The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - June 05, 2019


Supporting Canada’s energy sector


Episode Stats

Length

17 minutes

Words per Minute

164.82341

Word Count

2,926

Sentence Count

171

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 You're listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:00:07.340 The cost of living keeps going up, deficits keep going up,
00:00:11.120 and he has to raise taxes to pay for his out-of-control spending.
00:00:15.880 Talk is cheap, except when this finance minister does it.
00:00:19.220 It's very expensive.
00:00:21.980 It's the fact that he punished two strong women for doing the right thing
00:00:26.500 while he moved hell and high water to protect his buddies at SNC-Lavalin
00:00:31.580 from facing a day in court.
00:00:37.120 This is The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:00:40.120 I'm your host, Jamie Schmail, Member of Parliament for Halliburton-Corp
00:00:43.060 with the Lake Sprock in Ontario, and today's topic is Canadian energy.
00:00:47.500 Welcome, Ted Falk, Member of Parliament for Provence in Manitoba.
00:00:51.260 Thank you so much for joining us here today to talk about Canadian energy.
00:00:54.580 So good of you to give up your time.
00:00:56.500 And you're also Deputy Critic for?
00:00:59.500 Employment, Workforce Development, and Labour.
00:01:01.520 That is a long title, but well-deserved.
00:01:04.320 Well-deserved.
00:01:05.120 But you also sit on the Natural Resources Committee,
00:01:07.700 and you're deeply involved in that.
00:01:10.220 So maybe just give us a quick update on where you see,
00:01:15.760 I guess, the future of energy in Canada going.
00:01:19.500 You know, there's a lot of trouble getting pipelines built right now.
00:01:22.440 We're seeing troubles with the Trans Mountain Pipeline.
00:01:26.760 Northern Gateway was cancelled.
00:01:29.220 Energy East was cancelled.
00:01:31.560 So we're having a serious problem attracting investment here in Canada.
00:01:36.920 So maybe you can kind of give us a lay of the land, if you will, as to where we are.
00:01:41.660 Well, right now, as an energy sector in Canada, I think we're struggling with the lack of approvals
00:01:49.720 for a lot of major resource development projects that have been on the books in Canada for a long time.
00:01:55.760 And we've seen many investors pull their money out of Canada.
00:01:58.600 Close to $100 billion of investment has fled Canada in the last three and a half years.
00:02:04.840 And that is a dismal, dismal story for Canadians.
00:02:09.220 And it also speaks very poorly of the current government that we have
00:02:11.880 and how desperately we need to replace that government.
00:02:14.780 And our leader, Andrew Scheer, has put forward a platform on energy,
00:02:18.380 which includes an energy corridor, which is very exciting.
00:02:21.560 And we can talk a little bit more about that.
00:02:23.860 Yeah, why don't you basically explain what that is for those that have not heard it?
00:02:28.680 Of course, as you mentioned, our leader, Andrew Scheer, is putting out a platform idea every week.
00:02:34.560 And one was about the energy corridor and how Canadian energy can play a huge role
00:02:40.300 in tackling climate change, in reducing emissions,
00:02:44.020 and how we can be a world leader with our research, our technology, our innovation.
00:02:48.620 The energy development and resource companies that we have in Canada are world-class companies
00:02:54.880 and produce the lowest carbon print in their particular demographics
00:02:59.820 as far as the industries that are involved with it.
00:03:01.680 We have very responsible resource companies here,
00:03:04.620 and they've been kind of sidelined under this current government.
00:03:07.880 And I think they're looking forward to a change because our leader has indicated
00:03:10.420 that he is going to make a pathway for these folks to continue to do what they do for Canadians,
00:03:16.140 but also to continue to have access to the global market or to, again, give them access to the global market,
00:03:21.840 which is something they haven't enjoyed in the last few years.
00:03:24.280 And so part of that is East-West Energy Corridor,
00:03:28.480 which will be a space right across Canada designated for energy resource shipping from coast to coast,
00:03:36.040 that we can access tidewater with things like oil and natural gas and hydro.
00:03:40.560 Of course, hydro wouldn't go to the tidewater, but for hydro.
00:03:45.140 And the reason I mention hydro is because just yesterday Premier Brian Pallister was in Ottawa
00:03:50.220 to talk to Prime Minister Trudeau about the Manitoba-Minnesota transmission line
00:03:55.960 that has already received NEB approval but is not being green-lighted by the Liberal government.
00:04:02.160 And this is some of the most cleanest, greenest energy that we produce here in Canada,
00:04:08.000 and this current government is just stalling Manitoba's efforts to sell this energy to our southern neighbour.
00:04:15.120 Now, just for a bit of context, usually the federal government gets involved when projects,
00:04:19.660 massive infrastructure projects like a pipeline, like an electricity corridor, you name it,
00:04:25.100 when they cross provincial boundaries.
00:04:27.480 So that's why we're waiting for this federal nod, if you will.
00:04:33.140 And part, and I'm actually glad you mentioned this in the energy corridor
00:04:36.740 because I think it got overlooked in a number of media reports,
00:04:41.360 was the hydro part, the electricity part, and how that can benefit different provinces
00:04:46.740 as they transition to different forms of energy, such as Alberta, which is now phasing out coal,
00:04:52.280 while they can use some of the green energy from neighbouring provinces.
00:04:55.900 Yeah, exactly. And we know that hydro energy, which is what Manitoba produces,
00:05:00.480 is amongst the cleanest in the world.
00:05:02.960 Atomic energy is clean, solar energy is clean, wind energy is clean.
00:05:06.720 Very environmentally friendly sources of energy that we have here in Canada.
00:05:10.660 And what we do is we need to have a corridor that will move that energy across our country
00:05:15.780 so that Canadians rely on Canadian energy and not on foreign energy.
00:05:20.020 And that's very important.
00:05:21.780 And so part of Mr. Scheer's six-point plan for pipeline development, exactly,
00:05:27.840 would be to cancel the carbon tax, repeal Bill C-69.
00:05:34.000 That's the No More Pipelines Bill.
00:05:35.240 The No More Pipelines Bill.
00:05:36.860 And end the BC shipping ban, which would enable tankers to pick up our crude.
00:05:40.560 Establish timelines for approval.
00:05:43.880 Eliminate foreign interference in the approval process,
00:05:46.320 which is something that Bill C-69 actually exasperates further than it is today.
00:05:51.000 And then invoke federal jurisdiction when necessary to make sure that energy projects
00:05:54.720 and proposals can move along in a timely fashion.
00:05:56.820 Maybe we should point out and remind people that the shipping ban,
00:06:00.040 it doesn't actually ban tankers from foreign countries coming in to the coast.
00:06:04.880 It just bans Alberta energy from leaving that coast.
00:06:08.760 Right. It's landlocking our energy is what it is doing.
00:06:12.400 So even if Bill C-69, the No More Pipelines Bill, were to pass,
00:06:15.980 we still have to deal with the tanker ban, which we're still in the same predicament.
00:06:20.100 We are. It's a hand-in-glove kind of situation where we need both components
00:06:26.180 to make our energy sector viable as far as shipping our energy coming from Alberta to markets in Asia.
00:06:34.580 We need not only the pipelines to be constructed or approved, constructed and built,
00:06:40.220 but we also need the shipping ban to be lifted so that we can actually move this energy across the water to Asian markets.
00:06:46.800 Another important point to realize is that the shipping ban does not apply to the Atlantic provinces.
00:06:52.900 It's just British Columbia.
00:06:54.060 It is just a British Columbia thing, yeah.
00:06:56.860 It's very unfortunate, and we know that on the eastern side of Canada,
00:07:02.700 they're getting oil from countries that we don't think operate in environmentally or ethically responsible manners.
00:07:10.120 Countries like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, those types of countries are where we're buying our oil from right now,
00:07:16.080 and we're bringing it right down to St. Lawrence in ships,
00:07:20.880 and yet we're not this shipping ban that the Liberals have put in place prevents it from moving along the West Coast.
00:07:29.160 So we're talking about using Canadian workers to develop Canadian energy, Canadian technology, Canadian innovation,
00:07:37.600 good-paying, highly-skilled jobs right here at home,
00:07:40.940 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.
00:07:52.100 Absolutely, and once we have better access to international markets,
00:07:55.300 we know that our friends and neighbors to the south are also going to be willing to pay world prices for our energy products,
00:08:01.500 which currently we sell to them at a significant discount, and they do that because they can.
00:08:07.180 Yeah, we have no other customer than the United States right now,
00:08:09.800 so they are enjoying buying our oil for discounted prices, and that is not helping the industry one bit.
00:08:17.720 Not at all, no.
00:08:19.180 I find it very interesting that this past week, even the Green Party agrees with our leader, Andrew Scheer,
00:08:24.420 that Canadians should be enjoying Canadian energy.
00:08:27.260 I would agree with that.
00:08:28.000 And supporting the whole concept of using our Canadian energy resources to drive our Canadian economy,
00:08:35.680 and to wean ourselves off of foreign energy, foreign oil,
00:08:40.560 and so they support our leaders' initiatives in that area as well.
00:08:45.000 But also think about the other countries that are developing their industrial base,
00:08:52.620 that are developing their middle class, as that starts to grow,
00:08:56.140 and as people start to get more in tune to how energy is developed, extracted, you name it,
00:09:04.520 how people will all of a sudden a light bulb will come on and say,
00:09:07.700 you know what, maybe we don't want our oil from Venezuela or Nicaragua.
00:09:13.980 Maybe we do want it from a leader like Canada,
00:09:17.820 which has the highest energy or environmental and labor standards in the world.
00:09:22.280 Maybe we should be getting our product there.
00:09:24.920 And I think that sends a great message that we can then take those good ideas,
00:09:30.220 bring them to other countries, and up their game,
00:09:33.800 allowing us all to be better global partners.
00:09:36.860 Absolutely, and I think Canadians understand that.
00:09:39.980 I think that they want to source their energy from companies
00:09:44.180 that operate in an environmentally, socially responsible manner,
00:09:48.600 with high ethical standards, but also very high safety standards
00:09:52.940 and environmental standards.
00:09:55.280 And they know that Canadian companies operate that way
00:09:57.660 because that's the regime that we have for resource companies here in Canada.
00:10:02.480 It's something that allows them to extract our natural resources
00:10:06.060 and still do it in a competitive way, but do it in an environmentally friendly way.
00:10:12.100 And that's important to Canadians.
00:10:13.240 And when we get to the point where we will wean ourselves off of foreign oil
00:10:17.980 having to be transported across the water into our country,
00:10:22.000 which already has adequate resources to sustain our own energy needs,
00:10:25.980 we're also going to reduce the carbon print by reducing shipping of that oil.
00:10:29.580 And, you know, carbon is something that's very important to people today.
00:10:33.700 They're very sensitive to that.
00:10:35.760 And I think this is an area that we can point out,
00:10:37.880 hey, listen, we can actually, by developing our own resources with this energy corridor,
00:10:42.440 we can move our own oil right across our country from coast to coast,
00:10:46.180 eliminating the need to have it shipped across the Atlantic,
00:10:49.960 either from the south or from the east.
00:10:52.380 Well, I think you mentioned a bit about this,
00:10:54.280 and I'd like to maybe focus in on this.
00:10:56.760 When you talk about investment leaving the country,
00:11:01.920 I don't think people get a, you know,
00:11:04.300 you hear that and you're not sure how impactful it is.
00:11:08.680 But if you think about it, when the Liberals formed governments in 2015,
00:11:15.660 there were three major energy sector companies doing business in Canada.
00:11:22.080 By that, I mean building pipelines.
00:11:23.720 Northern Gateway, Energy East, and Trans Mountain.
00:11:26.360 Now we have zero.
00:11:29.000 Now, then if the investment dollars into the energy sector start to leave,
00:11:34.020 as you mentioned, hundreds of billions of dollars,
00:11:38.540 what happens after that, not only are the spinoff jobs,
00:11:41.580 but the brain drain that happens after that.
00:11:43.780 All that talent starts to leave this country.
00:11:48.300 And how is that good?
00:11:50.780 There's a whole ripple effect that I don't think people have been seeing yet.
00:11:54.660 I think you're 100% correct, Jamie.
00:11:57.760 When the work leaves, the brains leave as well.
00:12:00.140 The brains follow.
00:12:01.620 And we saw $4.5 billion of taxpayers' money
00:12:06.040 head down to Kinder Morgan shareholders in the United States and Texas in particular.
00:12:12.880 And that money has left our economy.
00:12:15.920 It's taken with it certainly some of the brain drain.
00:12:20.820 I think more is to come if the investment does not come back.
00:12:24.760 Yeah.
00:12:25.260 And, you know, Canadians are looking at this whole TMX fiasco and saying,
00:12:30.240 well, why would we use $4.5 billion to buy an existing pipeline
00:12:33.140 that shareholders were completely happy to operate in the first place,
00:12:35.480 which on the books is only worth $1.5 billion?
00:12:39.400 We then paid them, in addition to that $1.5 billion,
00:12:43.060 we paid them an extra billion dollars for the investment they had made
00:12:46.340 in trying to get to an approval process with the NEB.
00:12:49.120 And so now we're sitting at $2.5 billion.
00:12:52.980 And Canadian taxpayers are asking themselves,
00:12:55.140 where is that $2 billion, the difference between the $2.5 billion for hard costs
00:12:59.920 and the $4.5 billion that we actually paid for the whole entire project?
00:13:04.020 And you know what?
00:13:05.000 It's in the pockets of shareholders in Texas.
00:13:07.260 Maybe we can just remind listeners how we got to that point.
00:13:11.420 As you mentioned, the shareholders of Kinder Morgan
00:13:13.880 were more than happy to put their own money into this project,
00:13:18.040 not requiring one taxpayer dollar.
00:13:21.760 But they just felt there was no way forward under this current government,
00:13:26.740 the way they are bringing in pieces of legislation that hurt their industry
00:13:30.620 and hurt their chances of actually seeing a light at the end of their tunnel
00:13:35.000 in the approval process on getting the Trans Mountain pipeline built.
00:13:39.100 Correct.
00:13:40.100 The TMX pipeline is and was a viable pipeline.
00:13:44.780 The shareholders recognize that,
00:13:46.080 and that's why they made the initial investment through Kinder Morgan to purchase the pipeline.
00:13:50.480 They have operated it very successfully.
00:13:52.960 As most corporations, they saw continued opportunity in Canada
00:13:56.620 to develop our natural resource sector and the oil sands in northern Alberta.
00:14:01.300 And in order to do that, they needed a conduit to transport that oil
00:14:05.760 from the resource into the marketplace.
00:14:08.540 And the absolute best conduit that the industry recognizes is a pipeline.
00:14:12.680 So they made an application to go forward with a pipeline expansion,
00:14:16.860 which is what the TMX stands for, Trans Mountain Expansion.
00:14:21.140 And we're waiting for approvals,
00:14:23.160 and this government has made it so difficult that they were unable to get approval.
00:14:26.300 Had they gotten the approval, they would have invested close to another $10 billion
00:14:31.480 into our natural resource sector here in Canada.
00:14:35.140 And years of skilled trades employment.
00:14:37.020 And the brains would have stayed here.
00:14:38.980 The engineers would have stayed here.
00:14:40.740 The corporate managers would have stayed here.
00:14:42.680 And it would have created hundreds of thousands of jobs and opportunities,
00:14:47.860 especially for our indigenous communities.
00:14:49.540 They would have been by far the biggest benefactors
00:14:52.160 of a continued growing Kinder Morgan presence in Canada.
00:14:57.340 So while we're here, we only have a little bit longer,
00:15:00.200 but let's talk about your business, Guy.
00:15:02.340 You're watching this happening.
00:15:05.120 You're looking at the dollars in your business.
00:15:08.700 How do you see Canada in competition with other countries?
00:15:13.940 How competitive are we in the overall environment?
00:15:16.760 You know, I think something that all Canadian businessmen think,
00:15:19.280 and I think it's no different in the resource sector, is the burden of regulation.
00:15:23.860 And approval process is just part of it.
00:15:26.600 But ongoing regulation and a regulatory environment that makes it hard and difficult
00:15:31.280 to do business in Canada will actually chase money away from the Canadian marketplace.
00:15:37.880 It will chase money away from our natural resources.
00:15:39.780 And, you know, what I think the Trans Mountain people wanted through Kinder Morgan is
00:15:46.460 they wanted a government to provide a framework for them to do their business
00:15:50.560 and then get out of the way.
00:15:52.720 And when governments don't do that, they don't provide the correct regulatory environment
00:15:58.720 so that responsible, good stewardship can happen,
00:16:03.040 whether it's in resource development or in any corporate business.
00:16:06.440 But when that framework is missing, there's a lot of ambiguity that corporations and businesses feel
00:16:12.240 they're not willing to invest any further dollars into a situation like that,
00:16:17.420 not knowing when that may change.
00:16:18.800 But when there's a proper regulatory environment in place, it gives business...
00:16:22.620 And sometimes bad policy is not much worse than good policy
00:16:26.620 because at least business people know what the policy is.
00:16:30.520 But when there's an absence of certainty, when there's an absence of certainty
00:16:36.120 in what the regulatory environment will be, money will flee.
00:16:40.340 And business just wants to know what's the regulatory regime going to be.
00:16:45.380 We'll make it happen.
00:16:46.240 Just let us know what the rules of the games are going to be.
00:16:49.800 We'll play by the rules, but then get out of the way.
00:16:52.460 Yeah, know the rules up front.
00:16:53.920 Don't change it midway through the process like happened in Energy East.
00:16:57.740 And that's exactly right.
00:16:58.860 And once we know what the rules are, we'll play by the rules,
00:17:01.340 but then government needs to step aside.
00:17:03.120 Absolutely.
00:17:03.640 Well, thank you so much, Ted Falk from Provence.
00:17:06.080 Thank you so much for joining us today on The Blueprint.
00:17:08.740 It was great chatting with you.
00:17:10.180 We'll have to have you back and we can chat some more about
00:17:12.400 overall business environment here in Canada.
00:17:14.620 Absolutely.
00:17:15.060 Thank you for having me, Jamie.
00:17:15.820 Thank you very much.
00:17:16.580 This is The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:17:19.140 I'm your host, Jamie Schmale, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps,
00:17:22.180 the Lakes-Brock.
00:17:22.780 And remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom.
00:17:25.860 That's The Blueprint.
00:17:27.740 Thank you for listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:17:36.560 To find more episodes, interviews, and in-depth discussions of politics in Canada,
00:17:40.480 search for The Blueprint on iTunes or visit podcast.conservative.ca.