Juno News - December 06, 2019


＂We're seeing a repeat of what his father did,＂ Dr. Ted Morton sits down with Candice Malcolm


Episode Stats

Length

10 minutes

Words per Minute

169.91606

Word Count

1,714

Sentence Count

81

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 I'm joined by former finance minister and original author of the Alberta Firewall letter,
00:00:10.840 Ted Morton. Ted, thank you so much for being here with us today.
00:00:14.480 I'm happy to be here, Candice.
00:00:15.960 So, you know, there's a big question at this convention here, this AGM,
00:00:19.540 about the fair deal proposal that the Kennedy government has put forth.
00:00:23.360 And if you look back at the firewall letter, the original letter that you wrote with some
00:00:27.000 of your colleagues, a lot of the things that you asked and demanded of Ralph Klein are now included,
00:00:32.280 you know, in an Alberta-based pension plan, removing funding from the police, and some other things.
00:00:38.920 So how do you think, Kenny, is handling the idea of helping Alberta become a little bit more independent?
00:00:48.040 And what do you think of the current political situation?
00:00:52.280 Well, a lot of us have seen what's happened in the last few years under Justin Trudeau's
00:00:56.920 kind of a repeat of what his father did in 1980-81 with the National Energy Program.
00:01:02.400 It seems like an NEP 2.0, right?
00:01:05.640 And yet this time it's hit even harder in terms of its impact, not just in corporate head offices,
00:01:11.380 which are half empty in downtown, but it's hitting Main Street and families as well.
00:01:17.240 You know, unemployment, there have been over 150,000 jobs lost.
00:01:19.860 So it's a tough situation right now.
00:01:23.440 And the last election showed yet again that the liberal strategy of buying votes in central Canada
00:01:31.120 with transfers, financial transfers, out of western Canada.
00:01:35.800 You've got a whole bunch of voters but no oil and gas in eastern Canada.
00:01:40.040 You've got a little number of voters out here, but with lots of oil and gas.
00:01:43.800 And if you can move money from the west to buy the votes in the east, you don't elect any seats in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
00:01:51.720 It doesn't make any difference.
00:01:52.440 We don't have enough members in the House of Commons to make any difference.
00:01:55.000 So just like Trudeau didn't win anything, Pierre didn't win anything in 1980, but he still got a majority government.
00:02:00.880 Justin only got a minority government this time, right?
00:02:02.880 But it's a depressing pattern, and I think it'll keep repeating itself unless Alberta takes steps to maximize its autonomy,
00:02:12.520 its ability to be self-governing, and so forth.
00:02:14.620 And that's what the firewall was about back in 2000, 2001.
00:02:19.240 And I think both the Alberta people and Premier Kennedy have seen that it's time to take some steps like that
00:02:25.840 to basically protect Alberta's future.
00:02:28.860 So that letter was written, what, 20 years ago now, and you argued in a recent op-ed that in so many ways,
00:02:36.640 Alberta's in a worse situation now in Confederation within Canada than it was 20, 30 years ago,
00:02:42.220 despite all of the political movements, all of the achievements that we have seen, you know, the west once in,
00:02:47.700 and then with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the west was in.
00:02:50.820 And yet here we are in 2019 coming into 2020, and we see the country sort of falling apart in many ways.
00:02:57.900 You know, when the CN rail strike was happening, ground to a halt, and we can't seem to build critical infrastructure.
00:03:03.580 We have a resurgent bloc in Quebec and a new separatist movement out here in Alberta.
00:03:08.520 So how has it happened that we're in such a bad situation today?
00:03:12.460 Well, it was a very depressing piece for me to write because my bottom line was what my generation,
00:03:19.780 the kind of the baby boom generation of Alberta political leadership, you know, I was sort of mid-tier,
00:03:23.980 but we had great leaders, Peter Lougheed, Preston Manning, Stephen Harper.
00:03:28.460 And despite that leadership, despite all the hard work, I think it's been proven in the last couple of years
00:03:34.720 that we're even more vulnerable today than we were back in the 1980s, 1990s.
00:03:42.660 And I walked through 15 different, I think it was about 15 different points,
00:03:46.380 where what we had in 1980, we've either lost or it's been eroded.
00:03:50.100 But the bottom line for me was it would be wrong for my generation to tell your generation,
00:03:56.860 just keep fighting the good fight.
00:03:58.200 What we did was well-intentioned, hard, great leadership, good ideas, but it didn't work.
00:04:05.260 And so I think the bottom line is your generation has to come up with a plan B
00:04:09.880 to figure out how better to protect not just Alberta, I think it was certainly Saskatchewan,
00:04:14.840 but even British Columbia gets soaked pretty well by all the federal transfers as well.
00:04:20.000 That what structural changes can we take internally to better protect ourselves against this?
00:04:26.300 And can that then be used as leverage to get some changes out of Ottawa and the rest of Canada
00:04:31.540 to make Canada work better?
00:04:33.400 Canada's not working right now.
00:04:35.000 Yeah, I agree.
00:04:35.720 It's almost like the framework is there because Quebec is sort of this special circumstance
00:04:39.500 where they view themselves as having their own culture and being their own nation of people.
00:04:42.820 Canada is designed to be a very decentralized federation in a way that the United States
00:04:47.120 really isn't.
00:04:47.820 So we have the weak federal government and the strong provinces,
00:04:50.740 and yet we're still in a situation where that's not really being borne out.
00:04:54.900 So do you think that the changes can be made within the framework of the existing confederation?
00:05:00.160 Or what do you say to people who think that Alberta needs to go it alone
00:05:03.280 or Western Canada needs to separate?
00:05:04.980 Well, I think you have the status quo, which an increasing number of Albertans and Westerners
00:05:13.040 think is just unacceptable because we're just too prone to being economically pillaged
00:05:19.900 by the Liberal Party of Canada to buy votes in the East.
00:05:24.640 And then on the other extreme, you have the separatist option,
00:05:27.540 and then suddenly instead of it being kind of a fringe 5% or 10%, it's up, what, to 20% or 25%.
00:05:32.420 But there's a whole bunch of room, policy room in between.
00:05:35.880 And I think what Premier Kenney is doing with the Fair Deal panel and the Fair Deal initiative
00:05:42.580 is to say, let's go out and look at some ideas that were already out there.
00:05:48.140 We're bringing them back, putting them on the table.
00:05:49.680 Well, let's discuss them and let Albertans decide what are kind of the middle grounds
00:05:54.800 between the two extremes of the status quo or separatism,
00:05:59.200 both of which I think Premier Kenney has made pretty clear are unacceptable to him
00:06:02.940 and also unacceptable to a growing number of Albertans.
00:06:05.760 So I think it's an exciting time.
00:06:07.440 I think it's going to be kind of democracy in action, lots of policy discussion,
00:06:13.960 which is what democracy is supposed to be about.
00:06:15.920 And I think, again, Premier Kenney was smart when he said any of the big decisions,
00:06:22.280 like an Alberta pension plan, this won't be a decision that just Jason Kenney makes
00:06:27.080 or the UCP caucus makes.
00:06:28.540 He said, if we go down this road, it'll be Albertans' choice,
00:06:31.400 and he said he'll put it to a referendum.
00:06:33.260 So I think that should give Albertans a certain amount of confidence
00:06:36.860 to have a really robust, open discussion about all these options
00:06:40.600 because at the end of the day, it's going to be Albertans who make the decision,
00:06:43.860 not just Jason Kenney and the UCP.
00:06:45.740 So I thought that was both clever of him to do, but also the right thing to do.
00:06:49.860 Great.
00:06:50.140 And just one last question.
00:06:51.740 So you look down in the United States and you spend some time in the northern states
00:06:55.220 and their energy industry is booming and there's low unemployment
00:06:59.480 in places like North Dakota.
00:07:01.780 Things are going really, really well.
00:07:03.640 You look at Canada and it's almost like if you talk to the pundits and economists,
00:07:08.840 people are saying that we're going towards the end of oil and gas production in Canada.
00:07:13.320 Why is it so different?
00:07:15.160 You know, just a couple miles away, you know, you have a booming industry.
00:07:18.420 What can Canadian leaders learn from leaders in the United States
00:07:21.920 and why is it such a drastic difference?
00:07:24.480 Well, it's being caused by policy, not price.
00:07:29.500 Everywhere in North America, all the oil and gas producing states and provinces
00:07:33.340 had a recession, a fallback in 14-15 because of a price collapse.
00:07:38.260 But since late 2015-2016, the oil and gas sector has totally rebounded south of the border,
00:07:44.580 as you just noted, whereas we've gotten worse and worse.
00:07:47.760 So there's a global demand out there.
00:07:49.680 There's a North American demand out there.
00:07:51.380 But a combination of very well-funded, well-organized, Rockefeller Foundation-funded,
00:07:58.200 you know, landlocked the oil sands, no more pipelines.
00:08:01.420 They have a strategy pouring lots of money into Canada, frankly.
00:08:05.040 Outrageous political interference in Canada's elections and democracy to stop pipelines.
00:08:13.180 And you have then a Liberal Party and, much worse, the NDP and the Greens that have bought into it 100%.
00:08:19.440 And so we're at a crossroads.
00:08:24.300 We have been, say one thing, good that my generation has done.
00:08:28.840 We've made Alberta the single largest contributor to Canada's economy, right?
00:08:33.440 Both in terms of a single sector, not just GDP, but also all the transfers,
00:08:40.400 that $600 billion over the last 30 years, $200 billion just since 2000.
00:08:46.680 And now these same people, well, again, mostly Quebec, or certainly led by Quebec,
00:08:52.400 the very people that are getting 66 cents of every equalization dollar
00:08:56.000 now want to shut down the very economy, the energy sector in Western Canada
00:09:01.540 that generates this kind of wealth.
00:09:03.000 So we're at a crossroads.
00:09:06.380 It's an important time for Alberta and for Canada.
00:09:10.000 I'm very excited about the Fair Deal Committee,
00:09:12.200 and I'm looking forward to a really robust public discussion of what our options are.
00:09:17.240 That's going to be a discussion inside of Alberta.
00:09:19.460 But then also there's going to be a discussion between Alberta and the rest of Canada,
00:09:23.080 and that's going to be a good discussion too.
00:09:24.940 Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Ted Morton.
00:09:26.720 Thank you for joining True North Nation and our True North Report.
00:09:29.540 We really appreciate it.
00:09:30.460 I'm happy to be here this morning.
00:09:33.000 Thank you.
00:09:34.380 Thank you.
00:09:34.740 Thank you.
00:09:34.840 Thank you.
00:09:35.260 Thank you.