Juno News - June 03, 2025


The REAL STORY behind Carney’s meeting with the premiers + Alberta independence (ft. Ted Morton)


Episode Stats

Length

13 minutes

Words per Minute

177.56796

Word Count

2,332

Sentence Count

146

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show. We have a great episode for you
00:00:06.920 folks. We have Dr. Ted Morton joining the program in just a little bit. But first, I want to talk
00:00:11.720 about what happened yesterday in Saskatoon. So as you know, Prime Minister Mark Carney met with
00:00:17.280 the premiers in Saskatoon for their annual first ministers meeting. This meeting was focused on
00:00:22.240 nation building, focused on removing interprovincial trade barriers to strengthen
00:00:26.940 Canada's economy amid U.S. trade pressures. Now, if you listen to the legacy media, if you watch the
00:00:32.700 CBC, they will tell you that this meeting was a staggering success, that Mark Carney is a grown-up,
00:00:38.680 that he commanded the room, that he seems committed to working together, even with conservative
00:00:43.080 premiers, to grow our economy. Let me just give you a sample of some of the glowing media coverage that
00:00:48.820 he received. So here is our friends over at the National Post. The best meeting we've had in 10
00:00:53.160 years, Carney premiers united on nation building projects. Next, from the CBC, premiers express
00:00:58.080 optimism after pitching major projects to Carney. Next, CTV News says premiers heap praise on meeting
00:01:05.820 with Mark Carney, but no specific projects identified. That's a key point. We'll get to that in a minute.
00:01:10.460 Next, from Global News, Mark Carney and premiers say they're united on energy projects, but no final list.
00:01:17.160 And even the Calgary Herald, check out this headline, folks. Daniel Smith vows to work with Carney,
00:01:22.340 says he's way better than Justin Trudeau. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith hasn't scored a pipeline,
00:01:28.640 but she's willing to work with Prime Minister Carney, saying he is nothing like Justin Trudeau. So if
00:01:35.400 you just listen to that, you would think, wow, Canada's on the right track. Mark Carney has sure
00:01:39.340 gotten the job done. And I'm willing to hold out hope for optimism. I'm a generally optimistic person
00:01:44.660 about the future. Maybe Mark Carney really is nothing like Justin Trudeau. Maybe he really will placate
00:01:50.520 the radical environmentalist faction of his own party and commit to building pipelines.
00:01:56.220 But I am going to give it two straight. I'm a little more skeptical, a little bit more pessimistic.
00:02:02.140 And I'm going to tell you why. Let me just walk you through first what happened. So here is what
00:02:05.580 Mark Carney wrote on X. He posted this after his meeting. He writes, the premiers and I want to
00:02:10.960 make Canada a global energy superpower and build the strongest economy in the G7. Wow. So do I.
00:02:16.160 That's almost sounds like a conservative. He says, we're working together to break down trade
00:02:20.580 barriers across the country and get big nation building projects off the ground. I just have
00:02:25.020 to point this out. Check out this picture that he posted. And if we just zoom in on Premier Danielle
00:02:29.320 Smith, look at her face. She just doesn't look happy in this picture. What an odd choice for a photo to
00:02:34.600 post on social media. Next, here is Mark Carney telling reporters that the energy projects will be
00:02:41.080 selected using specific criteria to meet Canada's highest environmental standards. Let's play that
00:02:48.320 clip. I think there's a shared understanding based on our discussion of the main criteria for
00:02:53.500 consideration. I've listed them there in the communique. I'm not going to repeat them given
00:02:56.940 interest of time. What's being clear is what's being put in place or what is being proposed will be
00:03:02.860 proposed in legislation is the ability of the federal government to devote the right resources
00:03:07.720 to these projects to make quick decisions about those projects that way respect our environmental
00:03:13.940 responsibilities, other responsibilities, work with the provinces directly to move forward and to get
00:03:19.200 the country building. Now, specifically, he also said that Canada is open to building pipelines. This is
00:03:25.360 the big question, the big point of contention. Will there be new pipelines built under the Mark Carney
00:03:29.540 Liberal government? He said he's open to it, but it has to be specifically for what he calls
00:03:33.620 decarbonized oil. Let's play that clip. Specifically within energy, opportunities, yes, for an oil pipeline,
00:03:40.940 oil pipeline to get to tidewater. Now, within the broader context of national interest, the interest is
00:03:47.400 in, as mentioned in the press release, decarbonized barrels. So working alongside forms of decarbonization
00:03:54.640 for those barrels. That is absolutely in our interest. Decarbonized. Okay, we're going to break that down a
00:03:59.640 little bit. So at the end of the day, despite all the excitement, all of the positive praise from
00:04:04.100 legacy media and some premiers, there was no specific projects that were identified. We're not leaving
00:04:09.860 this meeting with anything concrete planned. There's no deal signed. There's nothing listed. Carney
00:04:15.720 emphasized that any project has to meet the highest environmental standards. So does that mean that he's
00:04:20.840 just going to say that he would, in theory, be okay with an oil pipeline, but then it will be destined to
00:04:26.940 get rejected once the environmental standards get applied. I mean, that's what Bill C-69, after all,
00:04:32.480 is all about. Next, Carney talked about decarbonized oil. So by this, he's meaning carbon catcher,
00:04:39.300 which is a hugely expensive project that basically the private sector doesn't see the willing, they're
00:04:45.520 not willing to invest in it because it's so expensive. It doesn't really help with their bottom
00:04:49.320 line. And there's no guarantee at the end of the day that the government will be in agreement with
00:04:53.720 future oil and gas development. So it's not really worth the investment. That's why the governments
00:04:57.280 have to get involved in the first place, because there isn't really a business case for this stuff.
00:05:01.180 And finally, Mark Carney says that, just like Justin Trudeau said, the projects need to have
00:05:06.180 First Nations involvement and essentially approval. So we're sort of talking about a veto power,
00:05:12.220 right? The idea that you could have 95 percent of First Nations agreeing with a project, but then you can
00:05:17.480 always find some unelected hereditary chiefs to block the project. That's exactly what happened with the
00:05:22.760 coastal gas leak pipeline in British Columbia. So forgive my skepticism. But this all sounds a lot
00:05:28.840 like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. It sounds a lot like the liberal government that we've had
00:05:32.920 over the past 10 years. And at the end of the day, why would people like Gerald Butts, Kathleen
00:05:39.200 McKenna, and Stéphane Guilbault, why would they backmark Carney if they believed that he was just going
00:05:44.480 to turn on them and build the pipeline? I kind of think that there's more going on behind the scenes.
00:05:48.140 So we're going to have to wait and see. Maybe we should be optimistic. Maybe we should be happy
00:05:53.440 that Carney is at least at the table and having these discussions with people like Premier Daniel
00:05:57.780 Smith. And she seems like she's somewhat happy by the meeting. But again, I'm still a little bit
00:06:04.780 skeptical. Okay, I want to bring on our guest to get his comments and thoughts on all of this. I'm
00:06:09.720 very pleased today to be meeting with one of the biggest figures in politics in Alberta. I'm talking
00:06:14.860 about Dr. Ted Morton. He was a key figure at the Calgary School, the University of Calgary,
00:06:19.480 where he taught for decades. He co-authored the 2001 Firewall Letter, pushing for Alberta's
00:06:24.980 provincial autonomy. Of course, he was a progressive conservative MLA in that province from 2004 to
00:06:30.340 2012. And he's an author of a very important book that was published in 2020 called The Moment
00:06:35.660 of Truth, How to Think About Alberta's Future, that was published alongside economist Jack Mintz and
00:06:40.400 Professor Tom Flanagan. So, Dr. Morton, thank you so much for joining us.
00:06:46.280 It's good to be with you again, Candace.
00:06:48.180 So, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the first minister's meeting and all of the news that
00:06:54.400 came out of it.
00:06:55.560 Well, I listened to your introductory remarks and I guess I share your skepticism. I think we can be
00:07:02.560 confident that Mark Carney is a lot more intelligent than Justin Trudeau. But does that make him
00:07:07.800 better or more dangerous? And he still seems to be dancing around both sides. Decarbonized oil,
00:07:16.500 what's that going to mean? But I think to be fair, both to him and to Premiers Smith and Moe,
00:07:25.000 Saskatchewan and Alberta Premiers, I think we're kind of in a honeymoon period or a trial marriage,
00:07:31.460 whatever you want to call it. And they're hoping that I think Carney, the banker, the economist will
00:07:39.000 prevail over Carney, the politician. And I think one of the quotations I read from Daniel Smith,
00:07:49.020 Premier Smith of Alberta, was that any of these big infrastructure corridors that you want to build,
00:07:55.060 whether it's east, west or north, you're looking at billions and billions of dollars.
00:08:01.060 How are you going to pay for that? The only way you're going to pay for it is to start getting
00:08:04.420 more Western Canadian oil and gas to global markets or global prices at economically competitive rates.
00:08:16.040 So I think we're in a, as I said, a trial marriage or a honeymoon that lasts maybe a couple months,
00:08:23.520 maybe. But clearly, Moe and Smith, Alberta and Saskatchewan, are going to see the talk turned into action.
00:08:32.980 Well, and the fact that they're saying that behind the scenes or around the table,
00:08:36.560 he's much better than Justin Trudeau. I mean, I interviewed Premier Smith back when Mark Carney was
00:08:40.860 just running for liberal leader. And she worried that because of his book values and his ideology
00:08:45.780 that he professed, that he was going to be worse than Justin Trudeau. So I want to go back to some
00:08:50.720 of Smith's words right here in Calgary. Harold Ron Bell writes that Smith vows to work with Carney
00:08:56.040 and says he's way better than Justin Trudeau. The premier says Carney is a dramatic improvement over
00:09:00.440 Trudeau since he recognizes the value of Alberta oil and wants to get it to market and get it to Asia.
00:09:05.780 On X, she posted that she was encouraged by the discussions that she had.
00:09:09.180 And I want to play a few clips. So first, here she is yesterday speaking to reporters,
00:09:14.360 saying that specifically there are nine terrible laws and terrible policies that are hurting
00:09:19.520 investment and that this is what she wants to see addressed. Let's play this quick clip.
00:09:24.820 I think that there seems to be an appetite to talk about getting pipelines built so that we can get
00:09:31.040 oil and gas to market. The problem is, unless we address the nine terrible policies that have
00:09:36.160 that have damaged investor confidence, we're not going to get the proponents coming forward with
00:09:41.120 major investment. So she's laid out these nine terrible laws, terrible policies. She put it in a
00:09:46.220 letter that she gave to him before the meeting. And yet, I don't think that any of these were really
00:09:50.680 addressed. So yes, Mark Kearney is showing up at the table. Yes, he's giving lip service to the idea
00:09:55.300 of building nation building projects and getting Canada's economy off the ground. But the specific,
00:09:59.240 the devil's in the details. And I don't think that he's addressed the details at all. What do you
00:10:03.520 think of that? I would tend to agree. I saw nothing in the news coverage specifically referring
00:10:13.760 to the reversal or removal or amending of any of those nine policies. As I mentioned to you just
00:10:20.600 before we came on, of those nine policies, I think four or five have been enacted just in the four or five
00:10:27.200 past years. So the book that you referenced, Moment of Truth, that Jack Mance and Tom Flanagan and I did
00:10:35.480 five years ago, we thought we make the case then that it's time for the Western premiers to start
00:10:43.740 playing offense rather than defense because things were getting worse. And of the nine policies that
00:10:50.060 Smith and Mo have identified as necessary to move forward, almost half of those are since we wrote
00:10:58.100 that book five years ago. So things have been getting worse, not better. What's Kearney going to do?
00:11:04.720 Well, it's going to be an interesting six months. Well, I think you might have to write an updated
00:11:09.960 chapter on that book because I did interview you right after that book came out. And it was almost
00:11:15.000 more abstract back then. And now I'm just, I'm looking at the title again, right? So how to think
00:11:19.460 about Alberta's future. And you have a sort of like a weather vane or one of those signs pointing
00:11:24.980 different directions. And the options are go it alone, 51st state, let them freeze, roll over,
00:11:29.900 pop on a bust, or build a firewall, which seems sort of like you had a crystal ball and you were looking
00:11:35.300 into the future at what the conversation might look like in 2025. Well, that was the reality in 2020,
00:11:39.880 but then COVID hit and it pushed everything else off, off the, if you like, the political map,
00:11:45.700 the public awareness for what, a year and a half, at least. And so, but we're not just back to where
00:11:54.440 we were in many respects, the oil and gas producing provinces, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and BC to what it's
00:12:02.420 considered are worse off today than we were five years ago. Certainly interesting. Okay. Well, I do think
00:12:08.000 that the elephant in the room in all of these discussions with the first minister's meeting
00:12:12.660 yesterday really comes down to the future of Alberta and Alberta independence. So I do want to
00:12:17.500 ask you a few questions about this, Dr. Morton, but for folks on YouTube, we're going to cut the video
00:12:22.360 off here. And if you want to watch the rest of the conversation, it's going to be good. Head on over
00:12:26.360 to Juno News, become a premium subscriber, and you can enjoy the rest of this interview right now.
00:12:38.000 Thank you.