Juno News - Trudeau’s former finance minister SLAMS emissions cap

00:00:00.000 The emissions cap is back at the top of our docket today. However, this time, the war isn't focused

00:00:05.500 between Alberta Premier Daniel Smith and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but between Trudeau

00:00:10.740 and former Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau. Morneau called on Canada to reconsider core

00:00:16.300 liberal policies like the oil and gas emissions cap in light of US President-elect Donald Trump's

00:00:21.820 recent re-election. On the show today, we'll also be discussing former Prime Minister Stephen

00:00:26.700 Harper's possible return to the arena as chair of the Alberta Investment Management Corp,

00:00:31.300 the province potentially adding citizenship status to driver's licenses, national rent

00:00:35.940 decreases, and more. I'm Isaac Lamoureux, your host of the Alberta Roundup, and let's get

00:00:40.700 into that first story now.

00:00:41.940 Former Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau was interviewed on CTV's Question Period,

00:00:58.700 where he highlighted that Canada's approach needs to shift to align with new American priorities

00:01:03.620 following Trump's re-election, and should focus on defense spending, technology, and energy

00:01:09.160 security. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith shared the post of Morneau to X. She said,

00:01:15.700 quote,

00:01:16.520 Even PM Justin Trudeau's former Liberal Finance Minister knows how bad a production cap is for

00:01:22.480 Canada and our economy. Smith, who previously called the oil and gas cap a, quote,

00:01:28.200 deranged vendetta against Alberta, also gave a special thanks to Rona Ambrose for sticking up

00:01:33.980 for the province. Former interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose spoke on the show and referenced that

00:01:39.680 the Liberals have an upcoming economic update at the end of November. She said, quote,

00:01:45.280 I would recommend that if they've written it, they rewrite it, and they look at it,

00:01:49.960 and make sure that it outlines the domestic economic policies that will make us competitive.

00:01:55.100 Morneau said that Canada should consider how it aligns with its southern allies' technology sector,

00:01:59.800 and questioned whether a digital services tax on technology is the right way forward.

00:02:05.280 The Business Council of Canada warned that retaliatory measures from the United States

00:02:10.060 would hurt Canadian businesses, the economy, and families in general. The tax would also impact

00:02:15.020 Canada's relationship with the U.S. when the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement comes up

00:02:20.400 for review in 2026. Morneau said that Canada needs to think about how it will hit defense spending

00:02:26.440 more rapidly than the Liberals have planned. The Parliamentary Budget Officer warned that Canada

00:02:31.340 must double its defense spending to meet its NATO commitment by 2032. Smith was not the only one to

00:02:37.800 comment on what Morneau had to say. Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schultz shared the

00:02:42.760 clip, asking him to give her federal counterpart Stephen Guibault a phone call and talk some sense

00:02:48.400 into him. Hopping into our next story here, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been rumored as

00:02:54.600 the potential new chair of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation. According to Postmedia,

00:03:00.540 sources close to the government say that Premier Smith has wanted Harper to take on the role for

00:03:04.940 some time. However, he apparently needs to take care of some ongoing business activities. These

00:03:09.680 activities don't signal any wrongdoing or anything of the sort, but they could be potential conflicts.

00:03:15.400 AIMCO is one of the top 10 largest pension funds in Canada and is responsible for managing over

00:03:21.040 $160 billion in assets with a 7.3% 10-year annualized rate of return. The pension saw an $8.9 billion

00:03:30.320 investment net return in 2023. Some of the managed assets include the Alberta Teachers Retirement Fund,

00:03:37.460 the Local Authorities Pension Plan, and the Public Service Pension Plan. The pension fund operates

00:03:43.180 independently from the province. It has recently come under new leadership as Alberta Finance Minister

00:03:49.400 Nate Horner announced last week that he would become the sole director and chair until a new chair is

00:03:54.920 appointed within 30 days after sacking the CEO and the entire board. He cited that between 2019 and

00:04:01.580 2023, AIMCO's third-party management fees have increased 96%, the number of employees by 29%,

00:04:09.400 while salary, wage, and benefit costs have increased 71%. These increases apparently came despite the

00:04:16.140 corporation managing a smaller percentage of funds internally. Ray Gilmore, a senior public servant

00:04:21.740 in the provincial government for over five years, has been named interim CEO. Over the past five years,

00:04:27.880 Gilmore oversaw an organization with more than 29,000 employees and a $73 billion budget. Horner said,

00:04:35.660 Ray has been the most trusted official in the province under three premiers. I have complete confidence in

00:04:41.200 his ability to get costs at AIMCO under control and restore stability to the corporation. I reached

00:04:46.860 out to the finance minister for confirmation on whether Harper would become the chair, and he told

00:04:52.540 me, quote, Alberta's government will be announcing the new chair of AIMCO within the next couple weeks.

00:04:57.580 So keep your eyes out on that and let me know whether you'd trust Harper with managing this fund or 0.98

00:05:02.740 whether you'd rather see Harper return in some other way. Now hopping into some interesting news,

00:05:07.800 which is that the Alberta government may be adding citizenship status to provincial driver licenses.

00:05:14.360 Alberta's Minister of Service and Red Tape Production, Dale Nally, spoke briefly about this

00:05:19.520 at the UCP's AGM. He said, quote, one of the things that we're looking at is how we can put citizenship

00:05:25.600 on the driver's license so that when people come to vote, we can make sure they are a Canadian citizen.

00:05:31.440 We know that Smith has been steadfast in protecting election integrity and has promised to ban the use

00:05:37.040 of vote tabulators at both the municipal and provincial levels. And look, we've also seen

00:05:41.960 how useless these tabulators are in the recent BC election, which took weeks to tally. And it seems

00:05:48.340 that these tabulators only ever make election result counting take longer and certainly do nothing to

00:05:55.340 protect the integrity of elections given some of the controversies we've seen about these tabulators

00:06:00.000 in the past. Documents acquired from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service by Postmedia

00:06:05.120 previously showed that Alberta's resources, economy, and strong ethnic communities made it a, quote,

00:06:11.080 very attractive target for foreign interference. The notes said that the foreign interference was

00:06:16.480 not limited to the federal level and could occur provincially and even municipally. The public inquiry

00:06:22.180 into foreign interference focused on China, Russia, and Iran, along with other foreign state or

00:06:27.940 non-state actors that had a particular interest in Alberta. We all know the importance of voter ID

00:06:33.260 in elections, especially in light of the recent electoral results in the United States, where

00:06:38.720 the majority of the states that went Democrat had more lax requirements on voting ID. Yeah, I'm

00:06:44.680 curious. Let me know in the comments if you think that played a role in the US election. So now

00:06:48.980 hopping into a story with a bit more of a national context, that being that rents have decreased

00:06:54.380 nationally for the first time in over three years. This decrease was driven by new rental supply

00:07:00.380 and slower population growth. So the 1.2% annual decrease brings average asking rents for all

00:07:07.220 residential property types in Canada to $2,152 a month. Average rents for houses or townhouses

00:07:14.220 decreased by 5.3%, followed by condos, which saw a 3.8% decrease, and apartments, which saw a 1.7%

00:07:22.400 increase. Rent decreases were most notable in Canada's most expensive provinces, like Ontario and British

00:07:28.240 Columbia, which saw 6% and 3% decreases, respectively. Conversely, Canada's least expensive provinces saw

00:07:35.180 rent increases, led by Saskatchewan with a 17% rise. As Canada's third least expensive province,

00:07:42.000 trailing only Saskatchewan and Manitoba, you might imagine that Alberta saw an increase in rents,

00:07:46.960 and this would be correct. The average rent for all types of apartment and condo rentals in Alberta

00:07:52.100 increased by 6%, which averaged $1,786 per month. However, interestingly, six of the 10 most

00:07:59.840 affordable small and mid-sized cities for average apartment rents in the country were in Alberta.

00:08:05.120 They were Lloyd Minster, Fort McMurray, Grand Prairie, Medicine Hat. In fact, Lloyd Minster was the

00:08:10.780 cheapest of all the listed Canadian markets. However, as you can imagine, it also saw the biggest rent

00:08:17.260 increase of 24.3%. This has been a trend that has continued in Canada, where the most expensive

00:08:23.740 markets are getting cheaper, and the opposite is happening to the cheapest markets. Associate

00:08:28.140 Director of Communications for Rentals.ca, Yakimo Lattis, told me that this is largely attributable

00:08:34.220 to interprovincial migration from Canadians who are seeking affordable living. They're just moving 0.60

00:08:39.020 out of the most expensive provinces to find cheaper living elsewhere. Let me know how you feel about

00:08:43.280 this trend. Lattis said he expects the rent softening to continue over the winter, but expects demand and

00:08:48.980 costs to skyrocket next spring. Now getting into a quick sports update here, and admittedly, I've

00:08:55.360 actually been watching less and less hockey these days because I usually find myself focusing on my

00:09:00.600 work or on my love life, and unfortunately, the latter is kind of like the Leafs in the first round of

00:09:06.980 the playoffs. An epic failure. On the flip side of the coin, Edmonton Oilers captain Connor

00:09:12.220 McDavid became the 99th player to reach the 1,000-point mark. The 659 games it took him makes

00:09:18.320 him the fourth-fastest player to ever do so, surpassed only by Mike Bossy, who did it in 656,

00:09:25.280 Mario Lemieux, who did it in 513, and of course, The Great One, who did it in 424.

00:09:30.900 So that wraps up our stories for the week, but we'll hop into the comment roundup here.

00:09:35.440 The first comment comes from at Braden Ahmet343, who said, quote,

00:09:39.000 I hope we can get a press conference with Danielle Smith and Trump. That would be so cool if they

00:09:43.760 announced the Keystone Project is back on together and both called out Trudeau at the same time.

00:09:48.940 Yeah, so I decided to highlight this comment for various reasons. First and foremost, I see this

00:09:53.280 as a likely possibility, especially considering the fact that Premier Smith has been aligning herself

00:09:58.620 with Trump most recently on Thursday when she announced she and Alberta would be the first

00:10:03.700 non-U.S. state to enter an energy pact with 12 other U.S. states. She even tagged Donald Trump

00:10:09.160 in her ex-post, and I could certainly see them at a press conference together in the near future.

00:10:13.960 Also, we've already discussed that Trump plans to restart the Keystone Project, so I mean,

00:10:18.240 there could be various reasons for the two to meet. The next comment comes from at JudithTaylor4799,

00:10:24.160 who said, quote, Danielle Smith is the best. She really cares about Alberta and Canada.

00:10:28.860 Yeah, so I decided to highlight this comment because, while I obviously agree that what

00:10:34.140 you said is true, why does it seem like so many other leaders in Canada genuinely hate

00:10:39.620 our country? From municipal to provincial to federal politicians, I mean, there seem to

00:10:44.580 be way too many of them that genuinely hate Canada. Every policy they enact works against

00:10:49.960 the country's well-being, and every word they utter puts the country to shame instead of lifting

00:10:54.880 it up. I'm just curious, how is this allowed to be the case? Should our cities, provinces,

00:11:00.100 and countries' leaders not be the most honorable and freedom-loving among us? Not the very opposite?

00:11:06.400 So the last comment today that I'm going to feature is actually a pair of comments. Firstly,

00:11:11.300 from that old white guy, sweet name by the way, who said, quote, this is Canada. One big silly cycle. 0.99

00:11:18.600 Alberta always must pay for eastern. It's always been the east against the west. Nothing new here, 0.96

00:11:24.000 folks. Just new people looking. Yeah, so look, obviously I was too young to be alive during

00:11:28.220 Pierre Trudeau's tenure, but a theme that I've seen popping up is that Justin is just like his

00:11:34.360 father, an enemy of the west. My question is, how can and will the west ever become free of the east's 0.99

00:11:41.680 control? Will the west ever stop bailing the east out through equalization payments and otherwise?

00:11:46.840 I mean, I somehow find it doubtful. And the second comment that I wanted to attach to this was from

00:11:51.940 at Nipples of Destiny, who explained the history of Canadian politics quite nicely

00:11:56.080 when they said, quote, conservative, conservative, liberal. Oh no, conservative to clean up the

00:12:01.680 liberal's mess. And the cycle repeats itself. Look, in studying history, this seems to always be the

00:12:06.900 case. And I'm wondering whether anyone has any examples of it not being true. What was it that

00:12:11.780 Albert Einstein said again? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting

00:12:17.300 different results. So I'd like to thank everyone for watching this episode of the Alberta Roundup.

00:12:23.180 Please let me know if you have any ideas for additional segments of the show or other things

00:12:27.820 that I could implement to make the show better. I'm always open to constructive criticism. I've always,

00:12:33.620 since I started, since I took over the Alberta Roundup, really want to make this a show

00:12:37.380 that I build together with you. Thank you and God bless. Have a great weekend.

00:12:47.300 Thank you.

Juno News - November 16, 2024

Trudeau’s former finance minister SLAMS emissions cap

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