Juno News - December 09, 2025Liberals REJECT pipeline motion as caucus rift grows
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Summary
Last month, Prime Minister Stephen Harper signed an energy accord with Alberta approving construction of an oil pipeline to the B.C. coast. Despite that, the government intends to vote against a motion today, calling for the federal government to honour the terms of that agreement.
Transcript
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Well, the Kearney Liberals are pushing back against suggestions their caucus is split on
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whether to support an Alberta pipeline or not. Last month, Prime Minister Kearney signed an
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energy accord with Alberta approving construction of an oil pipeline to the B.C. coast. Despite
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that, the government intends to vote against a motion today, calling for the federal government
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to honor the terms of that agreement. Here's Energy Minister Tim Hodgson.
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Canadians see the motion that's before us today for what it is. It's a cynical ploy to divide us.
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It's a cheap political stunt. And so we will not be supporting the motion the Conservatives have
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put forward today. And yet the question remains, is the Liberal Caucus united behind the energy
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accord signed by the Prime Minister or not? You're saying that the Conservatives are trying to divide
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you on this issue. Is it not your government that has divided your own caucus by bringing
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forward an MOU that clearly does not have the full support of your own party?
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As a party, we are united in wanting to make sure that we continue to build Canada, that
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we build it well, that we take into account climate change in the work that we do, and
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that we respect Indigenous rights holders. Our party is united on that. And so I won't accept
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that as a premise for that question. I, we are united.
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You don't think the MOU is dividing your own caucus? You don't think there's divisions
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People can have issues with particular pieces, but we are supportive of the entire MOU.
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You are supportive, but there are many of your other caucus members who are not supportive.
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The caucus is supportive of the entire MOU. People, yes.
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Mr. Hogan, was this a whip vote? Would you have wanted to vote in favor of the pipeline?
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This was not a whipped vote for me. This is a very easy decision to vote no on. It is designed to divide.
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Well, they keep insisting that caucus is unified behind the energy accord, but former cabinet minister
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Stephen Gilbeau ripped his own party in the pages of the Toronto Star today with this headline.
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I quit Mark Carney's cabinet. This is what I hope happens next.
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Well, that doesn't sound very unified. Here's a poll quote from his op-ed.
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Canadians appear to be getting nothing in return for all that is being sacrificed.
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Conservative party leader Pierre Polyev says the motion uses the same wording as the memorandum of
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understanding. So why would the Liberals vote against it if they're unified behind it?
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The MOU says there would be a pipeline to the Pacific. I took the wording right out of the
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agreement that there would be an overriding of the tanker ban. I took the wording for that
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right out of the MOU. And now the prime minister is hiding under his desk. Liberal members on one side
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of the country are saying they're against while they're pretending in Alberta that they are in favor.
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So why don't they stand up in the House of Commons, look Canadians in the eye, take one position,
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vote for a pipe to the Pacific and override the tanker?
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Well, Mr. Speaker, the prime minister and all of us and all conservative premiers
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and most people in this country supports every part of that MOU, Mr. Speaker.
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The leader of the opposition stands in his place and says to the people of Alberta,
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you know what? That little thing that they said was progress for our province that made us a leader
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in renewable technologies, made us a leader in nuclear energy, made us a leader in interties,
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made us a leader in conventional electricity. That's all off. I just want this one thing.
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Complicating matters even more, calls by First Nations people to reject the pipeline proposal and
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any lifting of the tanker ban. Here's Jason Aslip of the Haida Nation.
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So today we are calling on all the MPs to stand with the Coastal First Nations to uphold the Oil
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Tanker Moratorium Act to protect our coast. That means keeping the pipeline and any oil tanker traffic
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out of these waters, especially the Hecate Strait. And we have never supported the pipelines or the
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tanker traffic. And they're not part of our vision for a healthy, sustainable,
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economically diverse economy. Well, assuming it's ever built, the pipeline will allow for the export of
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at least one million barrels a day of Alberta bitumen to markets in Asia. I'm now joined by Dan
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McTague, who was a longtime member of parliament, spent 18 years on parliament hill. These days,
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he is a commentator on all things government related, and he's also an energy analyst. Welcome
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to the show. Good to be here, Mark. Thanks for having me. Let's take a look at this motion that
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is before the house or will be before the house and be voted on. And the liberals have already served
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notice that they have no intention of supporting it, despite the fact that the wording of it,
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very carefully crafted, is really a reflection of the MOU that was signed by the prime minister
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and Alberta premier, Daniel Smith. What do you make of this?
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Well, we have to smoke Mark Carney out because he's basically said one thing and meant another.
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He said he's going to get rid of carbon taxes. Now he has two, clean fuel standard and industrial
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carbon tax. He said he's going to make all sorts of deals with Donald Trump, nothing to show so far.
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He said he would get the finances of the country right. We're declining rather dramatically and
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collapsing. And now, of course, he's as a, you know, as a sort of a sop to Western Canada, in particular
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to the need to get our economic engines going and to get the lifeblood of the economy rolling again
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to attract investment into Canada. He's made some kind of an understanding, not a contract with
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Danielle Smith. And the liberals, of course, are badly divided in this. You've got the liberals of my
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generation who are being pragmatic and say that's the way ahead. That's where the world is going.
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It doesn't matter how you look at it. Oil is going to be around for a very long time and for
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generations to come. Or you can be part of this coterie of people around the Liberal Party who
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bought the green socialist idea that somehow we should impose net zero on Canadians only,
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maybe, you know, force more to go to food banks, maybe turn off their heat, maybe rely on windmills in
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the middle of minus 40 degree winter in Alberta, whatever the case may be, or electric vehicles where
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you've spent billions of dollars. Many of these companies have gone away from that or gone bankrupt.
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All these things suggest that there is nothing about the Liberals that you can hold to account.
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And for the albozos out there that supported them, that's fine. But you're going to be proven
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and your party is going to be proven to be anything, nothing short of mendacious. And that goes right
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to Carnie's credentials. For a man who left Canada and took the company out of Canada before he became
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Prime Minister, that's not a very telling way of saying you have Canada's back at your interest.
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And so I think this MOU is bound to failure. It's not just bound to failure because the Liberals have
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no intention of pursuing it. When you take $45 oil, which is Western Canadian select, and you add
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$10 to $12 for $135 a ton carbon tax, an industrial carbon tax up from 90, and then you add the cost of
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carbon sequestration, CCUS, carbon capture and underground storage. Someone's got to pay for
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that. If not taxpayers, it's going to be paid in the cost of oil. That could push it up $14,
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$15 a barrel, which already makes it uncompetitive to WTI. So this thing may be well gone before.
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Politically, it's going to be proven tonight that politically, Liberals are insincere. They have
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no intention of building this. And I think it's not time for Alberta and others to finally say,
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enough is enough with these jokesters. Yeah, it would be great if this vote was not
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whipped, but I think it will because the Liberals are not going to show just how divided they are,
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but it is going to be a whipped vote. I suggest that if it was a free vote
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and a vote your conscience, we would see a very different take on this party because you've got
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people like Stephen Gilbo coming out saying that, again, that this is a bad deal for Canada. Canada should
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not be moving forward with this, reminding everybody that he left a quick cabinet.
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Basically, he's standing up kind of like a thorn on the side of the government now.
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At first, I was wondering whether or not this was just a lot of smoke and mirrors,
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suggesting that, trying to show people that I've really struggled here in order to get this deal
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passed through a divided caucus. But I don't know what's going on in that caucus right now.
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Have you heard anything? I mean, how divided is this caucus?
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Well, I think it's very divided on this issue, but perhaps leaning to the old socialist
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WEF green nonsense that we've heard for the past few years. Look, Mr. Gilbo was not a Federalist,
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he was a separatist. Mr. Gilbo was not a Liberal, he is a Socialist, and he's admitted those things.
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His actions, his antics have a lot of play in the Liberal Party when they could afford to
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squander away a nation and basically say to heck with its resources, to heck with its ability to
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get products to the rest of the world. But we now find ourselves in an extraordinarily significant
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economic straitjacket, the likes of which I haven't seen since the early 1980s, and which is going to
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boomerang sooner or later. But what is happening here is that the willingness to expose Mark Carney,
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for all the things he said he's done in the past, you remember what he said in 1997, I was
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responsible for balancing the budget. In 2008, I prevented us from the global, none of that was
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that was total garbage, and it was shameless self-promotion. I know it because I was there.
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But now we see that we're seeing a side of him and a side of his caucus that isn't quite ready to go.
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I mean, they're not prepared to go down this road of having to be pragmatic and recognize that 10 years
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of undermining Canada's prosperity and its economic opportunities is the very thing that's bringing
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the country to its knees economically. And when you've got 2 million people visiting food banks,
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you've got young people who can't find work, you have to fudge your numbers on employment by
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bringing in temporary foreign workers to work as part-timers, knocking a lot of young students out
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from their first crack at a job. When you see delinquencies and defaults and mortgages coming up,
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when you see rentals are far too expensive, everything in the food prices, of course, going through the roof.
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I don't know what's holding the Liberal Party in this unless, of course, it's the charade by its enablers,
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and of course, by those who are out there influencing people to believe otherwise than what they see.
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But right in front of us is the reality that Mark Carney and the Liberals say one thing,
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but they do, in fact, another. And I think tonight will be a real substantial test.
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The play is the thing where we will catch the conscience of the king, Hamlet.
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And I think that's exactly what we're seeing here. It's time that we put the real Mark Carney to a test.
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I think it's going to disappoint a lot of elbozos out there who thought he was the best thing since sliced bread.
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Yeah. Well, obviously, he hasn't been living up to some of his key promises, not the least of which is
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the trade deal that was supposed to have happened by July the 21st. That never happened. And so,
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it's odd to see some of these polls coming out that still have Mark Carney around the same level of
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support as he had around election day. And I just don't know exactly where those numbers are coming from,
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but they're reputable polls, I assume. And yet, the Canadians still seem to suggest that they like
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the guy. The other question, I guess, is from Alberta's vantage point. I mean, Alberta, the
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premier of that province, Danielle Smith, signed the MOU. She did her best to sell it to her party.
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I mean, did she get taken for a ride here? I mean, she's not a dumb lady, but some are suggesting that
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maybe she took the word of a prime minister who is not being on the level with her, and in fact,
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tried to make it look like he was supporting a pipeline, when in fact, it really wasn't,
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knowing full well that his caucus was not behind it. What kind of dynamic is she going through now,
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do you think? Well, I think it's going to expose Mark Carney for operating and making deals and
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decisions in bad faith and creating a deal that would be impossible to achieve long before it
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happened. I think Danielle Smith's point is, yeah, we'll work. We'll do everything we can. We'll bend
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over backwards. We'll do cartwheels. But if at the end of this, you still have an intention and guile to
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try to scupper this particular project or any other in the future, then we know where you stand.
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So I think goodwill has been extended as Albertans often do. But if petulant Canadians in the east,
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where I'm from, decide that they're going to slap this around, good luck, because you won't
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be able to cash your welfare checks. You won't be able to get that free hospital. You won't be able
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to get the free dental. I mean, if we're going to continue to crap on the very thing that produces
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revenue for the federal provincial government, so you and I can have a world standard of living when
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it comes to our social programs, good luck with that. But as long as 43% or 45% of you
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out there are still dumb enough to believe this man is anything but duplicitous, then you're going
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to learn in a very hard way. And believe me, in January and February, there's no way StatsCan
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can come up with numbers saying, liberal will be great. All those part-time jobs that were created,
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the 55,000 will be gone by January. So get ready, fasten your seatbelt. But I knocked in many doors,
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hundreds of doors. I saw you. And I said, you know, I was an 18-year liberal member party. I'm not voting
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for them. Why the hell are you? And it was all elbows up. Well, now you're going to pay for that
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kind of stupidity being bribed for the fourth time and guiled into doing something based on
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the irrational. We are seeing evidence of the country in major decline. Tonight's vote,
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when the Liberals show that they are not interested in building another pipeline,
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will cause real disappointment in Western Canada and will obviously cause disappointment for the
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markets. And no, Canada has not a very safe place to invest any money whatsoever. And if that's the
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case, then look for more austerity and more difficult times down the road. But remember
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something. You supported this, folks. You voted Liberal. You used examples in 2015 of, you know,
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free dope. In 2019, of climate bedwetting. Of COVID hysteria. And 2025, Orange Man and Bat. If you are so
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guiled, if you are so willing to be deceived, then perhaps you deserve the kind of outcome you're going to
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see here. And I'm not proud of saying it, but Canadians are going to get a real good shot in the
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side of the head very soon, the likes of which they have not seen in over a generation.
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Yeah. Maybe early in the new year. I mean, we're about to turn the page into 2026. I think maybe
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Carney has received maybe an extended honeymoon period with Canadians still willing to give him the benefit
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of the doubt, but that won't last forever. And once we're at 2026, you know, as the economy continues to
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suffer despite some of the gaslighting we're saying from the likes of StatsCan and some of the numbers
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coming out of some of the job numbers, to your point, where they tell us that we've created 54,000
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jobs. And then you scratch underneath the surface and you find we actually lost over 9,000 full-time
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jobs. And that, you know, so it was just nothing but part-time work and healthcare and socials.
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They're all social government, pension governments. They're all, you need to have a
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viable private sector in order to support the social side of things, the civil side. And we've
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seen a massive increase in civil, 40, 50%, 10, 15% on the private side. It's not sustainable. Unless
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you want to take 100% of your wage, give it back to the government, say you work at a hospital.
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I'm not denigrating those people, but that's the only jobs we have in this country. We are in big
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trouble. We've now got the engine of economic growth completely stalled, and we're wearing down
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the battery. I mean, the Liberals are dismissing this motion as just a political stunt, an end of
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year stunt. But at the end of the day, if they're using the same wording as in the MOU, what really
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is the problem with voting in favor of it and supporting it? And they're not doing that. So I
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think, I agree with you. I think it's going to be a real eye-opener for a lot of people in Alberta who
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think that that MOU was worth, you know, what the paper is printed on. And in fact, it may not be.
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It speaks to a level of duplicity here. It speaks to a prime minister that wants to look like he's
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doing something when in fact he's doing the opposite. Last word to you, Dan.
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Well, wait till the equalization programs and equalization divvy gets divvied up and there's
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less money in the pot because we haven't been able to build our economy. And if that's the way the
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Liberals want to treat this thing and run it right down to the last kilowatt of energy, that's fine.
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But I take by the Liberals, if they were serious about an issue that is extremely important on a
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number of fronts, economic activity, our fiscal situation, while at the same time, you know,
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strengthening the Federation, if these are things they're prepared to trade away with and dismiss and
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you know, try to play coy about, they're playing with fire. And unfortunately, it's a fire that's
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going to burn every single Canadian, like it or not. If you're here in Eastern Canada, wait till the
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equalization numbers drop from Newfoundland, Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba and other crybabies.
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Watch what happens because I think that's, this is something that you, we don't seem to understand.
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There is no money tree here and you cannot work, you know, you cannot be not concerned about balancing
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budgets and ensuring that we have a viable way of getting capital and investments back into Canada.
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It's been one way out. We need to turn around and buy this kind of stunt by the Liberals tonight to say
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they're not serious about their project. It sells everything we need to do for 2026 as prices of
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everything go up and the country's economic outlook becomes significantly darker.
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Dan McTague, Canadians for Affordable Energy. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Dan. Appreciate it.
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And that is it for this edition of Straight Up. Appreciate you tuning in, my friends. Let's do it