Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Alberta Premier Danielle Smith talks oil and gas with Rebel News

00:00:00.000 Oh, hi there. Big show today, a one-on-one interview with Danielle Smith, the Premier of

00:00:03.960 Alberta. You can hear the echoes around me. I'm in the Alberta legislature as I record this.

00:00:09.240 I'd love it if you got the video version of this interview. I think you'd find it more engaging.

00:00:14.100 Go to rebelnewsplus.com. Click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month. You get the video version

00:00:19.540 of my show, which is every weeknight. Plus, you get the moral satisfaction of knowing

00:00:24.260 that you're supporting Rebel News because we don't take a dime from Trudeau and it shows.

00:00:28.800 All right, here's today's podcast.

00:00:34.540 Tonight, a feature interview with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

00:00:38.380 It's March 22nd, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:41.760 You're fighting for freedom.

00:00:44.620 Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:00:47.780 Ezra LeVant here for Rebel News. Behind me, watching over me, is Ralph Klein, the late

00:01:02.040 great Premier of Alberta, the great conservative populist who I think had a grassroots touch,

00:01:09.100 and he also knew that quite often the opponent wasn't on the opposition aisles, but rather

00:01:13.680 the opponent was in Ottawa. Well, I'm back in the Alberta legislature, which can only mean

00:01:18.500 one thing, a sit-down interview with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. I've talked to her a

00:01:23.640 few times about an assortment of issues. Today, I chose to focus on oil and gas. Here's how

00:01:30.540 that conversation went.

00:01:40.320 Thanks for meeting with me. You're so busy. It's great to see you. I'd like to talk about oil and gas.

00:01:45.580 It's so important for Albertans. Some people, like Stephen Gilboa, would say that oil is an evil we

00:01:51.500 have to get rid of. Others would say, well, Alberta oil is the lesser evil. It's more ethical than other

00:01:58.640 countries. And some people, like Alex Epstein, would say, no, it's a moral good. It's a positive.

00:02:05.300 It lifts people out of poverty. It makes people happier, healthier. Where do you fit on the

00:02:10.300 spectrum? Is oil evil, a necessary evil, or is it positively good? Positively good. There's no

00:02:15.120 question about that. We have to address issues of emissions, but we have always had to, with

00:02:19.740 everything we produce, try to find ways to have less impact on the environment. This is just the

00:02:23.440 latest challenge. But I've often said that the issue is not transitioning away from oil and natural

00:02:28.780 gas production. The issue is transitioning away from emissions. And we can do that now. We have

00:02:35.060 all kinds of technology that allow for us to strip out the CO2, bury it, embed it into useful

00:02:39.840 products. And I believe because we have so many industries that have a strategy to be carbon neutral

00:02:47.220 by 2050, that innovation is going to solve this problem, which allows for us to get this essential

00:02:52.700 product to the world. One thing that I think people forget is that a barrel of oil isn't

00:02:58.480 just gasoline and diesel. You can make 6,000 products out of a barrel of oil. So it could

00:03:04.640 well be that there may be fewer combustion uses for it, but we still need asphalt for roads. We

00:03:09.800 still need petrochemicals. We still need lubricants. We still need so many of the things that come

00:03:14.360 from a barrel of oil. So I am more than happy to talk to the world about Alberta's story because

00:03:18.900 it's a really good one. No other industry that I can think of has an artificial cap

00:03:24.620 put on it. The airline industry, the tech industry, the auto industry. And yet it's become normalized

00:03:32.200 to talking about capping the Alberta oil sands. Should there be any artificial limit to production

00:03:41.500 in Alberta? We've got close to 200 billion barrels of oil in the oil sands that are proven reserves and

00:03:48.360 there's 10 times as much in place. Should there be any artificial limit to how much we produce?

00:03:54.160 I don't think so. I mean, I've said we can reduce emissions and double our production. And I think

00:03:58.480 we should do that because one of the things that I've learned is that our heavy crude actually is very

00:04:06.100 highly prized because it can make so many products. And there's a shortage of being able to provide

00:04:11.740 heavy crude to our refineries. And so, especially in the Gulf Coast, that's why you hear them saying,

00:04:17.000 maybe we should be looking at getting some oil from Iran. Maybe we should be looking at getting

00:04:21.320 it from Venezuela. And my solution is we're right here. We are your friend. We are your ally.

00:04:27.100 We already have the entraties. We've got the pipeline system. We have the ability to produce.

00:04:31.980 When I was just down in Houston at Cereal Week, to put it into context, as I said, we've got 170

00:04:38.400 billion barrels of proven reserves, maybe more than that, as technology keeps on improving.

00:04:44.140 That is five times the amount of proven reserves in America as a whole. And we are just north of the

00:04:50.140 border. So, I think in some ways we kind of get forgotten and it's up to us to be able to assert

00:04:55.780 ourselves. Now, I recall during the dark ages when you had both Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley both

00:05:03.700 going to work on the oil industry at the same time, there was this phrase that without social license,

00:05:09.340 without paying the carbon tax, without all these regulations, people will, customers will not buy

00:05:15.660 Alberta oil. It was an absurd thing to say. And they talk about social license because these projects

00:05:22.980 already had real licenses, they had environmental licenses. Have you ever, in any of your travels,

00:05:30.740 come across some refinery that said, no, we won't take Alberta oil unless you jump through these

00:05:37.580 social license hoops of a carbon tax? Like, I can't imagine that the refineries that are buying

00:05:43.120 from Saudi and Venezuela and Iran would say, no, no, no, we're not going to get Alberta oil if it

00:05:47.980 doesn't pay the carbon tax. Was that whole thing just a ruse? Like, I've never heard any proof of that

00:05:52.740 theory. It's funny, because I just met with some of the principles with Reliance, which is the

00:05:58.640 largest refinery on the planet. It's in India. And when we're talking about, well, can you accept

00:06:04.940 our crude? Do you know that it's heavy? They said, the heavier, the better, because that allows them

00:06:09.360 to produce more products. So I think that we should stop apologizing, really, that there are other ways

00:06:15.580 that we can reduce emissions to be able to reach carbon neutrality. People need this product.

00:06:22.340 We are one of the only ones who can safely provide it. And we should be making sure that our friends

00:06:27.840 and allies have the product that they need. As you know, 10 years ago, I wrote a book called

00:06:32.720 Ethical Oil. And I tried to compare what I called ethical oil with conflict oil, because the world buys

00:06:39.380 over 100 million barrels a day. And if it's not going to get it from us, it's going to get it from someone

00:06:42.640 else. And most of the other someone else's are morally questionable regimes. And look at Russia,

00:06:48.760 which has been using its oil and gas to fund its war in Ukraine. Look at Qatar, which has been using

00:06:55.020 especially its natural gas to fund terrorist groups. I suppose my question is, why when the Chancellor of

00:07:06.400 Germany visited Trudeau, and when the Prime Minister of Japan visited Trudeau, both of them said,

00:07:13.520 please give us some of your ethical energy to displace Russian and Qatari energy? Like they were 1.00

00:07:20.920 both basically saying, give us the good stuff, please. Why did Trudeau say no to both of them

00:07:26.740 on behalf of the industry? Why do you say there's no business case? Why did he basically turn them

00:07:31.200 away the one thing they could have really used from Canada? It's a funny dynamic, because you

00:07:37.400 probably saw in the last couple of days, they've announced a deal with Germany to send green

00:07:41.920 hydrogen made from offshore wind. And if it comes to fruition, you know, bravo to Newfoundland and

00:07:48.900 Labrador, it'll be $200 billion in additional revenue for them. But the issue is that we just don't

00:07:55.320 have the efficient means of being able to get our product to the East Coast because Quebec has stood 1.00

00:08:01.040 in the way. Quebec has said that they don't want to develop their own resource. They pulled licenses.

00:08:06.100 They were obstructionists when it came to any discussion of pipelines. And so maybe there isn't

00:08:11.340 a business case if you're not prepared to work with Quebec to get the pipeline infrastructure that

00:08:18.220 you need to. But there absolutely is a business case off the West Coast. And that's where we're going

00:08:21.880 to be focused. When you've got LNG Canada, that really is months away from being able to be up in

00:08:27.860 operation. They also need to make a final business investment decision next year on whether or not to

00:08:33.820 expand that. Right now they have two trains. They could double the size of their project. If they can

00:08:38.420 get the certainty, they'll be allowed to go ahead. There are at least two or three other projects that

00:08:43.500 are getting to final investment decision. There's the potential for us to export hydrogen and ammonia

00:08:49.660 using our existing rail lines going to Port-au-Prince-Rupert. So I feel like whatever

00:08:54.840 conversation the federal prime minister has had when looking on the other side of the country,

00:09:01.400 it doesn't apply on our side of the country. But it's also our job. It's the job of us in British

00:09:06.820 Columbia to be making that case and to be finding our markets. I understand that the Trans Mountain

00:09:12.280 pipeline is getting close to operational. That's such a crazy story because Trudeau did everything he

00:09:18.320 could to block it. And then when it looked like he would kill it, he bought it, basically quadrupled

00:09:24.400 the cost of it, like it's some arrive can app or something. But it looks like it might actually be

00:09:30.280 ready for operation. But do you actually think that the environmental extremists will let it operate?

00:09:36.600 Do you actually think oil will flow from Alberta through British Columbia to a port in BC?

00:09:42.420 Yes, I do. And I know it's been a big challenge all the way along. But and I'm grateful that they

00:09:48.560 finally did end up putting it to getting it to the finish line pretty close anyway. I'm grateful that

00:09:53.900 they were willing to pay all of the cost over runs and take on some of the political heat for that.

00:09:58.780 But it wouldn't have been necessary if they hadn't created the environment in the first place,

00:10:02.140 because it could be that Northern Gateway was the better project or Keystone XL was the better

00:10:08.020 project or Energy East was the bigger project. Or all of the above, let the market decide.

00:10:11.080 Completely. And the only ones that managed to get done is the Line 3 expansion on an existing

00:10:16.120 right-of-way and the Trans Mountain expansion on an existing right-of-way. But I do believe that it

00:10:20.940 will get to market. But we should have had all of them. It should have been all of the above. And

00:10:24.780 they wouldn't have had to step in to de-risk that project if they hadn't created the political

00:10:29.500 uncertainty in the first place. Yeah, they provided both the problem and the solution.

00:10:32.740 How about the Premier of British Columbia? Has he expressed a view on Trans Mountain? You know,

00:10:41.020 I see they're talking about the tankers again. Are you worried that there will be some provincial

00:10:46.900 pushback or is he in sync with this? I would say, I mean, look, he's in a certain stage in his

00:10:52.300 election cycle. And so you know how when you get pretty close to election, they tend to focus more

00:10:58.180 on the domestic issues. When I work with Premier Eby, we try to find the areas of common ground.

00:11:04.620 And there are many, many areas of common ground. I hope it doesn't become a political issue because

00:11:09.000 it shouldn't. It really shouldn't. They export. I think Vancouver is our busiest port in Canada.

00:11:15.900 I think it has 170 million tons that get exported in and out of there every day. And so to have a few

00:11:22.080 of those tankers or a few of those ships be tankers, it really shouldn't have that kind of that kind of

00:11:28.200 focus. There's a there's a lot of activity that happens in that port. And it's great for the entire

00:11:31.880 country that it that it has that activity. Yeah. You know, there's different reasons to be against

00:11:37.120 oil. I don't think any of them are valid. But when I listen to Stephen Gilboa, sometimes it sounds

00:11:42.400 ideological. Sometimes it sounds like a regional bias, like an anti-Alberta animus. I note that both

00:11:49.440 Gilboa and Trudeau are avid jet setters. I mean, they never stop traveling around.

00:11:54.920 Gilboa sometimes says weird things. And then he pulls back. He says, I don't want to invest in

00:11:59.100 roads anymore, which I think betrays an ideology. But I've never heard either Gilboa or Trudeau

00:12:05.960 criticize oil from other jurisdictions. They always seem to either ignore conflict oil from OPEC or even

00:12:13.860 favorite. For example, they don't put the carbon tax on imports from OPEC. What's going on with

00:12:20.000 those two? Is it some legacy from Pierre Trudeau sort of hate the West? Is it like a liberal tradition

00:12:24.700 to hate oil and gas? Is it ideology? Is it tax greed? What's going on? All I can think of is when

00:12:31.940 when Trudeau got elected, he said Canada is back. He thought that was very important that the UN knew

00:12:37.360 that a particular ideology had returned to Canada. And I think it goes back to Maurice Strong, who was

00:12:42.420 one of the first proponents of shutting down the fossil fuel industry and having Canada take the lead

00:12:48.860 with the approach that this country took on Kyoto and all of the subsequent UN conventions on climate

00:12:56.920 change. And so I think that there really is an ideology, and we saw it when what was called the

00:13:02.480 Tar Sands campaign started up in 2008. One of the issues behind that was the environmentalists

00:13:09.920 thought, well, we've effectively managed to demonize coal. And they were happy with the

00:13:14.060 progress they were making in phasing that out. But then they said, well, what's the next big problem?

00:13:18.860 What's transportation fuel? And so they said, where does America get its product from? And it was

00:13:23.760 Saudi Arabia and Canada. And it's probably not very safe to go and campaign and protest in Saudi Arabia.

00:13:29.260 So the whole strategy came, shut down the access from Canada into the United States. Now, in the

00:13:34.860 meantime, the Americans have dramatically increased their own production. And good for them. I'm 0.99

00:13:40.400 jealous. And yet the strategy has still been isolate Canada, stop them from being a world player,

00:13:45.200 which is so defeatist. I mean, that's just not why you elect a federal government. You don't elect a

00:13:49.200 federal government to shut down industries, to interfere with resource development, to interfere with

00:13:52.920 wealth creation, to cripple an economy. And yet that the only way that I can describe the last two

00:13:59.080 years of what we've seen under Stephen Gibault has been precisely that. Because everywhere you turn,

00:14:04.240 there is a new targeted policy aimed at phasing out fossil fuels, whether it's the emissions cap on

00:14:10.020 oil and gas, the methane cap, whether it's the new plan for net zero cars being the only kind of car

00:14:15.880 we can buy by 2035, whether it's the promotion of green hydrogen and the reluctance to talk about

00:14:23.520 blue hydrogen, whether it's the tanker ban that they had off the West Coast, whether it's the

00:14:29.860 lack of enthusiasm that they've had to promote pipeline development. You see one thing after

00:14:35.480 another all leading to, if you can take Canada out of the mix, maybe we'll be able to tell our

00:14:42.000 friends in the international community that we're one of them. And that is not our job. Our job is, 0.98

00:14:47.180 and the job of a federal government, is to make sure we get our products to market,

00:14:50.420 is to make sure that every region is able to develop to its full benefit, and to make sure

00:14:55.160 that we are a reliable friend and ally to our partners. We can be a central role in addressing

00:15:03.280 issues of energy security, energy affordability, reliability, and we can reduce emissions. It's

00:15:09.040 such a good story to tell. But I think we've seen a real turn in the last couple of years with this

00:15:13.740 particular environment minister. And the reason I say that is I was reminded at CERA week that

00:15:19.740 Justin Trudeau did speak there in 2016, and he got a standing ovation four times. And the memory of

00:15:26.280 his message was no one would ever look at all of this incredible resource wealth and just say,

00:15:31.660 let's leave it in the ground. So something's happened in the last couple of years. Maybe it's

00:15:35.260 because he's longer into his mandate. He thinks he can get away with more aggressive action against

00:15:40.240 our industry. But I'll just put it out there. They do not have the authority to shut down our energy

00:15:46.340 industry. They do not have the authority to curtail our production. And we'll be fighting

00:15:49.800 them every step of the way. Sometimes I think Stephen Guilbeau just does things for theatrics.

00:15:55.220 I mean, Trudeau himself is a former drama teacher. When Guilbeau broke into the CN Tower, when he

00:16:01.380 climbed on the roof of Ralph Klein's home, when Ralph Klein wasn't there, but his wife was just terrified

00:16:06.940 of her. Those are actually criminal acts. If you tried doing that in Russia or an OPEC country,

00:16:11.520 you'd be in prison. Those are both much larger producers than Canada's. I think maybe he's sort

00:16:18.560 of cosplaying some ideological here. I'm just trying to understand, do you think he really

00:16:24.980 believes it? Do you think Stephen Guilbeau is a true believer?

00:16:27.680 I think he is. I think there is an ideology out there. We've seen it expressed for many years in

00:16:34.620 our country. But even in the more extreme environmental movement, they have this vision

00:16:39.260 that you can power an industrialized economy off solar and wind and battery power, and that

00:16:46.120 everything is supposed to then be on the grid, including all of your home heating and all of

00:16:50.860 your transportation. And then it's all supposed to be free energy because the sun is free and the wind

00:16:56.480 is free. But there's some problems with that proposal, is that the infrastructure isn't free.

00:17:01.200 And the infrastructure takes a lot of energy to build. There's also another problem that you

00:17:06.660 can't create a solar panel with a solar panel or a wind turbine with a wind turbine.

00:17:10.300 You call to make the steel.

00:17:12.480 You do. And you need all kinds of resources in order to be able to put the batteries together.

00:17:17.780 So I think that there is a bit of a blind spot about the kind of environmental harms caused by

00:17:23.480 certain types of energy production. And then on the other hand, all they talk about is the

00:17:28.900 purported environmental harms of oil and natural gas. So the solution is get rid of oil and natural

00:17:36.220 gas in the minds of those extreme environmentalists. And I have no doubt in my mind that that is the

00:17:42.160 ideology of our current environment minister. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

00:17:46.200 People do change. But I can tell you, when I began in this job, I was told by some of my fellow

00:17:51.460 premiers, you know, good luck to you. But he's an ideologue. You're not going to get anywhere.

00:17:56.360 And that's what I discovered is that we were having these constructive tables talking about

00:18:00.680 things that we were where I think we really can work together, creating a regulatory framework

00:18:04.560 for small modular reactors, our hydrogen economy. We a lot, a number of our net zero projects have

00:18:10.500 gotten federal support from Francois-Philippe Champagne in particular. And so there are some

00:18:15.500 areas that we can work together. But I think the problem is the foundational philosophy coming out of

00:18:20.640 the environment department, which appears to have free reign, is doing everything they can to

00:18:25.000 interfere with our ability to produce our resources. And that is absolutely obvious.

00:18:29.480 I want to be respectful of your time. I really appreciate you fitting me in. I just have two

00:18:33.200 more quick questions. One is a counter-thesis. You said that the eco-dream, the green dream,

00:18:41.000 is that we all have plentiful energy on the grid and solar and wind. But sometimes if you listen to

00:18:46.340 Gilboa and Trudeau, they don't talk about plenty. They talk about nudging people, making it too costly

00:18:54.100 to burn carbon dioxide, that they're penalizing what they call pollution. And I think energy poverty,

00:19:02.960 which is what a lot of Canadians are experiencing, that's not a bug. That's the feature. That's the

00:19:07.760 designed outcome. They want people to drive less, heat their home less. I actually think that

00:19:13.860 their ideology is not one of plenty and prosperity. It's one of poverty and a reduced footprint,

00:19:20.240 reduced reuse, recycle. But in some ways, it's sort of anti-humanist. What are your thoughts on that?

00:19:25.220 Well, Canada is a big country and we all can't take public transit.

00:19:30.100 And it's a cold country.

00:19:31.080 It's a cold country. And it's spoken, that kind of framework for what the future should look like

00:19:37.940 is spoken like somebody who's never left Montreal, never left downtown Montreal, doesn't understand.

00:19:43.080 Things we can all bike to work.

00:19:44.600 And it's impossible. And so, especially if you want to produce all the things that we need,

00:19:48.920 whether it's energy or whether it's food, that happens out in our rural areas. So I think that

00:19:56.440 there is an ideology there that is just incompatible with a flourishing economy and maybe human

00:20:02.200 flourishment. And so the solution shouldn't be, how do we stop living? How do we stop doing the things we

00:20:09.000 want to do because we want to protect the planet? It's how do we keep doing the things we want to do

00:20:14.520 and protect the planet? That is, I think, the framework we have. We have a framework of abundance

00:20:18.440 that we can produce more energy. We can reduce the impact from emissions or waste. And that is

00:20:25.240 indeed the story of the oil and gas sector. I remember when a professor, who I saw years and

00:20:32.200 years ago at a Liberty conference, talking about the story of oil. And it was that we wanted to use

00:20:37.640 kerosene. And so we started off taking kerosene out and there was all this sludge and muck. They said,

00:20:42.840 what are we going to do with this? And some brilliant entrepreneur came along and said, well,

00:20:45.960 let's turn it into this product or that product. And that's why we have 6,000 different things that come

00:20:50.120 from a barrel of oil now. CO2 is really just the latest waste stream that I believe they're going

00:20:56.440 to find some useful purpose for. They already have. Heidelberg is going to embed that CO2 into

00:21:02.600 their cement to make a stronger concrete. The energy sector has already taken that CO2 and injected it

00:21:08.440 underground to be able to produce more oil. They will find uses to CO2. We just have to trust in the

00:21:14.200 entrepreneurs, which I do. And then we can have an attitude of abundance and still feel good about the

00:21:18.600 impact that we're having on the planet. Last question. There was a terrible dark time in Alberta when

00:21:26.200 companies who had permission to develop, who had huge proposals or applications, looked around and

00:21:33.480 said, there's too much political risk here. We're out. And they took billions, they took tens of billions

00:21:39.240 of dollars, mines, oil sands. And they actually moved to places that I would think were much riskier.

00:21:46.040 Kazakhstan, Iraq. Imagine thinking it's less risk to operate an oil and gas project in Iraq or

00:21:53.240 Kazakhstan than Alberta. Have those companies looking at Trudeau and looking at Gilbo said,

00:22:00.920 it's still too risky? Or have some of those companies said, you know what, the grownups are in charge now,

00:22:06.840 the radicals are outside the gates. We can put our money back in Alberta. What's it like

00:22:14.120 in terms of investment? Still too risky. Yeah, I'm afraid to say. I've talked to

00:22:20.840 those who may want to do, for instance, a natural gas power plant, even with carbon sequestration,

00:22:26.120 and having gone to three different banks being told by all three, sorry, your asset might be shut in,

00:22:31.000 or you might be out of compliance with the federal rules by 2035. So it's Trudeau that's the risk.

00:22:35.320 Yep, that's right. And so, but they'll say, but we will fund you if you want to do a solar project

00:22:40.200 or a wind project, even though we need baseload natural gas. It's part of the reason, and it's

00:22:44.200 going to be challenging, I know, because we've always prided ourselves on free enterprise and

00:22:49.000 letting the private sector take the lead. But what are we supposed to do when the private sector says,

00:22:53.160 because of federal interference, we're not prepared to deploy our capital? It's part of the reason why,

00:22:58.280 when we invoked the Sovereignty Act for the first time, it was, we don't want to do it,

00:23:02.040 but if we have to set up a crown corporation in order to de-risk these projects so that we can build

00:23:07.240 natural gas plants and have that baseload so the lights don't go out, we're prepared to do that.

00:23:11.320 And we're hoping by demonstrating our confidence that we'll be able to have a private sector partner

00:23:16.120 work with us. But I'm telling you, we have to be bold when it comes to our production as well.

00:23:21.880 We have to produce our bitumen, we have to produce our conventional oil,

00:23:25.480 we have to produce our conventional natural gas as well, because America is going to need our product,

00:23:30.680 the world is going to need our product, and we have to find a way to de-risk that too.

00:23:35.320 Maybe it'll take a change in government, but barring that, it's going to take a heck of a lot of

00:23:39.240 legal challenges. And we've won at least a couple of those, so I think that the courts are heading in

00:23:43.960 the right direction.

00:23:44.760 I can't resist asking one last silly question. Do you think that when the cameras aren't on him,

00:23:52.200 that Stephen Gilboa actually uses a paper straw? Or do you think he uses a plastic straw like the

00:23:56.760 rest of us?

00:23:57.320 I have to tell you, the paper straws are terrible! Try drinking a root beer float for those paper straws! 0.83

00:24:03.320 I don't think anyone likes him, and I don't think Stephen Gilboa himself, I think he looks around,

00:24:08.280 and if no one's in the room, I think he uses a plastic straw.

00:24:10.600 Well, it's true, and the war on plastics is sort of the next thing that we're fighting.

00:24:15.080 The idea that plastics are toxic, when you think about all of the food security that we have now,

00:24:21.080 and the decrease in foodborne illness because we have packaging, plastics and packaging that

00:24:26.280 allows us to keep that food safe. When you look at, we went through the COVID crisis for two years,

00:24:31.000 with masks and gloves and syringes that are all made out of plastic. Our medical community wouldn't

00:24:36.360 be able to have the sanitary conditions without plastic, so it's absurd that they would call it

00:24:41.400 toxic. And that's another example, again, of the war on our petrochemical industry because of

00:24:48.440 hydrocarbon fuels. When you look at all of the policies that they've taken, all roads lead back to,

00:24:54.440 they just want to reduce production, and we're just not going to let them do that.

00:24:57.800 It's great to catch up with you. Thanks for so much time.

00:24:59.880 You bet. Thanks.

00:25:09.320 Well, that's my interview with Danielle Smith. What do you think? I think she's dead right

00:25:13.800 about plastic and paper straws, don't you? That was just a fun question I threw in at the end,

00:25:19.000 but I think she had a lot of serious things to say. I think she realizes that she's up against

00:25:24.040 people who want to destroy the oil and gas industry, and I think she realizes it's important to fight

00:25:29.880 back using the Sovereignty Act, if necessary, and finding other provincial allies. For example,

00:25:36.120 the one that she has in Scott Moe in Saskatchewan. Let me know what you think of the interview. Send me

00:25:40.840 an email to ezra at rebelnews.com. From the Alberta legislature in Edmonton, this is Ezra Levant from

00:25:47.480 Rebel News saying, thanks for watching.

Rebel News Podcast - March 22, 2024

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Alberta Premier Danielle Smith talks oil and gas with Rebel News

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