Danielle Smith LASHES OUT at Carney, Liberal MPs REVOLT over C-5
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Summary
Bill C-5 has passed the House of Commons and is now waiting to be voted on by the Senate. Brett Wilson joins me to talk about the legislation and why he thinks it's a good thing. He also talks about the opposition to Bill C-69 and why Premier Danielle Smith is in favour of it.
Transcript
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Hi, I'm Candace Malcolm and this is the Candace Malcolm Show. Folks, it looks like Bill C-5 is
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going to sail through. It passed in the House of Commons. Now we're just waiting for it to get
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passed by the Senate. We're going to dive into it a little bit, talk about the different groups
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that are opposing it and why Premier Daniel Smith of Alberta has come out in favor of it,
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in support of it. I'm very pleased today to be joined by one of my favorite guests here on the
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Candace Malcolm Show. I'm talking about Brett Wilson. Brett is an investment banker, an
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entrepreneur, a philanthropist. You probably recognize him from his days at the Dragon's
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Den over at CBC. Brett, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us.
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Okay, so yesterday we had a joint government caucus meeting between the UPC government in
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Alberta and the Saskatchewan party in Saskatchewan. We had Daniel Smith, Alberta Premier, and Scott
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Moe, the Premier of Saskatchewan, do a joint press conference where they basically just said,
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look, enough is enough. We've had a decade of absolute disaster from this Liberal government.
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C-5 is a course change. It shows that the government under Mark Carney wants to head in
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a different direction. And look, we'll take it. I'm going to play a couple of clips here
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from Premier Danielle Smith. So here she is just basically saying the national self-sabotage
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of environmentalism gone awry has to end. It has to end. And this is the change we need.
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Let's play that first clip. I think we're here today as a united caucus because we've decided
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that enough is enough. Development of provincial resources is provincial responsibility. And that
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includes the development of our transmission and electricity grids. The national self-sabotage
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that has happened over the last 10 years has to end. And then next, Premier Danielle Smith goes on and
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she just talks about how she thinks that C-5 signals that Mark Carney is doing publicly what he has
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said privately to her. And I believe he's said things like this privately to you as well, Brett.
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But she's talking about how he is going to very soon announce at least 20 substantial projects,
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including mining, transmission projects, power projects, pipeline projects, which is exactly what
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Canadians have been waiting for. We want these projects built. We want our economy to get
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jumpstarted. We want young people to have jobs and opportunities and hope for the future. And we need
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an economy that works. So let's play the second clip about how Smith says that C-5 provides the
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necessary conditions to jumpstart our economy. Let's play the clip.
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I would say Bill C-5 is a necessary condition to jumpstart the investment in our country, but it's
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not going to be sufficient to change the investment climate overall in the long run. If I understand
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where the prime minister is attempting to go is by if he very soon is able to announce a project list
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that has 20 or more substantial projects on it that include mining projects and transmission projects
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and power projects and pipeline projects. I think that would send a pretty big message to the world
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about the direction that we're going. So, Brett, I'm wondering, like, is this the first step? Do you see
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this as a course change for Canada and for the Liberal government? And what are your takeaways from
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those clips from Premier Smith? Well, first of all, I'm a believer that C-5 will make progress. But I think
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it's worth taking a step back and noting that in the last three months, there hasn't been a Liberal
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anywhere mentioned the word or name Trudeau. So they've clearly parked him in a cupboard. I think they
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deadbolted the cupboard. They're not trying to kill a guy. I don't mean to be stupid about that,
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but they're taking him out of the picture because for 10 years, he, with his leadership, undermined our
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country. He had misguided beliefs, misguided delusional beliefs, and his cabinet aligned with
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him. And so now we've got Mark Carney politely, respectfully acknowledging that we need to participate
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in the world economy. He still has an overarching concern about the environment. And I'm still quite
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troubled that the new Liberal government hasn't focused on the EV introduction or mandate for 2035.
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But come back to big picture. They've closed the door on Trudeau and made it crystal clear they want
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to move forward. In various private conversations that I've had directly and very much indirectly through
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other people, it's pretty clear that they acknowledge and understand that if we try to
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punt, unwind, reverse Bill C-69 or Bill C-48, that that could take five to 10 years. And now what
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they've done with Bill C-5 is effectively discovered, and I'm careful with this word, I think it overrides,
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bypasses, circumvents, overrules, Bill C-69 or 60, whatever it is, 69-48. It allows us to get things
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done that are in the national interest. And I think that's what we keep hearing. And that's what I
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respect the most. Pretty clearly, it was Pierre Paul-Lev who laid the platform for everything we're
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doing. And the Liberals almost joke about the fact that they use Pierre's oversight and overview
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and plans, his policies. I mean, they can make fun of him now because he's not in the opposition.
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He's not in the driver's seat yet, but he will be. But it goes back to big picture. Carney and Hodgson
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in particular have made it crystal clear that they're not slowing down to look at 69 or 48.
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They're using Bill C-5 to run. And I believe that they will. I mean, we can joke about the fact that
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it's all talk, no action. Well, Tim Hodgson stood on stage a couple of weeks ago and said,
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look, this isn't about talk. This is about action. Give me another week. He came to Calgary in his
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first week in his career. Not once did a previous federal minister of resources show up to a room
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that was filled in Calgary. Not once. Well, I tend to believe that, like I agree with you, that the
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purpose of C-5 is they basically, you know, the new Kearney government came into office and said,
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we have a huge mess that we created, we Liberals created. And some of the people who perpetrated
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those laws, like Bill 69, are still in the room, are still at the table. We're talking about
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Stéphane Gilbeau, Chrystia Freeland, many of the other familiar cast of characters that are still
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there. Last time you were on the show, you mentioned that people around Mark Carney,
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maybe Mark Carney himself, said, look, don't pay too much attention to Stéphane Gilbeau and these
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other cast of characters. Focus more on ministers, new people like Tim Hodgson. And so, you know,
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you mentioned that he came and spoke to a room full of Calgarians, which I guess is a good first
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step. Do you think that that really does signal to Canadians and to the world that Canada has changed
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and that we're now open for business? Calgary and again, the business community I circulate with,
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and I do know a few people having been here 34 years, there's a sense of optimism that we haven't
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had in a decade. And again, we've got two people that I care about, Carney and Hodgson, are saying,
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we plan to move forward. And what are they doing? They're moving forward. I mean, they're actively
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engaging. We saw that. We know that. By the way, as I shared with you once before, I am not a fan of
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the, I mean, I don't mind the noise associated with separation, but it's, it's, it's rank. It's
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moving to stupid is probably the best way of me describing it as people get radical in their,
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in their commentary. I've happened to believe that Alberta and Saskatchewan work together.
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Guess what? Moe and, Moe and Smith yesterday, Lloyd Minster working together. Guess what?
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Wob Canoe is reaching out saying, I want to be part of this. That's Manitoba. EB is kind of getting
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overruled internally. You can see the noise in terms of, is a pipeline going to get built across
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British Columbia or not? And I mean, I think he pulled one of the stupidest stunts a Canadian
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Prime Minister or Premier could ever do in asking Asia, China to build ferries when it could have
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been built in North America. But park that thought. EB is at least aiming to try. I'm personally heavily
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invested in the Yukon and we're actively in conversation in the Yukon about the business I'm
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in, Whitehorse based, is looking at moving into Prince Rupert. So there's going to be collaboration.
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Well, wouldn't that be good for our country? I've made kind of, I've had a few conversations
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about separation. The question I ask of the separatist movement is, do you want a wall
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or a moat or paperwork? And they kind of go, well, we don't need a wall. We don't need a moat.
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Oh, so we need paperwork. Well, guess what? Maybe that's what collaboration is about. Maybe that's
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what Smith and Mo are working on right now. Maybe that's what Hodgson and Carney have offered that
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we will let us get paperwork. Do we have problems with our intergovernmental exchange and the, you
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know, what we pay to the feds and et cetera, et cetera. Those are all, those are all issues of
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certainly Alberta balanced, but of a national interest, but Alberta focused, not balanced.
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I get frustrated by that noise, but the real, the great start, the great start, again, they've done
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two things. One is they stopped talking about the last guy. So anything he said or did is gone.
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That's what allows the liberals to now move forward in a thoughtful, engaging way. And when you have
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people like Hodgson, who's been a, he's been a frontline in the investment world for 20 years.
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I overlapped with him on a file 20, 25 years ago. He was a treat to work with, mutually respectful,
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easy to agree on. And we got deals done. And now here we are. Let's do it again.
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Well, it is interesting that they've sort of completely memory hold Prime Minister Justin
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Trudeau. You don't hear about him at all. In fact, it was interesting at the G7,
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President Trump was talking about him and I thought, yeah, I haven't, I haven't heard that
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name in Canadian politics in, in a little bit. So obviously the media has been successful in helping
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that along. I want to just go back to, to Bill C5 here because it did pass. So the conservatives have
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supported it in the House. This is pretty rare that you have conservative opposition supporting
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the liberals, right? The purpose of an opposition is to oppose. But I think that because, like you
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said, the principles here were taken from Pierre Polyev. It was Pierre Polyev's policy and strategy,
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had he won the election, that Carney sort of borrowed. So it sort of sailed through Parliament on Monday,
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pardon me, with conservatives and liberals voting together. So it passed with 305 votes to just 30
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oppose, which is interesting. They block the NDP and the Green all opposed it, but combined all three
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of those parties have only have 30 votes nowadays because basically the Canadians of the left-wing
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persuasion left those parties to support the liberals. And so now it's passed through committees.
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It's just basically waiting from the Senate. I want to talk a little bit about the pushback
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to this bill. I think, you know, by and large conservatives have supported it, but I noticed in the Edmonton
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Journal, Lorne Gunter, who is a longtime national columnist, said this. He wrote,
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conservatives must not support Carney liberals' Bill C5 power grab. And he really emphasized the
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fact that it does sort of override or circumvent, the words that you're trying to find, the laws,
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and that this is sort of slowly chipping away at our parliamentary traditions. It's nothing but a
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naked power grab that enables more power grabs. And, you know, we should all be very weary and cautious
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of Ottawa-centric ability to just ram through things that other parts of the country might
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not want, you know, in a different scenario. We wouldn't want that. I personally don't find this
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super convincing because at this point, Brett, I just want stuff built. I just want to have the
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economy moving again. And it seems to me that the government's always trying to grab power.
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In some ways, you know, doing it over the economy to get things built is better than, you know,
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the power grabs that they try to do, for instance, over the pre-press or over the media. This kind of
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stuff is commonplace now in Ottawa. I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on this line
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of criticism. Well, to build on a number of comments you made, first of all, the Bloc Quebecois
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are a regional party. Why they're called and treated as a national party is slightly offensive
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to Canada. Number two, NDP lost their mandate. They're gone. They're irrelevant. And the noise that's
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allowed out of the Green Party, one person, is irrelevant. So you have 30 people who didn't
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vote in favor, but the two parties that generally collide, goes back to your first comment that the
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opposition's job is, again, the word oppose is correct, but it's more than that. It's to try
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and challenge mistakes and do what's right for the country in the opinion of other people. Well,
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the beauty of this situation is that Kearney and Hodgson, and ignore all the rest, have aligned
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with the thinking that building things is better than canceling things, postponing things, shutting
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things down. I've spoken with a First Nation leader in BC, Northeast BC, Northwest BC. He is 100% aligned
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and is certain that the First Nations, if sat and talked to, and again, not the, not the elected
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leaders, not the hereditary leaders, but if the elected leaders are sat and talked to, there's deals
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to be done. There's so much to do. And that's, EB will have trouble bypassing or overriding if he,
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he'll try, but he's going to have trouble overriding the First Nations. So again, once again, if we
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collaborate as Western Canada, it's good for Canada, it's good for the West. So C5, what's
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interesting there, and you're absolutely right, that there's an appearance that it has greater
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control than we would ultimately like a government to have. But first things first, let's get some
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things built. And at that point, let the opposition raise the flag if the liberals attempt to take too
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much control of what we're doing. Okay. I have a couple of other examples of, in this case,
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MPs speaking out against this bill, not who you would expect. I'm talking about liberal members
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of parliament who oppose Mark Carney and what he's doing. So first, here is a clip of liberal MP
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Nathaniel Irkside-Smith saying that Bill C5 threatens Canadian democracy and it shuts down democratic
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debate, very much echoing the points made in Lauren Gunter's column. I just want to make this point,
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right? If a conservative MP was speaking out against a conservative bill saying it threatens
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democracy, it would be a huge national story. And the CBC would be playing it up, look at the division,
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look at, you know, the parties, the weak leader can't control his caucus, parties in revolt, right?
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And liberals do it and it barely even gets coverage. But here is a liberal MP
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accusing Mark Carney's bill of undermining democracy. Let's play that clip.
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This federal government is proposing to shut down democratic debate, curtail committee scrutiny,
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and jam the bill through the legislature. It would all actually make Harper blush. Liberals would
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rightly scream that we would scream if a federal conservative government attempted the same.
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I just want to make this point that that's almost line for line what Althea Raj wrote in the Toronto
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Star like a week ago. So either Smith there is getting his lines from Althea Raj or vice versa,
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but basically mirroring the image that it would make Stephen Harper blush to put forth an omnibus
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bill like this. Next, we have Karina Gould, who you remember, she ran for leader of this party.
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She's seen as sort of one of the young leaders of the party. And she likewise told reporters that
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there is a duty and an obligation to ensure that Indigenous rights are upheld in the process.
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And she doesn't think that that's happening with this bill. Let's play that clip, please.
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There is a clear desire on the part of Canadians to be able to get big projects done
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in this country. We haven't been able to find the right balance in order to do that. There is
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a duty and an obligation to ensure that Indigenous rights holders are part of this process.
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So again, if it were conservative MPs that were speaking out against their leader and saying that
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we failed to get it done, we didn't do what we need to do democratically, it would be a huge
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national story. It would dominate. And when it's happening to the liberal spread, barely
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even of note. And I'm just wondering what your take is of these liberal MPs sort of on the left
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side of the party even, speaking out against their government's bill.
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Well, in watching her ramble, I could sense that she was itching to say, under Trudeau,
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this is what we did. But she couldn't, wouldn't. And again, she'd lose her job if she started to
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miss a line. It's one thing to challenge the bill and make sure that First Nations are respected,
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but I'm not aware of anything that's happening where we're saying, let's just override the First
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Nations. The goal is to override all the pause buttons, all the stop buttons, and get to the
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negotiating table immediately. And that goes back to their comments. It's going to take a couple of
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years. We don't just announce that we're building a pipeline. We don't just announce that there's a
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new LNG plant. We don't just announce that there's a new uranium mine. There's still approvals in
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process. And I don't sense that there's any desire on the part of the liberals to try and bypass the
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respect that's required for the First Nations. Now, there's a lot of confusion within the First
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Nations. I know a number of leaders. Again, there's 650 unique First Nations. Do they all agree on
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anything? No. So that's part of the negotiating challenge that's put on the table. But I don't
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buy her position that the Bill C-5 is intended to override or overrule or demean or diminish the
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role of First Nations in our great country. Well, you're right. The way that the media often
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speaks about First Nations, and particularly people on the left, they talk about it like it's a monolith
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and that they all disapprove of research development. To your point, there's so many great chiefs out there
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that are the ones advocating because they want the resources for their young men to have work,
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for their reserves to have more funds and more resources. But to that point, there's a CBC story
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that came out yesterday. The headline says First Nations urged the governor general to delay or even
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reject Bill C-5. I'm going to read a little bit from this. Some First Nations leaders say Bill C-5
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shouldn't pass until Governor General Mary Simon, the first indigenous person to be appointed to that
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role, addresses their concerns. She is the crown representative, and I think she should be
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involved, said one First Nations leader. I'm hoping she's paying attention to what's happening here
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so she can be thinking about intervening. Wow. You know, getting the governor general to intervene,
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but I don't know if this ever happened. Finally, it says the process that led to Bill C-5 is a case
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study in how not to engage with indigenous nations, said one chief, adding that there is no meaningful
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engagement or recognition of the complexity of rights, titles, and interests. I just need to make the
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point that Bill C-5 doesn't actually promote any one specific project, right? It's just changing
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the groundwork, saying that there are some very, you know, overzealous environmental rules that if
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there's something of national importance, it should be able to override it, which is well within the
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rights of the prime minister and of the government. And now if there is one of those individual projects
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that First Nations have a major problem with or one or two chiefs, then we can talk about that at the
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time, right? But this is just providing the framework. So this all just seems really,
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really overblown hyperbolic, asking the king, basically the governor general to step in and
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stop. I mean, I mean, talk about undemocratic, right? Like that to me is just a wild suggestion.
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What do you make of it? Well, clearly someone in the First Nations leadership is looking at
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Mary Simon, Governor Simon, Governor General Simon as a First Nation leader. And she is, but that's not
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her role. She's not there to represent First Nations. She's there to act on behalf of the king,
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representing all Canadians in that conversation. So she's not ever, in my opinion, going to be
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entitled to even have an intervening role. I'm involved right now with permitting a coal mine.
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Not many people can say that, but it's an underground coal mine. It's metallurgical coal
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used to make steel, which is the essence of how we grow our world, our country.
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Um, we had two First Nations that are regional, approach us, look for a deal. They got a deal.
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We have royalties, we have work, we have respectful, mutual commitments to the project.
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Then all of a sudden, two eco-justice and that type of party intervened, attempt to intervene,
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and they dragged through a lawyer in Vancouver, four other First Nations in Alberta,
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to complain for the sole purpose of also getting paid while we do this underground mine. Those First
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Nations are all 250 to 500 kilometers away from the mine. So my point is, and I mean this politely
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and respectfully, the First Nations aren't organized. And to think that some of their leaders pretend that
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they have the say and the voice of all 600 and roughly 50 First Nations is misleading. And in fact,
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I'd call it a lie. We work collaboratively. I do a lot of work from the Yukon. I mean,
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my business investment in the Yukon, I'm the second largest investor, but the First Nations as a group
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own 60, roughly 55%, 60% of the company. We work collaboratively all the time. Everyone's at the
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table. We arm wrestle, we negotiate. We don't always agree and that's okay. But this idea that we now have
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to have, again, effectively First Nations intervention on every project in the world?
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Well, that's certainly the type of thinking that got us into this problem where we can't seem to
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build anything is because in some ways we're too collaborative. We wanted to hear from too many
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people. At a certain point, you just have to get things done to benefit the entire country,
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right? So you can't have the governor general stepping in for one special interest group
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By the way, it's really important to emphasize that Hodgson and Carney are talking a two-year
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window. That's what they want to use to get projects going. And again, we're not going to
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approve anything in the first week, but I think the idea of having projects on the table and ready
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to approve at every level, they're going to accelerate the process. And it's a real treat listening to
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them. Am I still voting conservative? Yeah, absolutely. Am I a fan of what Pellev forced
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the liberals to do? Absolutely. But here we are. Let's get rolling.
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Well, I tend to agree. I will be cautiously optimistic with Mark Carney because of course,
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you know, he's still part of the party that promoted the agenda that has destroyed our country.
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And, you know, he wrote the book Values where he really spelt out the environmental vision
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for the world that we're all still suffering under. So, you know, actions speak louder than
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words. So hopefully we'll see some real change here. Brett, thanks for your insights. It's always
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so interesting to talk to you and hear your thoughts. Thanks for joining us today.
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All right. This is Brett Wilson and I'm Candice Malcolm. That's all the time we have for today,
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folks. We'll be back again tomorrow. Thank you and God bless.
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