Today, Ezra sits down with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to discuss her relationship with Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, the oil sands, and Bill C2's new focus video about the perils of C2. Plus, Ezra and I have a live show at the Red Deer Curling Centre on June 14th.
00:04:37.160When will the legislation and regulations be in place?
00:04:39.960Well, as you know, I mean, part of the United Conservative culture has been to support direct democracy mechanisms.
00:04:48.600And so my predecessor brought in a policy around citizen initiative and recall.
00:04:53.080And what we learned with a few years of testing it out is that the bars were very high, actually so high as to be unachievable in the number of signatures you had to get.
00:05:03.520So we had, over the last year, done a consultation.
00:05:06.200We're aligned a little bit more now with the way they do it in California.
00:05:09.000You know, California has five to ten propositions, almost every vote.
00:05:12.980And so we'll be allowing for 10% of the previous voter turnout.
00:05:17.420If people can get, which turns out to be 177,000 signatures on an issue, they can put that to the people in a referendum.
00:05:24.020So I noticed that when it came out, there were a couple of questions that have already been filed with the Elections Alberta.
00:05:32.080One, let's be a strong Alberta within the United Canada, put forward by the former Deputy Premier Thomas Lukasik, and the other one looking at independence.
00:05:42.620So I'm going to watch that process, see how it plays out, see how many signatures get gathered.
00:05:47.120And then if the bar was reached, we'll put it to the people for a vote.
00:06:01.680To me, the value of it, whether someone wants separation or to stay in Canada, is it's an or else when the Premier of Alberta talks to the Prime Minister of Canada.
00:06:12.880It's a way of getting the attention of the Laurentian elites who normally don't care.
00:06:18.320How has this issue animated or informed your discussions with the new Prime Minister, Mark Carney?
00:07:10.420And so we see it now at a very high ebb once again, and we should take it seriously because it goes to a deep frustration that Albertans have the past 10 years of liberal government standing in the way of their aspirations, their wealth creation, their ability to get products to market, and a whole variety of interventions in provincial jurisdictions.
00:07:32.140So I'm hopeful that this new prime minister realizes they have to change course.
00:07:39.140He got rid of the carbon tax within minutes of becoming prime minister, so I think that he realized that that was just deadly to his political fortunes.
00:07:46.880And so I think that it's our job to let him understand that there are nine other bad laws that need to be repealed or substantially revised in order to address the foundational problems that Alberta has in getting its resources developed into market.
00:08:01.940So that's the conversation I'm starting on with the prime minister, and we'll see in a matter of weeks and months if we're successful.
00:08:07.840How was his first one-to-one with you on with these demands in the background?
00:08:13.640Did he move at all or did he use that foggy, opaque language?
00:08:18.760I observe that he is the master of saying very little, and I guess that's a talent as a politician, but if you're in a hurry like Alberta is, it's not satisfying.
00:08:30.800Did you get anything from the prime minister that you could regard as tangible?
00:08:35.140He wants to have a particular project list, a national project list, and I think it's up to us now to get the proponent and the project, get it on the list and try the process out.
00:08:49.000He wants to have a two-year timeline to approval, which is a fast track over the existing laws, and then my understanding is he wants to have a parallel conversation about how to modify the laws that are preventing big projects from getting built.
00:09:03.080So if that's the intention that he has going in, I'm prepared to walk the path with him, but we'll know pretty soon because we'll put a project together, very likely with a terminus point of a bitumen pipeline somewhere on the northwest BC coast, very likely Port-au-Prince Rupert, and we'll see what kind of reception that gets and whether it's going to be on the list and be fast-tracked.
00:09:25.400Because it clearly would be a project in the national interest.
00:09:28.560In fact, I don't think that there would be any project that would generate as substantial amount of revenue for not only our province, but also for the country as a million barrel per day pipeline that would take our product to new markets in Asia, particularly Japan and Korea and others.
00:09:43.860It just seems to me to be such a no-brainer.
00:09:46.480But we've got a little bit of work to do on our end, and then we'll see how the federal government responds.
00:09:50.900I want to be good faith in my approach to the new prime minister.
00:09:54.140Obviously, I'm a partisan opponent of him, and I'm a skeptic.
00:09:57.160But if he actually is taking steps toward Alberta, I don't want to ignore that.
00:10:02.100What's on my mind, though, Premier, is that so many of the people around Mark Carney are the Trudeau crew, and not just any of them.
00:10:09.980And Gerald Butts, for example, who was the architect of—in fact, before he worked for Trudeau, he worked for anti-oil lobby groups.
00:10:18.040He's at the Eurasia Group, which was, you know, where Mark Carney's wife works, where Evan Solomon, the new cabinet minister, works.
00:10:26.300So I feel like you've got a new front man, but a lot of the people behind him are the same.
00:10:32.160Stephen Gilboa is still in cabinet, et cetera.
00:10:34.700Are the men behind the man, the people behind Mark Carney, what are they like to deal with?
00:10:44.260Can you trust that there is movement, or is it the same old crew?
00:10:48.420The thing about liberals, which I think we, on the conservative side of the spectrum, find frustrating, is how they can pivot 180 degrees on every issue.
00:10:57.640I think the one thing that they feel is the existential threat of defeat, and they felt that.
00:11:04.400We were talking six months ago about the potential for a complete wipeout of the liberals, and this may go down as one of the biggest pivots in political history,
00:11:14.520but I think that there's a recognition that the pathway of the Stephen Giebos and the Gerald Buttses of the world not only led to an affordability crisis, but also led to an electoral crisis.
00:11:24.600And so the question that they have to ask themselves is, can they tinker around the edges and get away with it?
00:11:32.060I think the election results were the way they were because they stole all of the conservative's platform, and the conservative's platform was very much energy superpower, being an economic superpower in the world on all fronts, getting new markets.
00:11:48.420Like, this was the conservative talking points, and I think that the liberals should be mindful.
00:11:54.060That's what they got elected on, and now they have to deliver.
00:11:56.500And if they don't, Canadians gave them a mandate that's got a little asterisk on it, right?
00:12:04.100They didn't give them a full mandate of a majority government, so if they don't deliver, I suspect we'll be in an election very soon, and then we might end up with a different outcome.
00:12:11.060So I still think it's existential for them.
00:12:12.900If they want to win, they've got to do what the people want.
00:12:15.260And what the people want right now is they want us to trade more with each other, trade more with the world, and develop resources that have been kept in the ground for far too long because of bad policy.
00:12:25.620Well, it's a very interesting observation.
00:15:44.560I know you've got to run really quickly.
00:15:46.540I see that British Columbia Premier David Eby is talking about blocking a pipeline to the coast,
00:15:55.360and I fear that carny will defer to him,
00:15:59.060just like he defers to Quebec politicians who are anti-oil.
00:16:02.920Let's not very break down the barriers-ish of Eby.
00:16:06.780And God forbid Alberta were to retaliate in kind by stopping B.C. shipping things by rail or highway across Alberta.
00:16:16.240I mean, it's bizarre even to contemplate.
00:16:19.100What is the prospect of that unpopular, discredited, desperate ideological premier stopping an entire national project because he's having a bit of a fit?
00:16:54.200Team Canada is that we support our neighbours in being able to build out the Port-au-Prince-Rupert so that we can get doubling of the rail line,
00:17:01.840so that we can get pipelines of bitumen, natural gas, and liquids to the coast,
00:17:06.680so that we can get an export of all of our products.
00:17:09.940We're an all-of-the-above kind of province, and there are obviously issues that have to be addressed.
00:20:42.700Every person or entity that is engaged in a business, a profession, or the solicitation of charitable financial donations from the public commits an offense if the person or entity accepts a cash payment donation or deposit of $10,000 or more in a single transaction or in a prescribed series of related transactions that total $10,000 or more.
00:25:50.620I wish he or someone like him were around to give us advice.
00:25:54.160On my monologue, a comment from Rumble, keep telling the truth, says, this is not the Canada I grew up in.
00:26:02.180I personally never had a problem with Jewish people and to have people who bring businesses, Sam, the record man, Snyderman, and supply jobs and give away turkeys at Christmas.
00:26:10.980I think most people would say these people are a blessing to society, wouldn't you?
00:26:14.880Well, I think, I mean, Jews, I'm a Jew myself.
00:26:18.060I think there's a movie by Woody Allen called Zelig.
00:26:22.060And I think it was Woody Allen's way of trying to show that Jews go to great lengths to try and fit in where they are because Jews were exiled from Israel and have been guests in other nations.
00:26:35.020And I think that you can see a kind of Jew who loves to be part of the nation they're in.
00:26:40.740I mean, who wrote, God bless America, do you know?
00:26:43.820Do you know who wrote White Christmas?
00:26:46.160It was a Jew named Irving Berlin who loved America so much because he was kicked out of Russia, really.
00:27:08.880And what worries me is this new style of migrant brought here by the liberals in particular, not just don't want to fit in, but they actually despise or hate the country that is so kind to them.