Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Brett Wilson rejects Alberta separatism and remains bullish on Canada's future

00:00:00.000 tonight i need a bit of a pep talk that's why we're going to talk to brett wilson

00:00:19.800 an alberta enthusiast it's december 23rd and this is the ezra levant show

00:00:24.800 you know sometimes it feels a little bit desperate out there i despair when i see for example we

00:00:45.760 snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the last federal election oh it was so close

00:00:50.340 and for so long pierre polyev was ahead in the polls but mark carney and the liberal media managed

00:00:55.700 to undo it and i think that donald trump for reasons i do not understand helped throw the

00:01:00.040 election too i don't know why maybe he prefers to devour a liberal prime minister than a concerted

00:01:05.300 one i don't know but it's bad news for canada in every measure from mass immigration that continues

00:01:10.600 unabated to our ridiculous and laughable criminal justice system to of course not dealing with the

00:01:17.500 problem that carney promised he'd succeed at namely being the trump whisperer the man who could

00:01:21.840 handle trump in fact canada is one of the few countries that has not been able to get along

00:01:26.300 with donald trump and i find it very troubling that mark carney and doug ford seem to relish

00:01:31.320 that failure i'm also very worried about my home province of alberta because it used to be the

00:01:38.420 engine and still is in many ways the engine of confederation economically it could do so much

00:01:43.700 more though it could literally double the amount of oil and gas it produces but other provinces simply

00:01:48.980 won't allow it there's a kind of tall poppy syndrome if you know what i mean alberta could provide more 0.99

00:01:55.620 oil to the united states than any opec nation could it could actually displace all that conflict oil i'm

00:02:02.280 worried now that u.s operations in venezuela might topple nicolas maduro i'm not worried about that that would

00:02:07.660 be wonderful but that american oil companies would come back on stream in venezuela the ones that were

00:02:13.300 kicked out and nationalized and they would now send oil to those same texas refineries to which

00:02:19.400 alberta oil should have been flowing i'm worried about the fake mou memorandum of understanding that

00:02:26.240 ottawa signed with alberta and an mou is not an agreement it is not a contract it's sort of an

00:02:31.200 agreement to maybe later agree and i don't really think that's going to happen we see british columbia

00:02:36.660 being an obstinate blockage for any pipeline saskatchewan simply decided to go around bc

00:02:42.840 and export its potash through washington maybe alberta should do the same with its oil

00:02:47.160 anyway there's a lot of reasons to feel down in the dumps i personally find the cultural battles

00:02:52.620 very depressing i'm talking about the wave of anti-semitism not just from the woke left but mainly

00:02:59.240 from islamist immigration and now unfortunately some in the very very online right so how can we 0.97

00:03:06.920 feel better about things especially about alberta which in so many ways represents the hope well

00:03:12.120 brett wilson has been i i call him an alberta enthusiast i wouldn't call him an ottawa chauvinist

00:03:17.960 because he's too positive spirited to be anything that chauvinist implies that he's hostile to others

00:03:23.700 he's not he's just an alberta booster and he knows its key industries of course he ran an a

00:03:29.620 merchant bank that financed oil companies for decades that's the source of his wealth but he's

00:03:34.740 paid it back many times over into the community i'd say he's a kind of public intellectual he's a

00:03:40.120 definitely a philanthropist and he's someone who actually knows the kind of customers that might be

00:03:45.760 interested in supporting a pipeline from alberta to the west coast i enjoyed my talk with him a few

00:03:51.200 days ago here's my one-on-one heart-to-heart with alberta enthusiast brett wilson

00:03:56.520 well alberta has been at the center of so much news this year it always is i like to say alberta

00:04:06.180 is the ideas laboratory for all of canada sometimes what starts in alberta spreads that could be for

00:04:12.920 good or for ill remember the ndp got a lot of it started in alberta but so did the common sense

00:04:17.800 fiscal revolution that started in alberta under ralph klein and then went to ontario

00:04:22.640 right now there's a lot of debates on everything from transgenderism to provincial sovereignty

00:04:28.560 and of course what is the future of canada's oil patch well we thought we'd take a bit of a

00:04:33.440 different tack after talking to so many politicians i thought we would check in with brett wilson who's

00:04:38.680 an oil man an investor a philanthropist and if i had to sum him up in a phrase it would be

00:04:43.440 alberta enthusiast and he joins us now via zoom from his office in calgary but thanks very much

00:04:50.700 for joining our show i appreciate that proud to be an alberta enthusiast and always a treat to work

00:04:56.680 with you ezra thank you very much now i'm an alberta enthusiast even though i'm in exile out here

00:05:02.080 in toronto but my heart hurts for alberta because for 10 years uh the oil and gas industry which

00:05:10.000 has supported so much of the entire country it's being beaten down i mean countries have left for

00:05:16.560 greener pastures like like foreign investors they've shut down and moved elsewhere is there 0.98

00:05:23.480 a positive future for alberta's oil patch does it involve a pipeline is mark carney friendlier to

00:05:30.920 alberta than justin trudeau was give me your read on things well let's start first of all with the

00:05:36.940 federal liberals i happen to be appreciative of where carney's trying to go and again we often say

00:05:44.500 talk is good action is better and the mou was the first step towards true action there was setting up

00:05:52.380 the major projects office with a an incredibly capable uh business leader in the form of don farrell

00:05:58.440 but the idea of moving forward on the uh on the mou i've also had the privilege i worked 20 years ago

00:06:04.960 selling an oil company and i worked with a guy named tim hodgson he was a treat to work with and

00:06:10.860 again that was 20 years ago i had the privilege of being on stage with a guy named mark carney

00:06:15.300 at canada house during the london olympics so there's been a degree of modest mutual respect

00:06:21.800 for a long time and in fact i met with carney before he was leader of the liberal party when he

00:06:26.040 was in calgary and his goal was obviously to just make sure that people who clearly were right of his

00:06:31.640 thinking were on side with where he was trying to go in terms of leading the liberal party and we

00:06:36.740 had quite a good chat at that time about pipelines he was adamant this is in january of this year

00:06:42.120 that he could get a pipeline approved and again pipeline approval that processes we'll talk about

00:06:47.540 the mou in a minute but going back so i'm a fan of what carney and hodgson in particular are trying

00:06:53.440 to do and by the way the fact that gibo resigned while they were working on it was probably one of the

00:06:58.980 most powerful messages in support of what alberta is trying to do with federal intervention that's

00:07:05.620 with gibo leaving you know i i thought that was a good sign too and i see some squawking from the more

00:07:11.540 left uh field liberal mps who i i think liked trudeau's hard line but there's so many requirements

00:07:20.260 and burdens and asterisks in the mou and they're front end loaded i put that question the premier i said

00:07:26.340 you know carbon capture carbon tax those things in this mou happen soon and the construction happens

00:07:33.660 later i just i i know that in a bargain in a grand compromise both sides have to put a little water in

00:07:41.300 their wine i'm just worried that you know if if you're an oil investor you're still looking at

00:07:46.980 possible legal delays you're looking at indigenous questions you're looking at a bc premier who's sort

00:07:52.960 hostile and then you look around the world other places you could put your money i mean you're a

00:07:57.160 global oil and gas financier you know who knows maybe venezuela will be open for business again

00:08:03.720 and and you know that that won't have a 10-year you know schedule like an alberta pipeline would

00:08:09.960 i'm just worried that there's so many uh asterisks and caveats in this mou that it might never even

00:08:17.140 happen without the mou we wouldn't even be having a conversation about what's happening 0.99

00:08:22.200 yeah without the mou and so that's i emphasize there is a positive and the fact that guibo resigned

00:08:28.340 speaks to the negatives that were embedded in the way trudeau was trying to run our country

00:08:33.340 i'm not a panic on cap on carbon emissions i just don't see the science in support but let's ignore

00:08:41.840 that we're going to try and do the pathways alliance we'll do the carbon capture the idea is

00:08:46.620 that there will be a carbon tax so there's been an industrial carbon tax in alberta for more than

00:08:51.020 20 years so some of these things are not that dramatically changing of where we are what is

00:08:57.100 rad what is radical is the fact that a federal government and a provincial government have agreed

00:09:02.360 that we're going to try and build a pipeline eb to say that he wasn't part of the negotiations

00:09:06.420 well these aren't negotiations these are planning steps and this is moving forward hopefully with a

00:09:12.080 conversation with eb i'm even more disappointed the range of outcomes that we're hearing from our

00:09:17.380 first nation friends i'm very close to several first nations in fact i'm invested in a group who

00:09:23.420 are looking at expanding this is a first nation group expanding into prince rupert and at the same

00:09:28.620 time we've got for local first nations saying no we're not going to ever allow anything in prince

00:09:33.660 rupert and yet i'm invested with first nations who are planning to grow in prince rupert so there's

00:09:39.420 confusion especially within the first nations and in particular with eb and what he's been trying to

00:09:45.200 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

00:09:50.700 to amplify thought and logical conversation but sorry going back to the mou we it's not a signed deal

00:09:58.320 it's simply an agreement to accelerate in so many ways and i've loved the words that carney keeps using

00:10:04.600 he's going to adjust the tanker ban and you get someone and why the press gives elizabeth may or i

00:10:11.200 am giving her any credence whatsoever she's ranting and rambling but as carney keeps saying i'm going to

00:10:17.480 adjust the tanker ban i'll still keep it in place but we're going to allow tankers to go two times a

00:10:23.020 week three times a week when it's not storming i mean there'll be some rules around how it goes but so

00:10:28.520 the tanker ban gets relaxed however that word is defined and we do get an opportunity to build a

00:10:35.180 pipeline we need an oil sands pipeline we also need lng and all of the above is real uh the economics are

00:10:43.120 compelling to say that there's no business that's behind the pipelines is nonsense there's no reason

00:10:50.300 for a business to step up to try and run a pipeline until the politicians agree to get out of the way

00:10:56.120 right now i i haven't read the mou since it was released a couple weeks ago but if i if i'm remembering

00:11:02.600 correctly uh there needs to be a proponent or a proposal pretty much in the next six months and you

00:11:09.400 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

00:11:15.700 my recall of the wording is they want a private sector proponent they wouldn't want like the government

00:11:20.560 of alberta although i think back historically and a lot of the historical infrastructure in this country

00:11:25.340 the government was part of it like the cp rail itself was a government project that was later

00:11:30.680 privatized uh do you think in the oil sands yeah right um and by the way i i like to remind myself

00:11:37.980 that the oil sands were really encouraged by jean crachin of all people he put in place some of the

00:11:43.120 regulatory and he defended it against some of the more radical environmentalists like sheila copse

00:11:48.360 it's hard to believe that you know 20 years ago there was a pro oil sands liberal it makes me nostalgic

00:11:54.020 but let me come back to your bailiwick you know oil investing that was really you ran an oil

00:11:59.900 investment bank if i'm describing it correctly for decades so you know all the big shots not just in

00:12:05.240 canada but around the world do you think that in the next six months which i think is the timeline

00:12:12.180 contemplated by this mou do you think that a group a coalition a partnership might come forward and say

00:12:19.720 yeah we'll take a crack at it we'll gamble some money on you know drafting a proposal and you know

00:12:26.860 well yeah we'll take that risk and put some money up front because you know these things take a lot

00:12:32.060 i think northern gateway spent a billion dollars and never put a shovel in the ground do you think

00:12:37.440 there's a group of people out there willing to risk some money to be a proponent let's speak quickly

00:12:41.880 to the money that was spent keystone 1.2 billion trans canada trans canada enbridge on a on the northern

00:12:52.400 pipeline gateway that was 600 million they wrote off the reason that we needed an mou that indicated

00:13:00.680 that the federal and provincial at least alberta governments were aligned was that these folks had

00:13:06.080 spent unbelievable amounts of money and then got jerked around by process what we seem to be moving

00:13:11.860 forward on now is a better process and that goes to my confidence is high that there will be i've

00:13:19.080 spoken with several people in the industry every every participant in building pipelines is at the

00:13:25.360 table why that's their business yeah and now that there's a thoughtful outcome potential outcome and

00:13:32.100 it's probable i mean the first nations are objecting but again i've got first nations who are a hundred

00:13:37.040 percent on side and i believe that i've seen numbers that say 110 of 120 first nations who've

00:13:43.140 been a nomin asked said we're either neutral or on side that's not negative that's positive and so we

00:13:50.340 get the first nations organized and eb as you can tell has already started to backpedal dramatically 0.89

00:13:56.260 and relative to the sheer stupidity that he was emphasizing even a month ago he has softened because i think he 0.87

00:14:02.980 realizes that he needs to be part of this not the antichrist of uh of the pipeline world well i sure 0.97

00:14:10.040 hope you're right uh i mean and that's another thing is on indigenous matters there's many bands

00:14:15.740 and then there's a lot of people who just have a press conference maybe with a hollywood star there and

00:14:20.420 frankly uh i i know historically a lot of the opposition from some indian bands has been funded by the tides

00:14:28.040 foundation i i know uh 100 so some of it's artificial um i don't know i i hope it happens

00:14:36.000 because actually that's the number one employer of indigenous people in canada are oil sands and other

00:14:41.660 mines and you know i i spoke yesterday with the first nation leader who was so upset with that woman

00:14:50.860 who's pretending to be the coastal first nations yeah he said brett they don't exist yeah they're a

00:14:57.880 pay-to-play so the fact that legacy media is giving pay-to-play amplified headlines undermines our

00:15:05.540 country period well let me ask you about that in and because alberta separatism for about a decade now

00:15:14.980 has been hotter according to pollsters than quebec separatism and with the surprise defeat of

00:15:23.600 like the polls for a year showed he was going to win i think western canadians were feeling pretty

00:15:28.300 positive about that i think there's sort of a despondency now if i may and western separatist

00:15:34.140 sentiment is higher some polls say it's mid-30s without even a official campaign i'm worried

00:15:41.400 that if this pipeline is just turns into a tease or a taunt that separatism is going to boil over

00:15:49.960 because people are going to say look we tried our best we did this grand bargain we agreed to a

00:15:54.360 carbon tax we agreed to all these things and the liberals never pushed it through i i think that

00:16:01.000 i'm let me put it this way preston manning about a year ago wrote in the globe and mail

00:16:05.520 he said that mark carney could be the last prime minister of a united canada because he would drive

00:16:11.860 alberta away what's what do you think the likelihood of that is because i think preston's right if this

00:16:17.300 pipeline doesn't get built i think a lot of albertans are going to say we've seen this movie

00:16:21.040 before we know how it ends we're out of here no there's a lot of frustration i've been pushed a

00:16:25.940 number of times to play a more amplified role in separation and i was on stage at an event earlier

00:16:31.420 this year and i shared with again it was a separatist room that's why i was brought there and i asked the

00:16:37.400 question as separatists do you want a fence like a farmer would have a chain link fence between

00:16:44.540 alberta and saskatchewan or do you want a wall like trump is building and they're looking at me 0.97

00:16:50.720 like i'm an idiot and i smiled and said okay well maybe we'll just build a moat we'll just build a 0.69

00:16:56.120 20 foot wide 10 foot deep moat because we have to separate don't we we have to separate and their 1.00

00:17:02.000 response was this is stupid and i said you're right the idea that we're going to physically separate 0.89

00:17:07.820 in any way shape or form doesn't exist so all we're doing is trying to create better paperwork 0.98

00:17:13.120 we need the same deal that quebec has let's be clear we just need a better and fairer deal

00:17:18.980 which means it's paperwork and those who are pushing separation on alberta the paperwork will

00:17:25.780 be will be laborious and probably undermine our province in a way that we don't even fathom and

00:17:32.380 we're pretending that we're we the separatists and that's not me we the separatists in alberta

00:17:38.120 believe that they've got ultimate control over the whole process i've listened to wrath rant and

00:17:44.300 i've lost a lot of respect for the idea that there's any single movement there's a lot of people

00:17:50.280 who are upset and it's easy to be upset i mean look what's been happening to alberta and that's 0.96

00:17:55.180 where i'm i'm cynical on separation but i'm very pro a brand new deal well i mean in quebec they had

00:18:03.420 very charismatic leaders renee levesque lucien bouchard these are people who resonated culturally

00:18:09.340 ethnically historically linguistically they had a romance to them and i put it to you brett that i

00:18:16.060 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

00:18:21.920 that renee levesque character if someone were to present charismatic young and say look brett wilson i

00:18:28.960 hear what you're saying but the math just isn't there when elections are decided in ontario and

00:18:33.600 quebec before the west even start stops voting there's no way to fix this it's down to the numbers

00:18:38.600 and we've seen this replayed time and again i i think that if the independence movement gets a

00:18:45.260 charismatic leader and maybe i don't know who that person would be maybe it doesn't exist but i got to

00:18:49.420 think it does i don't know give me give me your final thoughts on alberta in 2026 are you bullish

00:18:55.860 do you think it's going to go well what do you think of the opposition naheed nenshi used to be

00:19:00.140 a classmate of mine uh he's pretty left wing he can be charming i i disagree with him on everything

00:19:05.940 but he has you know he was mayor of calgary what do you think 2026 and onward it's going to look

00:19:11.360 like in alberta what's getting interesting i'm actually a key proponent of a brand new underground

00:19:17.760 metallurgical coal mine two green groups have chosen to sue my company and the government

00:19:25.800 over approving an underground metallurgical coal mine that will produce about a million tons a

00:19:32.360 year maybe two right now bc ships 29 million tons of metallurgical coal to the world right now but

00:19:40.000 the green groups are upset that we're going to go underground and build a mine so we've got a big

00:19:44.900 pivot still in front of us relative to how the green groups are trying to undermine logical thoughtful

00:19:51.120 respectful environmentally respectful uh and responsible pipeline or um a coal mine i'm also

00:19:57.740 advancing on building another power plant and our issue right now is getting our hands on an engine

00:20:03.760 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

00:20:08.840 we're working on getting an engine because once we have an engine a turbine a generator

00:20:14.220 everything rolls so and that's just one little power company one little coal mine and we're amplifying

00:20:21.960 what we're doing and so imagine when you add on what trans canada is doing trans else is doing

00:20:27.060 capital power kinetocore on and on the power business in alberta is is on the edge of exploding

00:20:34.780 in a positive way so there's a lot of good things happening there but again we've got to get past some of

00:20:39.760 the uh the negative noise and the negative noise is confusion with our friends the first nations

00:20:46.020 and confusion with the green groups who just don't seem to care we got to get those handled

00:20:51.620 right it's great to see you i was right when i called you an alberta enthusiast i want to believe

00:20:57.540 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

00:21:03.000 you maybe we can check in in the new year and see how things are looking hopefully we've moved a step

00:21:07.880 right on there he is brett wilson a great alberton who believes very much in that province stay with us

00:21:14.280 more ahead

00:21:14.880 you

Rebel News Podcast - December 24, 2025

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Brett Wilson rejects Alberta separatism and remains bullish on Canada's future

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