00:00:16.400Let's get your take on what just took place in Quebec, with the Conservatives having
00:00:23.360an uncharacteristically strong showing, but a PQ win. How do you think that will resonate with,
00:00:30.080say, independence-minded Albertans? How will they see that heading into the referendum vote?
00:00:37.200You know, it's hard to take apart aggregated votes and then come up with a specific motivation.
00:00:44.800You know, there'll be different reasons why different people voted the way they did
00:00:49.360in in every direction there but i think there's three things going on one is there's dissatisfaction
00:00:56.320with affordability in general you know i think across a lot of different markets there's
00:01:02.160dissatisfaction with the state canada's in and i think quebec is in a particularly tough place
00:01:07.520with respect to trade and what's happening in the economy and there's a bit of a renaissance
00:01:12.000happening with conservative politics vis-a-vis the current status quo on the liberal side and
00:01:17.680And so I think when you put those things together and you have this concern that's being tapped into by separatist sentiment, or I like to call it independent sentiment, there's a sense that there's probably some things that Canada needs to change fast, I think, in order to address some of the issues that people have, many of which are not characterized easily as separatist or federalist.
00:01:40.340are more just issues around the architecture of the country, its representation,
00:01:44.580and the quality of life and the decline in that quality of life over the last 10 years.
00:01:49.380Well, the posts that I've seen from people like Jeff Rath and others involved in the independence
00:01:54.020movement in Alberta is that they now have an ally in Quebec once the PQ government is settled in.
00:02:01.780They see that as a positive going into the referendum vote. Do you think it'll sway any
00:02:07.620albertans into voting a certain way look i think if you look at the polling in alberta and it's
00:02:13.220good to ground things in data to the extent that we can you you see effectively or the way that i
00:02:18.660read the polls about a third of albertans are open to the idea of an independence discussion uh you
00:02:25.860know the referendum is currently phrased as a referendum about having a referendum on independence
00:02:30.260and you have a third that seem open to that you have a third that are absolutely closed to that
00:02:34.580And then you have a third in the middle that I call skeptical federalists who are not satisfied
00:02:39.220with the status quo of where Canada is at right now, but they also don't want to move Alberta
00:02:44.820directly into the independence column, but they are not scared of having an open debate about
00:02:50.020elements of that. And I think you'll see some of that reflected in the first nine questions
00:02:54.500in the Alberta referendum. And actually, I think if you ask those first nine questions of every
00:02:59.300canadian you would have some solid majorities on aspects of those questions dealing with
00:03:05.060judiciary law enforcement immigration benefits what people know is open benefits fraud through
00:03:11.780an immigration asylum policy that's completely out of control across the country and i think
00:03:17.380some of what's being reflected in the independence movement is actually capturing a much broader
00:03:21.860concern by people that would never characterize themselves as being for independence they're
00:03:26.180very concerned over the total loss of control over the borders uh growing uh presence of of0.98
00:03:33.780openly islamist sentiment being expressed in all kinds of horrible ways and openly in cities that0.94
00:03:40.420used to be safe uh particularly for the jewish uh population that's it's long-standing canadian
00:03:46.420population for the first time is actually dealing with shots being taken and and a bail system in a
00:03:51.860judiciary that is completely out of touch you know somebody can shoot at an embassy and and be let out
00:03:57.060on bail how's that possible like we you know you have you have every literally every week you see
00:04:04.260a new horror show of a judge that's decided that someone that's perpetrated a horrific crime uh
00:04:10.340needs to be treated with kid gloves at the same time that that victims and their families have
00:04:15.700issues that go completely unaddressed by the system and that that is starting to show up in
00:04:21.380in things like this where people just say i'm losing the sense that any common sense is going
00:04:26.340to break through here until i shake this government to wake it um so i think there's i think there's a
00:04:31.460lot of social issues that are pushing people in that direction i think you'll see those reflected
00:04:34.980in the results of the first nine questions which people often forget to talk about but in my mind
00:04:39.620are actually the most important parts of that referendum discussion and then in the the final
00:04:44.180question about whether it gets taken to a referendum, I don't see data evidence that
00:04:48.440it will reach the 50% point. But I do believe that you're going to see it in the 30s and maybe
00:04:54.720higher, depending on what happens the next week, that could sort of motivate people to get out and
00:04:59.240say, I want to treat this as a wake-up call for a government that's lost touch. And they appreciate
00:05:05.360what the prime minister is trying to do to generate better economic outcomes by some new
00:05:10.780common sense moves, but also they don't see the shift that needs to be seen in a lot of the
00:05:16.220everyday things that are changing and have changed their experience of a country that
00:05:21.420looks totally different than it did 10, 12 years ago. You posted this, Latin America equals
00:05:28.160conservative renaissance. You're talking about the vote that just took place in Brazil, which is
00:05:32.940still subject to a runoff. I think it's almost three weeks from now, like 19 days. You say in
00:05:39.880In the past 18 months, seven nations have joined the political wave that started with
00:05:44.640the cultural and economic renaissance in El Salvador under Bukele, and the economic miracle
00:20:17.300Well, I don't think Canada's ripped off America. So I disagree with the president. The president won't care that I disagree with him. But I think I know a couple people. I was at the inauguration. I've got some good friends that are involved with the current administration. I don't think anybody in the administration thinks Canada's been ripping off America or that America's been ripping off Canada. I think that they know that we are going to try and protect industries that matter a lot to us. And we're the we're the smaller player on the field. But that means we have to be more tactical. And the surprise to them of the last year is how untactical we've been.
00:20:47.300And I know people that are engaged on the trade front, and they're just wondering what our game is, what we're going to do next.
00:20:55.540They're not waiting. They're going to keep doing what they're doing.
00:20:58.460I think with Venezuela in particular, you know, Venezuela and Canada produce almost chemically identical forms of crude.
00:21:06.360Theirs is called Mary Crude. Ours is obviously from the oil stands.
00:21:10.300And the country that most needs the crude that they lost from the rendition of Maduro and the taking over of Venezuela's China, they did 550,000 barrels a day of merry crude, the heavy crude that can only be replaced by our crude.
00:21:24.560And that is a pipeline for us, you know, that we should have immediately underway and supply China with the replacement of that crude.
00:21:33.660I've talked with friends in the States.
00:21:35.220And the interesting thing about the way the great powers are competing right now is the
00:21:40.240Americans would fully support Canada building a supply of heavy crude directly to China
00:21:45.060because they would love to see another country that is a mediating country like Canada have
00:21:50.520the Chinese depend for part of their energy security on Canadians, which is allied to
00:22:03.260And the way the teapot refinery system is structured, you need that chemistry for it to
00:22:08.540work. You don't want to take that refinery system down. So it's a perfect trade for the
00:22:14.660Chinese. It's perfect for us. It's perfect for the Americans. It's great for the world. We make1.00
00:22:18.160a lot of money. The Chinese end up getting secure supply from a reliable country. And if the Chinese
00:22:24.220misbehave in some way we don't like, we would have trade leverage and energy security leverage0.77
00:22:28.440with the Chinese in our negotiations. And the Americans don't mind that we do. And so I think
00:22:33.220Some of the mistakes being made with the Canada-U.S. conversation right now are that we haven't been as overtly realist in the world we're now living in as a nation and describing what we want in clear ways and then deciding if it works or it doesn't work.
00:22:48.560The biggest problem I had with us walking away from the table is no one knows what was on that table.
00:22:54.300And so there's a question, and it's a similar question we were just talking about.
00:22:57.240The question is, to what extent were some of the things on the table going to be changed for the purposes of satisfying domestic political interests for the Liberal Party or for Premier Ford versus good enough to get on with the deal and then wait for some of the other pieces on heavy trucks and other things for another round?
00:23:15.900So there's real questions right now about why we can't have an open conversation as a country
00:23:20.980and an open debate about what's good enough, because we haven't escaped. We're right back
00:23:27.520to where we were the day before we walked away from the table, which is now what are they going
00:23:31.800to put on the table? And here's the burning question. Have the Americans seen anything
00:23:35.880that tells them that they need to put something different or better on the table? Did we bring
00:23:40.780any new leverage since we walked away. And if we if we haven't, then we have a fundamental issue
00:23:46.640that we have to address. And that's going to be, I think, the real sort of struggle for us as a
00:23:51.880country is how do we come back to the table with something new and different and compelling that
00:23:57.060says, here's how I believe we can create the largest free trade zone in the world between
00:24:01.960Canada and the United States, drop these tariffs across the board and start to create what will
00:24:07.220become the example to the world of the fullest, freest possible trade. Tie that also to a North
00:24:14.100American fortress security structure where we integrate our armed forces, their armed forces,
00:24:19.280as we have with NORAD anyway, but take that across the board. Join AUKUS for the submarine
00:24:24.100warfare platform with the UK and Australia and the US for the North and just open this thing up
00:24:30.860and quit pretending that, you know, Telesat's ever going to compete with SpaceX for satellite-based