EZRA LEVANT ｜ Brett Wilson rejects Alberta separatism and remains bullish on Canada's future
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Summary
Brett Wilson is a public intellectual, a philanthropist, an oil investor, an entrepreneur, a supporter of the province of Alberta, and a passionate advocate for its oil patch. He joins us to talk about his love for his home province, Alberta's oil patch, and the potential for oil production in Alberta.
Transcript
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tonight i need a bit of a pep talk that's why we're going to talk to brett wilson
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an alberta enthusiast it's december 23rd and this is the ezra levant show
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you know sometimes it feels a little bit desperate out there i despair when i see for example we
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snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the last federal election oh it was so close
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and for so long pierre polyev was ahead in the polls but mark carney and the liberal media managed
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to undo it and i think that donald trump for reasons i do not understand helped throw the
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election too i don't know why maybe he prefers to devour a liberal prime minister than a concerted
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one i don't know but it's bad news for canada in every measure from mass immigration that continues
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unabated to our ridiculous and laughable criminal justice system to of course not dealing with the
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problem that carney promised he'd succeed at namely being the trump whisperer the man who could
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handle trump in fact canada is one of the few countries that has not been able to get along
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with donald trump and i find it very troubling that mark carney and doug ford seem to relish
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that failure i'm also very worried about my home province of alberta because it used to be the
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engine and still is in many ways the engine of confederation economically it could do so much
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more though it could literally double the amount of oil and gas it produces but other provinces simply
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won't allow it there's a kind of tall poppy syndrome if you know what i mean alberta could provide more
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oil to the united states than any opec nation could it could actually displace all that conflict oil i'm
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worried now that u.s operations in venezuela might topple nicolas maduro i'm not worried about that that would
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be wonderful but that american oil companies would come back on stream in venezuela the ones that were
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kicked out and nationalized and they would now send oil to those same texas refineries to which
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alberta oil should have been flowing i'm worried about the fake mou memorandum of understanding that
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ottawa signed with alberta and an mou is not an agreement it is not a contract it's sort of an
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agreement to maybe later agree and i don't really think that's going to happen we see british columbia
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being an obstinate blockage for any pipeline saskatchewan simply decided to go around bc
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and export its potash through washington maybe alberta should do the same with its oil
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anyway there's a lot of reasons to feel down in the dumps i personally find the cultural battles
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very depressing i'm talking about the wave of anti-semitism not just from the woke left but mainly
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from islamist immigration and now unfortunately some in the very very online right so how can we
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feel better about things especially about alberta which in so many ways represents the hope well
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brett wilson has been i i call him an alberta enthusiast i wouldn't call him an ottawa chauvinist
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because he's too positive spirited to be anything that chauvinist implies that he's hostile to others
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he's not he's just an alberta booster and he knows its key industries of course he ran an a
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merchant bank that financed oil companies for decades that's the source of his wealth but he's
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paid it back many times over into the community i'd say he's a kind of public intellectual he's a
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definitely a philanthropist and he's someone who actually knows the kind of customers that might be
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interested in supporting a pipeline from alberta to the west coast i enjoyed my talk with him a few
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days ago here's my one-on-one heart-to-heart with alberta enthusiast brett wilson
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well alberta has been at the center of so much news this year it always is i like to say alberta
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is the ideas laboratory for all of canada sometimes what starts in alberta spreads that could be for
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good or for ill remember the ndp got a lot of it started in alberta but so did the common sense
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fiscal revolution that started in alberta under ralph klein and then went to ontario
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right now there's a lot of debates on everything from transgenderism to provincial sovereignty
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and of course what is the future of canada's oil patch well we thought we'd take a bit of a
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different tack after talking to so many politicians i thought we would check in with brett wilson who's
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an oil man an investor a philanthropist and if i had to sum him up in a phrase it would be
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alberta enthusiast and he joins us now via zoom from his office in calgary but thanks very much
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for joining our show i appreciate that proud to be an alberta enthusiast and always a treat to work
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with you ezra thank you very much now i'm an alberta enthusiast even though i'm in exile out here
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in toronto but my heart hurts for alberta because for 10 years uh the oil and gas industry which
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has supported so much of the entire country it's being beaten down i mean countries have left for
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greener pastures like like foreign investors they've shut down and moved elsewhere is there
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a positive future for alberta's oil patch does it involve a pipeline is mark carney friendlier to
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alberta than justin trudeau was give me your read on things well let's start first of all with the
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federal liberals i happen to be appreciative of where carney's trying to go and again we often say
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talk is good action is better and the mou was the first step towards true action there was setting up
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the major projects office with a an incredibly capable uh business leader in the form of don farrell
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but the idea of moving forward on the uh on the mou i've also had the privilege i worked 20 years ago
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selling an oil company and i worked with a guy named tim hodgson he was a treat to work with and
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again that was 20 years ago i had the privilege of being on stage with a guy named mark carney
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at canada house during the london olympics so there's been a degree of modest mutual respect
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for a long time and in fact i met with carney before he was leader of the liberal party when he
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was in calgary and his goal was obviously to just make sure that people who clearly were right of his
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thinking were on side with where he was trying to go in terms of leading the liberal party and we
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had quite a good chat at that time about pipelines he was adamant this is in january of this year
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that he could get a pipeline approved and again pipeline approval that processes we'll talk about
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the mou in a minute but going back so i'm a fan of what carney and hodgson in particular are trying
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to do and by the way the fact that gibo resigned while they were working on it was probably one of the
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most powerful messages in support of what alberta is trying to do with federal intervention that's
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with gibo leaving you know i i thought that was a good sign too and i see some squawking from the more
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left uh field liberal mps who i i think liked trudeau's hard line but there's so many requirements
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and burdens and asterisks in the mou and they're front end loaded i put that question the premier i said
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you know carbon capture carbon tax those things in this mou happen soon and the construction happens
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later i just i i know that in a bargain in a grand compromise both sides have to put a little water in
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their wine i'm just worried that you know if if you're an oil investor you're still looking at
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possible legal delays you're looking at indigenous questions you're looking at a bc premier who's sort
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hostile and then you look around the world other places you could put your money i mean you're a
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global oil and gas financier you know who knows maybe venezuela will be open for business again
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and and you know that that won't have a 10-year you know schedule like an alberta pipeline would
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i'm just worried that there's so many uh asterisks and caveats in this mou that it might never even
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happen without the mou we wouldn't even be having a conversation about what's happening
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yeah without the mou and so that's i emphasize there is a positive and the fact that guibo resigned
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speaks to the negatives that were embedded in the way trudeau was trying to run our country
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i'm not a panic on cap on carbon emissions i just don't see the science in support but let's ignore
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that we're going to try and do the pathways alliance we'll do the carbon capture the idea is
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that there will be a carbon tax so there's been an industrial carbon tax in alberta for more than
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20 years so some of these things are not that dramatically changing of where we are what is
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rad what is radical is the fact that a federal government and a provincial government have agreed
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that we're going to try and build a pipeline eb to say that he wasn't part of the negotiations
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well these aren't negotiations these are planning steps and this is moving forward hopefully with a
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conversation with eb i'm even more disappointed the range of outcomes that we're hearing from our
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first nation friends i'm very close to several first nations in fact i'm invested in a group who
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are looking at expanding this is a first nation group expanding into prince rupert and at the same
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time we've got for local first nations saying no we're not going to ever allow anything in prince
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rupert and yet i'm invested with first nations who are planning to grow in prince rupert so there's
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confusion especially within the first nations and in particular with eb and what he's been trying to
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do i'm a huge fan and you probably know the name dallas brody i'm a huge fan of what she's trying to do
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to amplify thought and logical conversation but sorry going back to the mou we it's not a signed deal
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it's simply an agreement to accelerate in so many ways and i've loved the words that carney keeps using
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he's going to adjust the tanker ban and you get someone and why the press gives elizabeth may or i
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am giving her any credence whatsoever she's ranting and rambling but as carney keeps saying i'm going to
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adjust the tanker ban i'll still keep it in place but we're going to allow tankers to go two times a
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week three times a week when it's not storming i mean there'll be some rules around how it goes but so
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the tanker ban gets relaxed however that word is defined and we do get an opportunity to build a
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pipeline we need an oil sands pipeline we also need lng and all of the above is real uh the economics are
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compelling to say that there's no business that's behind the pipelines is nonsense there's no reason
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for a business to step up to try and run a pipeline until the politicians agree to get out of the way
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right now i i haven't read the mou since it was released a couple weeks ago but if i if i'm remembering
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correctly uh there needs to be a proponent or a proposal pretty much in the next six months and you
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correct me if i'm wrong because i i'm sure you're more fluent with the details than me so so and at least
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my recall of the wording is they want a private sector proponent they wouldn't want like the government
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of alberta although i think back historically and a lot of the historical infrastructure in this country
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the government was part of it like the cp rail itself was a government project that was later
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privatized uh do you think in the oil sands yeah right um and by the way i i like to remind myself
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that the oil sands were really encouraged by jean crachin of all people he put in place some of the
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regulatory and he defended it against some of the more radical environmentalists like sheila copse
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it's hard to believe that you know 20 years ago there was a pro oil sands liberal it makes me nostalgic
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but let me come back to your bailiwick you know oil investing that was really you ran an oil
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investment bank if i'm describing it correctly for decades so you know all the big shots not just in
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canada but around the world do you think that in the next six months which i think is the timeline
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contemplated by this mou do you think that a group a coalition a partnership might come forward and say
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yeah we'll take a crack at it we'll gamble some money on you know drafting a proposal and you know
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well yeah we'll take that risk and put some money up front because you know these things take a lot
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i think northern gateway spent a billion dollars and never put a shovel in the ground do you think
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there's a group of people out there willing to risk some money to be a proponent let's speak quickly
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to the money that was spent keystone 1.2 billion trans canada trans canada enbridge on a on the northern
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pipeline gateway that was 600 million they wrote off the reason that we needed an mou that indicated
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that the federal and provincial at least alberta governments were aligned was that these folks had
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spent unbelievable amounts of money and then got jerked around by process what we seem to be moving
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forward on now is a better process and that goes to my confidence is high that there will be i've
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spoken with several people in the industry every every participant in building pipelines is at the
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table why that's their business yeah and now that there's a thoughtful outcome potential outcome and
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it's probable i mean the first nations are objecting but again i've got first nations who are a hundred
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percent on side and i believe that i've seen numbers that say 110 of 120 first nations who've
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been a nomin asked said we're either neutral or on side that's not negative that's positive and so we
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get the first nations organized and eb as you can tell has already started to backpedal dramatically
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and relative to the sheer stupidity that he was emphasizing even a month ago he has softened because i think he
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realizes that he needs to be part of this not the antichrist of uh of the pipeline world well i sure
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hope you're right uh i mean and that's another thing is on indigenous matters there's many bands
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and then there's a lot of people who just have a press conference maybe with a hollywood star there and
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frankly uh i i know historically a lot of the opposition from some indian bands has been funded by the tides
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foundation i i know uh 100 so some of it's artificial um i don't know i i hope it happens
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because actually that's the number one employer of indigenous people in canada are oil sands and other
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mines and you know i i spoke yesterday with the first nation leader who was so upset with that woman
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who's pretending to be the coastal first nations yeah he said brett they don't exist yeah they're a
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pay-to-play so the fact that legacy media is giving pay-to-play amplified headlines undermines our
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country period well let me ask you about that in and because alberta separatism for about a decade now
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has been hotter according to pollsters than quebec separatism and with the surprise defeat of
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like the polls for a year showed he was going to win i think western canadians were feeling pretty
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positive about that i think there's sort of a despondency now if i may and western separatist
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sentiment is higher some polls say it's mid-30s without even a official campaign i'm worried
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that if this pipeline is just turns into a tease or a taunt that separatism is going to boil over
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because people are going to say look we tried our best we did this grand bargain we agreed to a
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carbon tax we agreed to all these things and the liberals never pushed it through i i think that
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i'm let me put it this way preston manning about a year ago wrote in the globe and mail
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he said that mark carney could be the last prime minister of a united canada because he would drive
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alberta away what's what do you think the likelihood of that is because i think preston's right if this
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pipeline doesn't get built i think a lot of albertans are going to say we've seen this movie
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before we know how it ends we're out of here no there's a lot of frustration i've been pushed a
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number of times to play a more amplified role in separation and i was on stage at an event earlier
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this year and i shared with again it was a separatist room that's why i was brought there and i asked the
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question as separatists do you want a fence like a farmer would have a chain link fence between
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alberta and saskatchewan or do you want a wall like trump is building and they're looking at me
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like i'm an idiot and i smiled and said okay well maybe we'll just build a moat we'll just build a
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20 foot wide 10 foot deep moat because we have to separate don't we we have to separate and their
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response was this is stupid and i said you're right the idea that we're going to physically separate
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in any way shape or form doesn't exist so all we're doing is trying to create better paperwork
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we need the same deal that quebec has let's be clear we just need a better and fairer deal
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which means it's paperwork and those who are pushing separation on alberta the paperwork will
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be will be laborious and probably undermine our province in a way that we don't even fathom and
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we're pretending that we're we the separatists and that's not me we the separatists in alberta
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believe that they've got ultimate control over the whole process i've listened to wrath rant and
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i've lost a lot of respect for the idea that there's any single movement there's a lot of people
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who are upset and it's easy to be upset i mean look what's been happening to alberta and that's
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where i'm i'm cynical on separation but i'm very pro a brand new deal well i mean in quebec they had
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very charismatic leaders renee levesque lucien bouchard these are people who resonated culturally
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ethnically historically linguistically they had a romance to them and i put it to you brett that i
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mean i i know jeffrey rath and he he can be a little bit of a bull in a china shop but i don't think he is
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that renee levesque character if someone were to present charismatic young and say look brett wilson i
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hear what you're saying but the math just isn't there when elections are decided in ontario and
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quebec before the west even start stops voting there's no way to fix this it's down to the numbers
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and we've seen this replayed time and again i i think that if the independence movement gets a
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charismatic leader and maybe i don't know who that person would be maybe it doesn't exist but i got to
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think it does i don't know give me give me your final thoughts on alberta in 2026 are you bullish
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do you think it's going to go well what do you think of the opposition naheed nenshi used to be
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a classmate of mine uh he's pretty left wing he can be charming i i disagree with him on everything
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but he has you know he was mayor of calgary what do you think 2026 and onward it's going to look
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like in alberta what's getting interesting i'm actually a key proponent of a brand new underground
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metallurgical coal mine two green groups have chosen to sue my company and the government
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over approving an underground metallurgical coal mine that will produce about a million tons a
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year maybe two right now bc ships 29 million tons of metallurgical coal to the world right now but
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the green groups are upset that we're going to go underground and build a mine so we've got a big
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pivot still in front of us relative to how the green groups are trying to undermine logical thoughtful
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respectful environmentally respectful uh and responsible pipeline or um a coal mine i'm also
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advancing on building another power plant and our issue right now is getting our hands on an engine
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we have a site we have a balance sheet but we can't get our hands and we're working on it don't trust me
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we're working on getting an engine because once we have an engine a turbine a generator
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everything rolls so and that's just one little power company one little coal mine and we're amplifying
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what we're doing and so imagine when you add on what trans canada is doing trans else is doing
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capital power kinetocore on and on the power business in alberta is is on the edge of exploding
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in a positive way so there's a lot of good things happening there but again we've got to get past some of
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the uh the negative noise and the negative noise is confusion with our friends the first nations
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and confusion with the green groups who just don't seem to care we got to get those handled
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right it's great to see you i was right when i called you an alberta enthusiast i want to believe
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believe me i want to believe but uh i i have a lot of skepticism in me too it's great to catch up with
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you maybe we can check in in the new year and see how things are looking hopefully we've moved a step
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right on there he is brett wilson a great alberton who believes very much in that province stay with us