Rebel News Podcast - November 16, 2019


Environmentalists destroy nearly 600 mining jobs in Nunavut： Here's why we aren't hearing about it


Episode Stats


Length

43 minutes

Words per minute

154.47952

Word count

6,773

Sentence count

539

Harmful content

Misogyny

14

sentences flagged

Hate speech

11

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A massive iron mine in Nunavut laid off 600 workers in a single day, and no one has a damn thing to say about it. Ezra takes you on a tour of the site, and shows you what it's like to live there.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hey, Rebels. You know, I discovered something huge that I was oblivious to until today,
00:00:04.380 and that's always a little bit humbling. You think you follow the world, you follow your
00:00:07.720 own country, you know what's going on. I did not know until today about an enormous iron
00:00:13.260 mine in Nineveh called Baffin Land. It's obviously on Baffin Island. I learned so much about it.
00:00:19.740 It's so amazing. It's so huge. And there's some terrifying news today. They laid off 600 people.
00:00:26.480 And by the way, Nineveh only has 20,000 people in their entire labor force. This is
00:00:31.460 staggeringly bad news. And I look into why and what, and what is Baffin Land, and who shut it down.
00:00:38.080 And I'm very troubled. I'm thrilled to have discovered Baffin Land, but I'm terrified to
00:00:42.540 have discovered it in their moment of stress. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed today's monologue.
00:00:48.020 This one is one where you really have to see it to believe it, though. And I know you're probably
00:00:52.020 listening to this podcast in a place where you can't also watch a video. Maybe you're driving.
00:00:56.480 That shouldn't stop you from watching a video if you're careful. Maybe you're on the subway,
00:01:00.560 whatever. I want to show you what Baffin Land looks like. And in the video version of the podcast,
00:01:07.440 you see it. And it's unbelievable. It is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.
00:01:14.580 To see the video version of this podcast, please become a premium subscriber. Go to premium.rebelnews.com.
00:01:21.920 It's $8 a month. And even if you, you know, I just want you to see Baffin Land. It sounds
00:01:28.380 like a made-up place, Baffin Land, or like a very Arctic Disney or something. No, it's even cooler.
00:01:34.880 All right. Without further ado, here's the podcast.
00:01:37.980 Tonight, environmentalists just killed 600 mining jobs in Nunavut. That's 3% of the workforce up
00:02:00.480 there. And not a peep. It's November 15th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
00:02:06.840 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:02:10.560 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
00:02:14.640 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's my
00:02:19.240 bloody right to do so.
00:02:25.520 Look at this story from the Nunatsiak News. Baffin Land lays off 586 contract employees,
00:02:36.600 halts planned work. And underneath it says, there is no date for remobilization at this time.
00:02:44.040 I checked, and this story isn't anywhere else in the media, at least at the moment when I wrote the
00:02:51.060 script about an hour ago. Let me read from the story. Baffin Land Iron Mines Corp says it has laid
00:03:00.900 off 586 contracted employees working at its Mary River mine. Of those contractors, 96 are Inuit and 490
00:03:09.400 are non-Inuit, the company said in an email to Nunatsiak News. Maybe I missed it. But I haven't seen a comment
00:03:18.200 even from Nunavut's newly elected MP, this young lady, Mamulak Kakak, if I'm saying her name right. I hope I am.
00:03:27.700 If she speaks up, I will let you know. But so far, silence. Now, she's obviously an Inuk woman herself. 0.66
00:03:34.120 She's just 25, but that's old enough to know how devastating these layoffs will be for her 0.99
00:03:38.880 community. Here's Nunavut's official labor force statistics from their provincial or their
00:03:45.660 territorial website. Very up-to-date, as you can see. The labor force is just 20,000 people in the
00:03:53.020 whole territory. That's how small Nunavut is. Smaller than the university I went to. Can you imagine?
00:03:58.980 People-wise, obviously, it's geographically huge. So you've got 20,000 people working in the entire
00:04:04.720 economy. And nearly 600 were just laid off in one fell swoop. That just jumped the unemployment rate
00:04:12.500 by 3%, like just in one move, in one day at one company, because it's such a huge and important
00:04:21.200 company. Baffinland. They have a huge iron mine. This is a video produced by Baffinland about their
00:04:30.540 operations up in Nunavut. And I'm going to let this play for as much as I can, because it's so
00:04:36.180 informative. It's so interesting. It's so well done. I learned so much from it. I think it's the most
00:04:43.380 amazing thing I've seen recently since the oil sands, except for everything up there seems harder
00:04:52.180 to do, harder to build, harder to get there, because it's so far north. At least in the oil
00:04:59.360 sands, you can bring in a lot of things by truck on the highway up from Edmonton. I know a lot of the
00:05:05.180 oil sands are out in the bush, in the swampy land still. This is a whole new thing. It's almost like
00:05:12.320 they're in Mars. They're so far north. Everything has to be brought in. Their iron mine, as you can
00:05:19.580 guess, it's called Baffinland. It's on Baffin Island. Most things are flown in. Look at this. Look at this
00:05:25.600 state-of-the-art emergency room. They built that. Look at that equipment. They brought that in.
00:05:32.880 Some things have to wait for the sea ice to thaw, and they're brought in on a ship. Look at that.
00:05:38.020 That's how they do it. They blast the iron. It's just unbelievable. Look at all that heavy equipment
00:05:44.740 up there. I'm in love. What can I say? It's just absolutely amazing men and machines and ingenuity,
00:05:53.100 and they say it's got the finest iron in the world in terms of purity. So that heavy stuff,
00:05:59.280 they got to wait till the thaw, and then they ship them in during the summer season,
00:06:02.300 and look what they built up there. In addition to mining the world's purest iron,
00:06:07.360 they built everything from scratch. They built the roads. They built the heavy-duty ports. They
00:06:12.800 built that little mini hospital. Everything. This company's building Nunavut.
00:06:17.440 I admit, I just very recently tuned into this place. I didn't know about it before. I'm just
00:06:24.540 learning. But let me read how important the company is and their plans are. Now, this is an article
00:06:30.060 from a few years back in the Globe and Mail. So it's not up to date. Baffinland has grown. Maybe
00:06:34.660 they've done this and more. Here's from the Globe a few years ago. It's a little dated. They say,
00:06:41.060 the impact on Nunavut will be profound. The mine is expected to triple the territory's annual gross
00:06:51.000 domestic product growth rate and provide nearly $5 billion in tax revenue and royalties to the
00:06:59.120 territory over the life of the project. It will create more than 5,000 direct jobs,
00:07:08.080 many more indirect positions, and offer training opportunities in an area of the country where
00:07:13.860 four out of every six people live in social housing, and life expectancy is 10 years lower
00:07:19.060 than the rest of Canada. That's amazing. Will you agree with me that this mine is the best
00:07:25.680 thing ever to have happened to Nunavut? I really don't have a connection to the Arctic.
00:07:34.920 I've been to the Arctic Sea, Arctic Ocean once, the Beaufort Sea. But I'm immediately as proud of this
00:07:41.700 mine as I am of the oil sands, even though I have no connection to it. I'm just proud
00:07:45.480 that they're doing this. I'm proud that this actually happened. And frankly, I'm a little embarrassed
00:07:52.180 that I didn't know about the scope of the scale. Look at this. Look at what they're doing. Iron.
00:07:56.300 Look at the red. Look at that red iron. That's what it looks like in the spring and summer. Doesn't
00:08:02.100 that look nice? I can tell you that two feet underground, it's still frozen thick. That's
00:08:06.620 what permafrost means. It looks gorgeous on the surface, but that thing is still so cold up there.
00:08:12.300 You dig a couple feet and it's just frozen. Look at that.
00:08:14.540 I'm still researching it, but if it really does employ as many people as the Globe and Mail
00:08:21.300 projected, it is irreplaceable in terms of not just economic life, obviously, but what that Globe
00:08:30.520 and Mail article talked about, all the things that come from it, jobs, training, and the moral and
00:08:37.460 spiritual benefits of people working for a living rather than being on some form of government
00:08:43.980 welfare. The skills training, the infrastructure. I watched some Baffinland videos today. And even
00:08:50.740 these roads. You see this road? That's a road that Baffinland built. They're building the roads
00:08:55.440 in Nunavut. Their own money. They're very proud of their roads. Of course, it's hard to get roads
00:09:00.200 that far north, keep them clear. They're building Nunavut. Yeah, they're mining iron, but as a byproduct,
00:09:08.300 they're producing a new territory, aren't they? And now, 600 people have just been laid off. Why?
00:09:21.060 And other than the new Nazi Act news, why haven't we heard about this? I mean, if 600 people were
00:09:27.520 laid off, anywhere in Canada, that would be big news. It's big news in Alberta, unfortunately,
00:09:34.780 not rare news to have 600 people laid off in Alberta's oil patch. 600 people laid off, but
00:09:40.680 still news. The day after the election, Husky laid off a few hundred. In a province of 4.5 million
00:09:46.140 people, 600 layoffs. That's 600 families. That's big news. But in Nunavut, it's bigger proportionately
00:09:53.840 than if the entire oil patch in Alberta were shut down, or the entire auto industry in Ontario was
00:10:02.560 shut down, or the entire dairy industry in Quebec was shut down. I can't even imagine how important
00:10:08.020 this is. I tell you, there's only 20,000 people working in Nunavut, and 600 of them just got a pink
00:10:12.440 slip. And this company just got hit with a sledgehammer. Why? Why? Well, let's read some
00:10:19.140 more from the Nunatsiak news. The layoffs come shortly after the Nunavut Impact Review Board
00:10:27.560 decision on November 6th to abruptly adjourn its public hearing on the company's expansion plans.
00:10:36.600 Due to the uncertainty of Phase 2 permit approvals, work associated with the 2019 work plan
00:10:42.980 has been demobilized. Salima Virani, a communications specialist for Baffinland, said in the email.
00:10:52.080 On November 6th, Nunavut Tungavik, Inc., President Aluki Kotyrk, brought forward a motion to immediately
00:10:58.560 suspend the final public hearing and defer its continuation for eight months to one year.
00:11:03.500 Ha! He's got a job.
00:11:06.460 Throughout the hearing, Baffinland representatives went back and forth with interveners on their planned
00:11:11.500 construction of a 110-kilometer rail line north from the Mary River site to its Milne Inlet port.
00:11:19.700 The railway and additional port infrastructure would make it possible for the company to ramp up
00:11:23.780 its production from the current 6 million tons of iron ore per year to 12 million tons.
00:11:29.100 They want to build the north. And they were just told, no, thanks. No, thanks. We're going to take a year.
00:11:37.100 Why are you guys taking a year? Imagine if these people had been around when the CPR rail was built.
00:11:43.940 So what exactly is happening here? Well, let me show you this. That's the price of iron ore.
00:11:51.140 They look very strong to me. I don't know a lot about iron. I'll be honest with you.
00:11:56.040 But that graph is generally going in the right direction, ain't it?
00:11:58.900 Imagine doubling the capacity of the finest ore in the world.
00:12:05.240 Imagine all the construction jobs. Imagine all the permanent operating jobs. Imagine all the tax revenue.
00:12:11.740 Imagine all the Inuit kids getting skills training, job training. They don't have to leave the north to get work.
00:12:18.420 They can get a great job literally building their own homeland.
00:12:23.360 And it was stopped. Why? What were the objections?
00:12:28.620 I'll get to that in a minute, but let me quote just a little bit more.
00:12:33.080 In an email to Nunatsiak News, the Kikitani Inuit Association said it is very concerned about Inuit job losses at the mine.
00:12:41.260 You don't say.
00:12:43.140 QIA is very concerned about Inuit employment and contracts at the Mary River Project.
00:12:47.580 We know that every single job matters.
00:12:49.160 Our team has reached out to Baffinland to get more information about possible layoffs or termination of contracts with Inuit firms.
00:12:55.540 We are awaiting the company's response. QIA said.
00:12:59.520 Terry Dobbin, general manager of the Northwest Territory's Nunavut Chamber of Mines, told Nunatsiak News he hopes the project can continue to move forward.
00:13:09.200 Our members are watching this unfold with concern and hoping there is a resolution to the issue as the project is very important to Nunavut.
00:13:16.300 Baffinland is working hard with all parties to find an agreeable resolution to any outstanding issues, Dobbin said.
00:13:23.840 The company said there is currently no plan for when construction might resume.
00:13:29.920 It's almost like Trudeau's running the thing up there.
00:13:32.360 There is no date for remobilization at this time.
00:13:35.740 The demobilizing effort is due to the uncertainty of phase two, Verrani said.
00:13:40.920 So what was the problem there?
00:13:44.800 They had the plan. They were given her.
00:13:47.540 You saw the folks representing the Inuit industries there.
00:13:50.540 Come on, guys. We need those contracts.
00:13:52.400 So why was this all stopped?
00:13:55.300 I mean, look at these jobs.
00:13:57.440 I think this is the repair shop.
00:13:58.980 They got power plants.
00:14:01.240 They're building their own power plants.
00:14:04.540 Look at this.
00:14:05.300 Their own maintenance.
00:14:06.820 Imagine you're in high school in Nunavut.
00:14:10.780 You could get any job in the world here.
00:14:13.420 Anything you want to do.
00:14:14.800 And I bet there's...
00:14:15.760 Look at that.
00:14:16.320 Imagine driving that rig.
00:14:17.760 That's a six-figure job.
00:14:18.640 I bet you're making $150,000.
00:14:20.640 You're driving that truck.
00:14:22.660 Look at that.
00:14:23.460 Being an engineer, operating that heavy equipment.
00:14:27.080 Those are six-figure jobs.
00:14:28.940 Skilled and semi-skilled jobs.
00:14:30.800 Plus professional jobs, obviously.
00:14:33.440 You're an accountant.
00:14:34.180 You're a lawyer.
00:14:34.740 You're an engineer.
00:14:35.160 Plus unskilled jobs, sure.
00:14:37.840 There is something for everyone here.
00:14:40.640 Look at that red earth.
00:14:41.880 Isn't that gorgeous?
00:14:43.820 This company, Baffinland, will do more to lift up the people of Nunavut than any government will,
00:14:51.060 especially the Inuit.
00:14:54.840 Look at that.
00:14:55.660 Look at that gorgeous blue sky, eh?
00:14:57.660 That's what it's like in the summer.
00:14:59.120 I bet it's dark about 23 hours.
00:15:02.200 Oh, and this is the port.
00:15:03.380 Look at them loading the iron ore into those ships.
00:15:07.120 I love this video.
00:15:08.020 You should type in Baffinland on YouTube.
00:15:10.140 It's an incredible video.
00:15:12.980 They have to fill up the ships with ore very quickly because, of course, it freezes over in the winter.
00:15:19.860 So they've got to get all those ships with the ore out in the summer.
00:15:22.820 Remember, three megaton, three million tons of ore.
00:15:27.200 I love it.
00:15:29.960 And I've never even seen it with my own eyes other than through video.
00:15:33.620 So who's stopping this miracle, this oil sands of the Arctic?
00:15:37.280 It's not oil, of course.
00:15:38.160 It's just iron.
00:15:39.320 So you can't really complain that, oh, it's going to leak.
00:15:42.400 We're going to have a spill.
00:15:45.060 What about the dolphins?
00:15:46.640 I mean, there's no excuse here.
00:15:48.820 So who's responsible for the delay?
00:15:51.840 A number of people.
00:15:54.180 The New Nazi Act News quotes one of them last week in this story.
00:15:57.760 Further information and assessment is needed, said Amanda Hansen-Main, advisor to the Mitti Metalik Hunters and Trappers Organization.
00:16:09.300 She said the project has a serious potential to impact the resources we depend on and maintain our sense of purpose and belonging in the world.
00:16:16.540 Pardon?
00:16:17.980 Your sense of purpose and belonging?
00:16:20.060 Why say what?
00:16:22.040 Now, it says she's with the hunters and trappers there.
00:16:24.760 I have not been to Baffin Island.
00:16:27.700 Like I say, I've just been to Inovic and Tuk-Tiuk-Tuk.
00:16:31.560 And it's ice up there almost all the time.
00:16:37.160 And in the summer, it looks nice, but you dig this deep, it's frozen solid.
00:16:42.660 It's called the permafrost, right?
00:16:44.500 You can't really live in the north except at a subsistence level if all you're doing is hunting and trapping
00:16:51.900 and maybe getting whales, whaling. 0.96
00:16:56.300 They do some whaling up there.
00:16:58.660 Now, I'm sure that some Inuits still hunt and trap as a custom, as a cultural expression, 1.00
00:17:06.620 as a link to the past, as grandpas teaching their grandkids, as exercise, as fun.
00:17:13.840 But for food and fur and just like any hunters in the south would go hunting.
00:17:19.840 But that does not pay for a modern lifestyle with big old pickup trucks and skidoos and electricity
00:17:27.780 and satellite internet and first world health care.
00:17:32.460 Hunting and trapping, it's a nice bonus and it's culturally, you know, keeps the culture.
00:17:37.120 But it is not 1% of 1% of 1% of the economic impact of this mine.
00:17:45.340 But hey, Amanda Hanson-Main says we better stop the mine because it's damaging our feelings of belonging. 0.91
00:17:53.360 We've got to shut down the expansion for a year, maybe more.
00:17:57.160 Let's lay off 600 people because we've got to think about the belongingness here.
00:18:02.380 Who's Amanda Hanson-Main? 1.00
00:18:04.160 She doesn't sound Inuit to me.
00:18:08.080 Here's her LinkedIn page.
00:18:11.140 She's an environmentalist and a bureaucrat, originally from the south, Alberta and BC.
00:18:17.340 She calls herself an, let me quote her own biography that she wrote for herself,
00:18:23.200 environmental professional.
00:18:24.800 Oh, good.
00:18:25.700 Oh, good.
00:18:26.380 Good.
00:18:27.160 Environmental professional with over 12 years experience working within Nunavut's regulatory regime
00:18:31.440 on major project developments across the territory.
00:18:34.260 Skilled in environmental and socioeconomic assessment, community engagement and consultation,
00:18:40.500 and developing and executing broad-based communication strategies.
00:18:44.040 So in other words, you don't have a real job and maybe you've never held one.
00:18:47.440 Just come out and say it.
00:18:49.960 She's a bureaucrat. 1.00
00:18:50.960 I saw in her biography, she actually even served on the Nunavut's Human Rights Commission.
00:18:55.540 I hope she's focusing on trans rights because that's really more important than getting
00:18:59.240 this iron mine going, don't you think?
00:19:03.440 Now, I'm not really picking on her other than she was one of the people cheering the layoffs.
00:19:08.640 But she's the old Nunavut.
00:19:10.320 And by that, I mean the Nunavut that was 90% government.
00:19:13.660 And if you're government, and that's all her biography is really, you never get laid off, do you?
00:19:23.080 You have a job for life, really, and it's unionized and you have a ton of time off and
00:19:28.820 lots of benefits.
00:19:30.000 You work for the government like Amanda does.
00:19:32.260 You got jobs no matter what, if you call them jobs.
00:19:35.960 I mean, good jobs for a white girl, being in environmental communications. 1.00
00:19:40.240 Yeah, how about real jobs for real Inuit families, like digging iron? 1.00
00:19:45.180 Well, Amanda says they'll have to wait because she's got some belongingness issues or something. 1.00
00:19:51.020 It's not just white Southerners, of course.
00:19:52.900 Let's be honest.
00:19:53.520 There are plenty of Inuit politicians and bureaucrats who are against this mind, too.
00:19:58.140 Usually, they're just trying to extract a few more million dollars from the mine for this
00:20:03.360 or that pet project.
00:20:04.520 We've seen this even in Attawapiskat.
00:20:06.300 They shake down the mine for a million here, a hundred grand there.
00:20:10.340 I don't want you to think it's only white liberals from the South at work attacking Baffinland
00:20:16.060 Mine.
00:20:18.080 But about that, I mean, if Justin Trudeau's Bill C-69, which applies to megaprojects, if it
00:20:25.100 were to be applied to this megaproject, of course, it would kill it.
00:20:29.780 That's the new law, remember, passed by Trudeau that adds layer upon layer of new environmental
00:20:34.060 regulations to any large project.
00:20:37.000 It adds transgender reviews.
00:20:40.220 The intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors, I swear to God, I'm not kidding, 0.99
00:20:46.420 it adds so many airy-fairy things to real life.
00:20:49.840 I mean, real life in Baffin Island, let's build a road, let's build a rail, let's dig
00:20:55.540 stuff.
00:20:56.480 No, no, no, whoa.
00:20:59.220 Hey, Iron Miner, you sit down, have you done your transgender analysis yet? 0.53
00:21:04.980 It would kill this project dead if it were ever implemented as written.
00:21:08.380 Remember this craziness?
00:21:10.360 Project's decisions will be based on science, evidence, and indigenous traditional knowledge.
00:21:15.080 We're also taking a bigger picture look at the potential impacts of a proposed project.
00:21:20.660 Instead of just looking at the environmental impacts, we'll look at how a project could
00:21:24.780 affect our communities and health, jobs and the economy over the long term, and we'll
00:21:29.920 also do a gender-based analysis.
00:21:32.440 A gender-based analysis.
00:21:34.040 You saw the video that I ran at the beginning here.
00:21:39.760 I mean, it's the greatest, biggest, most industrial project ever done in the Canadian Arctic.
00:21:47.140 I mean, I bet you in Russia and Siberia they got stuff like that, but I've never seen anything
00:21:52.580 like that in the Canadian Arctic before.
00:21:54.000 Have you?
00:21:55.500 Of course it would be shut down by McKenna.
00:21:57.480 I mean, duh, they haven't done their transgender analysis.
00:22:00.160 She would probably shut it down because it hires too many men. 1.00
00:22:05.480 Gender impact, how does that fit into a pipeline approval process? 0.99
00:22:08.120 So I'm really glad you asked that because I think people are like, well, what is this
00:22:11.160 gender thing?
00:22:12.060 Well, imagine that you have a huge number of people going to a remote community, many men.
00:22:19.640 What is the impact on the community?
00:22:21.460 What is the impact on women in the community? 1.00
00:22:23.480 And actually, once again, smart proponents understand this, so they're going to put measures
00:22:27.300 in place.
00:22:27.740 That's all it is.
00:22:28.440 It's just taking a smart approach to thinking about, okay, what's going to be the impact
00:22:32.380 of a major development in a particular area?
00:22:35.340 Yeah, smart business people, smart operators know you have to do gender analysis. 1.00
00:22:39.620 I love that whenever I hear it as if Catherine McKenna has ever run anything other than her
00:22:44.540 mouth.
00:22:45.680 Well, Baffinland, they look like a hell of an operator.
00:22:51.100 They're doing a lot of stuff and it looks like they're doing it well.
00:22:55.000 I mean, I don't know.
00:22:55.980 I've just learned about them today, I'll be honest.
00:22:58.440 But I think they're the best thing to happen to Canada's North in a long time. 1.00
00:23:02.480 And they just realized that because of politics, environmental politics, not even politics of C-69, that
00:23:13.120 even hasn't been added yet.
00:23:14.360 They'll have to lay off 600 people, including almost 100 Inuit. 0.61
00:23:21.720 Oh, well.
00:23:23.460 Maybe they'll all just learn to code or whatever Trudeau and McKenna want us to do.
00:23:29.140 That or, you know, maybe they can go work with that white girl Amanda, you know, talking about 1.00
00:23:34.380 trapping and hunting and stuff.
00:23:36.440 Stay with us for more.
00:23:38.580 The number one reason that Cuba is so poor as a country is because it's a socialist regime.
00:23:56.400 The number two reason is because of the economic embargo placed on that island nation by the United States.
00:24:04.500 It's economic warfare and it's been going on for more than 50 years.
00:24:09.520 Well, that same tactic is being applied to Western Canada, Alberta in particular.
00:24:14.480 And the oil patch, to get very specific, it is being blockaded.
00:24:19.920 The phrase used by environmental extremists is demarketed.
00:24:24.280 You can see it in the official campaign plans of the anti-oil sands extremists.
00:24:30.140 In this campaign document from 2008, you can see the actual maps of pipelines and proposed pipelines they plan to cut off.
00:24:40.440 Well, it's barely a decade later and they have succeeded with Justin Trudeau and Gerald Butts in Ottawa
00:24:47.780 and the NDP in British Columbia and until recently in Alberta.
00:24:52.420 Energy East has been killed, the largest of all the pipeline proposals.
00:24:56.580 The Trans Mountain Pipeline is being strangled to death.
00:24:59.540 The Northern Gateway Pipeline has been outright vetoed by Trudeau.
00:25:03.480 And, of course, the Trans Canada Pipeline extension called Keystone XLM,
00:25:08.580 that has been tied up by activists in the court.
00:25:10.600 In short, Alberta has been hit with a Cuba embargo-style attack.
00:25:18.460 Well, now a scholar has proposed one way to solve the problem,
00:25:21.240 and that is to give Alberta and Saskatchewan their own access to the sea.
00:25:28.340 Those two landlocked countries being able to have their own fate in their own hands.
00:25:33.880 And joining us now via Skype from Alberta is the scholar who wrote the essay.
00:25:38.840 His name is Jared Lucician, and he is with Mount Royal University,
00:25:43.980 and he has written this paper for the Frontier Center for Public Policy.
00:25:47.660 It's great to meet you.
00:25:48.980 Thanks for taking the time to come on the show.
00:25:51.640 Well, thank you very much for having me, Ezra.
00:25:53.440 What do you think about my analogy of the actual embargo or blockade of Cuba?
00:25:59.700 I mean, that's an extreme and dramatic analogy, but do you think that it fits?
00:26:06.660 Do you think it fits?
00:26:08.620 Well, I guess the embargo part I would agree with in terms of landlocked Alberta and landlocked Saskatchewan.
00:26:17.980 And what we've seen over the last several years, obviously, is this economic infringement, maybe,
00:26:26.620 where we're being prevented from getting our most produced commodity, let's say, to market, in particular in Alberta,
00:26:36.100 and that's getting the pipelines through.
00:26:37.980 So, in terms of an embargo, I think we would have to be careful with the term embargo,
00:26:44.820 but certainly the ramifications of what has been happening to Alberta and Saskatchewan for a number of years,
00:26:51.320 I think, have the same result.
00:26:54.460 Yeah, I just read through your essay, and you talk about the right of a people or a country to have access to the sea,
00:27:03.000 and there are entire countries that are landlocked, when you think about Switzerland being an obvious example.
00:27:09.000 There's also countries in Africa and Asia with either no access to the sea or extremely limited access to the sea.
00:27:19.380 I find that a compelling argument, but the obvious counterpoint is, well, these aren't independent countries.
00:27:25.900 They have access to the sea right now, and under the Constitution, things like pipelines should give them, 0.80
00:27:33.540 you know, there is a constitutional power that the feds have to put the pipelines through. 0.94
00:27:38.960 I think that Canada should be working.
00:27:44.960 It's not.
00:27:45.880 Do you see any legal way to play that we demand access to the sea card,
00:27:51.980 or is that just an analogy you're making?
00:27:54.700 Well, essentially, when I started the research for the paper,
00:27:58.800 one of the key elements was trying to figure out how and if you had the access to tidewater,
00:28:05.200 if you had the actual right to tidewater.
00:28:07.820 And one of the things that the research started out as is to let's, you know,
00:28:12.840 instead of talking about arguing internally,
00:28:15.940 let's look at some countries that are actually in this sort of predicament where they are landlocked.
00:28:22.040 And that landlocked geographical boundary was due to cultural changes, political changes, war, etc.,
00:28:32.280 which is why a lot of these countries around the world become landlocked.
00:28:36.240 And so what we discovered when we were doing the research is that part of the UN is that countries around the world
00:28:44.220 have agreed that it is essential for every country to have access to the sea.
00:28:51.160 And as all countries agree to that, there's two fundamental principles that hold that premise up,
00:28:57.640 and that was freedom of transit and the concept of servitude.
00:29:03.260 Now, what we were looking at it was not necessarily looking at a separate country in terms of Alberta and Saskatchewan,
00:29:12.740 but rather it was a lens to see,
00:29:15.460 are the problems that we face in Alberta and Saskatchewan near the ones of a normal landlocked country?
00:29:22.220 And lo and behold, they're identical.
00:29:25.920 They're the same problems and issues that we're facing here in Alberta and Saskatchewan is also facing.
00:29:33.180 And so I think when we look at the UN, it's not necessarily,
00:29:38.660 and some people have categorized as saying if we're separate, then we get access.
00:29:42.460 I think really what it spells out for us is that as Canada is concerned and Canadians are concerned,
00:29:50.260 we hold up that principle of the UN and those principles externally and internationally,
00:29:57.040 and we defend those principles.
00:29:59.180 But we find it highly ironic or in some cases hypocritical,
00:30:03.940 where the government does not stand up for those exact same rights internally.
00:30:08.760 And so in terms of Alberta and Saskatchewan, when they were first formed,
00:30:14.060 they were not given access to the sea like every other province and territory.
00:30:20.620 Right. Isn't that interesting?
00:30:22.140 You know, you just made me think for a second about certain rights that other countries have with us
00:30:27.460 as independent countries that Canadian provinces don't have,
00:30:30.260 and it made me think of free trade.
00:30:33.060 Can a U.S. free trade, they're under the NAFTA or the revised NAFTA,
00:30:37.900 U.S. companies actually have the power to sue to remove blockades on their trade in Canada,
00:30:44.200 whereas provinces and businesses in Canada don't have that same right within our own country.
00:30:48.540 Very interesting.
00:30:49.440 You know, one of the things that was well covered by the mainstream media about your report
00:30:54.480 were two maps that you sort of, I'm going to call them daydreaming maps,
00:30:59.940 sort of blue skying or scenario maps.
00:31:02.460 Scenario, yeah.
00:31:03.220 Yeah, get the juices flowing, start talking it out about what Alberta and Saskatchewan could look like
00:31:10.620 if they did have access to the sea.
00:31:13.180 And we'll put those up on the screen.
00:31:14.900 They're similar looking.
00:31:17.840 One of them is more angular than the other.
00:31:21.180 And these were widely derided by Toronto know-it-alls.
00:31:25.800 And at first, it's sort of startling to look at those.
00:31:29.500 And then the next instinct is, well, maybe that part of B.C. doesn't want to join Alberta.
00:31:34.800 Maybe that part of Manitoba doesn't want to join Saskatchewan.
00:31:37.240 Although immediately, anyone who knows those areas know they would be culturally pretty good fit.
00:31:43.100 I think more parts of the B.C. interior would probably want to join B.C.
00:31:47.340 I tell you, go just a little bit over the Rocky Mountains there, like Albertans there. 0.88
00:31:51.680 But you also show a map of what the provinces were like before.
00:31:56.780 I mean, the delineation, the borders of Canadian provinces have not always been what they are.
00:32:03.280 Provincial boundaries, territorial boundaries, they changed.
00:32:06.900 We even created a whole new territory about 20 years ago.
00:32:10.360 So this is actually not as radical as the naysayers would suggest.
00:32:16.340 Yeah, absolutely.
00:32:17.160 And, of course, when you look at the two scenarios which I proposed in the paper, one was based on a parallel-based boundary, new boundary, which follows the 54th and the 58th parallels, which would be in line with what we see the border is between Alberta and Saskatchewan.
00:32:36.500 And then the other one, which I would think is more economical, is an infrastructure-based boundary.
00:32:45.500 And so these are two options, obviously.
00:32:48.780 And depending on how you wanted to redraw the borders, if you will, they would follow the suit.
00:32:56.860 Now, the reason why, I think if you look at it along the geometrical lines, which is really how Alberta and Saskatchewan came to be back in the day in 1905 when they sat down in Ottawa and literally sat down and drew them,
00:33:12.820 there was no consideration back then about where these provinces were going to be 150 years later or 115 years later.
00:33:21.720 And, in fact, when you read the transcripts out of the House back then, the politicians and the leaders of the day, they were more concerned about making Alberta and Saskatchewan equi-proportionate in terms of land mass out of the districts that you see from the 1895 map.
00:33:41.060 Then they were worried about, you know, economic rights or future economic rights of these two economic powers.
00:33:49.920 And over the last 115 years, it's very clear that Alberta and Saskatchewan are now economic powers and they're being held in place by their coastal neighbours.
00:34:03.400 And so, I think if we examine the maps, and again, as you quote the people that are naysayers, our boundaries have always been in flux.
00:34:15.600 Part of the paper was to re-examine how easy it is to move a boundary.
00:34:20.620 And, in fact, when you go through the history of the boundaries of Canada, the internal boundaries, most of them are quite easily moved.
00:34:28.200 In fact, they're moved by orders in council.
00:34:30.700 They get together, they'll negotiate, you know, the boundary.
00:34:33.980 And if that's not acceptable, then it was turned over, let's say, to a tribunal.
00:34:37.720 It was decided, order in council, and the new boundary was drawn.
00:34:42.600 So, I think, you know, unfortunately, in our day and age, you can't really do much justice in a 280-character tweet when half of it's emojis.
00:34:53.000 But I think if people take the time to actually read through the paper and the scenarios, they'll see that it's quite doable.
00:35:02.040 It's extremely possible.
00:35:04.040 And, as you said before, you know, if you're sitting in downtown Victoria, the people that need to make the decision are the people in northern BC, not the people sitting in downtown Victoria.
00:35:18.040 Same thing, the people in northern Manitoba need to make the decision rather than the people sitting in downtown Toronto.
00:35:26.320 And so, I think what we need to take away from this paper is, as you said, start the conversation around perhaps the borders as they were drawn 115 years ago dealt with the issue of 1905, which are not the issues of 2020.
00:35:44.940 Right. Well, I want to refer to one more map.
00:35:48.640 I talked about the two scenarios you outlined, but you show an old map dated, I think, 1895.
00:35:55.500 And it's just gorgeous.
00:35:56.820 It's just a reminder of how interesting Western Canada was when the population was smaller and it wasn't formal provinces yet.
00:36:04.840 Of course, Alberta, Saskatchewan didn't join Confederation in 1905.
00:36:07.920 You'll see that there were things we don't even name today.
00:36:13.000 Key Watten, Assiniboine, Athabasca.
00:36:16.280 These are all absorbed into other provinces now.
00:36:20.300 I remember when I was the publisher of the Western Standard magazine, we had a semi-humorous columnist named Rick Dolphin who reminded us that it used to all be called Buffalo.
00:36:32.020 Buffalo, that there was a proposal for a mighty province, Alberta and Saskatchewan together, called Buffalo, which is a great name.
00:36:39.820 And, you know, and he daydreamed of a place called Albumbia.
00:36:43.520 I think he was sort of joking about the name, but that would include internal D.C.
00:36:47.420 It's funny, but when you look at the map from 1895, what's so funny about it?
00:36:52.440 There's nothing funny about it.
00:36:53.520 I think a lot of the world's problems, frankly, have been guys sitting down a million miles from the place and drawing artificial lines on a map.
00:37:04.300 I think that's half the problems in the Middle East, frankly.
00:37:07.460 Just artificial countries created that make no sense in that case, often ethnically, religiously, culturally.
00:37:15.220 Here, it's definitely an economic thing.
00:37:17.240 I don't know, I saw, I came across your essay through the mockery of it by the CBC Toronto Star types.
00:37:27.340 They were mocking your maps.
00:37:29.260 The McLean's types were mocking them.
00:37:31.160 I thought, well, that looks sort of cool, and I saw the paper.
00:37:33.880 So, I don't know, I hope that, I hope people read it, and I hope it does get the juices flowing.
00:37:39.040 Why should only Nunavut get to be created out of nothing?
00:37:42.220 I think that this is something to talk about.
00:37:44.200 Last word to you, Professor.
00:37:45.220 Yeah, no, I certainly agree with your analysis of the 1895 map.
00:37:52.180 Again, I think a lot of people over time have forgotten the history of Canada.
00:37:59.320 And again, I think when you look back over the boundary exchanges, where we've come from to where we are today,
00:38:07.220 you know, it's obvious.
00:38:10.040 We're not in the 1905 framework anymore.
00:38:13.220 We are now in the 2020 framework, and what we need to do is throw off these lines that were drawn back in the days when there was no GPS,
00:38:25.440 and nobody knew exactly, believe it or not.
00:38:27.960 They didn't even know exactly how much land there was that they were talking about.
00:38:31.600 So, again, I think if people are really interested in having the conversation, this is one option.
00:38:39.740 You mentioned the Buffalo option.
00:38:41.400 That's another option where they actually form a new province out of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
00:38:47.460 But I think if people sit down and start to look at these redrawing the boundaries based on the economic potential of the provinces that we have
00:38:57.720 and consider the people within those geographical areas, obviously the current arrangement, as you look into northern BC and northern Manitoba,
00:39:08.640 the current arrangement doesn't seem to be working very well.
00:39:11.480 So I hope people take the time to read the paper fully, not just the tweet that somebody in downtown Toronto is weighing in on.
00:39:19.240 Yeah. Well, we'll have a link to your study underneath this video for people who want to see it from the south.
00:39:24.980 It's a very interesting read.
00:39:26.360 It's a little bit of history in there that I really appreciated getting a little bit of a refresher on.
00:39:32.520 Really nice to meet you.
00:39:33.580 The paper is called Tidewater Access, Redefining Canada's Internal Boundaries.
00:39:39.700 And we've been talking with Professor Gerard Lucician, who joins us via Skype from Red Deer,
00:39:44.820 and he's based at Calgary's Bouton Royal University.
00:39:47.180 Thanks for your time today.
00:39:49.240 Great. Thank you very much for having me.
00:39:50.400 All right. Well, that was very interesting.
00:39:52.200 Make sure to click the link below to read this study for yourself.
00:39:55.260 Stay with us. More Head on the Rebel.
00:40:05.320 Hey, welcome back. Got some letters for you today.
00:40:07.660 On my monologue yesterday, Jan writes,
00:40:11.540 I think that was a classy ad that Jeff Sessions produced.
00:40:14.420 It speaks volumes. Let's hope people get it.
00:40:16.540 Yeah. Oh, boy. I agree with you exactly.
00:40:20.280 Now, I know Trump doesn't really like Sessions,
00:40:22.200 and there are a number of other senators wanting that, people who want to be the senator.
00:40:27.640 I think he, I was, look, I'm not even an American, let alone an Alabamian.
00:40:33.000 But I was impressed by his dignity and that he's still loyal to Trump, even though Trump has really been mean.
00:40:39.580 Like, mean is the only word you can use to describe Trump on Sessions.
00:40:43.680 Francois writes,
00:40:44.580 Well, that's what was so interesting, is that the president of Northwestern, I think his name is Morton Shapiro,
00:41:01.040 he sounded, I mean, I don't, again, I don't, I just know what I read you from the newspaper.
00:41:05.320 He sounded pretty free speechy.
00:41:06.620 He said he supports protesters' right to protest, but not to shut the event down.
00:41:13.520 And when they stormed the hall through the windows and the doors, the cops stopped him.
00:41:19.420 I think that university president has a good balance.
00:41:23.040 He said he personally disagrees with Jeff Sessions, as if anyone cared,
00:41:27.780 but I think he's probably a Democrat, probably opposed to Sessions,
00:41:32.100 but he's making the point, I don't have to like someone.
00:41:35.320 I think it was important for him to say that, actually.
00:41:37.940 To show, look, I don't like this guy, but I let anyone speak whether or not I like them.
00:41:42.620 That's the right approach.
00:41:43.860 It's interesting that a university president cares more about free speech than student journalists.
00:41:51.800 You turn the clock back 50 years to the 1960s, Berkeley, probably Northwestern University too.
00:41:58.760 It was all the students saying, give us free speech, and the administrator cracking down on things.
00:42:06.340 R.J. writes, I feel like I owe Sessions an apology.
00:42:10.180 His track record shows a man of integrity.
00:42:13.400 Well, R.J., I don't know what you have to apologize to Jeff Sessions for.
00:42:16.780 I'll leave that to the two of you.
00:42:21.520 Who knows what intrigues there were between Trump and Sessions.
00:42:25.420 I'm sure a lot of it had to do with the Mueller investigation.
00:42:27.620 I don't know that Arcana, but I think Jeff Sessions is probably a good fit for Alabama in the Senate.
00:42:34.580 I have no idea.
00:42:35.400 Look, I'm just not an expert, but I did think his ad was so unusual that I wanted to show with you.
00:42:42.800 I'm glad so many people found it interesting.
00:42:45.120 Well, that's our show for today.
00:42:47.000 I don't know if I mentioned this to you guys, but we're having a couple of Wexit debates in Alberta next week.
00:42:54.680 And I hate that word, Wexit.
00:42:56.660 I wish that hadn't stuck, but it's stuck.
00:42:58.860 It's the Brexit for the West. 0.97
00:43:00.640 So we're having a panel discussion in Calgary and Edmonton.
00:43:03.780 Edmonton on Tuesday night.
00:43:06.160 Calgary on Wednesday night.
00:43:07.260 I'll be there.
00:43:07.780 Kian Bexty, Sheila Gunn-Reed, Lauren Gunter, and in Edmonton, Barry Cooper, a professor, will be joining us too.
00:43:13.340 So four or five people in each city.
00:43:14.800 Tickets, $15 each, unless you're with the CBC, in which case it's $40.
00:43:20.000 You can see that at wexitdebate.com, the different pricing.
00:43:26.160 $15 for severely normal people.
00:43:29.000 And if you're a CBC-er, pony up.
00:43:32.280 That's our money.
00:43:33.000 Just give it back.
00:43:33.860 $40.
00:43:34.620 It's nothing to you.
00:43:36.260 Anyways, that really is the case.
00:43:38.420 You'll see the multi-tiered ticketing prices there.
00:43:41.100 I hope to see you Tuesday night in Edmonton, Wednesday night in Calgary.
00:43:45.480 All right.
00:43:45.840 Have a good weekend, anybody.
00:43:47.220 And by the way, keep fighting for freedom.
00:43:50.580 Thank you.