Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Lorne Gunter on the state of Alberta and conservative politics

00:00:00.000 Hey, Rebels, today we have a heart-to-heart chat with our friend Lauren Gunter with the Edmonton Sun.

00:00:05.080 Talk about the Alberta Leadership Contest for the United Conservative Party to succeed Jason Kenney.

00:00:10.560 We'll talk a bit about Pierre Polyev, Justin Trudeau, and anything that comes across our radar screen.

00:00:15.820 It's a special Holiday Monday edition of the Ezra Levant Show.

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00:00:46.540 Thanks. Here's today's show.

00:00:53.200 You're listening to a Rebel News Podcast.

00:00:57.120 Tonight, a feature interview about the state of Alberta and conservative politics.

00:01:08.680 Our guest is Lauren Gunter.

00:01:10.500 It's August 1st, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.

00:01:13.100 You're fighting for freedom!

00:01:16.360 Shame on you, you censorious bug!

00:01:19.560 And joining us now, live via Skype from Edmonton, is our friend Lauren Gunter, senior columnist for the Edmonton Center.

00:01:34.700 Lauren, great to see you again.

00:01:36.200 You have been covering Alberta politics for decades,

00:01:38.880 and Jason Kenney certainly shook things up when he unified the PC party and the Wild Roast.

00:01:45.880 And he brimmed brightly, but he flamed out in a way.

00:01:49.940 I watched the debate for his successor on TV last week,

00:01:55.000 and I couldn't help – it popped into my head, Jason Kenney and the Seven Dwarfs.

00:01:59.180 I thought none of these successors are really A-listers,

00:02:02.940 and I felt sort of disappointed about it as a conservative and as someone who loves Alberta.

00:02:08.880 I'd love your take on it.

00:02:10.320 Yeah, I mean, there's an awful lot of – there are an awful lot of very sincere, capable people who are running.

00:02:15.960 But do they have the royal jelly?

00:02:18.940 Can they take on Rachel Notley, who has a very powerful personal magnetism that a lot of voters – like a lot of voters – hate it, too. 1.00

00:02:29.340 But nonetheless, she is a formidable foe, and can any of them take her on?

00:02:35.300 And, yeah, I think there are some.

00:02:37.160 It would be nice if there was another year before the next election, which will come in 2023.

00:02:42.820 It would be nice if it didn't come until 2024,

00:02:45.700 and whoever takes over has a year to get seasoned and a year to campaign.

00:02:50.700 But that's not going to happen.

00:02:51.940 So you have to look at this and say, well, who will be the most acceptable to the greatest number of voters in the shortest period of time?

00:03:00.100 Now, I read your latest column on this subject where you referred to Danielle Smith as her idea of a sovereignty act, 0.93

00:03:11.920 to stand up for Alberta sovereignty, really replicating some of the stances taken by Quebec over the last 50 years.

00:03:19.100 You said that sort of took up all the oxygen in the debate.

00:03:22.660 Let's run a clip of that just to show what you mean.

00:03:24.760 And here, she was proposing the idea, and it seemed to be something that a lot of her opponents said,

00:03:31.020 oh, that's too wild, that's too risky.

00:03:33.460 Here's a clip of that from the debate.

00:03:35.280 Ottawa has created chaos.

00:03:37.100 Ottawa has cancelled our projects.

00:03:38.880 Ottawa has caused Energy East and Tech Frontier Mine and tens of billions of other projects to be cancelled.

00:03:44.700 The reason these are linked is because part of our strategy in reducing greenhouse gas emissions is exporting our clean LNG to displace coal in India and China.

00:03:55.640 We cannot do that because Ottawa keeps standing in our way.

00:03:58.960 We need to build economic corridors.

00:04:00.800 We need to take the lead on that.

00:04:02.480 We need to work with our First Nations.

00:04:04.080 We need to take the lead on solving the environmental issues so that we can get our product to Churchill, to Thunder Bay, to Tuktoyaktuk, to Port-au-Prince-Rupert.

00:04:11.340 And we have to exert our sovereignty to do that because Ottawa is not going to do it for us.

00:04:16.720 Part of me thinks, well, even if it is going to be struck down by courts, even if it is politically risky, it makes the point Alberta's here to fight.

00:04:24.560 Even if not all the punches are landed, Quebec has never landed a true punch.

00:04:29.360 But look what it's managed to get from Ottawa because it was belligerent.

00:04:32.940 It got its three seats on the Supreme Court.

00:04:35.620 It's got so many little perks along the way.

00:04:38.700 It's got, you know, so many statuses.

00:04:41.680 They never did separate, but it was the threat of it that got them the goodies.

00:04:45.780 What do you think of that?

00:04:46.960 Yeah, I just think, unfortunately, Alberta is never going to be treated the way that Quebec is. 0.95

00:04:53.600 You know, the liberals used to be founded in Quebec.

00:04:57.520 You know, you used to look at the 75 seats in Quebec or whatever, like 72 or 68 or whatever, you know, previous totals.

00:05:03.700 And you could count on all but one or two of them going to the liberals.

00:05:08.580 And so there's just ingrained in the liberal DNA this desire to appease Quebec, to cajole Quebec.

00:05:16.260 You take a look at the way Quebec is dealt with on transfer payments and equalization payments.

00:05:22.260 And then you take a look at the way Alberta is treated for funding Quebec.

00:05:26.940 You know, oh, you say you don't want to pay.

00:05:29.540 This is so un-Canadian. 0.99

00:05:30.920 Well, what is Canadian about demanding that you get 50 percent of all the transfer and equalization money or you're going to leave?

00:05:39.460 Like, Quebec gets pandered to in a way that Alberta never will.

00:05:43.860 And so I think Alberta has basically two options, and one is not to follow Quebec's lead.

00:05:50.740 I think it's to follow Quebec's tone.

00:05:53.380 I think what we're seeing from the UCP leadership race so far is that Jason Kenney's big falling out with his own party was maybe not the pandemic response.

00:06:06.600 It was his refusal to hammer Justin Trudeau.

00:06:10.360 And, you know, because you see, Danielle Smith has become the frontrunner or at least a person who has generated the most heat and light with her Alberta Sovereignty Act.

00:06:21.800 Nobody's talking about anything else.

00:06:24.300 You know, I've looked at some of the platforms for the other candidates.

00:06:27.560 They have fine ideas, but it's all like, you know, and then everybody says, Alberta Sovereignty Act.

00:06:33.840 Oh, that's crazy.

00:06:34.600 So she has hit a nerve, both for and against, with her Sovereignty Act.

00:06:42.780 And Brian Jean, even Brian Jean, his theme for the campaign is not never another lockdown.

00:06:52.440 It's autonomy for Albertans.

00:06:54.340 And so I really do, I've come to think that Jason just was tone deaf to what Albertans want to do.

00:07:03.560 You know, you think of Ralph Klein. 0.99

00:07:05.140 Ralph Klein, mayor of Calgary at the time he said it, but he said, let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark. 0.98

00:07:10.520 He wasn't a policy wonk. 0.98

00:07:13.180 He wasn't a deep thinker.

00:07:14.620 I mean, Jason might have been the smartest person we've ever had as the premier of Alberta, but he just didn't have the common touch the way Ralph did.

00:07:23.540 I mean, I remember following Ralph one time into a shopping center in Fort Saskatchewan, and his government was terribly unpopular.

00:07:31.600 They were closing hospitals.

00:07:32.980 They were cutting the budget.

00:07:34.280 They were scaling back on school funding.

00:07:37.420 And he walked from one of that mall to the other, and he got smiles and handshakes all the way along from people who, when he initially got there, were going to lay into him.

00:07:47.060 And Jason just doesn't have that.

00:07:49.480 Turned out he didn't have that touch.

00:07:51.140 I have a theory behind that.

00:07:54.080 I used to know Jason pretty well, but we haven't spoken in a couple of years.

00:07:57.640 And my theory is this, and maybe it's unfair, but I do believe it.

00:08:01.960 Jason Kenney was one of the A-list cabinet ministers under Stephen Harper.

00:08:08.000 He speaks very good French.

00:08:10.140 You could say he had deep roots in Ontario as much as he had in Alberta.

00:08:16.060 He worked with the new ethnic communities.

00:08:18.300 He was really Harper's liaison to the multicultural community.

00:08:22.940 He was immigration minister for a while.

00:08:25.060 So he had all these assets that are obviously useful in a federal campaign, but he wanted – he didn't want to run against Trudeau right away.

00:08:33.240 He didn't want to – he could see what we could all see, which is that it was going to take a while for the conservative party to get back.

00:08:41.500 So I believe he looked at Alberta as a safe place to be a conservative guy, always with an eye at moving back to Ottawa, that he would come back, show he could govern, unite the two center-right parties in Alberta, and then go back triumphantly, letting someone else take the heavy blows.

00:09:01.980 And the problem with that is he always, in the back of his mind, was second-guessing anything that would sound too Alberta-ish.

00:09:09.840 He was always thinking, well, how would this sound when I am running in the greater Toronto area?

00:09:13.760 How will this sound in five years if I'm trying to woo Quebec, if I'm trying to woo the area code 905 in Ontario?

00:09:21.700 And so he would never fully commit to being totally loyal to Alberta, which often means pit yourself against the feds.

00:09:29.780 I think he pulled back every time because he was keeping his eye on the main prize.

00:09:34.040 That's my theory.

00:09:34.740 What do you think of that?

00:09:36.380 Well, I think it's more than a theory.

00:09:38.360 I mean I know initially that he did have thoughts that Alberta was not his final stop.

00:09:44.520 Being premier of Alberta was not going to be the pinnacle of his career.

00:09:48.100 He was going to go back and lead the federal conservatives.

00:09:51.080 I don't know whether after a couple of years of uniting the party and getting it started, whether he still held on to that or not.

00:10:00.240 But he didn't warm to Alberta, and Albertans didn't warm to him.

00:10:06.720 And for whatever reason that was, there was a certain tone deafness there.

00:10:10.660 And he simply needed to say.

00:10:12.620 I remember one time, Lougheed got this ballroom full of oil executives and professionals, professors, all sorts of people who aren't normally really excited in politics.

00:10:25.100 He got them whipped into a frenzy by saying, you know, yesterday we stopped the feds at the door, and tomorrow we're going to kick them off the porch.

00:10:35.420 Now, the man then went and signed an abbreviated national energy program.

00:10:40.520 And there's a very famous picture of Lougheed tinking champagne glasses with Pierre Trudeau after they'd signed a new NEP.

00:10:50.180 So Lougheed didn't always play the tough guy Alberta rogue.

00:10:55.580 He was a lawyer, and he did make these compromises, but he knew the rhetoric that would get people going.

00:11:02.540 And that just never – Jason just never seemed to clue into that.

00:11:06.000 I think he could have survived the mask mandate and the vax passports and the lockdown. 0.94

00:11:14.080 He might have had to come out and say, sorry, we found out these are wrong.

00:11:18.560 We'll never do them again.

00:11:19.340 But I think he could have survived those.

00:11:21.320 What he couldn't survive was the feds came in.

00:11:24.000 They wanted emission caps that didn't apply to anybody else in the country.

00:11:27.520 They wanted to end pipeline.

00:11:29.340 They wanted to destroy the oil sands developments.

00:11:33.420 There was a tech resources frontier project in the oil center, $21 billion project, one project.

00:11:42.480 And the feds kiboshed that. 0.94

00:11:44.640 And they didn't hammer back.

00:11:46.260 And the real shame of that one was that there were 14 indigenous communities around that project, all of whom had signed on to it, because they could see the economic development that would lead to a better tomorrow for their people.

00:12:00.740 And we still didn't hammer the feds on that.

00:12:03.420 And so ultimately, whether that is something the voters of the UCP would admit to or even be able to coalesce in their heads, I don't know.

00:12:13.000 But it seems to me that ultimately, what we're seeing in this race to replace Kenny is that the number one issue is we haven't been hard enough with the hotel.

00:12:24.040 I accept that.

00:12:25.320 I do believe that it's related to his heavy hand on the lockdowns, because Jason Kenny would be a fancy VIP guy in Ottawa.

00:12:36.360 But then he would go back and meet with real people in Southeast Calgary, where he represented.

00:12:42.520 And he would meet in rooms around the country, and he would get de-autowashed.

00:12:47.880 But when there's a lockdown and there's no gatherings allowed, and the only people he consorts with are other insiders, many of whom weren't even from Alberta, actually, many of whom he borrowed from Ottawa.

00:12:57.920 When he's not getting detoxed from, you know, he's sitting there under the legislature only hearing from official people, he forgets that Arthur Pawlowski, while a bit of a handful and a bit voluble, that's his kind of people.

00:13:15.660 Or at least his kind of people wants Arthur Pawlowski to be treated with a little bit of respect, not a SWAT team style, you know, 15 police arrest on a highway.

00:13:28.300 And in the end on the pandemic, when he started to use Trudeau type language to talk about the extreme yahoos taking over the party, I think they're related. 1.00

00:13:39.880 I think they're related.

00:13:41.460 I don't think you can get away from the grassroots.

00:13:43.280 I don't think you can separate one from the other.

00:13:45.280 I agree with that.

00:13:46.760 And it is a common problem for all politicians that they don't get out enough.

00:13:53.220 And the longer you are in office, and this doesn't really apply to Kenny because he's only in his first term, but say you're in office for two terms, three terms, you tend to gravitate around you, those people who will tell you what you want to hear, those people who are...

00:14:07.700 Loyalty becomes more important than honesty.

00:14:09.840 And, you know, and that is a huge danger for any person.

00:14:16.460 It's a huge danger for a CEO, much less a premier or prime minister.

00:14:20.840 But it is really evident in politics.

00:14:22.960 Now, you said that Danielle Smith is generating the most heat and light, and I agree with you. 0.99

00:14:29.800 But there's a risk there in assuming that what you can detect in the media, in headlines, on Twitter, for those who are on there, is the same as who buys a membership and votes.

00:14:39.960 And I remember a few years ago in Ontario, Patrick Brown surprised people by winning the Ontario PC Party leadership because while everyone was having a TV debate, he was selling thousands of memberships, in his case, to new Canadians.

00:14:54.360 So I don't know what kind of ground game Danielle Smith has. 1.00

00:14:59.520 I don't know what kind of support she has in the caucus of MLAs.

00:15:04.000 And so if the only information I have is what I can see on Twitter, I agree with you.

00:15:08.660 She's got this thing, you know, we could count the number of followers, count the number of retweets.

00:15:14.120 But that's not how the vote is done.

00:15:16.560 Do you know, have you been able to detect, do you have friends on the inside who can give you any measurement of what really counts, which is on the ground,

00:15:27.040 are party members either buying memberships to support her or are existing memberships casting themselves for her?

00:15:34.500 Or is she just a distraction on the media while something else happens on subterranean?

00:15:39.860 I'm having real trouble getting a good handle on that.

00:15:43.360 This is a very subterranean campaign.

00:15:47.040 It is, I think, in part because you're talking about the seven dwarfs. 0.84

00:15:51.860 None of these people has the kind of organizational chops that Kenny had.

00:15:55.740 One of the things that really bothered the old wild rose element that became part of UCP was that Kenny used very professional, very federal techniques to organize things.

00:16:09.720 And he could out-organize and out-hammer anybody who came up against him.

00:16:15.420 And that's not necessarily how provincial politics is done.

00:16:19.260 And provincial politics in a province of 4.5 million people is kind of collegial.

00:16:23.940 You know, you're just expected to sort of slough off, you know, Jim's unvarnished opinion about X, Y, and Z and not media manage the way that Kenny's people did and be as forceful.

00:16:42.120 They could tell you within a few hundred people how many phone calls MLA's offices had had on different issues.

00:16:52.620 And they just had spreadsheets on stuff.

00:16:56.720 They didn't actually use spreadsheets, but you know what I'm talking about.

00:16:59.000 They had reams of information that also gets you away from your gut feeling, right?

00:17:05.520 You have to have a gut feeling, I think, to run provincially.

00:17:08.500 So I don't have a good gut feeling yet.

00:17:10.780 I'm trying to get back into these campaigns and see who's doing what.

00:17:16.580 I mean, one of the people I think who's been having a surprising response is Rebecca Schultz, who is the youngest person in the race,

00:17:25.540 who seems to appeal not just to urbanize.

00:17:30.960 I mean, her problem is she's a Calgarian, and I think there's going to be an anti-Calgary movement in this race 0.91

00:17:38.300 because Kenny, of his 29 cabinet ministers, 20 of them were from Calgary.

00:17:42.980 And, you know, you can't ignore rural Alberta like that and think that you're going to survive.

00:17:48.360 But she does play well with the Rural Caucus, apparently. 0.96

00:17:52.480 The Rural Caucus members I've talked to said, yeah, she's good.

00:17:54.860 She's talked to us.

00:17:56.100 She's open about things.

00:17:57.500 She said she wouldn't do lockdowns again.

00:17:59.840 I mean, a lot of the things that really appeal to them.

00:18:02.560 So she's good.

00:18:03.500 And you can't underestimate and you can't overestimate Travis Tate, the former finance minister who is the establishment candidate.

00:18:13.400 But, you know, the establishment told me, the establishment kept telling me, Kenny was going to get 65% of the vote.

00:18:20.800 I thought he was going to get about 58%.

00:18:22.400 They said he's going to get 65% to 70%.

00:18:24.280 You just watch, 65% to 70%.

00:18:25.880 He's going to get it.

00:18:26.460 Don't worry about it.

00:18:27.120 We know where he's going to get.

00:18:28.440 He got 51%.

00:18:29.640 So I can't tell from these establishment voices whether they're plugged in enough anymore to understand.

00:18:36.600 So it's really – I think we have to wait until after the federal leadership race is over to start seeing who's forming up where.

00:18:46.420 We'll have about a month after the Fed's finished.

00:18:49.420 We'll have about a month after that before the Alberta vote.

00:18:53.660 That's interesting.

00:18:54.820 I got one more question for you because you mentioned how Kenny's team was very confident in the leadership race, which, again, you're right.

00:19:03.360 They were disconnected.

00:19:04.340 They were also confident that when Brian Jean, the former leadership rival of Jason Kenney, ran in Fort McMurray, that they could beat him in the nomination.

00:19:14.160 And they – it really was a proxy battle, and Brian Jean beat them.

00:19:19.400 And he beat them on an explicitly anti-Kenney campaign.

00:19:23.840 So maybe Brian Jean has some subterranean – I keep using that word – action.

00:19:29.100 And it's hard to – it's hard to measure, but it'll be very –

00:19:32.280 It's hard to gauge him because he has – he has – you know, Danielle has all the heat and light.

00:19:38.200 Jean has had almost no heat and light.

00:19:40.240 I guess it's really odd.

00:19:41.960 And you can, as you said, with Patrick Brown.

00:19:44.040 You can avoid the media chaos and still win, provided you're doing the organizational things right.

00:19:51.460 But I don't see any evidence of that very much from Jean's people either.

00:19:55.260 So it's really hard to tell.

00:19:56.820 And I think, you know, now we're in the summer.

00:19:59.180 You know, we're past the stampede.

00:20:01.280 Stampede's always a good gauge for who's got what kind of support and things because, you know, we flip 700 pancakes.

00:20:08.440 Those people flip 1,200 pancakes.

00:20:10.460 You can sort of gauge those things.

00:20:12.520 But stampede's over now.

00:20:13.360 There isn't another big event until after Labor Day where you can really get a handle on this.

00:20:18.980 So it's frustrating for me.

00:20:22.940 Well, listen, I appreciate you chewing over this UCP leadership race with me.

00:20:27.320 And I'm still informing myself.

00:20:28.800 I was not very familiar with all of the candidates.

00:20:31.740 I really enjoyed watching the leadership debate the other night, even though I found it very depressing.

00:20:36.840 I want to shift gears a little bit, but only a little,

00:20:39.240 because one of the issues that did come up in that, Albert, a UCP leadership race was the new kind of great reset that Trudeau is talking about.

00:20:47.940 He's always talked about transitioning oil and gas workers out of the oil sands.

00:20:52.660 And Gerald Butts and David Suzuki, they all talk about transitioning a wage.

00:20:58.680 Now they've added transitioning farmers off of farming.

00:21:04.760 And instead of demonizing element number, I think it's six on the periodic table, carbon,

00:21:11.060 now they're demonizing element number one on the periodic table, hydrogen, sorry, not hydrogen, they're demonizing nitrogen.

00:21:18.620 I don't have my periodical table with the elements in front of me.

00:21:21.660 No, I don't either.

00:21:22.380 I'm not going to correct me.

00:21:23.340 Sorry, that's right.

00:21:24.280 It's not hydrogen.

00:21:25.480 It's nitrogen thereafter.

00:21:26.740 It would be just as insane no matter which element they're after.

00:21:29.380 They're natural elements.

00:21:31.140 You know what I realized?

00:21:31.900 I've been talking about hydrogen before.

00:21:33.660 Nitrogen is the one they're trying to blame.

00:21:36.100 But nitrogen is key to, you know, we talk about the green revolution.

00:21:41.000 Now that means sort of eco stuff.

00:21:42.500 But a generation ago, the green revolution actually meant how do we feed the world?

00:21:48.220 How do we get crops that are resistant to the weather?

00:21:51.900 How do we use fertilizers to increase the yield of land? 0.96

00:21:55.600 How do we feed billions of mouths? 1.00

00:21:57.620 That was actually the origination of the phrase, the green revolution.

00:22:01.240 And the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers, life depends on it.

00:22:06.420 Look what happened to Sri Lanka where they said, oh, we're going to go organic.

00:22:09.860 We're just going to stop using nitrogen.

00:22:12.200 You're going to starve a country.

00:22:13.500 And then the World Economic Forum and the globalist president of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, I'm sorry, I can't remember if he's the prime minister or president, said, okay, hey, Dutch farmers, you're the number one exporters of certain agricultural products in Europe.

00:22:29.060 You're like, for centuries, you've been a gem of our country.

00:22:34.680 We're just reducing you by 30%.

00:22:37.340 And now that madness has come to Canada.

00:22:40.600 And some of the candidates saying they're against it, but some of them talk about net zero.

00:22:45.240 Give me your take on this war on nitrogen.

00:22:47.700 They'll come after hydrogen in due time.

00:22:49.600 They'll probably charge you for oxygen.

00:22:51.620 They'll come after oxygen in a while.

00:22:53.400 This is a cult.

00:22:55.660 This is a cult.

00:22:56.980 It has become a cult to which CEOs, politicians, senior bureaucrats all belong.

00:23:05.440 And, you know, you get all these QAnon types who talk about the secret cults. 0.83

00:23:10.340 There's no secret about the cult that's the most dangerous, and that is the green cult that all of them have bought into. 0.97

00:23:16.700 It's fascinating to me to see Justin Trudeau come out and say, well, we will simply decree that there will be 42% fewer emissions from the oil and gas industry by 2030.

00:23:30.900 We will simply decree that we will use 30% less fertilizer.

00:23:34.700 We will simply decree that, you know, you won't build any more pipelines.

00:23:38.280 And then we'll decree that the economy is going to be great anyway, and we'll decree that everybody who's put out of work in the ag sector and the energy sector, they'll get great jobs in other sectors.

00:23:48.360 It'll just be, it'll just happen.

00:23:50.560 And the disconnect there, like we're talking about the disconnect between Kenny and Albertan.

00:23:56.500 The disconnect between the green cult and reality is enormous.

00:24:03.760 George Mambia, who's a famous British environmental reporter, was being interviewed on the BBC this week, and he said, we have to get over our dependence on agriculture.

00:24:17.180 What in heaven's name does that mean?

00:24:21.040 Like, how can you get over your dependence on agriculture?

00:24:21.700 We got to get over this.

00:24:23.540 Yeah, just stop eating, I guess.

00:24:26.840 Just do that.

00:24:27.520 You know, I remember one time that my mother said that it was going to be very, very dangerous when the majority of people no longer had a connection to the farm.

00:24:38.660 And her generation, at least a lot of them, had parents who'd farm, or they had cousins who were still on the farm.

00:24:45.300 But as soon as everybody became urbanized and they think food comes from the store, she said that's going to be very dangerous because people will not understand what goes into farming.

00:24:56.480 And she was absolutely right because now we think, well, we could shut off fertilizer and the yields will still be the same.

00:25:05.740 And because there are people in think tanks, lefty think tanks, environmental think tanks, who've got elaborate charts and put into expensive reports who will say, yes, we could do with X less nitrogen and that'll save the planet and we'll still be able to feed ourselves.

00:25:23.140 And somebody says, oh, look, look, it has a nice shiny cover on it.

00:25:27.560 It must be true.

00:25:28.580 It's wonderful.

00:25:29.720 And this just unreality.

00:25:32.800 That's what people just don't understand.

00:25:35.320 That's what led to the farmers' protests in the Netherlands where people blocked mega highways and they rallied outside the legislature.

00:25:43.720 And it's going to happen here too.

00:25:45.180 Well, I can't help but notice that at the same time they're demonizing normal agriculture, they're promoting with government funds and government messaging, eating bugs.

00:25:56.900 And I know that sounds like madness and eating synthetic meat.

00:26:00.920 And I really do think it's related to their decarbonization.

00:26:04.580 And then it's a utopia.

00:26:07.260 And by the way, some of the same people are behind it.

00:26:10.320 Bill Gates is behind so many weird – and they all have sort of a megalomaniac god complex.

00:26:16.680 We're going to change how you use energy.

00:26:18.360 We're going to change how you eat food.

00:26:19.960 And sure, maybe you're going to have to have a smaller life and a worse life, but Bill Gates himself says we need billions fewer people.

00:26:28.320 That bugs thing has –

00:26:29.980 Will any one of them live a smaller life or a more miserable life?

00:26:33.400 No.

00:26:34.280 So they don't have to bear any of the consequences of this.

00:26:36.820 Gibo, Stephen Giroux, the federal environment minister, his department said this week that, well,

00:26:44.200 if you aren't going to be able to use plastic utensils at food trucks and takeout, use your hands.

00:26:52.620 Use your hands.

00:26:53.720 Use your hands.

00:26:55.620 How insane are they?

00:26:57.480 And what happens when all of a sudden now you've used your hands but you haven't been able to sanitize them properly

00:27:05.380 and you stick all the germs in your mouth along with your taco and it suddenly visits to the emergency rooms go up.

00:27:14.800 When San Francisco banned plastic bags about 10 years, they had a 40% increase in food poisoning at their emergency rooms in the city.

00:27:25.440 And somebody connected it back to the fact that people don't wash the cloth bags that they use instead of plastic bags.

00:27:32.680 These people just do not ever think how ordinary people live their lives.

00:27:37.780 They don't understand how ordinary people think.

00:27:39.920 They don't understand how they live. 0.97

00:27:41.260 And so they come up with these grand theories that are absolutely ludicrous.

00:27:47.360 Yeah. 0.83

00:27:47.760 It's madness.

00:27:49.440 Makes me want to go Hong Kongs in downtown Ottawa. 0.99

00:27:52.340 Yeah.

00:27:53.120 Yeah.

00:27:54.700 You know, it feels related when Justin Trudeau says he wants to be Ukraine's greatest ally.

00:28:01.020 And he met with, I mean, he went over there and he certainly had a lot of photo ops.

00:28:08.100 And the one thing that I think powers Vladimir Putin, his greatest weapon is not a tank or a missile system.

00:28:17.500 And, I mean, thank God he hasn't used nuclear weapons.

00:28:20.580 But his greatest weapon and the one that pays for all the others is the oil weapon.

00:28:24.260 And in more particularity, the natural gas weapon.

00:28:27.520 It's astonishing to me that Europe, the Baltics, get about 90% of their gas from Gazprom.

00:28:35.180 Even Germany, it's about 40% of their natural gas.

00:28:38.280 Germany, this mighty industrial economy.

00:28:40.540 Donald Trump went out there to Germany and said, don't.

00:28:43.900 Let me show you this clip of Donald Trump warning them, don't buy gas from Russia. 0.96

00:28:49.200 And they smirked, they laughed at that dumb Yankee who didn't, here's a clip of that. 0.95

00:28:55.200 I think it's very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia, where you're supposed to be guarding against Russia. 0.97

00:29:06.060 And Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia.

00:29:10.500 So we're protecting Germany, we're protecting France, we're protecting all of these countries.

00:29:16.220 And then numerous of the countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia, where they're paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia.

00:29:25.440 So we're supposed to protect you against Russia, but they're paying billions of dollars to Russia.

00:29:30.500 And I think that's very inappropriate.

00:29:32.320 And the former chancellor of Germany is the head of the pipeline company that's supplying the gas.

00:29:37.520 Ultimately, Germany will have almost 70 percent of their country controlled by Russia with natural gas.

00:29:47.360 So you tell me, is that appropriate?

00:29:49.580 I mean, I've been complaining about this from the time I got in.

00:29:53.120 It should have never been allowed to have happened.

00:29:55.400 But Germany is totally controlled by Russia, because they will be getting from 60 to 70 percent of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline.

00:30:04.020 And you tell me if that's appropriate, because I think it's not.

00:30:07.620 And I think it's a very bad thing for NATO, and I don't think it should have happened.

00:30:11.920 And I think we have to talk to Germany about it.

00:30:14.020 On top of that, Germany is just paying a little bit over 1 percent, whereas the United States, in actual numbers, is paying 4.2 percent of a much larger GDP.

00:30:24.980 So I think that's inappropriate also.

00:30:27.100 You know, we're protecting Germany, we're protecting France, we're protecting everybody, and yet we're paying a lot of money to protect.

00:30:34.000 Now, this has been going on for decades.

00:30:36.420 This has been brought up by other presidents, but other presidents never did anything about it, because I don't think they understood it, or they just didn't want to get involved.

00:30:45.020 But I have to bring it up, because I think it's very unfair to our country.

00:30:48.220 It's very unfair to our taxpayers.

00:30:49.640 Well, who's laughing now?

00:30:52.820 And all these so-called sanctions on Russia exempted oil and gas, because if you're going to truly put a sanction on Russia, you're really sanctioning it.

00:31:01.820 Is Germany going to just stop using 40 percent of its energy?

00:31:04.880 So my point is, the one thing that Canada could actually do for Ukraine and Poland and the Baltics is actually sell them what I called ethical oil and ethical gas, and we can do it.

00:31:17.660 If we only had some pipelines, if we were allowed to frack, that's where you get shale gas.

00:31:24.460 The one thing Canada – we're not a military superpower.

00:31:28.020 We're not a financial superpower.

00:31:29.640 We're not a diplomatic superpower.

00:31:31.000 What's the one thing we have that actually they need is oil and gas?

00:31:34.940 And Trudeau said, we'll help you with hydrogen energy technology.

00:31:39.860 I don't even know what that is.

00:31:42.780 I don't think Europe knows what that is.

00:31:44.580 They need oil and gas.

00:31:45.800 The one thing Trudeau could do, he immediately said, I'm not going to do.

00:31:49.100 I think we need to revive ethical oil.

00:31:50.880 What do you think?

00:31:51.700 Oh, yeah, absolutely we do.

00:31:52.680 And I think the only way we're going to do that is for people to start pitching to ordinary Canadians that you need to vote for people who are going to be behind ethical oil development to understand how you can develop oil and still be conscious of the environment.

00:32:11.720 And if you really are worried about climate change, you can still be concerned about that.

00:32:16.360 The Norwegians are very good at that, right?

00:32:18.100 The Norwegians have this enormous reserve of oil money from the past that they built up by selling this idea that Norwegian oil is cleaner oil.

00:32:30.980 It's more ethical oil than oil from Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and a lot of –

00:32:36.460 And it is.

00:32:36.960 And a lot of others.

00:32:37.900 And it is.

00:32:38.600 And it is, yeah.

00:32:39.240 But we are the Boy Scouts of the world.

00:32:43.380 We are the purists.

00:32:44.940 We like to self-flagellate.

00:32:46.540 Oh, no, we can't have any oil at all.

00:32:48.740 No, no, no.

00:32:49.460 Any of it's bad.

00:32:50.560 And our federal government, current federal government, will even side with an awful lot of environmentalists who say that our oil sands oil is the dirtiest oil in the world, that it's the worst environmental threat in the world.

00:33:05.500 They'll say that.

00:33:06.260 They'll agree with that stuff. 0.85

00:33:08.220 I don't know how – I really don't understand.

00:33:10.260 Again, it's that disconnect between reality and our government, and it's a deepening divide.

00:33:16.300 You know, when I used to talk about – I mean, I wrote that book, Ethical Law, I used to do speeches, and I was often invited to talk in the oil patch in Calgary.

00:33:24.860 And some people said, why are you speaking to the converted?

00:33:27.380 No, they're not converted.

00:33:28.840 They were converted to the other side.

00:33:31.200 They became self-loathing oil and gas men because they believed what their opponents said about them in bad faith.

00:33:38.260 And, you know, I saw this in the UCP leadership debate.

00:33:41.620 I forget which candidate.

00:33:42.640 Maybe it was Lila here.

00:33:43.540 I can't remember, who was talking about, well, we need to show the world that our oil is acceptable, so we need to impose net zero.

00:33:51.320 Really?

00:33:52.160 Haven't we just learned in the last six months that no matter what Putin does, no matter what Saudi Arabia does, Europe will still buy their – I mean, Biden literally sent an emissary to meet with Venezuela saying, please pump more oil.

00:34:08.100 Biden personally went to Saudi Arabia saying, please pump more oil.

00:34:10.960 And Russia, their ruble has never been stronger, and it's oil money.

00:34:16.580 Like, haven't we just learned that this whole, oh, you need social license.

00:34:20.220 Really?

00:34:20.760 Tell me a single consumer of oil in the world that's turned their nose up to Canada, let alone Russia or Saudi Arabia.

00:34:28.980 It's BS.

00:34:29.340 You know, if we're talking about Ukraine and dealing a blow to Russia and things too, I mean, why did we give the turbines for Nord Stream 1 back to Russia?

00:34:40.800 Because Germany asked us to. 0.56

00:34:42.140 Yeah, but Germany has gone quite soft on Putin in the last couple of months because they started to see it pinching their economy and their lifestyle.

00:34:49.860 So, you know, and how many times have you had an environmentalist throw in your face German environmental policy as a way Canada should point?

00:35:01.220 But as soon as they weren't going to be able to drive their Audis and Mercedes 225 kilometers an hour on the Autobahn, they asked us to send the equipment back so they could get oil and gas again from Russia.

00:35:14.620 Yeah, it's hypocrisy.

00:35:18.240 Yeah, they never mentioned.

00:35:19.800 Hey, I've got one last question for you.

00:35:21.520 I really appreciate your time.

00:35:22.620 It's great to catch up with you.

00:35:23.660 And I know we're very Alberta-centric here, but I think that's okay.

00:35:27.120 I think Alberta is a leader within Canada.

00:35:30.780 And a lot of these issues we're talking about in Alberta, they apply elsewhere, whether it's nitrogen farming or, you know, Eastern Canada still imports oil from conflict countries, by the way.

00:35:40.980 I want to talk just for a minute about the federal CPC, Conservative Party of Canada leadership.

00:35:46.840 Give me your thoughts on that.

00:35:47.920 My read of things, because there was some measurement, the candidates sort of said how many memberships they sold.

00:35:54.880 My read of things is that Pierre Polyev is the Twitter winner of that contest, but he is actually, he seems to be the membership sales winner too.

00:36:03.980 I think he's going to win that leadership, and I think he's actually a surprisingly robust ideological candidate against both the liberals, but also against liberal media.

00:36:15.240 That's my take.

00:36:15.900 I'd love to hear your take.

00:36:16.860 And he will not, as Andrew Scheer and Aaron O'Toole both did, he will not crumble when liberal media start to attack him on his ideology, because he is so solid on the things that he knows and understands and believes, that he doesn't have to apologize for them.

00:36:35.560 He'll just explain them.

00:36:36.960 And that is so hopeful to me.

00:36:39.240 I think he's going to win too.

00:36:40.700 I think he has sold so many more memberships than anyone else that it's going to be difficult to stop him.

00:36:46.600 But the Conservative Party of Canada uses this really wonky points system for electing its leaders, where every riding gets 100 points, whether it has 20,000 members or 200 members.

00:36:58.880 The only time you don't get 100 points is if you don't have 100 members.

00:37:02.280 So all the ridings get 100 points.

00:37:05.080 It's divvied up by what percentage of the vote each candidate gets in that riding.

00:37:11.600 But it's still – it's deliberately done to take the power of the West away and the power of rural Ontario away and give it back to downtown Toronto, Montreal, and Atlantic Canada.

00:37:28.520 And unfortunately, one of the reasons the CPC will not give you the numbers, the actual vote totals for each candidate, is they don't want you to know if, by some chance, Polyev were to get 300,000 votes, but they're all in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and rural Ontario.

00:37:49.700 And that's overcome by Charest's votes in Quebec and in urban Ontario.

00:37:57.720 So Charest could finish with the second and the highest number of votes and still win on this ridiculous points system.

00:38:05.260 And I don't like it.

00:38:05.940 But I think Polyev is so far ahead in so many ridings that even that goofy points system will not defeat him.

00:38:15.580 Yeah, I think you're right.

00:38:16.860 And I hope you're right about him standing firm against the media.

00:38:19.320 I saw he had a sort of a Twitter flame war with Global News.

00:38:23.120 I loved that, not for the substance of it, but I loved seeing him fight, and I loved seeing all the other media pile on and him digging in, because I want him to hate the media, because otherwise it creeps into their mind.

00:38:36.740 Andrew Scheer did it.

00:38:37.700 Aaron O'Toole did it.

00:38:39.160 They like me.

00:38:40.160 I can win them over.

00:38:41.340 I really can feel like I'm getting through to them.

00:38:46.060 And that's the source of more corruption than anything else, thinking you can please the media.

00:38:51.340 Well, it's great to catch up with you, and I really appreciate your take on the Alberta UCP race.

00:38:56.700 I think it's two things that undid Jason Kenney.

00:39:00.500 He's not standing up for Alberta versus Ottawa, and I do believe his heavy-handed approach, especially on the churches.

00:39:07.700 And I know you don't share my views on that, and that's fine.

00:39:10.220 But I think that those visual images of pastors, you know, of almost riot police, I think that felt unalbertant, and there were echoes of Trudeau there.

00:39:24.340 That's what I think.

00:39:25.380 But, of course, that's all in the past, and we'll see what comes next.

00:39:28.320 It's great to catch up with you, and look forward to your columns always in the Emerton Sun and other post-media places.

00:39:34.000 Take care, my friend.

00:39:34.680 Yeah, you do.

00:39:36.260 There you have it.

00:39:37.320 Lauren Gunter, one of our favorite guys.

00:39:38.760 Stay with us.

00:39:39.380 My final thoughts are next.

00:39:52.380 Well, that's our show for today.

00:39:54.080 I hope you enjoyed it and are enjoying your long weekend.

00:39:57.520 You know, we do shows even on statutory holidays, so I hope you appreciated our chat with Lauren.

00:40:02.260 He's a pretty smart guy.

00:40:03.600 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at, well, I guess I'm not at World Headquarters.

00:40:08.880 I'm just standing in front of a bush.

00:40:10.700 Good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

00:40:12.780 We'll be right back.

Rebel News Podcast - August 02, 2022

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Lorne Gunter on the state of Alberta and conservative politics

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