00:04:03.280Yeah, I mean, of course, the arguments and the fights between Alberta and Ottawa
00:04:06.320go far, far further back than that, as you well know.
00:04:10.620You know, Pierre Elliott Trudeau with the National Energy Program
00:04:12.740tried to really strangle the Alberta energy industry.
00:04:15.720And, of course, Alberta won that fight convincingly with constitutional amendments
00:04:21.580and all sorts of court cases and things like that.
00:04:23.800And that led, I think, to some of those years when the Liberal government were okay with Alberta developing the resources because it was such a significant win by Alberta and the other provinces in that battle.
00:04:36.180But we seem to have kind of forgotten that lesson, that that's how Canada works.
00:04:42.300And so now we're back to having this argument again over who's in charge, who's responsible, who owns the natural resources.
00:04:49.280Of course, it was never an argument for every other province.
00:04:51.540Every other province was the owner of their natural resources right from confederation.
00:04:56.700It was only Alberta and Saskatchewan that were not given that right when they were first created as provinces and had to fight for it later.
00:05:04.180And so, yeah, it seems like we we go in cycles and we're back to one of those times when a lot of a lot of people don't believe that Alberta has the right to develop and export our resources.
00:05:14.920You know, it's certainly interesting to see Danielle Smith being the grown up.
00:05:19.580I mean, she gave an interesting lecture the other day on what it would actually look like if Canada turned off its oil taps to America.
00:05:27.760I mean, such an absurd, it's a child's solution.
00:05:31.900It's, you know, Henry Kissinger, who had his flaws, to be sure, he was very smart, though.
00:05:39.600And one of the questions he would ask people who had bright ideas was, and then what?
00:06:49.600And it's important that this be understood by every Canadian.
00:06:53.580If Canada were to put, let's say, a 50% export tariff on the 4 million barrels of oil that we export daily to the United States,
00:07:03.680The United States would immediately respond with a 50 to 100 percent export tariff on oil and natural gas that they export to Ontario, along with millions of barrels of diesel fuel and gasoline that Ontario and Quebec import from the Midwest.
00:07:21.760This would bring the economies of Ontario and Quebec to a grinding halt.
00:07:26.520Meanwhile, all those refineries in the United States that currently use Alberta's heavy oil
00:07:31.140would start looking to Venezuela for replacement heavy oil
00:07:34.400and reverse the pipelines northward to get it to Midwest refineries.
00:07:38.860As a result, we would lose the United States as a customer entirely and likely forever.
00:07:44.760This would result in the loss of about half a million jobs at a minimum, mostly in Alberta,
00:07:49.800but also hundreds of thousands of jobs in Ontario and Quebec.
00:07:53.960And if we cut off our oil entirely, what then?
00:07:59.540The United States would, of course, respond and cut off all gasoline and diesel
00:08:03.240from their refineries to Ontario and Quebec, right as we turn into fall and winter.
00:08:09.000And unlike Canada, the United States has strategic oil reserves that Canada does not.
00:08:13.840So although their gasoline prices will increase,
00:08:16.920they will be able to keep them at relatively manageable prices,
00:08:19.900just as they have done through the Iran war.
00:08:22.100And without strategic oil reserves, Canada has no way to supply Ontario and Quebec with the oil, natural gas and fuels that they would need in a timely fashion.
00:08:32.320The Toronto Stock Exchange would nosedive, along with millions of Canadians' investments, particularly our seniors, and small and medium and large energy companies across Canada would shutter and lay off their employees, unable to find a market for their product.
00:08:50.220I don't even know if Doug Ford or other new trade warriors, happy trade warriors, even know that their own oil comes from the United States, whether it's originally from Canada or from the U.S., it all passes through the U.S. before it goes up to Ontario.
00:09:09.760I think they believe that maybe if they turned off the oil to America, or some are even talking about turning off the electricity.
00:09:17.580Imagine if hospital emergency rooms had their lights cut off by a spiteful Canadian politician.
00:09:23.760Could you imagine the pain that would be returned upon Canada?
00:09:27.880But that is precisely their prescription.
00:09:30.680Punish the United States in a way that would create a backlash against the whole country.
00:09:35.600But the most immediate thing would be massive layoffs in the oil patch.0.98
00:09:39.080it's sort of staggering if is are they dumb are they malicious do they even mean it what do you0.95
00:09:44.160think well i think it goes back to what you mentioned of like people think about the very0.92
00:09:48.700first immediate level of consequence of an action and then they don't think about the second and the
00:09:53.980third and the fourth consequence and and all of the extra knock-on effects so your example of
00:09:58.860doug ford last week saying oh you know we should cut off energy to the u.s and then him having a
00:10:03.860call with danielle smith and after the call he's saying oh well i didn't realize but danielle
00:10:08.160explained to me that all of the oil that comes to ontario and quebec actually flows through the us
00:10:14.400and so if we cut off the us we'd be cutting off ontario quebec too um and and you would think
00:10:19.620that that would be something you would try and understand before announcing that we should shut
00:10:23.360down canada's largest industry um but apparently it's not and people have to point this out to
00:10:28.620them after that and and you know to his credit having learned that he then announced oh well
00:10:33.720maybe it would be a great idea for us to build a pipeline from alberta to ontario and quebec so
00:10:38.060that we don't have to go through the U.S. in future, which, you know, Alberta has been
00:10:42.120saying for 20 years, but to his credit, he's now agreeing with that as well.
00:10:46.240So, you know, we're making progress here and there, but it's, yeah, it's very frustrating
00:10:50.420sometimes for the points that Albertans and Alberta politicians have been making for 20
00:10:55.000years to still not really have been considered and fought through by the rest of the country.
00:11:00.160Yeah, I'm going to disagree with you on one point to say that he suddenly supports a pipeline
00:14:13.840If Alberta offers up tariffs on oil and gas at the same time and trying to make that comparable, the reality is Alberta's oil and gas exports are larger than all of Quebec's exports in total.
00:14:30.500And so to make it a fair comparison, Quebec would have to offer the tariff every single thing that they export to make it equal to tariffing Alberta's oil and gas exports.
00:14:41.000And so I think when you start to put things into context, you start to realize why this would be such a terrible idea.
00:14:48.220And as to your point about the referendum, you know, we can never know for sure.
00:14:53.180But I think we can definitely say that the threat of the referendum or the referendum to have a referendum has certainly had an impact on clarifying a lot of people's minds about how seriously this needs to be taken.
00:15:07.480So maybe the government would have got the same end point in the end, but we'll never know for sure.
00:15:12.700And of course, one of the threats is that if the referendum doesn't succeed in October, then does that suddenly go back on the table as an option after October?
00:15:22.800Yeah, I think it's important for Alberta's self-defense that the leave vote at least hit 30 percent, ideally 40 percent.
00:15:30.960If it's not possible to get over the hump of 50 percent, and polls right now suggest that may not happen, although the intensity of leave voters may be higher than those that remain, having a proven political force that can hit 30, 35, 40 percent of the vote is enough of a standing army, I think, to make Ontario think twice.
00:15:57.400It's certainly what Quebec has mastered, and they haven't even had a referendum in quite a while.
00:22:49.840So, I mean, obviously trade deals are very complicated and I'm sure there were hundreds of moving parts.
00:22:56.540And so I don't want to judge the entire breakdown of the trade deal on that one thing.
00:23:02.080I think there are certainly a few reasons why walking away from the trade deal might have made sense, but also many reasons why they might not have.
00:23:10.460And as you point out, one of the challenges we have is we don't actually really know the details of what happened in those discussions.
00:23:17.200And so it's very hard to judge whether the right decision was made and whether there's a compromise or a new deal to be had at some point in the coming months.
00:23:26.700But I really thought that that point about the pipeline was particularly instructive because what The New York Times said was that the Canadian government was willing to offer the Americans the Keystone Pipeline in exchange for some concessions.
00:23:45.020um but if you think about doing a trade deal um you really should be trading off things that are
00:23:52.660bad right you're giving away things and concessions all that kind of stuff um and and
00:23:58.160the pipeline is good for canada we should want to do that anyway yeah we shouldn't need any
00:24:03.860concessions from the americans in order to agree to do the pipeline right uh we should be willing
00:24:08.720to do the pipeline whether there's a trade deal or not um and so yeah maybe you use it as leverage
00:24:14.180But the way that it was framed, it almost sounded like the government was going to concede and allow the pipeline to go ahead in exchange for getting something else.
00:24:39.740Private money is what's the 20-year open season offering.
00:24:44.180Mark Carney was coming in and saying, I will offer you that like it's crazy that it's treated as a, you know, something we need to be bribed to do as opposed to the best economic decision, really on the order of something like the Trans-Canada Highway or Trans-Canada, you know, CP Rail, something this staggeringly huge.
00:25:05.940but oh no okay it was it was sort of a bobble to be traded back and forth like a poker chip oh well
00:25:11.800didn't happen too bad i mean i i just can't get over that and there is that added layer of audacity
00:25:18.000of i will offer you this private project by the way it's already been permitted and approved on
00:25:22.900both sides of the border until barack obama killed it just shocking of course that is the nature of
00:25:29.360trade deals in that uh you know we're believers in free trade we think that free trade is good
00:25:34.920for both sides of the deal and so everything you're giving up in a free trade deal is actually
00:25:41.040good for your own country right uh removing supply management would be good for canadians it would
00:25:47.080make uh products and goods and services cheaper in canada to remove supply management and remove
00:25:54.220restrictions on other competitors you know open skies agreements to have more competition in the
00:26:00.180airline industry, open telecommunications markets so that we could have other telecommunications
00:26:05.780companies coming into Canada driving prices down. All of those things would be good for Canadian
00:26:11.200consumers and good for Canada. And yet they're seen as things that we would have to concede on
00:26:16.240in a free trade agreement. In a true free trade agreement, we would want those things to happen.
00:26:21.200We should be wanting that. Yeah. I would love for there to be an American bank on every shop,
00:26:27.860not necessarily because i want to go there but because i know that would sharpen up the canadian
00:26:31.780banks you know and donald trump made made that point this week he just he got mocked for he got
00:26:37.220mocked for mistakenly saying bank of canada instead of canadian banks and they tried to
00:26:42.360claim that he didn't understand the bank of canada is not a bank but the point he was making was
00:26:48.360that canadian banks are allowed to go into the u.s and set up uh stores on the street where people
00:26:57.040can walk in and set up a bank account but american banks are not allowed to do the same in canada
00:27:02.400which is crazy and everyone hates the banks as much as we hate the cell phone companies as much
00:27:07.300as we hate the cable companies as much as we hate the airlines and what is in common of everything
00:27:11.480i just listed they're all and if you don't want to bank with an american if you don't want to bank
00:27:16.140with an american bank that's fine that's your choice you would still be allowed to bank with
00:27:19.720a canadian bank yeah but you would still benefit because your canadian banks would have to be more
00:27:24.240competitive suddenly they have to up their game and offer a bit of service exactly can't and you
00:27:30.180know canadians pay amongst the highest cell phone data prices in the world it's no it's no uh
00:27:36.140mystery why hey i want to ask you about a strange political um evolution i used to be quite close to
00:27:43.200jason kenny and and that was when he was regarded as one of the most conservative cabinet ministers
00:27:47.700in stephen harper's government not only uh i mean he had the position of defense minister for a while
00:27:53.920he was the international delegate on freedom of religion i forget the exact title but his
00:28:00.880like i remember when he went to communist china and met with some dissident to the outrage of the
00:28:06.920ccp i mean it was wonderful stuff then he became premier of alberta was for a little while who had0.88
00:28:14.760the lightest touch on covid then he arrested more pastors than rest the rest of the provinces
00:28:20.040combined and now as if to fulfill his political journey he's teaming up with socialist rachel
00:28:27.720notley both of them calling for using oil as a weapon um like i just i think oh you know by the
00:28:36.300way he's he's teaming up with notley i understand that uh he not only refused to participate
00:28:44.380in in helping danielle smith become premier like over the there was no transition
00:28:50.520kenny didn't assist in the transition when he she took over from him
00:28:53.880but really if you look at what he's doing he's still actively undermining danielle smith by
00:29:01.700floating this idea that she has already closed the door on of an export tax so jason kenny has
00:29:07.000become an anti-danielle smith anti-alberta government pro carny like he'll never miss a
00:29:13.540chance to praise Carney, pro-Rachel Notley, turncoat? I don't know. What the heck is going
00:29:20.200on there? Can you even explain it? I think the upcoming referendum in Alberta has created some
00:29:29.480interesting allies and some interesting perspectives. I think it's important to
00:29:34.360emphasize again for those who aren't aware that the referendum next month is not to separate.
00:29:38.720it is on whether to have a separation referendum next year likely um and and and so that creates
00:29:45.860some strange um permutations and and implications of that which is that you can support next month's
00:29:53.940referendum because you want Alberta to separate or you can support next month's referendum because
00:29:59.180you want the conversation to continue um and to be able to carry on having those debates maybe
00:30:05.100you're unsure on whether Alberta should actually separate or not, but you'd like the debate to
00:30:09.640continue and then you'd like there to be an actual referendum next year that would decide the issue.
00:30:15.180Whereas if you're opposing next month's referendum, that's kind of the end of the
00:30:20.880discussion. It doesn't mean that Alberta can't continue lobbying for changes in constitutional
00:30:27.080issues and changes in equalization and all sorts of other federal policies, but it does put an end
00:30:32.680to the discussion about separation and so in order to be opposed to next month's referendum
00:30:40.360you don't just have to be opposed to separation you have to be opposed to the existence of a
00:30:47.460future referendum um i think once you take that into account some of the divisions and where
00:30:54.340people fall in the discussion become a little bit clearer this clearer there's certainly an element
00:31:00.520of uh conservatives who do think alberta has a bad deal in confederation but think that a
00:31:08.280referendum causes too much instability um and and they're certainly opposed to separation but
00:31:14.060they're also even opposed to having the discussion and having the debate i'm not convinced that
00:31:20.120having the discussion having the debate causes that kind of instability um usually when people
00:31:26.720make that point, they point to Quebec. And they point to the fact that Quebec's economy really
00:31:31.420suffered around about the time when the Quebec secession referendums were being held. But they
00:31:37.780usually forget that a lot of that struggle in the Quebec economy actually happened before some of
00:31:43.200those referendums. And it was more centered around some of the strict language laws and some concern
00:31:47.960about the effects that would have on the economy and business. But even more importantly, I think
00:31:54.120we should remember that, you know, to be blunt, if Quebec were to separate, Quebec is poorer than
00:32:02.160the average province in Canada. And Quebec is a beneficiary of the large amount of financial
00:32:08.700redistribution we do in Canada. So Quebec benefits financially from being in Canada.
00:32:14.980And the independent Quebec would have a worse economy than they do right now. And so businesses
00:32:20.060are smart, they look at that and they see the threat of potentially leaving. And they see that
00:32:25.880Quebec's economy would be worse off than it is if Quebec were to separate. But that's not
00:32:31.420necessarily the case for Alberta. Alberta is the richest province in Canada. Alberta is the one
00:32:36.820that's often subsidizing things happening in the rest of the country. And so if Alberta were to
00:32:41.820leave, Alberta would be leaving not to create a more left-wing society with higher taxes and
00:32:48.520less business-friendly policies, Alberta would be separating to create a lower tax economy with
00:32:54.260more business-friendly policies and more ability to track business and investment into Alberta.
00:33:01.260And so I think many businesses would look at that and see that as potentially an opportunity. Now,
00:33:07.360that doesn't cancel out the uncertainty and it doesn't cancel out all of the other potential
00:33:11.620issues. And so I can see why some people still do oppose even having the discussion. But I don't
00:33:17.160think it's fair to compare it to Quebec and say