The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - Support for our Energy Workers

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome once again it's the blueprint canada's conservative podcast i'm your host

00:00:07.860 jamie shmail member of parliament from haliburton for the likes brock thank you very much for

00:00:12.320 joining us today and i tell you we have so much to talk about it's a packed agenda so we need you

00:00:17.220 to help us get this message out push back against the ever-moving liberal agenda like comment

00:00:22.140 subscribe share this program if you can't watch it now on platforms like facebook please download

00:00:28.780 it listen to it later on platforms like castbox itunes spotify google play you name it it is out

00:00:35.380 there and for all of those paying attention to politics the hardcore well the fiscal update was

00:00:40.980 released yesterday and boy oh boy there is a lot of spending involved some of it good some of it bad

00:00:46.600 and and someone here to help us unpack all of it is the natural resources shadow minister we have

00:00:53.660 greg mcclain the member of parliament from calgary center thank you very much for joining us we have

00:00:57.840 so much to talk about thanks for having me jamie much appreciated not a problem now let's get right

00:01:03.780 into it because time is short and topics are long here we go we have a massive spending pan we're pushing

00:01:11.240 almost 400 billion dollars in in federal deficit spending this year uh we're pushing probably over

00:01:18.620 a trillion dollars in canada's national debt and all the while the government in its document is

00:01:24.800 almost steering the economy picking winners and losers first we don't know all of their plans but

00:01:30.560 in their words they're almost going to steer us in a direction that they pick winners and losers based on

00:01:35.680 what they determined is innovation correct you know it's about picking winners and losers in this budget

00:01:42.460 you take a look at the throne speech the task force for the new recovery was iterated in spades in that

00:01:49.440 document it's doubled down here again so we look at the the choices this government's going to have to make going

00:01:55.320 forward and they're spending a lot of money in the midst of a pandemic on issues that have nothing to do with the

00:02:01.020 pandemic or the economy it's all about a business shift now does that business shift make sense and there's a lot of

00:02:08.240 people that say what is the result of all this investment in parts of the economy that we have no idea what the

00:02:14.500 economic or environmental outcome will be at the end of the day it is highly questionable and all this

00:02:21.240 language saying the greener and and more inclusive economy well how does that greener or inclusive when

00:02:28.260 the government is deciding what is green and inclusive they're not letting the market decide so

00:02:33.220 if you have one company that is producing a product that is better than what is the government

00:02:38.580 believes to be better um they have to work twice as hard to overcome all of that in order to get

00:02:45.120 their product on the market at a place they can sell it and hopefully uh get it to you know widespread

00:02:50.760 distribution exactly the case i mean this government has shown time and again and we're dealing with

00:02:56.480 something now called the clean fuel standard where it's moving towards expensive outcomes that do not

00:03:03.920 uh accomplish the same ends as more economical outcomes for our country at the end of the day

00:03:09.960 you have to realize that canada has been and will continue to be a resource producing nation we've got

00:03:15.900 great forestry here we've got great mines we've got great oil and gas production we've got great hydro

00:03:20.280 production uranium production minerals the works for us to turn our back in this point in time vis-a-vis where

00:03:26.860 we sit in the world takes away all our advantages as far as where we add value to environmental

00:03:32.920 remediation in the world so canada's unemployment rates according to latest figures is 8.9 percent

00:03:41.480 it's the second worst in the g7 right behind italy and almost double the uk in the unemployment rate

00:03:46.980 and and this is despite almost record amounts of spending by by this government now according to the

00:03:54.000 canadian federation of independent business i'm going to pull up these stats here 37 of small

00:03:58.480 businesses in canada are losing money every day they are open 23 of canadian small businesses will

00:04:05.540 run out of the cash in the next three months and 56 of small businesses have been seriously impacted

00:04:12.700 by the second wave of the pandemic and when we talk about the recovery how about the anchors of our

00:04:18.380 economy the natural resources sector the oil and gas the mining the ones uh like you know you had these

00:04:24.480 pillars to build on and and they're a major part of our economy that is that is hurting in addition to

00:04:32.100 all these small businesses so how what's our path forward well our path forward has to be constructed

00:04:37.140 in both a national basis and an international basis so you think about our exports in this country the

00:04:42.880 things that the world pays us for we've got to make sure that those survive intact and whole through

00:04:48.580 this process and our resource exports are incredibly important to our balance of payments around the

00:04:54.540 world without our resource exports we are so negative as far as the money that comes into this

00:04:59.400 country versus the money that goes out that it would it would put us in a poverty situation on a trade

00:05:05.540 basis like no other country in the world we need our resources to continue to funnel the world because

00:05:10.540 they're world-class resources in many respects i can speak to the oil and gas resources the most

00:05:15.780 environmentally produced oil and gas in the world the highest social standards when we leave the field

00:05:21.100 i can guarantee it'll be taken up by somebody else that produces these resources on a much less

00:05:26.880 environmentally friendly basis and with much less social guidance that we have here in canada that's

00:05:32.760 important because a private sector economy and don't recognize that only 20 percent of the oil in

00:05:38.560 the world is produced in private sector responsible organizations the other 80 percent is is produced by

00:05:45.200 standard enterprises and and the like and those aren't uh at all responsive to uh investors

00:05:52.400 protesters those sorts of things that of course we have to take account of here in canada and respect

00:05:58.380 their input as well so we're accomplishing a lot as a result we have a very environmentally friendly

00:06:03.640 output and we need to make sure that that continues to advance well one thing the government seems to

00:06:09.540 fail to address is that even if you shut down the oil and gas sector in canada which we hope never

00:06:15.000 happens we want that to be a major strong anchor in our economy and this is someone from ontario saying

00:06:21.140 this so there are lots of people in ontario and other parts of the country that support uh albertus

00:06:25.740 scatchewan the west in terms of their oil and gas industry but it doesn't actually get rid of the demand

00:06:31.460 piece of the puzzle and and and so you're you're not actually solving that problem you can try to

00:06:37.940 steer the economy you can try to subsidize and put endless government money into you know your pet

00:06:43.540 project of the day but at the end of the day if it's not widely available at a reasonable price to

00:06:49.140 the majority of canadians you'll never get that off the ground and and the project is doomed because

00:06:54.340 once the government money stops the project ends or significantly takes a drop that's right and you know that

00:07:00.740 leads us right into one of the big issues on our table right now which is pipelines pipelines has

00:07:05.300 been the the issue for four years now about how we actually get canadian resources to export markets

00:07:11.380 and with the election of a new administration in the united states we know very well that we're trying

00:07:16.580 to make sure that the united states makes the most environmentally salient uh decision here in

00:07:22.980 getting the pipelines built that need to be built to get the product to the end market and that end market

00:07:28.180 the the most viable point for it is down in the on the uh the gulf coast the uh the texas gulf coast

00:07:34.820 where the refineries are that use heavy oil a lot of what we produce in canada is heavy oil and the big

00:07:40.820 market for that is down in texas so we've got to make sure that that market is still being filled with

00:07:46.340 canadian heavy oil which is much more environmentally friendly than the replacements that would come in by

00:07:51.620 ship to fill any void that would uh that would emerge so getting our oil to those to those markets 0.54

00:07:57.860 is number one and we've also run into some issues around as you know enbridge line five where there

00:08:03.780 looks like there's that uh attempt by the governor of michigan to try and uh interrupt the flow of oil

00:08:10.420 which flows from western canada uh through the straits of mackinaw and supplies not only ontario and

00:08:17.060 quebec with 500 000 barrels of oil a day for their products their propane uh you know how they drive

00:08:24.180 their cars how they heat their homes but it also supplies three states in the united states with some

00:08:30.260 of their uh production as well so we've got a great uh long-term invite trade uh trade agreement with

00:08:39.220 the united states that hinges upon energy and that free flow of energy of all sorts across the border

00:08:45.860 has built on our you know has allowed us to build a great quality of life in north america

00:08:50.340 and we need to make sure that we uh we continue to advance with the united states stronger

00:08:56.100 environmental standards on all our energy exports and all our energy imports because they do go hand in

00:09:01.380 hand now now correct me if i'm wrong there are still tankers from uh foreign countries coming into to

00:09:08.980 canada specifically on our east coast with oil from some of those uh nations state-owned companies that

00:09:16.500 are producing it in very very horrible standards in terms of environmental and labor in many cases

00:09:23.780 very correct the two refineries um three in particular but two provinces say you know uh

00:09:30.740 saint john new brunswick has the largest refinery in canada and that is completely beholden

00:09:37.460 to foreign oil except for some sometimes some newfoundland offshore oil although most of that goes

00:09:43.540 across the ocean towards european markets uh so a lot of the most what comes into saint john new

00:09:49.300 brunswick is foreign oil much of what comes into the quebec city refinery valero is also foreign oil

00:09:58.340 downstream as well so there's a there's a shipping trade that happens in oil and oil products

00:10:03.220 up to saint lawrence but as i say the biggest refinery in canada is in saint john new brunswick

00:10:08.500 years ago there was an attempt to get what's called energy east a pipeline all the way that would serve

00:10:14.020 both the quebec city refinery and the uh the saint john new brunswick refinery with canadian oil

00:10:20.900 and that uh in this last government's term was kiboshed uh the actual company withdrew from it because of the

00:10:28.180 extra uh emission uh costing that was put on it by the federal government which required both upstream

00:10:36.020 and downstream emission costing so even when people were burning it in their cars it had to be accounted

00:10:41.620 for by the oil production company in the pipeline which was the first time that type of standard had

00:10:47.940 ever been used and it hasn't been used since just to clarify for some of our listeners and viewers who

00:10:54.100 aren't overly familiar with the oil and gas sector or the mining economy it's it's not just those those

00:11:00.420 jobs that you see on site it's the off-site the spin-off jobs as well and those are mostly owned by

00:11:06.660 small business owners and because of the pandemic so there was problems in the oil and gas sector

00:11:12.260 largely brought on by the trudeau liberals and their anti-energy policies such as bill c69 the no more

00:11:18.820 pipelines bill the tanker ban which basically didn't ban foreign tankers from coming into our

00:11:23.860 ports just ones leaving cover uh leaving with alberta energy um but also the fact that when you

00:11:31.380 mash on to what people are going through the small business owners in covet the canadian federation of

00:11:36.500 independent business says 46 of small business owners are worried about the survival of their

00:11:42.260 business that's almost half of small business owners in canada are worried about their future and

00:11:47.460 whether or not they will be able to keep going in the next six months to a year yeah and it's troubling

00:11:54.100 because you take a look at all the inputs that our natural resource sector gives towards canadian

00:12:00.260 manufacturers but you also take a look at the inputs that the canadian manufacturers give towards

00:12:05.620 the resource industry it is a good flow back and forth and it leads to a great diversification of our

00:12:11.620 economy if we don't have a robust canadian natural resource sector we will be importing a lot of the

00:12:17.860 goods that our manufacturers need which will make them less competitive because they have to go further

00:12:22.660 afield to get their inputs but also they they do supply uh you know some of the inputs the oil and gas

00:12:28.180 industry as well it is a good hand-in-glove relationship across canada and i know we always talked about

00:12:33.860 alberto oil in fact what we export is canadian oil you think about where the oil comes from in canada

00:12:39.860 a lot of it comes from alberta a lot of it comes from saskatchewan some comes from northern british

00:12:44.660 columbia and some comes from southwest manitoba and newfoundland labrador is a great producer of

00:12:49.780 light oil products so we've got to make sure that we understand this is a canadian industry that we've

00:12:55.220 done very well at all across canada and we need to get that export to world markets sitting on it just

00:13:02.340 in in in canada is going to be too small a market where we actually don't have an ability to

00:13:08.340 influence the environmental outcomes of the world as opposed to just one country a lot of businesses

00:13:14.260 are concerned about what you mentioned earlier and we we need to touch on this before we let you run

00:13:20.100 here it's a clean fuel standard i think we almost need to do a show on that just holy what is it and

00:13:26.420 why is it particularly potentially very dangerous to our industry not just oil and gas i think throughout

00:13:33.460 the supply chain and will dramatically increase the cost of living on pretty much everything

00:13:38.980 thanks for the question jamie it is very important uh again it's not legislation it's regulation that's

00:13:45.060 been embedded it's effectively a second carbon tax but this one is very very very opaque it's

00:13:52.340 implemented at the manufacturing level in so many different ways uh a lot of the manufacturers i've

00:13:58.500 spoken to say they haven't figured out exactly how it's going to affect them they just know it's

00:14:02.980 going to affect them badly and a lot of the environment and climate change canada's uh regulations

00:14:09.940 on this that they've seen and i'm not sure if they're the final product at the end of the day but

00:14:14.180 they've received they've they've gleaned a lot of concern from all industries across canada not just

00:14:19.860 the oil and gas industry but the mining industry the forestry industry the manufacturing industry the food

00:14:25.940 processing industry the agriculture industry they're all going this is a regulatory overreach

00:14:31.060 that's going to cost us a lot of money and if you're productive in canada and you're suddenly

00:14:36.260 being assessed another big tax on your on your production the only thing you can really do is pass

00:14:42.500 it on to your consumers that does one you know one of a few things the first thing it does is it

00:14:47.780 actually increases costs for consumers and there's been a number of studies that show how much that's

00:14:52.260 going to cost canadians going forward some say up to 1300 per year for increases in the cost of our

00:14:59.300 food and increases in the cost of our energy and our transportation but the other thing it does is

00:15:04.740 it actually puts a line of sight where a lot of manufacturers go this is too opaque in canada we need

00:15:12.020 to move any of our new investment decisions south of the border and remember that south of the border we

00:15:18.340 have a trade relationship where we flow goods and services back freely particularly with the united

00:15:24.340 states but also with mexico and if you're somebody saying either expand my plant in canada and keep

00:15:29.700 my jobs there or i expand my plant in the united states and those jobs end up there at the end of

00:15:35.780 the day canadians are still consuming the product from those plants mind you there's going to be a big

00:15:40.900 cost built in there for anything built in canada and there's going to be a border carbon adjustment

00:15:46.340 tax at the end of the day that has yet to be seen so this is being designed by people that have no

00:15:53.700 concept of how businesses actually make decisions again it's about picking winners and losers without

00:15:59.380 all the information in their hands and i know every industry has tried to convince them of this and

00:16:05.140 right now it doesn't seem like the government is listening and that is extremely dangerous because

00:16:10.900 when when the government makes these type of promises and you even see the ndp talking about about

00:16:16.580 taxing the the the wealthy and and all the the luxury taxes that they're talking about it's only

00:16:23.380 providing new revenue streams to the government but it's never as much as they always think they never

00:16:29.060 ever take into account the massive change in behavior that you see as a result of this people

00:16:35.460 aren't going to be sticking around to get blood to death businesses aren't going to continue to shrink

00:16:42.100 their ability to do what they do best which is innovate create the next product or service people

00:16:46.820 want to buy it's not going to happen they're going to leave or try to increase the price to cover that

00:16:54.100 increase in taxes and at some point the product that you are advertising the service that you are offering

00:17:01.460 is not going to be affordable to the vast majority of customers so like you said you'll have to make the

00:17:07.380 decision do you do you stay or do you leave and hopefully are able to lower your price in another

00:17:12.980 jurisdiction doing the majority of your business so that people are able to afford it in the jurisdiction

00:17:18.020 that's being taxed so heavily exactly the case if you want to talk about individuals i mean there's

00:17:23.940 that talking point then the new democratic party has about taxing the rich because they've profited

00:17:29.460 during this pandemic well let me correct that notion number one the one thing that the the rich people

00:17:36.900 of canada have done and they have made money during this pandemic but it's not cash money they've just

00:17:42.260 sat on their portfolios that have been inflated because the money amount of money that's been thrown

00:17:47.140 at you know the markets through the bank of canada's quantitative easing which we don't want to get too

00:17:52.900 deeply into because it's a it's a topic all its own as you know but that has inflated the the the price

00:17:59.140 of financial assets so anybody that had financial assets beforehand those are worth more so yes their

00:18:05.940 net worth has gone up uh they haven't done anything and not like a bunch of cash has landed in their

00:18:10.740 pockets as i say they've just sat on their assets and suddenly they've been inflated by the government

00:18:16.500 well thank you very much government now you you think that any of these people that uh that have this

00:18:22.100 kind of wealth are just going to say oh great thanks for inflating all my goods and now you can

00:18:26.820 take a bunch of it back one thing that you've always found in the world is that there is an open door

00:18:33.780 in every country in the world including canada for people that want to move here move their businesses

00:18:39.380 here and move their wealth here and suddenly to say look because the government inflated your assets

00:18:45.060 canadians we're gonna we're gonna tax you more heavily than everybody else is an invitation for those 1.00

00:18:50.580 people to look for different doors and i am not going to encourage that i'm encouraging all the

00:18:55.780 people that know how to build this economy back better to help us build it because we have a great

00:19:00.980 economy here in canada we just need to get through two things a pandemic and a bad government i agree with

00:19:08.420 you 100 the other way too just to build on what you're saying think about if those products or services

00:19:14.820 weren't available and the government told us to lock down stay home stay safe people would not be able to

00:19:20.260 get in many cases a lot of the items that they were able to get because there were other options

00:19:25.700 available now it came at a cost there's no i'm not doubt i'm not disputing that or i i i think it's very

00:19:33.700 serious that a lot of small businesses are hurting behind it because of this but they this these people

00:19:39.940 these these businesses were there to provide a service and people were able to get what they needed to

00:19:44.980 continue on that's correct you take a look at the choices that are being made right now

00:19:50.900 how do you justify the fact that large box retailers can stay open and small businessmen

00:19:56.020 where the backbone of our economy are sort of saying you're the problem here we have to shut down

00:20:00.580 you know a lot of people are questioning that logic and i get it we do need to kind of take some

00:20:05.220 serious precautions here about the infection that's rampant in our society but to pick winners

00:20:10.980 and losers again here is really really not the government's role because it actually isn't doing

00:20:16.900 a good job of it we actually need to make sure we're making better decisions having better health

00:20:21.780 outcomes and uh you know i i like to give the government credit whenever i can when it when i see

00:20:26.900 something going well and one thing i saw yesterday in the uh in the in the fiscal update was the fact that

00:20:34.900 they're allocating one billion dollars towards long-term care facilities thank goodness but it's

00:20:41.060 nine months late if you didn't see this was the front line where people were dying you know significantly

00:20:47.620 because of this pandemic this is where you needed to be in march and april thank you for finally getting

00:20:54.020 there in november it's a little late but i'm glad you finally made your mind up to get there so those are

00:21:00.420 the types of things i think we need to look at in this pandemic is how are we being most affected

00:21:05.300 by this and how do we mitigate those that are most uh most affected by what's happening with this

00:21:11.620 pandemic and i've seen it in spades i know my mother-in-law is in lockdown at her uh her seniors 1.00

00:21:17.220 facility and her mental health is deteriorating by the week uh the loneliness that comes with being

00:21:22.900 locked down when you're 90 years old is intense and i you know i hope that we can see her again

00:21:28.660 sometime soon because this is something we have to address how we continue to allow this pandemic to

00:21:34.900 be rampant in our senior facilities address it find the protocols apply them across the country

00:21:41.940 and make it better we have question period coming up greg so i only have one i'd like to ask you a few

00:21:47.380 more questions on that but we uh we have only a couple more minutes and uh and i don't want to cut

00:21:52.660 off our leader because it should be an interesting question period um 400 billion dollars in an estimated

00:21:59.540 budget deficit this uh this fiscal year on on the federal side where is it coming from

00:22:05.220 well right now it's coming from the bank of canada so you take a look at the way they're financing this

00:22:11.860 uh overspending of government at this point in time you say 400 billion dollar deficit that's more

00:22:17.220 than the revenue they usually take in in the federal government in a year so it is troubling

00:22:22.980 quite frankly why they're this much over budget uh lack of targeted approach to how we actually come

00:22:29.620 out of this uh pandemic economically but it is a bit of a deck shuffle if you will the government issues

00:22:37.540 bonds to the market but the only people buying in the market at this point in time is the government

00:22:42.980 and the government entities like the bank of canada who basically puts it on their balance sheet so

00:22:47.460 we're issuing cat where you know we're issuing bonds to take cash and the people buying those

00:22:51.620 bonds are of course the same people in the end that are selling those bonds we often call it the

00:22:56.740 enronization of national finances because everybody's cross guaranteeing the very nature of the basis of

00:23:05.220 the security at the end of the day we owe this money to our we owe this money we owe this money to

00:23:09.860 ourselves what we've lost here is any sort of mark to market about what that debt is worth

00:23:16.580 so effectively the low interest rate is manufactured now by the bank of canada in effect nobody is buying

00:23:23.140 canadian bonds because they're too cheap given how risky our country has become in this pandemic

00:23:30.740 i have so many more questions greg i got to cut you off because uh question periods coming up the leader

00:23:35.940 is uh getting ready to go so i appreciate the opportunity greg mcclain member of parliament

00:23:40.660 for calgary center he's also the shadow minister for natural resources appreciate it good friend of

00:23:45.460 the show appreciate you coming on thank you for having me jamie thank you so much for tuning in

00:23:51.380 again new content every single tuesday 1 30 p.m eastern time please tell your friends about us please

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00:24:22.660 we're giving you a point of view not always told by the mainstream media and of course remember low taxes

00:24:28.980 less government more freedom that's the blueprints thanks

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - December 05, 2020

Support for our Energy Workers

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