LIVE with David Menzies & Sheila Gunn Reid! Trump vs. Trudeau on Trade!
Summary
Sheila Gunn-Reed from Alberta joins the show to talk about the ruling by the Court of Appeal to block the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion project, the Northern Gateway Pipeline project, and the decision by the Supreme Court of Canada to reject the project.
Transcript
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Good afternoon. It's Friday, August 31st, 2018. I'm David Menzies, and this is Ezra Levent's Battleground.
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Hey folks, great to have you with us. I'm David Menzies filling in for Ezra Levent, and because Ezra does the work of so many others here, I can't do this show alone.
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That's why there's another special co-host filling in with me today, and that would be the one and only Sheila Gunn-Reed from Alberta.
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Hey David, this is going to be fun. It's going to be like the Donnie and Marie show, but for conservatives.
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You know, that brings up really bad memories of the two years I spent in Newfoundland in the mid-70s.
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All I had, it was two TV channels. It was CBC and CTV, and because I was a mainlander, which meant I was a complete loser and had no friends,
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on Friday night at 10 o'clock, my choice was on CTV, The Donnie and Marie Show, and on CBC, Tommy Hunter Country.
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Wow, was I ever waiting for the internet to be invented? I almost bought a CB radio, actually, to break the Donnie.
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And now, so much in the news to talk about, I think first and foremost, is this disgraceful court of appeal decision to, I think,
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not just put the kibosh on the Trans Mountain Kinder Morgan project, but maybe putting the kibosh on billions and billions of dollars
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of future investment, especially in the mining and oil and gas sector in Canada.
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Sheila, you're much closer to this story than I am, of course, being in Alberta.
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Are people going crazy in the Wild Rose province right now?
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You know, you and I were talking about this earlier.
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If this were the Quebec hydro industry that wasn't allowed to sell their hydro, or if this were the Ontario auto sector,
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or Saskatchewan agriculture, there would be rumblings about separation.
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We're seeing more and more people, reasonable people, who are looking at all of this and saying,
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what exactly is the point of confederation when we're being treated like the country's changed purse?
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They've, you know, the equalization payments never change, no matter how many pipelines don't get built.
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Alberta still pays a lot into equalization and doesn't get a lot back.
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And we don't have any help from the federal government to help us get our resources to Tidewater.
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It is absolutely crazy that, you know, we're the world's third largest oil resource.
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This would absolutely never happen anywhere else in the world, except in Canada,
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when we're letting these foreign-funded radicals set the agenda and make these appeals to the appeal court
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that ultimately end up blocking our pipeline projects.
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But Sheila, foreign-funded radicals, that's one thing.
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But the Court of Appeal decision here, I think this is judicial activism at its very worst.
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First of all, I absolutely don't buy their rationale for killing this project.
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First and foremost, not enough consultation with Aboriginal groups.
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The facts of the matter show that there were nine months of discussions with Aboriginal groups.
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And by the way, some Aboriginal groups, as you well know, are pro-pipeline.
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Are these, I guess, social justice warrior judges on the Court of Appeal?
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Because I'll tell you, I think when you sit down with groups for nine months and listen to them,
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Well, and David, there were four rounds of consultation.
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Two initial rounds before the Liberals took over and another two after the fact.
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We don't have a duty to seek permission from everybody who wants to weigh in on this pipeline project.
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We're seeing Canada balkanize, and the Feds aren't really doing anything about it.
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You know, I think you're onto something here, Sheila.
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It's almost as though the definition of consultation has been changed,
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here is our problem and this is why we want it stopped,
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at least as far as I can interpret the judge's ruling,
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In other words, because you didn't echo their opinion,
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The Northern Gateway Pipeline project was squashed by the court.
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That approval was squashed by the court in 2016.
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The Trudeau Liberals never decided to appeal that decision.
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Rachel Notley in Alberta here was happy also to let the pipeline die
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because she said there was not adequate consultation with First Nations groups.
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So, in two years, the Liberals had to do something
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And, you know, Rachel Notley and Justin Trudeau,
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but Rachel Notley has come out and said that the Court of Appeals decision was wrong.
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why was it right when it happened to Northern Gateway?
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they're offloading this political hot potato onto the court
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when neither one of them, Justin Trudeau nor Rachel Notley,
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none of them really want to see this pipeline get built,
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but at least they can say that they weren't responsible for the voice of no.
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Yeah, they're now finding convenient boogeymen to point the finger to.
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I mean, Sheila, in the last five quarters, I understand,
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foreign companies have withdrawn a net $8.2 billion
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and that compares with the previous decade to those five quarters,
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that this is a lousy place to make an investment in
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Yeah, we're seeing companies pull out of Alberta,
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and they're going to far more safe places for investment,
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And let's not forget we have a pretty business-friendly administration
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You know, let's take a look at the Dakota Access Pipeline project.
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after ongoing protests that actually left environmental disasters behind them.
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And it was just so easy because there was political will to get that done.
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And companies, international companies, when they're looking at that,
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you know what, the Dakotas have the exact same oil formation
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when we can actually get something done in the United States?
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given the judicial environment right now based on this.
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I haven't heard whether or not he's going to do that.
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That should have been the first thing out of his mouth yesterday.
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And I think we have a clip that Mr. Producer put together for us.
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You know what, I just wanted to say Mr. Producer
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And I've been waiting my whole life to say that.
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put together from Rachel Notley's press conference yesterday.
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And one intrepid reporter actually did an accidental piece of journalism
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And I think you're going to be amazed with the response.
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The current state of affairs in Canada right now
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our ability to transport our most profitable commodity
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until the federal government gets its act together,
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to be withdrawing from the national climate plan.
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What would you actually be doing differently now
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And you don't have a friendship with me either.
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Well, Amanda Joy's got a heck of an idea for me.
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give Sheila some direction to make a voodoo doll
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And then I became the exclusive brony hat supplier
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Um, Faith, um, I wish her nothing but the best.