26.860 Many of the refineries that buy heavy Canadian oil sands bitumen products
00:02:33.880 were actually built to service Venezuelan oil.
00:02:38.520 Because Venezuela and Alberta are pretty much the only places in the world
00:02:44.140 that produce this high viscosity, heavy, thick, bitumen-like oil product
00:02:52.160 that needs a specific type of refinery.
00:02:56.020 So this is not just like Saudi Arabia or Nigeria producing more oil
00:03:02.400 and bringing down the global price.
00:03:04.560 This is a very unique product that is in direct competition
00:03:08.800 for refinery capacity with Canadian oil.
00:03:11.980 We're also competing for investment.
00:03:14.600 Major energy investors in America, they have a fixed amount of investment.
00:03:19.240 And if they see opportunities in a newly opened up Venezuela,
00:03:22.880 then they will not be sending their billions to build oil stands infrastructure in Canada.
00:03:27.960 In other words, the race is on. 0.56
00:03:30.600 And if Venezuela does kickstart production,
00:03:35.260 get back to its prior levels of 3.5 million barrels a day from the current one,
00:03:40.560 most of that will go to American refineries that now buy Canadian oil,
00:03:45.580 and we will be displaced.
00:03:47.740 And so before that happens, we need a new pipeline to the Pacific
00:03:52.600 so we can sell our oil overseas to non-American markets
00:03:56.940 and get good prices that pay high wages and boost our purchasing power.
00:04:02.880 Yeah, and today we have word from the President of the United States himself
00:04:07.100 that the USA has acquired between 30 and 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude
00:04:12.320 that will be under the control of the United States,
00:04:14.680 that revenues will be under control by the President.
00:04:18.040 How do you think this factors into all of the things that you've just spoken about?
00:04:22.640 I don't think that factors in all that much.
00:04:27.120 I mean, 30 to 50 million is not a lot.
00:04:29.240 That's about half a day of global consumption.
00:04:33.600 So the world views it as about 100 million barrels a day.
00:04:37.880 For me, the big problem is not just the short-term change.
00:04:43.740 It's that if Venezuela increases its production by 2.5 million barrels a day,
00:04:49.560 which is realistic, their historic production level was 3.5 million.
00:04:55.060 They're currently at 1 million.
00:04:56.920 So let's say they get back to 3.5.
00:04:58.980 That's 2.5 million barrels.
00:05:00.700 I expect about 2 million barrels of that per day would go to U.S. refineries.
00:05:06.900 A lot of that in the Gulf Coast.
00:05:08.500 It's a very short trip from northern Venezuela to the U.S. Gulf Coast
00:05:15.980 where we send much of our oil currently by pipeline and by rail.
00:05:21.020 And so those refineries that are specifically tailored to coke and process heavy oil,
00:05:32.500 we'll say, why would we need Canadian?
00:05:35.620 We've got the Venezuelan product.
00:05:39.000 And before that happens, we need a new market.
00:05:41.860 And the best way to get a new market is through a million barrel a day pipeline
00:05:47.640 from Hardesty, Alberta to either Prince Rupert or Kitimat and then out across the Pacific.
00:05:56.260 And the only thing that is needed for that to happen is for the federal government to get out of the way.
00:06:01.580 And when you're talking about fast-tracking a pipeline through northern B.C.,
00:06:04.860 obviously you'd end up doing it over the objections of the B.C. government,
00:06:08.960 possibly some indigenous groups.
00:06:10.440 I mean, are you talking about resuscitating Northern Gateway?
00:06:14.260 Is that what you would do if you were prime minister right now?
00:06:18.260 I'd go bigger.
00:06:19.500 Northern Gateway was a 500,000 barrel a day project.
00:06:23.020 We need to go a million at least.
00:06:25.280 In fact, ideally, we'd have another two pipelines with each having a million barrels a day.
00:06:31.260 So, and as to the B.C. government, it's irrelevant.
00:06:35.940 Like, sure, we should always have phone calls and conversations and meetings with premiers.
00:06:41.760 But the Constitution is deadly clear on this.
00:06:45.180 The federal government has the exclusive legal and constitutional authority to approve a pipeline.
00:06:51.040 Section 9210 says that the provinces do not have the ability to block interprovincial projects.
00:06:57.400 And the courts, by the way, this is not my interpretation, the courts ruled on this, on the Trans Mountain Pipeline.
00:07:04.300 As for First Nations, they deserve to be consulted, but they do not have a veto power.
00:07:09.100 That, too, is the finding of our courts.
00:07:12.160 The final decision rests with one man, literally one man, and that is the prime minister of Canada.
00:07:20.020 Because under Section 9210 of the Constitution and under Bill C-5, the decision is the federal government and the head of that government, which is Mark Carney.
00:07:31.200 So we don't need to make more excuses.
00:07:33.060 We don't need to blame First Nations or premiers.
00:07:35.580 There's one guy in the way, and his name is Mark Carney.
00:07:38.380 He needs to get out of the way.
00:07:40.660 I'd like to read part of your op-ed in today's National Post.
00:07:45.680 We don't have time for politics, paperwork, and bureaucratic busywork.
00:07:50.540 And given this liberal government's November 2016 decision to kill a nearly identical project, which Carney later testified was the right decision,
00:08:00.520 and given that present-day liberal members of parliament continue to publicly oppose the project,
00:08:06.360 we should doubt whether the prime minister is serious about getting it done.
00:08:11.380 And based on his recent quotes, I think that's true.
00:08:16.260 It just doesn't sound like he has any urgency at all, that he doesn't see Venezuelan crude as any kind of threat.
00:08:23.020 And perhaps he's looking at the existing infrastructure that we have in place to process, to send the oil down.
00:08:29.600 You know, he says we're a stable provider up here.
00:08:32.940 You know, obviously they're not the same weather issues that they would have to deal with if they were bringing it over by tanker.
00:08:38.740 He just doesn't think it's an issue.
00:08:40.320 Will the Canadian people side with you on this matter, given everything that's happened, do you think?
00:08:46.160 Yes.
00:08:46.960 Canadians overwhelmingly want a pipeline.
00:08:50.000 That's why Carney's pretending that he likes the idea while doing everything he can to block it.
00:08:57.340 And so the challenge I have is just to help Canadians see that Carney is a counterfeit on pipelines.
00:09:04.940 He's pretending to agree, but if you listen carefully, he's not agreeing at all.
00:09:10.980 What he said in his MOU with his agreement with Danielle Smith is not that he would approve a pipeline.
00:09:17.100 It's that she can submit an application and he will refer it to an office for two years of study.
00:09:23.900 So that's what he's promised.
00:09:26.260 Two years of study in a new bureaucracy.
00:09:29.160 We don't need two years of study.
00:09:31.540 We know we need the pipeline.
00:09:32.700 We know we can build it safely.
00:09:35.020 We know exactly where it needs to go.
00:09:37.180 We have a prior route through the Northern Gateway project that was proposed and approved before this liberal government killed it.
00:09:46.320 So all of the excuses need to be put aside.
00:09:50.420 And what I called for yesterday is for the prime minister to commit that within two months of receiving Danielle Smith's application,
00:09:56.140 he should approve it so that we can get building.
00:09:58.780 On the Venezuelan front, once again, some of the media has expressed alarm at your unqualified support for the raid that led to the arrest of Mr. Maduro.
00:10:12.700 Do you have any thoughts about their, I don't know, minor hissy fit over this?
00:10:18.600 Well, that was a liberal commentator at CTV who used to, I think she was a former liberal staffer.
00:10:24.900 I find it ironic that a liberal staffer at CTV would oppose getting rid of Maduro when her own government has said that Maduro is not the legitimate president.
00:10:37.640 I mean, the liberal government here in Canada has recognized that Maduro lost the last election to Edmundo Gonzalez and Maria Carino Machado.
00:10:48.240 So he was governing without legitimacy, not to mention the countless crimes that he has committed in jailing political prisoners, jailing political opponents, killing enemies,
00:11:02.180 plunging the country into the most impoverished nation in all of the Americas, sponsoring drug lords, backing, 0.93
00:11:12.120 allowing Hezbollah and other terrorist groups to use the country as a staging ground, which threatens our hemisphere. 0.99
00:11:21.120 The fact that he was moved and removed in a, frankly, a surgical incision, not through a large scale violent invasion of the whole country,
00:11:32.860 but a surgical incision that allowed him to be taken without any harm done to the civilian population is a positive development.
00:11:43.880 And now he will be given due process in American courts where charges were laid, I think it was by the district attorney of New York, a democratic state.
00:11:54.120 So he will be able to defend himself.
00:11:57.120 But in the meantime, my hope is that we will quickly hand the keys to Edmundo Gonzalez,
00:12:06.220 who is the rightful and democratically elected president, along with his partner, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Maria Carina Machado.
00:12:14.820 And that soon after that, there will be renewed elections.
00:12:17.880 I expect that Machado would run as the leading contender and she would win and she would bring democracy, freedom, free enterprise and prosperity to the people of that country. 0.83
00:12:29.480 With the brief time we've got left, I just want you to hit a couple of other points on the political front.
00:12:34.680 We have Chrystia Freeland with one foot in Canada's parliament and the other foot in Ukraine. 1.00
00:12:38.640 We've got the Liberals stepping up their efforts to poach Conservative MPs in order to try and gain that majority that they so desperately want.
00:12:49.360 Any thoughts about either of these?
00:12:52.280 Yes, Mark Carney's trying to manipulate himself a majority that Canadians voted against so that he can concentrate even more power and money in his hands.
00:13:01.700 I think it would be very costly to Canadians if he were allowed to have a majority.
00:13:06.640 He would use that power and the political impunity to raise taxes even more and increase the cost of living for Canadians who can't afford to pay their bills.
00:13:19.700 But he needs a majority to do that because if he brings in an unpopular tax increase to fund his out-of-control spending now,
00:13:26.920 he risks going into a quick election and being thrown out for that reason.
00:13:32.540 So he's trying to lock down unquestioned power that Canadians voted against so that he can massively expand the power, the cost and control of his government.
00:13:43.840 And we can't allow that.
00:13:45.180 We need to respect the will of the people, which was a minority government. 0.87
00:13:49.020 And the Canadians, people need to have a choice as to whether they are ready for a change so they can afford homes, afford food, and afford to have hope again in the next election.
00:14:04.240 And the Chrystia Freeland situation, she seems to be in a conflict of interest here. 0.58
00:14:11.040 Yeah, look, frankly, I think it's ridiculous that she would work for a foreign government while she's a Canadian member of Parliament. 1.00
00:14:16.880 Beyond that, Mark Carney has enormous conflicts of interest that no one seems to be willing to talk about.
00:14:23.500 You know, he is heavily invested in Brookfield.
00:14:26.680 He's heavily invested in offshore tax havens.
00:14:31.060 His company has been called the biggest tax dodger in Canada.
00:14:35.100 He stands to profit from all the subsidies his government is giving to batteries, to the carbon capture projects, to modular housing, and all these other things that Canadian taxpayers are forced to fund to profit his bottom line.
00:14:55.160 So I find it hard to, I'm kind of surprised that there was such a backlash against Freeland, even though it's deserved, given that Carney's conflicts are so much bigger than hers.
00:15:06.520 And we're going to try to, we're going to be holding him accountable for that, because we need a prime minister who's actually working for the Canadian people, not patting his pockets.
00:15:13.720 Yeah, Paulie, thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:15:15.720 We really appreciate it.
00:15:16.960 Great to be with you.
00:15:17.760 Happy New Year.
00:15:18.720 Happy New Year.
00:15:19.300 And that is it for this edition of the show.
00:15:21.800 Appreciate you tuning in, my friends.
00:15:23.180 Let's do it again soon, shall we?
00:15:24.820 Bye-bye for now.