The fight of our lives
Episode Stats
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Summary
Candice Candice Malala Malala is the co-founder of the True North Initiative, a group dedicated to fighting climate change and championing clean, affordable, and sustainable energy. In this episode, Candice talks about the need for a pipeline from Alberta's oil sands to the rest of the country, and why she believes the pipeline should be built.
Transcript
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Canada is an energy producing superpower. We produce more than four million barrels of oil
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per day. We use the world's most sophisticated techniques and procedures, many of them developed
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right here in Canada. And we have the world's strongest and most comprehensive environmental
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framework. We have the world's third largest proven reserves of fossil fuels. And unlike
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most oil producing countries in the world, Canada is a Western liberal democracy. We have freedom,
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opportunity, and equal rights for all. We should be the world's leader in responsible development
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of fossil fuels. We should be setting an example of how a hydrocarbon industry should be run.
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But Canada has a problem, and it's a political problem. We simply refuse to do what's in our own
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best interest. We allow special interest groups and lobbyists to set the agenda. We let foreign
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funded activists sabotage our industry. We let radical ideological fringe people dictate the
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public policies and influence our way of life. We ignore the hardworking Canadian families,
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especially the folks who work in the natural resource industry, the backbone of our economy,
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the industry that developed our entire country. Nine percent of the entire Canadian labor force,
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but 1.7 million Canadians are directly or indirectly employed through Canada's natural
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resources industry. These folks are ignored, they're taken for granted, and they're often even
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demonized. In Canada, we punish ourselves with punitive and regressive taxes that make life less
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affordable. We kill infrastructure projects that would create good-paying jobs and make our energy
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more affordable. Canada produces more oil than we can consume, but we can't get any pipelines built
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to get our products to market. On one side of the country, we lose billions because we're forced to
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export our oil at a loss. And then on the other side of the country, we spend billions because we
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import foreign oil from countries that are actually willing to produce and ship their petroleum products.
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And so where's the leadership? Where are the people who are capable of addressing these important
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and high-level issues and the ones that are leading our country into the future? At a time like this,
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we really do need real leadership, someone who understands Canada's vital interests, someone
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who can guide us as a world leader and as an energy superpower. But we don't have that. We have an
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environment minister who says this. But let's be clear, climate change has huge costs now. I have no
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time for folks who are like, you know, we shouldn't take action. What do you mean you have no time?
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You've got to have time. Your job is to have time for folks that care about this issue and want to
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understand it. But no, I don't have time for politicians that play cynical games about climate
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action. We have a prime minister who says this. We can't shut down the oil sands tomorrow. We need to
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phase them out. We need to manage the transition off of our dependence on fossil fuels. That is going to
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take time. And in the meantime, we have to manage that transition. Now, Trudeau is just a pretty face.
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He said himself that he sees his role as symbolic. So who's really running our country? Well, this is
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Trudeau's best friend and his top advisors. Liberal members of parliament jokingly call him the prime
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minister. And here's what he thinks about pipeline politics. Truth be told, we don't think there ought
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to be a carbon-based energy industry by the middle of this century. That's our policy in Canada, and it's
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our policy all over the world. You can choose to fight this fight on locking us into a high carbon
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economy for five decades. And I think that's a very reasonable perspective to take. In fact, it's
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one we do take. So we don't think that we think that the oil sands have been expanded too rapidly
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without a serious plan for environmental remediation in the first place. So that's why we don't think
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it's up to us to decide whether there should be another another route for a pipeline, because the real
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alternative is not an alternative route. It's an alternative economy. If this picture doesn't make sense
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to you, well, don't worry, you're not alone. You're one of millions of Canadians that want decisions made
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based on the national interest, making sure that Canadians have good paying jobs, reliable access to
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affordable energy, and that Canada remains the world leader in environmental protection and safety.
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This is the fight of our lives. Join us on our campaign for energy security. For the True