Juno News - Is Carney’s Pipeline the Real Deal？

00:00:00.000 Hi, Juno News, Alexander Brown, Director of the National Citizens Coalition, back for

00:00:07.180 another episode. I'm the host here of Not Sorry. I'm a writer, communicator, campaigner,

00:00:11.760 thrilled to be with you. And while you are here, take advantage of our promo code,

00:00:16.360 junonews.com slash not sorry for 20% off. So much great talent here. So many terrific

00:00:22.340 presenters, journalists. Candice is terrific. Please check it out. Now, on Thursday, Mark

00:00:29.680 Carney is debuting his memorandum of understanding with the province of Alberta to get a pipeline

00:00:34.960 built supposedly to BC's Pacific coast. This is through NDP territory, hostile to resource

00:00:41.160 development and economic prosperity. On the surface, this is encouraging, but dig a little

00:00:46.420 deeper and you'll soon hit upon the same old concerns of the Trudeau years. And there are

00:00:51.380 signs pointing to more political spin with no results. I want you to watch this clip of

00:00:56.620 Pierre Polyev and Mark Carney facing off in the house on Tuesday.

00:00:59.420 On Thursday, he'll make one of his grand announcements waving around a meaningless

00:01:03.940 so-called memorandum of understanding. If it's anything other than a public relations ploy,

00:01:10.700 why won't he say on what date will construction begin on a pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific?

00:01:18.700 The memorandum of understanding that we're negotiating with Alberta creates necessary conditions,

00:01:24.820 but not sufficient conditions because we believe in cooperative federalism. We believe the government

00:01:31.140 of British Columbia has to agree. We believe that First Nations right holders in this country

00:01:36.740 have to agree and support all stakeholders after that. That's one, Karen.

00:01:43.260 That sure seems like trying to have it both ways. That sure seems like lip service and more of the

00:01:48.100 same, creating these impossible conditions for change, for these projects to be brought to

00:01:53.740 completion. That would seemingly chill anyone who'd want to invest in them, not knowing if you could

00:02:00.760 even get it to the coast. And so we're also seeing this with Carney's sort of so-called major projects

00:02:06.280 office that is seemingly taking credit for an overwhelming amount of projects already well

00:02:10.860 underway, which don't even qualify as major to begin with. This sure feels like more politics

00:02:16.100 and less action. Despite debuting this memorandum of understanding, surely choosing to hand

00:02:21.760 obstructionist powers to David Eby, who is a fervent far-left radical and proponent of degrowth,

00:02:28.800 tying up both this project and others with more red tape through endless consultations,

00:02:32.920 that won't get the job done. We're speaking with Lorne Gunter today. He's a senior columnist with

00:02:37.800 Edmonton Journal. He's been all over what he sees as the continuation here of the Trudeau years.

00:02:43.940 And let it be known that even Justin Trudeau refused to surrender a provincial veto to John

00:02:49.780 Horgan's BC government during his time in office. Back then, BC had to accept they didn't have the

00:02:55.000 legal power to block, and they don't. They shouldn't have that power now. But Carney is

00:02:59.980 apparently willing to hand over that veto to Eby, a man as hostile to resource development

00:03:04.340 as the PM who cut his teeth on a now defunct net zero global extortion racket, and is one of the

00:03:11.880 patron saints of the economic harm of the last decade. The liberals have this terrible penchant for

00:03:18.900 making the announcement, the policy. That is the lip service. They get backed into a corner,

00:03:23.840 they claim they'll change. They all get up there, stand at a dais, and they tell you,

00:03:28.200 you know, we're actually going to make this change. And then you look, and it looks like a lot of the

00:03:32.400 same. And you don't see results. Lorne and I are going to have this important chat because the

00:03:37.180 concern on Thursday is that Alberta is again being set up for failure. And this is the Carney

00:03:42.140 Liberal's way of having it both ways. And while you're here before this episode, first, a word

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00:04:27.860 Lorne Gunter joins the show. He's a senior columnist with the Edmonton Journal. He's as concerned about the

00:04:33.780 memorandum of understanding major projects as I am. Lorne, thank you for being here.

00:04:37.660 Lorne Gunter No, you're welcome. Thanks for inviting me.

00:04:39.460 Now, you just put in your last column and I quote, I hope Thursday's announcement proves me wrong. I hope

00:04:45.460 it demonstrates some federal enthusiasm for a pipeline. But the cynic in me says the liberals are

00:04:50.740 just doing this to stave off a national unity crisis with Alberta separatists. We're taping this on

00:04:57.300 Wednesday, airing it on Thursday. You argue that this is sure looking like doing nothing to

00:05:03.700 advance these pipelines, instead burdening Alberta with more of these preconditions. Why does this

00:05:10.100 apparent setup guarantee failure for a new West Coast initiative?

00:05:14.820 Well, I mean, effectively in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Carney gave both

00:05:22.820 British Columbia Premier David Eby and First Nations, along any potential route,

00:05:29.060 veto over the project. So he just put up barrier after barrier after barrier, Carney has to getting

00:05:36.740 a pipeline built. But he's prepared to say, okay, well, if you can get rid of all the barriers,

00:05:42.020 we're right there with you. And I think that's what they're doing. He's facing a caucus revolt,

00:05:49.780 apparently in BC among liberal MPs. He knows that if he turns down a pipeline, rejects it outright,

00:05:58.740 that there will be a separatist movement in Alberta. Now, how far it will go? I don't know. But there will

00:06:04.180 be a real one, and it will be something that they have to deal with. So I think what he's trying to do

00:06:08.980 here is string Alberta along until they fail to get a pipeline approved. They fail to find an investor.

00:06:19.540 They fail to get enough First Nations involved. He said to them the other day, well, yes, you have to

00:06:26.740 do all the constitutional work, all the environmental work, all the regulatory work,

00:06:33.460 all the First Nations work, and find an investor. Well, that just seems like an impossible task.

00:06:41.620 But then at the end of all this, if it fails, he gets to say, well, you know, we didn't stand in your

00:06:46.900 way. It's obvious that you just couldn't get it done yourself. But that's not what these projects are

00:06:51.700 supposed to be about. You mentioned the major projects office. I'm not sure what they do,

00:06:56.260 except spend about $234 million this year on office space. And as I said, in that call,

00:07:03.220 maybe giant relief maps to show where all of these proud. Yeah, that they love their maps,

00:07:07.780 the bureaucracy and photo ops. So we were talking before hopping on this recording about this Potemkin

00:07:13.780 village, the liberals were making for their housing announcement. The major projects office,

00:07:18.340 it is seemingly taking credit for all these projects that already existed. Many are arguably

00:07:24.820 not major. What reforms would you believe are necessary to that office to sort of to be effective

00:07:31.540 in fulfilling its mandate? Or should it exist at all? No, I don't think it should exist. I don't

00:07:36.100 understand what the point is, except they probably are pretty good at staging photo ops for the prime

00:07:40.900 minister to come in and take credit for some of these projects. You know, a very good example was this,

00:07:48.180 is the Sisson mine in New Brunswick, which was discovered yesterday, was approved in 2017.

00:07:55.940 It was given 40 conditions it had to satisfy before it could start construction. It hasn't satisfied

00:08:02.340 one of them, not one. So, you know, and then other ones that there's a mine in Saskatchewan that's

00:08:08.820 that's on the prime minister's list. It's two thirds completed. Well, he doesn't get credit for that. I'm

00:08:14.500 sorry. I mean, all the hard work done by the company that built that is, they're the people,

00:08:20.820 and there's a Saskatchewan government get credit for that, but not the MPO, the major projects office,

00:08:26.260 or Prime Minister Carney. This seems to me just to show. And what is needed? You say,

00:08:32.580 what would be needed for it to do? Well, what's needed is a complete change

00:08:37.780 of mentality at the federal level that, you know, we can't only build things if everyone's in agreement

00:08:47.860 and the environmentalists sign off and they're net zero. Like we're talking, you saw him the other

00:08:55.380 day say that, you know, we want to have some AI data centers here, but they have to be net zero.

00:09:00.740 Unfortunately, they're not. And you couldn't build enough windmills and solar panels to power one of

00:09:06.820 those things. And so what he's basically saying is, with the Americans right next door, having no such

00:09:14.020 regulations on their AI centers, we're going to have all these regulations no one wants. But take a look

00:09:21.300 at the list of things that you have to go through. One of the things the liberals keep saying is,

00:09:27.620 there is no private sector lead investor on this. That proves that there's no business case for a

00:09:34.340 pipeline. But we had two pipelines underway when Trudeau took over as Prime Minister that got

00:09:42.660 cancelled. Energy East and Northern Gateway. The two companies who were involved in that spent almost

00:09:49.300 $3 billion getting those pipelines approved. And then the liberals came in and changed the rules at the

00:09:56.900 last minute. And the pipeline's got to be cancelled. And then they say, oh, there's no business case

00:10:01.220 because these companies pulled out. Well, who is going to be crazy enough with this memorandum of

00:10:06.580 understanding to say, you know, well, the constitutional stuff isn't taken care of. The environmental stuff's

00:10:11.700 not taken care of. The regulatory stuff's not taken care of. First nations aren't taken care of.

00:10:17.140 And the financial side isn't very clear. Who's going to say, well, yeah, let's put together three or

00:10:22.100 four billion dollar package to build a 12 billion dollar pipeline with conditions like that? Nobody.

00:10:27.940 Yeah. Who would want to be first through the door to like you're just going to take fire. You're going

00:10:31.940 to be you're going to be delayed, tying up in red tape. I mean, even this this New Brunswick

00:10:37.780 system mine, which I was reading about its decade long approval process in your column, it still didn't

00:10:43.460 even face the same hurdles imposed on Alberta's pipelines. And yet it was still 10 years of like these 40

00:10:49.860 conditions going absolutely nowhere. Could you expand on on that perception of favoritism? Like,

00:10:57.620 Oh, I think it's I think it's anti favoritism. I think the liberals don't like Alberta and they

00:11:05.220 certainly don't like oil. And so all the major projects office, you're supposed to find a national

00:11:12.180 interest project that needs regulatory help and maybe scouring the world for an investor or two.

00:11:20.980 Sounds like a pipeline to me, especially when you have a prime minister who says he wants to make

00:11:25.780 Canada an energy superpower. So a pipeline seems to fit exactly what the major projects office was set up to

00:11:33.940 to do. And yet, there's a pipeline on that list. And you have all of these other projects, ring of

00:11:41.700 fire projects in Ontario, you have, you know, the port projects in Quebec, which are all fine, I'm in

00:11:49.620 favor of all of the things that they've said that they're that they're going to approve. But how come

00:11:54.500 those get federal government weight and and effort behind them? And a pipeline? Well, you have one if

00:12:02.820 you get everything done on your own, but don't bother us until then. I mean, that's why I think

00:12:07.300 the favoritism comes in. Yeah, it's we're going to give you an impossible task. And we're going to give

00:12:12.660 our friends out east because we were more supported there that we'll we'll let them cut the corner,

00:12:18.580 even though 10 years should not be seen as any kind of success as some expedited project.

00:12:24.020 Lauren, you describe Carney as being as anti oil as Justin Trudeau. Now, like despite this rhetoric

00:12:29.700 about being, you know, building an energy superpower, we know that he throws around the term traditional

00:12:35.700 energy as if it's a slur. He likes to say clean energy superpower. I've had the misfortune of reading

00:12:41.780 values. I share my concerns. What what specific actions or statements from his past roles? Maybe it

00:12:47.940 was serving in that in that global net zero racket reinforces view. And how might this stance like

00:12:54.500 perpetuate Canada's failure to capitalize? Well, one of the big things he has said,

00:12:59.860 and he said it more than once until he decided he wanted to run for the liberal leadership is 65% of

00:13:05.380 oil and 90% of natural gas has, sorry, 65% of gas and 90% of oil that we know of has to stay in the

00:13:15.300 ground. If we're going to save the environment, all of this stuff has to stay in the ground. Well,

00:13:20.260 okay, wonderful. But what are you going to do about it? What they talked about? I think this is

00:13:27.700 the big fallacy is that they're going to be a clean energy superpower. Not one of the 10 projects that

00:13:34.660 he's already approved is a clean energy project. If you're going to start to be an energy superpower,

00:13:40.100 and you're not going to take advantage of coal, natural gas and oil, fine. No, it's a dumb position,

00:13:47.300 but it's a it's a position some people have taken. If you're not going to take advantage of those three

00:13:53.220 natural resources, but you want to make Canada's energy superpower, you'd better start showing me

00:13:59.860 that you have nuclear or, you know, big time. Why isn't the nuclear plant on one of these lists? You

00:14:06.660 know, those things need all sorts of regulatory help to get done. But they're not serious. That's

00:14:14.500 the problem is they're not serious. They want to do the same politically correct, woke things that

00:14:20.020 Trudeau did. They're not as obnoxious about it as Trudeau is. Carney is not the virtue signaler that

00:14:27.060 Trudeau was. Carney's not going to run to Kamloops and go down on one knee with a teddy bear in his

00:14:33.940 hand to just to sympathize with 215 indigenous grave sites that aren't there. Yeah. So, you know,

00:14:43.940 Carney's better at it than that. And then goes and then go surfing the next day. Exactly. And if you

00:14:50.340 read Carney's book that he put out right after he finishes Bank of England governor, it's very green.

00:14:58.900 I mean, we shouldn't use coal. We shouldn't use oil. We have to use natural gas a little bit. But

00:15:06.660 most of it has to stay in the ground if we're going to save the planet. Well, as soon as you get to that

00:15:10.580 point where you think that the planet is on a death spiral, it's very hard to find enough projects that

00:15:20.580 you could approve that you could jumpstart the Canadian economy. There's a fascinating study out

00:15:26.980 today from the Royal Bank Economics Department that says people under 35 over the last six years

00:15:37.300 have lost income. Inflation has outstripped how fast their income has increased. Now, the rest of the age

00:15:46.420 categories have made a little bit of money, but Canadian incomes are really stagnant. That's basically

00:15:53.460 what it is. But the other kicker for people who are under 35 is that much of their income increase

00:16:01.940 was through CERB payments, through pandemic relief. And so they're not getting the money

00:16:08.900 extra through their employment. If they can find a job, which isn't as easy as it used to be,

00:16:15.460 they aren't going to get paid much and they're not going to get a lot of raises. Well,

00:16:19.380 that should be a real concern for any government, liberal, conservative, federal,

00:16:25.860 provincial, that you want to start increasing productivity. You want to increase construction

00:16:31.940 of new projects, which is exactly what Carnegie has said he wants to do, but he's not doing anything

00:16:38.260 about it. Yeah. And I think recently I was, I was parsing through some similar studies, all bad news,

00:16:44.500 where it's like price to income ratios are like 10 to one for, for young Canadians right now. The

00:16:50.340 economy, the, the environment is not a pocketbook issue for, for young voters whatsoever. It's like

00:16:56.020 10th. It's like, for the love of, you know what, like, please, please, you know, give us an economy

00:17:00.980 that works, you know, fix immigration, fix housing. Lauren, regarding the, I'm in Vancouver and regarding

00:17:07.940 the, the tanker ban on the West coast, I think of how absurd it is that, you know, we have American

00:17:15.540 tankers, you know, streaming by our shores all day, but we're, we're, we're putting a cap on,

00:17:20.660 on one of our own, you know, Carney's unwillingness to, to remove such obstacles. Like what is an

00:17:27.060 alternative federal strategy that, that could align with, with your call for, for genuine support?

00:17:32.900 Like what could they show you right now that they're any different than the last 10 years?

00:17:37.940 Well, apparently in this memorandum of understanding that's coming out tomorrow,

00:17:41.780 they're going to say, we'll have exemptions for a certain number of tankers for Alberta oil,

00:17:47.700 provided Alberta can get the pipeline out to the coast.

00:17:50.980 Right.

00:17:51.300 But once again, say you're, say you're the CEO of an energy company and the premier of Alberta

00:17:57.380 approaches you and says, Hey, we would like you to be the lead investor in this.

00:18:02.580 First thing you're going to say is, well, how am I going to get this oil overseas? If the federal

00:18:06.740 government still has its ban on West coast tankers. And you know, not only are you right that the

00:18:12.500 American tankers go past BC all the time, but at the other end of the country, because Quebec will 0.84

00:18:19.300 not take a pipeline, it has to buy foreign oil, much of which comes in on tankers up to St. Lawrence

00:18:28.100 River every day. So, you know, this is the hypocrisy of Canadian politics. This is exactly what has

00:18:36.580 happened to us, particularly over the last 10 years, that has stunted our growth, that has

00:18:42.980 reduced our incomes. At one point, the liberal said, well, we need all of this immigration 0.99

00:18:49.380 to grow the economy. If it weren't for immigration, our economy would have, would have stagnated about

00:18:57.380 2021. And that's true. But when you look at, so people are coming in the country and bringing in 0.94

00:19:04.660 money, but they're not as productive as all of us should be. It takes 10 years or more for most new

00:19:14.420 Canadians to become productive. And most of them do. No quibble about that. But if in the meantime,

00:19:21.220 you're dealing with an excess of 2 million new people in the country, you have just messed up your

00:19:27.220 economy so badly that you couldn't bring in enough new people and their money to save the economy.

00:19:34.580 I mean, they just, they want to try and reconcile their woke social views and their only half

00:19:44.900 understanding of economics. And somehow that's going to be enough to vault Canada into economic progress.

00:19:53.220 But we are the slowest growing country in the G7. We're the second slowest growing country in the OECD.

00:20:03.300 So you take all the industrialized countries in the world, we're the second slowest growing.

00:20:08.820 Our incomes have not kept up, of course, with housing prices, although in the United States,

00:20:13.940 they have. They keep talking about the housing crisis they have in the United States. They don't

00:20:18.980 have anything close to ours. I would take their housing crisis. My wife and I could move 50 times

00:20:26.820 and find affordability in any state. It is so much different. Well, you can also find affordability if

00:20:32.100 you come over the mountains to this side in Alberta. But what I was looking at the other day is the Fraser

00:20:39.700 Institute figured out how much of your post-tax income would it cost for you to pay the mortgage.

00:20:50.900 Now, we're not talking about saving up 20% for a down payment. How much of your disposable income

00:20:58.500 would have to go to your mortgage payments in various Canadian cities? And in lots of places,

00:21:04.500 Edmonton and Calgary, it's about 50%. So if you're both working, it's not 50% of the total for two

00:21:11.140 people. And so it's manageable. It's not as good as it used to be, but it's manageable. In Vancouver

00:21:17.620 and Toronto, it's 110%. So if you're working and your spouse is working, you're using up all of one of

00:21:28.500 your income plus a good chunk of the other one's income just to pay mortgages. It's insane.

00:21:35.460 It makes the poverty line. I think it was Sabrina Maddow put out something yesterday where if you 0.96

00:21:41.700 have this dual income, if you have a kid, and you're in a major market, one of those two, it's

00:21:47.140 like your poverty line is like 140,000. Whereas that's supposed to be firmly middle-class. That is

00:21:53.140 supposed to be, hey, we're making this work. That's not 10%. Yeah. And yet, holy cow,

00:21:58.900 poverty line. Now, Lauren, to wrap, I mean, you suggest this memorandum of understanding with

00:22:04.740 Premier Danielle Smith. It's more about averting a national unity crisis than a true commitment to

00:22:10.340 pipelines. Could you delve into the sort of rising separatist sentiments in Alberta that this might

00:22:16.500 be addressing and what risks would continued federal obstruction pose to Canadian Confederation?

00:22:23.620 Well, I've said since the last federal election, when there was an awful lot of talk about separatism

00:22:29.940 growing in Alberta, that it's missing two things. It's missing a formal structure. There isn't a

00:22:36.980 Parti Quebecois. There isn't a Parti Albertan. And it's missing some federal insult.

00:22:47.300 There has to be some sort of federal imposition on Alberta that we simply no longer can take it.

00:22:55.540 But even at that, so, you know, rejecting a pipeline outright would be something that could trigger

00:23:02.500 separatism in Alberta. But even at that, I think Alberta is 10 years away from having a solid

00:23:10.500 separatist movement that might actually get a referendum on the provincial ballot and have a

00:23:19.220 successful vote. But I do think that if Alberta decides it's going, it's not going to be like

00:23:25.540 watching Quebec move around and around and around for 70 years and claim that it's going to become

00:23:32.500 a separate nation. I just think if it happens, it'll help them quickly. It's not happening yet.

00:23:38.900 Yeah. But the conditions are there. And so, Lauren, thank you for your expertise on this.

00:23:45.460 I certainly share your concerns. Let's hope to be wrong about Thursday's announcement.

00:23:50.820 We're both crossing our fingers and all the best, sir.

00:23:53.460 Yeah, you too. Thank you.

Juno News - November 26, 2025

Is Carney’s Pipeline the Real Deal？

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