Juno News - Why Canada needs a Pacific pipeline NOW

00:00:00.000 Maduro has been deposed. Many in the left are siding with a brutal dictator who steals

00:00:07.000 elections and many loathe US President Donald Trump so much they'd rather Venezuela be run

00:00:12.480 by China and Iran. Happy New Year, Juno News. Great to be back with you. I'm Alexander Brown,

00:00:17.580 host of Not Sorry. I'm the director of the National Citizens Coalition, writer, communicator,

00:00:22.700 campaigner, jack of all trades, master of none. Really thrilled to be back with you for another

00:00:27.800 year. And while I am here, take advantage of my promo code, junonews.com slash not sorry for 20%

00:00:35.440 off. There's so much great work at Juno. We had some holiday episodes I'm really happy with,

00:00:40.020 including with Michelle Rumpel-Garner, friends Kate Marlin, Matt Spoke, Jeff Russ. And we are thrilled

00:00:45.460 to be joined by Caroline Elliott today, our BC correspondent, a real leader in the common sense

00:00:51.200 conservative British Columbia space. So quite shamefully, somehow in some way, and I put this

00:00:57.280 in a piece over the weekend. Following news of the Maduro raid, Canadian online discourse

00:01:02.380 seemingly defaulted to wanting to make it about us and to hyper fixate on how this would impact the 60

00:01:09.300 or so percent of Canadians over 60 who presently support the Carney Liberals. Leading Liberals fretted

00:01:15.700 about their pensions, the oil prices and energy vulnerabilities they never cared about before,

00:01:21.020 and tone policed the official opposition leader for strongly supporting Maduro's capture.

00:01:25.640 And let's not forget, the Biden administration also had a capture bounty on Maduro's head

00:01:30.960 for something like $25 million. That sort of elbows-up approach, that it remains our factory

00:01:37.420 setting, that we think our pensions come before net global good, and Venezuela's refugee crisis

00:01:44.340 coming out of that regime, and all those innocent lives lost. It's no wonder that our young,

00:01:50.140 working-aged, and increasingly beleaguered are polling overwhelmingly conservative,

00:01:54.080 because that is exhausting. And I see why people don't feel all that rosy about our future prospects

00:01:59.800 when this is our default setting. No matter who does the black bagging, zero dark 30ing a communist

00:02:06.740 dictator isn't a bad thing. And it's ludicrous that we have to argue otherwise. Even worse,

00:02:12.400 that these people now hate America so much they're willing to prefer Venezuela be run by Iran or China

00:02:17.780 is quite a tell. That's an astonishing admission. There are inherently reasonable criticisms and

00:02:24.460 concerns of American regime change that don't come close to being addressed by more of the same from

00:02:29.800 the elbows-up crowd, who are often vain, cynical, and short-sighted as a class. Our economy shouldn't

00:02:37.240 have to rely on a continued narco-terrorist's reign to prevent Laurentian feelings from being hurt.

00:02:43.200 To Prime Minister Mark Carney's credit, and while he's speaking out of both sides of his mouth in

00:02:48.080 that traditional sort of chat GPT-speak way, he hasn't followed his contemporaries in their fervent

00:02:53.960 denials of President Trump's actions. Here he is talking about the potential vulnerability to

00:02:59.180 Canada's energy sector if Venezuela becomes a more attractive global investment than Canada,

00:03:04.760 now that we're maybe getting our act together on oil and gas. Carney even says he welcomes a peaceful

00:03:11.160 transition in Venezuela and welcomes the prospect of greater prosperity in Venezuela. Take a look.

00:03:17.300 President Trump has said one of the key reasons that he went into Venezuela was to get the oil out.

00:03:22.120 Do you think this will impact the Canadian oil sector and does that increase the need in your

00:03:26.320 estimation to have a pipeline to the northwest coast of BC? It's been our view, and we're working towards

00:03:31.920 this, that Canadian oil will be competitive because it is low risk, clearly low risk, low cost, the marginal costs.

00:03:41.680 There's been huge progress in getting down the costs, and low carbon, which is what the Pathways Project

00:03:47.400 carbon capture will bring. And that makes Canadian oil competitive, Canadian oil competitive for the medium

00:03:53.920 long term. So we welcome the prospect of peace, peaceful transition, democratic Venezuela. We welcome the

00:04:02.720 prospect of greater prosperity in Venezuela. But we also see the competitiveness of Canadian oil,

00:04:10.160 and we're investing or we're putting in place measures so that that's going to happen. And in that context,

00:04:17.920 a pipeline and exports to Asia, we've got competitive product, and we'd be diversifying our markets.

00:04:27.760 And that's one of the reasons why we signed the comprehensive MOU with Alberta. So we'll be working

00:04:32.560 towards that. Look, we would have heard much worse under the Trudeau government. I shudder to even imagine,

00:04:39.040 you know, how this week would play out if Trudeau was still in power. But Canadians still need to see

00:04:44.400 results here. And Pierre Polyev is right when he says that change in oil-rich Venezuela means Canada

00:04:49.920 must race to approve a pipeline to the Pacific and move millions of barrels of Canadian oil per day

00:04:55.600 overseas to break our dependence on one customer. The Prime Minister needs to bring BC Premier David Eby

00:05:02.480 to heel. Most important, of course, is removing Eby altogether as soon as an election opportunity

00:05:08.240 arises in BC, and that could come as soon as this spring. There's no more important time to get

00:05:13.520 this bitumen pipeline built to the Pacific coast. There's no more important time to leave the mud hut

00:05:18.640 wing of the NDP back in those lost Trudeau years. Degrowth failed. It failed us mightily,

00:05:25.120 and the world won't wait for us to catch up. Friend of the show and BC correspondent Dr. Caroline

00:05:30.480 Elliott joins us again at this pivotal moment for Canada to get its own house in order and at this

00:05:35.120 pivotal moment to ensure the disastrous BC NDP don't hold us back any further. Caroline is the

00:05:41.200 province's leading policy analyst and common sense voice. She works with the BC Public Land

00:05:46.400 Use Society, Without Diminishment, and the Aristotle Foundation, and she's been the leading driver on the

00:05:52.320 public's growing understanding and concern surrounding BC's secretive dripper rulings that have now thrown

00:05:57.840 private property rights into question. Join us for this chat and first a word from our sponsor.

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00:06:22.320 Despite this, Canadians are banned access to critical information and even some products.

00:06:26.880 Nicotine pouches remain banned in convenience stores and current laws ban communication about the risks

00:06:32.160 of these products compared to cigarettes. It's unbelievable. The evidence is here,

00:06:36.160 the tools exist. Canadians should have the freedom to know. You can learn more by visiting unsmoke.ca.

00:06:42.320 Caroline Elliott joins us again. Caroline, thanks for coming back on the show.

00:06:45.840 Happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

00:06:48.000 Once again, to start the new year, whether fortunately or unfortunately, BC is a major topic

00:06:53.840 of conversation for where Canada might go, how we might get our you-know-what together.

00:06:59.120 Before we get into the news of the day related to Venezuela and our energy vulnerabilities and

00:07:07.440 golly, how we have to get David Eby out of the way, I wanted to touch on the BC conservative

00:07:11.600 leadership campaigns. They're starting to come together. A leadership committee is formed.

00:07:16.320 What issues do you want to see potential candidates focusing on?

00:07:20.880 Well, there's the big ones that British Columbians care about. So I'd argue that's a good place to start,

00:07:25.440 you know, cost of living, affordability. You know, the public safety is always a big one.

00:07:30.560 The healthcare system. Look at healthcare. I just posted about this this morning.

00:07:34.960 You have Peace Arch Hospital in White Rock. They're shutting down their maternity ward for

00:07:40.800 four days, I think it is, and telling all these women who are in labor, a scary moment in one's life,

00:07:45.760 a very stressful moment. They're saying, oh, go find another hospital. We'll tell you where to go.

00:07:49.200 They're not just leaving them out in the dark, but they're saying, you know, go to Surrey Memorial

00:07:52.480 Hospital, go to these other places. Like Eby has racked up the craziest level of spending we've

00:07:59.360 ever seen historically in BC. And you can't just go and give birth at your local hospital where you

00:08:04.480 plan to give birth as a mother. Like these are like, it's an indictment on what he's been doing.

00:08:09.920 And that's to say nothing of things like reconciliation, which are standing in the way,

00:08:14.320 you know, and the current path that this government is on is standing in the way of, I think,

00:08:18.400 economic prosperity, the ability to build virtually anything. So, you know, pick your issue and it's

00:08:25.600 probably not working very well in BC. And I think these are the things that are going to dominate

00:08:29.040 that race. Yeah. The nightly hospital closure, the like, I'm still waiting on a family doctor.

00:08:35.200 I've been here for over a year and a half and I've been told to wait, you know, another decade for,

00:08:40.000 you know, for the prospect of that to, to unwind itself. Obviously a really big issue is DRIPA,

00:08:45.360 is, is the BC implementation interpretation of UNDRIP. It, you have been ahead of the curve

00:08:52.000 on, on diagnosing this, seeing this coming from a mile away, the heck it's in your PhD.

00:08:58.000 Should people be concerned that maybe there are some candidates that are getting to this late?

00:09:02.960 Like, should we, should we be looking at a consistency of courage here? Are, are folks

00:09:07.360 jumping on the bandwagon? Like, well, like what's your read, you know, on, on,

00:09:10.720 on how we best handle DRIPA, how we best look to those who have been on top of the file?

00:09:18.800 Yeah. So DRIPA, I mean, it doesn't stop making headlines in BC, as you know, right? It's, it's,

00:09:23.280 it's causing all kinds of issues from a democratic perspective, from a public interest perspective.

00:09:27.120 There was a column, um, I think yesterday from Bob Palmer talking about how DRIPA is basically

00:09:34.480 getting in the way of government moving forward with their bill, where they were going to rush through

00:09:37.760 a bunch of schools and big projects. Uh, they, they, they said this was the most urgent bill.

00:09:42.240 It's absolutely critical that we get building these things for British Columbians. And now they're

00:09:45.600 saying, oh, well, there's this co-drafting legislative provision in there that says indigenous

00:09:49.920 people need to be consulted. And now they're going about doing this consulting consultation after the

00:09:54.080 fact, the bill has not been like implemented. It's not, doesn't have the force of law or whatever the

00:09:59.520 language is. Um, so that's just one example. That's just today. I mean, there's one every day. So

00:10:04.000 all that to say DRIPA is a huge issue. It needs to be repealed. Um, you know,

00:10:10.320 there've been people out there saying that for a very long time, and there's others who are

00:10:14.960 realizing now that it's, you know, probably politically convenient to say that, uh, themselves,

00:10:20.160 whether or not they fundamentally believe that it needs to go or not. Um, so I think the issue here,

00:10:24.960 uh, with, with DRIPA and, and, and candidates promising to take action on that is, look,

00:10:30.400 it was not politically easy to say that even six months ago, especially not a year ago,

00:10:36.880 you were vilified if you said something like that. Um, you know, and I felt some of that

00:10:40.560 blowback on that issue myself as somebody who was out early on it. It is not going to be

00:10:45.760 politically easy to actually take the action on repealing DRIPA. So if you're only talking about

00:10:50.800 it now that it's politically easy, I can promise you, you're not going to be doing the work to

00:10:54.880 repeal it when it becomes politically very hard. There will be protests. There will be disruption.

00:10:59.120 There'll be all kinds of people out there saying what a bad person you are. And you have to have

00:11:02.800 the political courage and the will to drive that through. And I don't know that that's going to be

00:11:07.920 the case across everyone who's promising to do that today. Yeah. I think this is such an interesting

00:11:12.560 moment because we're about to see obviously that this leadership race, we know that BC is essential

00:11:18.640 to unlocking this, this non lost decade for Canada, but, but it's like, there's sort of these two

00:11:25.760 paths that we can go down, which is, is this going to be an actual sort of courageous conservative

00:11:32.400 party, or is it going to be like the BC liberals? Will it be the, the, you and I've talked about

00:11:38.720 this before. We, we've shared a concern. It's like, will it be the party of the Vancouver club?

00:11:42.640 Like we don't, I don't think anybody wants it to be that. I think this is a moment where you can have

00:11:46.720 this kind of green conservatism, which I've, I've heard from Sean Watley, where it's like, you can have

00:11:51.040 these, these worker minded, socially minded conservatives who can walk in both worlds and

00:11:56.320 not just, everything's not just going to be elite coded. Like we, we, we're seeing a poll that like

00:12:01.840 one in 20 BCers now put the reconciliation file. It's not, you know, even in their, their top five

00:12:07.520 issues. Obviously the, the, the grounds beneath our feet are changing. We're also wondering if we

00:12:13.440 have the very deed to those grounds beneath our feet anymore. So what kind of BC conservative party

00:12:19.520 do you want to see? Yeah. I think your point about sort of that Vancouver club conservatism versus

00:12:25.920 kind of a more broad British Columbian, almost worker based conservative is like that. It is a

00:12:33.600 question that's going to drive the future of this entire party and the province as a result, maybe even

00:12:39.120 the country. It's a, it's a choice that I think people who choose to sign up and become members of

00:12:44.160 the conservative party are going to have to make. They're going to, and, and, you know, the BC liberals were

00:12:48.880 almost, um, they weren't shy. I think about talking about themselves as sort of the party of business

00:12:55.920 and look to some extent there's, it makes sense, right? It's private sector investment that creates

00:13:03.520 the jobs that workers work at. These are, this is a very good thing. We want to have a very business

00:13:07.920 friendly climate in British Columbia, but that all serves the end of workers taking home good paychecks

00:13:14.720 at good jobs and actually being able to build stuff in BC to, to create that. So that's kind of,

00:13:19.680 that's going to have to be a line people walk and ultimately they're going to land one way or the

00:13:23.760 other in terms of how they frame it. Um, but at the end of the day, for me, it's the, the future of

00:13:30.400 this party and this province has to be about the people who live and work here. Like we talked about

00:13:35.200 affordability being a major issue. Well, the biggest, the hardest hit to any level of affordability

00:13:41.280 is losing your job. Like so many people have done at mills in a hundred mile house in North, uh,

00:13:46.000 Cowichan and all around the province. That is not affordability. That is the like diametric opposite

00:13:52.880 of it. Um, so, you know, so there's, there's different ways that it can be talked about, but I think

00:13:57.200 it really does put the party in the province at a crossroads. Yeah, it does. And there's fresh pressure

00:14:02.480 on Canadian oil and gas right now, particularly British Columbia. This is a, a fate that is not just

00:14:09.360 determined by Mark Carney here in the liberals who can, who have all kinds of still in place energy

00:14:14.960 bills that can prevent projects from being built, but, but coming out of developments in Venezuela.

00:14:19.600 Um, I know you've shared recently a great Adam Pankrat's column that I've read it myself about,

00:14:24.400 you know, this is a wake up call here. It's, it is kind of a full frontal assault in some way on our

00:14:30.320 economy, but it's, it's also in some ways the Trump administration's doing us a favor where it is

00:14:35.360 forcing us to get it together economically. You know, our oil sector is about to become even more

00:14:40.480 important. What's, you know, how is DRIPA creating urgency here? Like how is, how is David Eby? How,

00:14:48.960 how is BC threatening this moment of recovery? Like, how can we, how can we reconcile for that? How can,

00:14:56.560 how can we ensure that this year our province, and you and I are looking at similarly rainy skies

00:15:02.320 today in the lower mainland, how can we ensure that we're not the, the millstone this year that,

00:15:06.960 that drags down Canada? When, if America gets Venezuela's oil production back in gear,

00:15:13.280 and that may take a few years, how do we best use these few years to, to make sure that we're,

00:15:18.480 we're ready to handle this? Well, I think we're already starting off quite late to this question.

00:15:24.880 I mean, people have been saying, especially on the, on the right or the, the people who understand the

00:15:29.520 importance of a functioning economy, uh, and not just growing government and government jobs.

00:15:33.600 People who understand the importance of growing an economy have been saying for a long time,

00:15:37.200 we need to diversify our markets from the US. We sell our, our oil at a discount to the US.

00:15:42.800 And now we're still incredibly beholden to that US market, which is now turning its eyes over

00:15:47.840 potentially to Venezuela. So this is a huge issue. It is far worse than it needs to be because of the

00:15:53.360 inaction that we've seen. I would actually go further than saying inaction. It's not inaction,

00:15:57.520 it's actual action in terms of hindering the things that need to be done every step of the way.

00:16:03.360 We have the NDP early on, um, in, uh, God, when would it have been 2017, 2018,

00:16:09.120 saying that they were going to use every tool in the toolbox to oppose the, the, uh, transbound

00:16:13.600 pipeline expansion. Um, that ultimately got built as we all know. Thank God it did. It's actually

00:16:19.680 nearing capacity all over again at that expanded rate. We need more. Uh, and we have an activist

00:16:25.280 premier in this province. Who's just standing, who's finding every reason to stand in the way

00:16:29.120 and he'll keep standing in the way. So I think this is why I think that where BC is at is so

00:16:33.520 important for the rest of Canada is you need a government in place that's sitting there saying,

00:16:38.080 we recognize the importance of this sector, the huge paychecks that it brings home to workers all

00:16:42.640 across Canada. The fact that, um, you know, it, it, it brings revenues to pay for the programs

00:16:47.840 and services we all depend on, which you're suffering under this government. So, um, yeah,

00:16:51.920 so it, it kind of all comes together in one big piece. Uh, the thing that has struck me the most,

00:16:57.520 and, and, and, and, and I expressed some frustration about this on social media this week is now we

00:17:02.160 have these kinds of progressive people coming out and saying, oh, you know, they took out this

00:17:07.200 dictator, this is a terrible thing for our oil prices. Well, yeah, they could have an impact on

00:17:12.320 oil prices, of course, but you guys have spent the last decade opposing the pipelines that would

00:17:17.440 actually support, uh, higher prices for our oil. So it's just, the irony is the, the hypocrisy is

00:17:23.200 staggering. It is staggering. And you and I took a little bit of heat about that, but that's okay.

00:17:26.880 You take flack over the target and in your previous national post op-ed going into the new year, I,

00:17:33.120 it's something I want to draw our audience's attention to, and maybe they know some of this by

00:17:36.560 now, but we're talking about sort of David Eby sort of holding some of the keys here, but people need

00:17:41.920 to understand that like, he is an extremist. He, he belongs to an extremist ideology. His BC

00:17:47.520 reconciliation agenda highlights an original sin mentality. You know, it's shared amongst his

00:17:53.280 advisors. Like how is this ideology going to contribute to, to making these next few years

00:17:59.600 difficult to making this, this, this next year difficult? Like how concerned are you about these

00:18:05.440 sort of secretive deals? They cut this radical approach and, and knowing that this is a moment where

00:18:11.280 we need, we need to immediately be getting it together, but they're, they're going to try to

00:18:15.760 rag the puck. They're going to try to drag this out because they, these people like fervently

00:18:20.960 don't believe in Canada and they, they fervently don't believe in our energy sector.

00:18:26.080 Yeah. And I think it's a, it's such an interesting thing to hear people talk about

00:18:30.400 Canadian sovereignty relative to, you know, us assertions, which are obviously bad assertions

00:18:36.000 that none of us would ever agree with around our lack thereof. But at the same time,

00:18:40.800 we're undercutting our very legitimacy as a country all the time. And that's what, you know,

00:18:45.840 when you, when you are, when you surround yourself with advisors, as David Eby has done, who, who do

00:18:50.240 refer to the founding of Canada as an original sin, who talk about fixing our, you know, essentially

00:18:57.760 atoning for the sins of the past by, by standing in the way of any kind of prosperity today for all

00:19:04.480 British Columbians, whether they're indigenous or not, like, it's a big problem. I think it stands in the

00:19:09.280 way of any ability to, to create an environment where you can build quickly, where you can actually

00:19:14.240 do big things again in this province. Like we used to do really big, really cool stuff, right? Like

00:19:19.520 we have the WAC Bennett dam. We even have the sightsee dam more recently. We have, we've built,

00:19:24.080 you know, the Coca-Cola highway. We've done all kinds of infrastructure that people would think is

00:19:29.120 impossible to do. There is no reason why we can't be thinking at that scale again. Maybe it's different

00:19:34.800 kinds of big things, but the, the, the, the way this government's mindset is, is it's just a

00:19:40.880 complete impossibility. Yeah. I want them to add a lane to the sea to sky highway. I know that there's

00:19:46.320 limited room, but we used to do things like it, it, it zippers in these two or three spots. It's so

00:19:51.200 inefficient. You should see the old one. They actually did a big improvement to the sea to sky

00:19:55.040 highway just before the Olympics. And even that was, I have to say, deeply opposed. Like there were,

00:20:01.120 they, they called themselves the raging grannies. They like had protests. There were arrests

00:20:05.200 about improving it, even to this level, just as a historical reminder.

00:20:10.000 Well, those raging grannies seem to influence our elections now federally as well. So Caroline,

00:20:16.080 as an advocate for repealing DRIPA, like how can political leaders find your kind of courage on this

00:20:24.240 issue? You know, like, what do you want to see from calls for pipelines? Like, how do we,

00:20:28.960 how do we get people to read this Pancrats column? How do we help reverse the turbulence and, and the

00:20:34.800 ruptures caused by this agenda and restore balance? Like, like looking ahead, what do you, what do you

00:20:39.760 want to see from your, your fellow leaders and sort of the common sense space in British Columbia? And,

00:20:45.360 and how, how can we better inform the public as well?

00:20:49.920 Well, I think you're doing that right now just by having these kinds of conversations.

00:20:53.920 It's, it's important and, and, and meeting people where they're at in terms of getting that

00:20:58.480 information out there. Right. So there's, you know, there's a certain proportion of people

00:21:02.400 who read the Vancouver sun. There's a certain proportion of people who read the six o'clock

00:21:05.360 news. And there's a huge proportion of the people who do neither of those things. And you have to go

00:21:08.720 find them where they're at. And when we take, you know, and as you know, like I'll cut up clips of

00:21:12.960 this and I'll put it out on my social media and you'll do that as well. And, and just trying to

00:21:16.320 find those different avenues. But so part of it is reaching people, but reaching people without a

00:21:20.400 message is kind of pointless. So you have to, I think that there's a real importance in all of us,

00:21:26.560 I think finding the courage in ourselves to speak up on hard things. Um, and there's no shortage of

00:21:32.240 hard things to speak up on and they have to be addressed. Repealing DRIPA is not going to be easy.

00:21:37.840 We have to do it. Um, you know, standing up against park closures, uh, for non-indigenous people

00:21:43.680 where you don't get to go in if you're not indigenous, like that's wrong. Speak up on that.

00:21:47.360 I know it might feel good. The reason that we have DRIPA in the first place right now,

00:21:51.120 I feel like I'm rambling a bit, but the reason we have DRIPA in the first place is because everyone

00:21:54.480 felt, well, like this feels sort of good. We feel like we're doing the right thing.

00:21:58.320 And maybe there's some sort of details in there that we're not sure about. And there's some like,

00:22:02.560 okay, let's be honest, glaringly obvious problems with it, but we'll deal with that later. We'll

00:22:07.040 pass it. Well, we're dealing with that today now. And so good intentions, you know, are, are good

00:22:12.880 intentions, but at the end of the day, you have to actually be brave enough and, and say, this isn't

00:22:16.640 going to work when it's not going to work. Political bravery needed now more than ever,

00:22:21.200 particularly in BC, Caroline Elliott. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me.

Juno News - January 07, 2026

Why Canada needs a Pacific pipeline NOW

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