Candice Malan talks about Prime Minister Mark Carney's meeting with the premiers of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, and why she thinks there's no chance Canada will get a pipeline built under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's leadership.
00:00:00.000Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:05.040We have a great episode for you folks.
00:00:07.380We have Dr. Ted Morton joining the program in just a little bit.
00:00:10.660But first, I want to talk about what happened yesterday in Saskatoon.
00:00:14.880So as you know, Prime Minister Mark Carney met with the premiers in Saskatoon for their annual first ministers meeting.
00:00:21.200This meeting was focused on nation building, focused on removing interprovincial trade barriers to strengthen Canada's economy amid U.S. trade pressures.
00:00:30.040Now, if you listen to the legacy media, if you watch the CBC, they will tell you that this meeting was a staggering success, that Mark Carney is a grown up, that he commanded the room, that he seems committed to working together, even with conservative premiers, to grow our economy.
00:00:45.360Let me just give you a sample of some of the glowing media coverage that he received.
00:00:49.320So here is our friends over at the National Post.
00:00:51.740The best meeting we've had in 10 years, Carney, premiers united on nation building projects.
00:00:55.780Next, from the CBC, premiers expressed optimism after pitching major projects to Carney.
00:01:02.240Next, CTV News says premiers heap praise on meeting with Mark Carney, but no specific projects identified.
00:02:25.660Check out this picture that he posted.
00:02:27.460And if we just zoom in on Premier Danielle Smith, look at her face.
00:02:30.480She just doesn't look happy in this picture.
00:02:32.320What an odd choice for a photo to post on social media.
00:02:36.280Next, here is Mark Carney telling reporters that the energy projects will be selected using specific criteria to meet Canada's highest environmental standards.
00:02:48.540I think there is a shared understanding based on our discussion of the main criteria for consideration.
00:02:54.180I listed them there in the communique.
00:02:56.040I'm not going to repeat them given interest of time.
00:02:57.900What's being clear is what's being put in place or what is being proposed, will be proposed in legislation is the ability of the federal government to devote the right resources to these projects, to make quick decisions about those projects.
00:03:11.860That way, respect our environmental responsibilities, other responsibilities, work with the provinces directly to move forward and to get the country building.
00:03:19.920Now, specifically, he also said that Canada is open to building pipelines.
00:03:25.160This is the big question, the big point of contention.
00:03:27.360Will there be new pipelines built under the Mark Carney Liberal government?
00:03:30.400He said he's open to it, but it has to be specifically for what he calls decarbonized oil.
00:03:58.380OK, we're going to break that down a little bit.
00:04:00.000So at the end of the day, despite all the excitement, all of the positive praise from legacy media and some premiers, there was no specific projects that were identified.
00:04:09.420We're not leaving this meeting with anything concrete planned.
00:04:15.580Carney emphasized that any project has to meet the highest environmental standards.
00:04:19.800So does that mean that he's just going to say that he would, in theory, be OK with an oil pipeline, but then it will be destined to get rejected once the environmental standards get applied?
00:04:30.000I mean, that's what Bill C-69, after all, is all about.
00:04:33.580Next, Carney talked about decarbonized oil.
00:04:36.500So by this, he's meaning carbon catcher, which is a hugely expensive project that basically the private sector doesn't see the willing – they're not willing to invest in it because it's so expensive.
00:04:48.080It doesn't really help with their bottom line.
00:04:50.020And there's no guarantee at the end of the day that the government will be in agreement with future oil and gas development.
00:04:55.000So it's not really worth the investment.
00:04:56.660That's why the governments have to get involved in the first place because there isn't really a business case for this stuff.
00:05:01.260And finally, Mark Carney says that, just like Justin Trudeau said, the projects need to have First Nations involvement and essentially approval.
00:05:09.960So we're sort of talking about a veto power, right?
00:05:12.440The idea that you could have 95 percent of First Nations agreeing with a project, but then you can always find some unelected hereditary chiefs to block the project.
00:05:21.540That's exactly what happened with the coastal gas leak pipeline in British Columbia.
00:06:16.260He was a key figure at the Calgary School, the University of Calgary, where he taught for decades.
00:06:20.980He co-authored the 2001 Firewall letter pushing for Alberta's provincial autonomy.
00:06:26.320Of course, he was a progressive conservative MLA in that province from 2004 to 2012.
00:06:31.400And he's an author of a very important book that was published in 2020 called The Moment of Truth, How to Think About Alberta's Future, that was published alongside economist Jack Mintz and professor Tom Flanagan.
00:06:43.080So, Dr. Morton, thank you so much for joining us.
00:06:46.400It's good to be with you again, Candice.
00:06:48.260So I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the first minister's meeting and all of the news that came out of it.
00:06:55.100Well, I listened to your introductory remarks and I guess I share your skepticism.
00:07:01.860I think we can be confident that Mark Carney is a lot more intelligent than Justin Trudeau.
00:07:06.620But does that make him better or more dangerous?
00:07:10.860And he still seems to be dancing around both sides.
00:07:19.340But I think to be fair, both to him and to premiers Smith and Moe, Saskatchewan and Alberta premiers, I think we're kind of in a honeymoon period or trial marriage, whatever you want to call it.
00:07:32.660And they're hoping that, I think, Carney, the banker, the economist, will prevail over Carney, the politician.
00:07:42.800And I think one of the quotations I read from Daniel Smith, Premier Smith of Alberta, was that any of these big infrastructure corridors that you want to build, whether it's east, west or north, you're looking at billions and billions of dollars.
00:08:02.320The only way you're going to pay for it is to start getting more Western Canadian oil and gas to global markets or global prices at economically competitive rates.
00:08:16.100So I think we're in a, as I said, a trial marriage or a honeymoon that lasts maybe a couple months, maybe.
00:08:24.220But clearly, Moe and Smith, Alberta and Saskatchewan, are going to see the talk turned into action.
00:08:33.040Well, and the fact that they're saying that behind the scenes or around the table, he's much better than Justin Trudeau.
00:08:38.080I mean, I interviewed Premier Smith back when Mark Carney was just running for liberal leader, and she worried that because of his book values and his ideology that he professed, that he was going to be worse than Justin Trudeau.
00:08:48.240So I want to go back to some of Smith's words right here in Calgary.
00:08:53.300Harold Ron Bell writes that Smith vows to work with Carney and says he's way better than Justin Trudeau.
00:08:57.580The Premier says Carney is a dramatic improvement over Trudeau since he recognizes the value of Alberta oil and wants to get it to market and get it to Asia.
00:09:05.640On X, she posted that she was encouraged by discussions that she had.
00:09:11.200So first, here she is yesterday speaking to reporters, saying that specifically there are nine terrible laws and terrible policies that are hurting investment and that this is what she wants to see addressed.
00:09:24.900I think that there seems to be an appetite to talk about getting pipelines built so that we can get oil and gas to market.
00:09:32.080The problem is, unless we address the nine terrible policies that have damaged investor confidence, we're not going to get the proponents coming forward with major investment.
00:09:42.380So she's laid out these nine terrible laws, terrible policies.
00:09:45.700She put it in a letter that she gave to him before the meeting.
00:09:48.580And yet I don't think that any of these were really addressed.
00:09:51.360So, yes, Mark Kearney is showing up at the table.
00:09:53.520Yes, he's giving lip service to the idea of building nation-building projects and getting Canada's economy off the ground.
00:09:57.940But the specific, the devil's in the details, and I don't think that he's addressed the details at all.
00:10:06.940I saw nothing in the news coverage referring to, specifically referring to the reversal or removal or amending of any of those nine policies.
00:10:18.120As I mentioned to you just before we came on, of those nine policies, I think four or five have been enacted just in the four or five past years.
00:10:28.560So the book that you referenced, Moment of Truth, that Jack Mentz and Tom Flanagan and I did five years ago, we thought we make the case then that it's time for the Western premiers to start playing offense rather than defense because things were getting worse.
00:10:47.120And of the nine policies that Smith and Moe have identified as necessary to move forward, almost half of those are since we wrote that book five years ago.
00:11:00.000So things have been getting worse, not better.
00:11:04.780Well, it's going to be an interesting six months.
00:11:07.440Well, I think you might have to write an updated chapter on that book because I did interview you right after that book came out.
00:11:13.860And it was almost bore or abstract back then.
00:11:16.500And now I'm just looking at the title again, right?
00:11:18.440So how to think about Alberta's future.
00:11:20.340And you have a sort of like weather vane or one of those signs pointing different directions.
00:11:25.860And the options are go it alone, 51st state, let them freeze, roll over, pop on a bust or build a firewall, which seems sort of like you had a crystal ball and you were looking into the future at what the conversation might look like.
00:11:37.440That was the reality in 2020, but then COVID hit and it pushed everything else off the, if you like, the political map, the public awareness for, what, a year and a half, at least.
00:11:51.120So, but we're not just back to where we were.
00:11:55.180In many respects, the oil and gas producing provinces, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and BC to consider, are worse off today than we were five years ago.
00:12:07.020Okay, well, I do think that the elephant in the room in all of these discussions with the first minister's meeting yesterday really comes down to the future of Alberta and Alberta Independent.
00:12:16.540So I do want to ask you a few questions about this, Dr. Morton.
00:12:20.160But for folks on YouTube, we're going to cut the video off here.
00:12:23.020And if you want to watch the rest of the conversation, it's going to be good.
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