Supporting Canada’s energy sector
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Summary
Member of Parliament for Provence, Manitoba, Ted Falk joins us to talk about Canadian energy and the future of the energy sector under the current government. We talk about the challenges facing energy development in Canada, and the potential benefits of Canadian energy development.
Transcript
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You're listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
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The cost of living keeps going up, deficits keep going up,
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and he has to raise taxes to pay for his out-of-control spending.
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Talk is cheap, except when this finance minister does it.
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It's the fact that he punished two strong women for doing the right thing
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while he moved hell and high water to protect his buddies at SNC-Lavalin
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This is The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
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I'm your host, Jamie Schmail, Member of Parliament for Halliburton-Corp
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with the Lake Sprock in Ontario, and today's topic is Canadian energy.
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Welcome, Ted Falk, Member of Parliament for Provence in Manitoba.
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Thank you so much for joining us here today to talk about Canadian energy.
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But you also sit on the Natural Resources Committee,
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So maybe just give us a quick update on where you see,
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You know, there's a lot of trouble getting pipelines built right now.
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We're seeing troubles with the Trans Mountain Pipeline.
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So we're having a serious problem attracting investment here in Canada.
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So maybe you can kind of give us a lay of the land, if you will, as to where we are.
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Well, right now, as an energy sector in Canada, I think we're struggling with the lack of approvals
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for a lot of major resource development projects that have been on the books in Canada for a long time.
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And we've seen many investors pull their money out of Canada.
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Close to $100 billion of investment has fled Canada in the last three and a half years.
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And that is a dismal, dismal story for Canadians.
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And it also speaks very poorly of the current government that we have
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and how desperately we need to replace that government.
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And our leader, Andrew Scheer, has put forward a platform on energy,
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which includes an energy corridor, which is very exciting.
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Yeah, why don't you basically explain what that is for those that have not heard it?
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Of course, as you mentioned, our leader, Andrew Scheer, is putting out a platform idea every week.
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And one was about the energy corridor and how Canadian energy can play a huge role
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in tackling climate change, in reducing emissions,
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and how we can be a world leader with our research, our technology, our innovation.
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The energy development and resource companies that we have in Canada are world-class companies
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and produce the lowest carbon print in their particular demographics
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as far as the industries that are involved with it.
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We have very responsible resource companies here,
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and they've been kind of sidelined under this current government.
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And I think they're looking forward to a change because our leader has indicated
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that he is going to make a pathway for these folks to continue to do what they do for Canadians,
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but also to continue to have access to the global market or to, again, give them access to the global market,
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which is something they haven't enjoyed in the last few years.
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And so part of that is East-West Energy Corridor,
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which will be a space right across Canada designated for energy resource shipping from coast to coast,
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that we can access tidewater with things like oil and natural gas and hydro.
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Of course, hydro wouldn't go to the tidewater, but for hydro.
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And the reason I mention hydro is because just yesterday Premier Brian Pallister was in Ottawa
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to talk to Prime Minister Trudeau about the Manitoba-Minnesota transmission line
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that has already received NEB approval but is not being green-lighted by the Liberal government.
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And this is some of the most cleanest, greenest energy that we produce here in Canada,
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and this current government is just stalling Manitoba's efforts to sell this energy to our southern neighbour.
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Now, just for a bit of context, usually the federal government gets involved when projects,
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massive infrastructure projects like a pipeline, like an electricity corridor, you name it,
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So that's why we're waiting for this federal nod, if you will.
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And part, and I'm actually glad you mentioned this in the energy corridor
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because I think it got overlooked in a number of media reports,
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was the hydro part, the electricity part, and how that can benefit different provinces
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as they transition to different forms of energy, such as Alberta, which is now phasing out coal,
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while they can use some of the green energy from neighbouring provinces.
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Yeah, exactly. And we know that hydro energy, which is what Manitoba produces,
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Atomic energy is clean, solar energy is clean, wind energy is clean.
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Very environmentally friendly sources of energy that we have here in Canada.
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And what we do is we need to have a corridor that will move that energy across our country
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so that Canadians rely on Canadian energy and not on foreign energy.
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And so part of Mr. Scheer's six-point plan for pipeline development, exactly,
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would be to cancel the carbon tax, repeal Bill C-69.
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And end the BC shipping ban, which would enable tankers to pick up our crude.
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Eliminate foreign interference in the approval process,
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which is something that Bill C-69 actually exasperates further than it is today.
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And then invoke federal jurisdiction when necessary to make sure that energy projects
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and proposals can move along in a timely fashion.
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Maybe we should point out and remind people that the shipping ban,
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it doesn't actually ban tankers from foreign countries coming in to the coast.
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It just bans Alberta energy from leaving that coast.
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Right. It's landlocking our energy is what it is doing.
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So even if Bill C-69, the No More Pipelines Bill, were to pass,
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we still have to deal with the tanker ban, which we're still in the same predicament.
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We are. It's a hand-in-glove kind of situation where we need both components
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to make our energy sector viable as far as shipping our energy coming from Alberta to markets in Asia.
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We need not only the pipelines to be constructed or approved, constructed and built,
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but we also need the shipping ban to be lifted so that we can actually move this energy across the water to Asian markets.
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Another important point to realize is that the shipping ban does not apply to the Atlantic provinces.
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It's very unfortunate, and we know that on the eastern side of Canada,
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they're getting oil from countries that we don't think operate in environmentally or ethically responsible manners.
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Countries like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, those types of countries are where we're buying our oil from right now,
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and we're bringing it right down to St. Lawrence in ships,
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and yet we're not this shipping ban that the Liberals have put in place prevents it from moving along the West Coast.
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So we're talking about using Canadian workers to develop Canadian energy, Canadian technology, Canadian innovation,
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good-paying, highly-skilled jobs right here at home,
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and allowing us the ability to get that energy to international markets to use the actual marketplace to push the bad actors to up their game.
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Absolutely, and once we have better access to international markets,
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we know that our friends and neighbors to the south are also going to be willing to pay world prices for our energy products,
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which currently we sell to them at a significant discount, and they do that because they can.
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Yeah, we have no other customer than the United States right now,
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so they are enjoying buying our oil for discounted prices, and that is not helping the industry one bit.
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I find it very interesting that this past week, even the Green Party agrees with our leader, Andrew Scheer,
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that Canadians should be enjoying Canadian energy.
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And supporting the whole concept of using our Canadian energy resources to drive our Canadian economy,
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and to wean ourselves off of foreign energy, foreign oil,
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and so they support our leaders' initiatives in that area as well.
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But also think about the other countries that are developing their industrial base,
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that are developing their middle class, as that starts to grow,
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and as people start to get more in tune to how energy is developed, extracted, you name it,
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how people will all of a sudden a light bulb will come on and say,
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you know what, maybe we don't want our oil from Venezuela or Nicaragua.
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which has the highest energy or environmental and labor standards in the world.
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And I think that sends a great message that we can then take those good ideas,
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bring them to other countries, and up their game,
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Absolutely, and I think Canadians understand that.
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I think that they want to source their energy from companies
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that operate in an environmentally, socially responsible manner,
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with high ethical standards, but also very high safety standards
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And they know that Canadian companies operate that way
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because that's the regime that we have for resource companies here in Canada.
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It's something that allows them to extract our natural resources
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and still do it in a competitive way, but do it in an environmentally friendly way.
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And when we get to the point where we will wean ourselves off of foreign oil
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having to be transported across the water into our country,
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which already has adequate resources to sustain our own energy needs,
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we're also going to reduce the carbon print by reducing shipping of that oil.
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And, you know, carbon is something that's very important to people today.
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And I think this is an area that we can point out,
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hey, listen, we can actually, by developing our own resources with this energy corridor,
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we can move our own oil right across our country from coast to coast,
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eliminating the need to have it shipped across the Atlantic,
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When you talk about investment leaving the country,
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you hear that and you're not sure how impactful it is.
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But if you think about it, when the Liberals formed governments in 2015,
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there were three major energy sector companies doing business in Canada.
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Northern Gateway, Energy East, and Trans Mountain.
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Now, then if the investment dollars into the energy sector start to leave,
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as you mentioned, hundreds of billions of dollars,
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what happens after that, not only are the spinoff jobs,
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There's a whole ripple effect that I don't think people have been seeing yet.
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When the work leaves, the brains leave as well.
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head down to Kinder Morgan shareholders in the United States and Texas in particular.
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It's taken with it certainly some of the brain drain.
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I think more is to come if the investment does not come back.
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And, you know, Canadians are looking at this whole TMX fiasco and saying,
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well, why would we use $4.5 billion to buy an existing pipeline
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that shareholders were completely happy to operate in the first place,
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We then paid them, in addition to that $1.5 billion,
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we paid them an extra billion dollars for the investment they had made
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in trying to get to an approval process with the NEB.
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where is that $2 billion, the difference between the $2.5 billion for hard costs
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and the $4.5 billion that we actually paid for the whole entire project?
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Maybe we can just remind listeners how we got to that point.
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As you mentioned, the shareholders of Kinder Morgan
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were more than happy to put their own money into this project,
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But they just felt there was no way forward under this current government,
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the way they are bringing in pieces of legislation that hurt their industry
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and hurt their chances of actually seeing a light at the end of their tunnel
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in the approval process on getting the Trans Mountain pipeline built.
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and that's why they made the initial investment through Kinder Morgan to purchase the pipeline.
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As most corporations, they saw continued opportunity in Canada
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to develop our natural resource sector and the oil sands in northern Alberta.
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And in order to do that, they needed a conduit to transport that oil
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And the absolute best conduit that the industry recognizes is a pipeline.
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So they made an application to go forward with a pipeline expansion,
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which is what the TMX stands for, Trans Mountain Expansion.
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and this government has made it so difficult that they were unable to get approval.
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Had they gotten the approval, they would have invested close to another $10 billion
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into our natural resource sector here in Canada.
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And it would have created hundreds of thousands of jobs and opportunities,
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They would have been by far the biggest benefactors
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of a continued growing Kinder Morgan presence in Canada.
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So while we're here, we only have a little bit longer,
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You're looking at the dollars in your business.
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How do you see Canada in competition with other countries?
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How competitive are we in the overall environment?
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You know, I think something that all Canadian businessmen think,
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and I think it's no different in the resource sector, is the burden of regulation.
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But ongoing regulation and a regulatory environment that makes it hard and difficult
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to do business in Canada will actually chase money away from the Canadian marketplace.
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It will chase money away from our natural resources.
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And, you know, what I think the Trans Mountain people wanted through Kinder Morgan is
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they wanted a government to provide a framework for them to do their business
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And when governments don't do that, they don't provide the correct regulatory environment
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so that responsible, good stewardship can happen,
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whether it's in resource development or in any corporate business.
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But when that framework is missing, there's a lot of ambiguity that corporations and businesses feel
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they're not willing to invest any further dollars into a situation like that,
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But when there's a proper regulatory environment in place, it gives business...
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And sometimes bad policy is not much worse than good policy
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because at least business people know what the policy is.
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But when there's an absence of certainty, when there's an absence of certainty
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in what the regulatory environment will be, money will flee.
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And business just wants to know what's the regulatory regime going to be.
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Just let us know what the rules of the games are going to be.
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We'll play by the rules, but then get out of the way.
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Don't change it midway through the process like happened in Energy East.
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And once we know what the rules are, we'll play by the rules,
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Well, thank you so much, Ted Falk from Provence.
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Thank you so much for joining us today on The Blueprint.
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We'll have to have you back and we can chat some more about
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This is The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
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I'm your host, Jamie Schmale, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps,
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And remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom.
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Thank you for listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
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To find more episodes, interviews, and in-depth discussions of politics in Canada,
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search for The Blueprint on iTunes or visit podcast.conservative.ca.