True Patriot Love - The Truth About Canada's Oil Industry

00:00:00.000 Today on True Patriot Love, we're pleased to welcome one of Canada's most thoughtful literary voices, Don Gilmore.

00:00:06.480 Gilmore grew up in Western Canada and studied English at the University of Calgary, graduating in 1977 before beginning a career that would take him from oil fields to newsrooms and ultimately into the world of award-winning books.

00:00:20.060 In fact, in his early 20s, he worked on an oil rig in Alberta, an experience that later shaped his deep interest in the energy industry and the human stories surrounding it.

00:00:32.620 Throughout his career, he's balanced journalism with long-form storytelling, spending years as a senior editor at The Walrus, and contributing to publications like Toronto Life, where he built a reputation of one of Canada's most insightful profile writers.

00:00:48.420 Today, we're pleased to welcome one of Canada's most thoughtful literary voices, Don Gilmore.

00:00:57.760 Today on True Patriot Love, Under the Pillar Energy, we're lucky enough to have Don Gilmore.

00:01:04.480 And Don wrote a book, it's called On Oil, he's written many books, but we really wanted

00:01:10.280 to get his opinion on what's going on in the world today, talk about his book, and sort

00:01:16.660 of go back almost to 1973 and talk about what's happened in the crude oil business, the gas

00:01:25.180 and oil business in Canada since. So welcome Don. Nice to be here. Yeah, it's great to

00:01:32.020 have you. Hey, so I started reading your book and, you know, I really got captivated with

00:01:38.980 it. I went through it and, you know, your experience heading to Alberta. Talk to us

00:01:43.680 little bit about you know why as a young man you ventured in there why you got uh mixed up in the

00:01:49.920 oil and gas business and a little bit what you learned well i grew up in winnipeg but i moved

00:01:56.320 to calgary in 1970 and i was going to university there and i was looking for a summer job and uh

00:02:03.680 everyone i talked to said you know if you want to make money you got to go into the oil business and

00:02:08.000 So a friend of mine and myself, I lived near downtown and we just walked around downtown and we had these very slim resumes and we dropped them off at every oil company downtown.

00:02:20.560 And then finally, a secretary said to us, he said, you know, you two idiots are never going to find a job this way.

00:02:27.360 You know, there's no point in dropping off your CV.

00:02:30.420 He said, like, just drive out to where the rigs are.

00:02:33.280 and she said you know if you drive east towards medicine hat she said there's like 150 gas rigs

00:02:39.660 out there just drive up to them because the turnover is so high so we did and you know you're

00:02:46.200 out there in the prairie you can see the rig from 30 kilometers away so we just drove up to every

00:02:52.100 rig we saw and the first rig we got to it had a sign that said this rig has worked zero accident

00:02:58.900 three days and there was a guy sitting on a 40 gallon drum and he had blood all over his hand

00:03:04.260 it was wrapped in bandages and so we thought well there's a job opening here um and uh the but the

00:03:12.020 driller said you know you you guys got you have no experience he said i can't use you and so we drove

00:03:18.420 around for about three days and um we finally got to a rig where the entire crew hadn't shown up and

00:03:25.300 these are pretty small crews these are kind of three-man crews and so um he looked at us this

00:03:31.300 was the 70s you know we had kind of long hair and our you know grateful dead t-shirts and uh he

00:03:37.460 looked at us and said well i guess you girls will have to do and uh he hired us and and that was the

00:03:43.220 beginning of my life in oil and um you know i mean in many ways it's a terrible job it's dirty it's

00:03:50.900 dangerous it's seven days a week there's literally no days off and um and they work through any kind

00:03:57.140 of conditions um but on the other hand you know you did make a ton of money and um because i just

00:04:05.220 moved to alberta you know it was a really colorful subculture and i was an english major and i thought

00:04:11.300 well this is a kind of interesting world so i came back every summer and uh ended up in the oil world

00:04:16.820 oh wow that's interesting you know and it's funny because you know i i uh not in the oil business

00:04:23.940 but i actually worked to put myself through university at a stockyard uh on saint claire

00:04:29.780 avenue um and it was cattle and and uh it was brutal and same thing i had to i went and i stood

00:04:37.140 in a bullpen and a gentleman would come out and he'd actually pick people to work and i had so

00:04:42.900 many days working and he liked me so he kept me on full-time it's amazing the way people got jobs

00:04:47.380 back and and i tell my kids that all the time and they think i'm actually telling this tall story

00:04:52.500 but it really is well you got jobs you know you went from door to door you know you were you were

00:04:57.860 kind of it's interesting because you tell you know in the 70s i went and because of all that's going

00:05:03.300 on in iran right now and you know you hear about gas and gas prices i think today you know crude is

00:05:10.340 at 97 a barrel u.s it's it's crazy amount um i went back and i started looking at the history of

00:05:20.660 you know gas oil and gas in canada and um you know i went back to 73 because 73 uh was when

00:05:29.940 the yom kippur war between egypt syria and and israel uh took place and it broke out and

00:05:38.740 And basically, the embargoes happen because of the relationship between the U.S. and the relationship between Saudi Arabia.

00:05:48.960 And so very, very captivating, you know, and in your book, you know, you're you're in the middle of this almost like you're you're basically, you know, the government has decided in 75 that they're going to get into the oil business.

00:06:03.320 So in comes, you know, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau,

00:06:09.560 and he actually makes the decision that he's going to start Petro-Canada.

00:06:14.780 And then tell me a little bit, you know, about what was going on in Alberta at that time,

00:06:20.000 because I know the Premier, up until the 80s, Premier Lockheed was just angry.

00:06:27.760 He was just really pissed off that he had started Petro-Canada.

00:06:32.640 Yeah, it was an interesting moment because once you once we had the embargo in 73, that really transformed not just the oil landscape, but I think, you know, the actual physical landscape in Calgary, because suddenly you have oil going up, you know, the price of oil quadruples in a short period of time.

00:06:51.040 and as a result you have the industry expands at a rapid rate and you have all these people coming

00:06:57.420 into Calgary looking for work and suddenly Calgary is booming we've got like 30,000 people coming

00:07:03.900 you know every year the suburbs are going out and you can see oil is this sort of dominant

00:07:11.460 force and I think you know Trudeau recognizes this and certainly Loughy did who was a very

00:07:19.520 astute manager of the resource, I think, and maybe he may be the last astute manager of

00:07:26.000 the resource in Alberta. But, you know, out of that, you've got the Petro-Canada and then

00:07:31.620 you had the National Energy Program, which came in, you know, in 1980, and that, which

00:07:37.640 is still, you know, demonized in Alberta. And, you know, in some cases, for good reason.

00:07:45.300 But one of the initial aims of that program was energy independence, you know, which was, you know, I think a great aim.

00:07:57.100 And, you know, had it been achieved, we wouldn't be in the situation we're in now.

00:08:03.320 You know, unfortunately, I think there was a couple of things wrong with the national energy program.

00:08:08.380 One, it was being sold by Trudeau, who was, you know, French-speaking Eastern elite.

00:08:14.300 And so not a great salesperson for Alberta.

00:08:18.160 And the other thing was, you know, it was a bit of a Trojan horse for expanding federal

00:08:24.360 towers and Lockheed recognized that and was certainly upset about it.

00:08:30.220 But, you know, had that been or had some version of that been implemented, then, you know,

00:08:37.000 we'd be in a situation where we did have something much closer to energy independence,

00:08:41.660 which we don't have because you know the east still imports a lot of its oil from

00:08:46.460 saudi arabia and nigeria algeria you know norway various places uh and the us especially and um

00:08:55.180 so it it has put us in a bit of a bind yeah you know don it's interesting so you know this weekend

00:09:03.180 or over the weekend i know the prime minister went to norway and you know i was watching that

00:09:08.060 to see sort of the conversations with equinor uh and i went back and i was doing some research

00:09:13.740 because it's very curious to see i'd always heard about um that oil or equinor and you know i'd read

00:09:20.700 about it years ago and i thought to myself okay i'm going to dig in a little and read over the

00:09:25.420 weekend and i was astounded i'm a i'm a cpa by trade um so i like numbers so i jumped in and

00:09:33.180 I started doing some research on this company. The company started at the same time that basically

00:09:40.220 Petro Canada did. So if you think about it, Norway made the same decision. So here we were in 1973,

00:09:47.180 a really crazy time in the world where embargoes, and we'll talk about it in a minute,

00:09:53.100 the impacts of the embargoes were absolutely insane throughout the world. And the embargo was

00:09:58.860 really just six months so the the embargo was from october to march uh 73 to 74. um and here we were

00:10:07.660 uh norway made the decision to go another direction so norway said okay we're gonna

00:10:12.620 we're gonna get heavily into the oil business we're we're gonna make it a nationalized industry

00:10:19.340 uh and it's grown and uh you know it's basically grown today to a hundred billion a year revenue

00:10:26.620 business for the country it does about 9 billion in net income and it's it's grown to a 2 trillion

00:10:37.100 dollar industry which has created a wealth fund that is unbelievable for the country the the

00:10:42.860 country uh for a small country and i i was you know i'm always looking for stats as because i'm

00:10:48.620 a i was an ex-cpa as i mentioned you know i didn't know that you know there's only 5.6 million people

00:10:55.740 in Norway. So it's a relatively small country, as you probably know. And their GDP per capita is 86,000,

00:11:03.500 which is roughly about 30% more than Canada. We're about 54,000. So it's a fairly wealthy country

00:11:12.460 at a fairly small landmass. It's only 300,000 square kilometers. So I was looking at them

00:11:20.620 thinking, wow, this is really interesting. And to your point, what a turning point.

00:11:24.460 like it's amazing like that policy decision that we made at that time caused us to go down this

00:11:30.460 road um and this this company that the norwegian set up uh controls basically 60 of the total

00:11:38.540 production they then branched out and they now operate uh oil and gas fields in brazil even here

00:11:46.460 in canada china libya nigeria russia uk us venezuela processing plants in belgium denmark

00:11:54.620 france and germany and they've expanded to a pipeline building they have a pipeline building

00:12:01.020 now a business a solar a wind at home and in scotland and poland so they have wind turbine

00:12:10.460 companies and they have 2500 gas stations so like they took this and blew this up to a whole other

00:12:19.980 level where it's interesting we we went the other direction um and we we actually as of 1980 i think

00:12:29.900 it was uh mulroney if i'm correct um he disbanded petro canada went the other direction and decided

00:12:37.500 not to to get out of the business really from a nationalized perspective and never went uh never

00:12:44.460 really had any interest in going back and and then uh you know we've kind of you know i know in your

00:12:50.460 book you know you talk about it quite a bit we've actually went towards a green agenda um which i

00:12:58.220 think we're all you know evs and we're all think that's a great idea but now we seem to be caught

00:13:04.860 like we're middled at this point we seem to have middled ourself a little because

00:13:09.420 we didn't pick a lane and when we finally picked the lane we're now in the middle of this crisis

00:13:14.300 right yeah and i think you know i mean norway's often held up as this sort of example of how best

00:13:21.100 to manage the resource and i think they did a brilliant job and you know one of the metrics

00:13:26.700 we can use is uh when i lived in alberta the heritage fund which was started by law heed i

00:13:34.220 I think it had 11 billion in it at that point.

00:13:37.080 And the idea was this was money that was set aside for, you know, Albertans and lean times.

00:13:42.080 And Norway started their fund not long after.

00:13:47.100 And I think the Heritage Fund has something like, you may know this better than I, but

00:13:52.480 it's something like 18 or 19 billion in it after all these years.

00:13:56.500 I think the Norwegian Fund is just shy of 3 trillion at this point.

00:14:02.120 I think it's 2.9 trillion.

00:14:03.240 is in the trillions anyway and so you know what's happened i think the biggest difference is um

00:14:12.360 you know oil to some degree has always been a kind of private public partnership either

00:14:17.320 implicitly or explicitly and um i think that partnership worked to great benefit in norway

00:14:23.720 and i think what happened in both alberta and in canada is that that relationship we

00:14:30.520 got the worst of both worlds where um you know at one point uh law he has said you know he made it

00:14:37.800 very clear that the resources of alberta are owned by albertans and and they are the landlords and

00:14:45.000 that the oil companies are the tenants and i think that that relationship essentially switched you

00:14:50.520 know and starting in um certainly as early as 92 when ralph klein came in as premier and i think

00:14:56.920 I think you suddenly had the oil companies become the landlords and essentially the people of Alberta become the tenants, you know, kind of wealthy tenants, but tenants nonetheless.

00:15:07.880 And so the management of those resources, you know, when Lougheed went up to the years after he retired as premier, he went up to the oil sands and said, you know, he thought this was a sort of a crime.

00:15:20.960 Here was this moonscape, and who was it benefiting?

00:15:24.760 And he said, it's not benefiting the people of Alberta

00:15:27.560 because they're not getting the royalties they deserve.

00:15:29.860 And so if Albertans aren't benefiting,

00:15:32.200 certainly the rest of Canada is not benefiting.

00:15:35.460 And what you have is, you know, a small group of people

00:15:38.760 who are, you know, deriving tremendous benefits from this,

00:15:42.260 but it's not kind of echoing through the economy

00:15:45.760 the way we would hope.

00:15:47.960 and so now we're as you say we're stuck in this sort of we're kind of between things and that

00:15:56.920 situation i think was exacerbated when alberta premier daniel smith said you know we're going

00:16:03.000 to put a moratorium on renewables because they had the most vibrant renewable industry in canada

00:16:10.040 as well as the oil and gas industry and so you had this tremendous kind of concentration of energy

00:16:15.240 And then suddenly all investment in renewable stops and you're losing both income and expertise and investment and to some degree confidence in that government.

00:16:28.220 And you revert back to we're going to be an oil and gas economy.

00:16:34.240 And so, yeah, I think we we've found ourselves in this sort of middle ground that isn't benefiting us as much as it could have.

00:16:47.020 Yeah. Yeah. And it was I did find it interesting.

00:16:50.360 The trip to Norway, Prime Minister Carney, and he did I thought he did a great job.

00:16:55.120 He met with shipping companies, one major shipping company.

00:16:59.700 he he uh met with the guys from equinor uh had good meetings the challenge is it's the timeliness

00:17:07.860 of it and that's really what's the challenge now is we're behind the eight ball and he started

00:17:12.940 talking to them about going offshore in atlantic canada so he said okay you guys are the expert

00:17:18.220 offshore drilling why don't you you know take a look at it think about an investment and i was

00:17:23.800 like oh my goodness like and then back home in alberta um you know he recently just before he

00:17:31.300 left they actually reverted some of the regulatory environmental regulatory uh restrictions and he

00:17:39.640 put them back in the hands of the provinces and i'm like okay so now you know we were struggling

00:17:45.360 with that because you know federally and and provincially you couldn't agree on the environmental

00:17:52.240 protections so now you've agreed to put it back in the hands of the province so he did that and

00:17:58.120 I'm like okay fine like you know you made a decision whether I like the decision or not

00:18:02.980 it's a decision and at this point you know on many shows that I do do I say to people

00:18:08.220 you know what I might not like the decision but at this point you got to be making decisions right

00:18:13.220 like because we're getting kind of stymied by uh inaction at at this point so so now we're kind of

00:18:20.980 it seems like in a little bit of a back you know we're backpedaling a little bit we're now saying

00:18:27.060 okay you know we want to go back into the pipeline business in some shape or form and we want to do

00:18:33.300 more offshore drilling and to your point you know to lockheed's point um we're now trying to bring

00:18:40.340 a group of people who started when we did really got into the oil business in a big way when we did

00:18:46.980 and we're saying to them come into canada and because you guys made so much money

00:18:51.380 and i was when i got into the equinor story i was amazed um how much control they even have

00:18:57.780 in america right now so um and you know i looked at the the fund and i was like

00:19:04.820 the national bank of norway has uh through the uh wealth fund has major stakes in the

00:19:12.180 the Bank of America, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.

00:19:15.820 And when they make a decision, for example,

00:19:18.600 to support or not support Caterpillar

00:19:23.320 or even foreign funds, Israel funds and that,

00:19:27.120 the governments of those countries and the US

00:19:29.320 actually get actively involved from the White House

00:19:32.340 to make sure that Norway keeps their money invested

00:19:35.820 in the US and other nations.

00:19:37.940 So this has become a very powerful fund

00:19:40.860 And we're now asking them to come into Atlantic Canada

00:19:45.660 and to invest money and expertise that they've gathered

00:19:49.060 through all these subsidiary companies

00:19:51.780 and to start move our oil and gas forward

00:19:54.760 and to start back into this industry.

00:19:57.380 So, you know, we were kind of,

00:20:01.900 well, we were for 10 years saying to Canadians,

00:20:04.760 we're getting out of this industry

00:20:06.460 or we're gonna minimize this industry.

00:20:09.140 going into the ev industry and now all of a sudden we've kind of

00:20:13.220 turned turned and we're having meetings with people to come back in and go back into the industry

00:20:19.220 and it yeah and i think you know the we're at this we're at this point right now in the kind

00:20:27.300 of oil and gas history that's um there has been these pivotal points you know over the years and

00:20:32.900 we're at one right now again and i think you know what you have is you know people especially when

00:20:38.740 you have a crisis like we have right now in terms of the iran war and you know a spike in oil prices

00:20:43.620 and so you have people saying you know we need to we need to get the oil to tide water alberta oil

00:20:51.940 we need to build more pipelines we need to uh all these things um but i think if you you know if you

00:20:59.940 look at carney's decision um and i agree i think you know decision they've got a point where

00:21:05.140 decisions have to be made and there was this kind of period of indecision and my guess and i i don't

00:21:12.820 know that this is the case but um you know when you have premier smith saying listen we have to

00:21:19.220 get rid of all the kind of environmental hurdles and we have to kind of um and if you if you do

00:21:24.260 that if you make it possible and plausible to build a pipeline i'll put together this consortium of

00:21:29.780 private interests and we'll build a pipeline and you know my guess is he he he may have called her

00:21:36.580 bluff which is you know we'll reduce the regulatory period to two years i think it is now from you

00:21:42.900 know it was four or more in the past and um and then you put together this consortium and you

00:21:50.180 finance 100 of this pipeline and you know right now i think we're we're a little more than a

00:21:56.020 month away from the deadline and so far there still isn't a pipeline company on board and

00:22:03.060 you know i think if you look at infrastructure you're looking at kind of the infrastructure

00:22:09.780 how the industry is moving and you you know we spent 34 billion to build trans mountain and it

00:22:15.780 took 12 years and so i think you know those companies are thinking if if we're actually

00:22:21.780 financing this and it's you know it's 34 it's going to cost us another 34 billion and take us

00:22:29.060 all this time what does the market look like 12 years from now you know how how green has europe

00:22:35.220 gotten how green has china gotten or japan and um and we we see the same thing in the u.s where

00:22:44.020 with oil refineries the last major oil refinery was built in 1977 and there's been dozens that

00:22:50.820 have shut down since then and even the the ceo of chevron said i don't think you'll ever see

00:22:57.700 another major oil refinery built in america because the timeline is that it's similar to

00:23:03.780 pipelines it can take 10 years to build a major refinery it can cost between 10 and 15 billion

00:23:10.020 and i think you know no one wants to put in that kind of money in into what they suspect is kind

00:23:16.580 of a sunset industry despite the fact that it'll go on for a long time but it's unlikely it's going

00:23:23.700 to be a robust industry and you have a situation now where i think in terms of global investors

00:23:32.180 it was two to one in terms of renewables versus oil and gas last year you had twice as much

00:23:38.500 investment in renewable resources as you did in oil and gas and so you can see which way this is

00:23:44.340 going and um so it puts everyone in a difficult position i i don't think that the pipeline makes

00:23:51.700 any sense you know if i think what you know what will happen is you'll see the premier coming back

00:23:57.220 and saying listen this this benefits all of canada and it's a nat you know nation building program

00:24:04.180 and so even though we said it was going to be privately financed we actually need federal money

00:24:09.220 um and i think that's where you know prime minister has to hold the line and say you know a deal is a

00:24:16.340 deal we did our part if if you can't find the private financing for this then then clearly

00:24:22.580 there isn't a market for it so let's let's look at something else and the offshore drilling i think

00:24:28.340 is sort of in between there where the you know the infrastructure costs aren't as great the timelines

00:24:33.220 are shorter you've got this expertise um so that may be something that happens and you could see

00:24:40.180 some short-term benefit but i think the the pipeline deals or you know the idea of having

00:24:47.300 new refineries or the energy east the revival of energy east um that all these we probably won't

00:24:54.420 see yeah no i agree with you i think that's a great analysis of it you know i took a look i

00:25:01.140 also took a look i was interested to see what were the impacts of the embargo because you know now

00:25:07.140 you're starting to see different parts of the world seeing the stresses of the oil price increase and

00:25:13.780 everything else and it was interesting you know i and that some things i had forgotten i was i was

00:25:20.340 uh young but alive at that point and uh you know i i was trying to figure out um

00:25:27.140 you know did the did the market crash and it did mark the market did crash in the us so they did

00:25:32.900 have a stock market crash in 73 74. um i remember i do remember uh yellow uh red yellow green

00:25:44.260 uh signs my dad my dad was a truck driver so we used to do long haul truck driving

00:25:49.140 so we'd be in and out of michigan all the time as a kid and i do remember gas stations that had

00:25:54.820 red flags on them which meant they were out of gas so that they did have a shortage of gas

00:26:01.140 i remember odd and even license plate days um where you could only get gas on the day you know

00:26:07.460 depending on the last number of your license plate also i had forgotten that um the president

00:26:13.620 of the united states had actually used that for the catalyst for nuclear for nuclear power so that

00:26:19.940 was an interesting one that i thought you know um to your point about renewables but also you know

00:26:26.260 in ontario right now we're doing a major push into nuclear right now so even though we miss

00:26:31.860 some timing on some things we actually are ahead of the curve on other things so you know that

00:26:38.020 might be a savior for us in the end if uh our skill sets in the nuclear reactor business uh

00:26:46.500 keep growing and getting better and better and better and i think we kind of are world leaders

00:26:50.900 in that regard which is great um you know the conflicts that occurred i didn't and you know

00:26:57.620 this was an interesting one uh i did i had forgotten a lot about uh africa or south africa

00:27:03.940 you know civil wars broke out um india's indira gandhi used it to actually create a dictatorship

00:27:11.860 um moscow and japan uh basically got into a very uh big argument about krill island and the take

00:27:21.340 back of that property and uh eastern europe uh was was really fragmented uh with britain actually

00:27:29.140 not allowing the u.s to land planes or france to land planes or use airstrips because they didn't

00:27:36.160 want to get cut off from oil and gas so it's interesting now that we're watching all these

00:27:40.540 conversations take place and i thought i thought on the weekend you know when uh germany came out

00:27:45.820 when when uh and basically said that they weren't part of this war so you're starting to see the

00:27:53.020 fragmentation in europe right now of people saying hey hey hold on i'm not part of this war right

00:27:58.620 and so it's interesting how the world did fragment quite a bit and how you saw the

00:28:03.580 the splitting up of different parts of the nation and the breaking and so i'm curious you know

00:28:10.540 What it does, in your opinion, to the world and what would in Canada right now.

00:28:15.880 So we're at that turning point.

00:28:18.040 How does he how does he move forward?

00:28:20.740 And what do you think is the best thing to do now?

00:28:23.120 Because you're you are in the middle position.

00:28:26.900 Yeah, and I think the geopolitics of oil, I mean, I think that's one of the reasons that President Trump is so gung ho on oil is it.

00:28:36.140 He views it as something that still has a great deal of power on the geopolitical stage.

00:28:41.340 And, you know, to some degree, he's right, although it's a it's a fading power.

00:28:45.680 And you see, you know, you know, when Russia invaded Ukraine and Europe wants to get off of Russian gas.

00:28:53.500 And so one of the good things about these sort of situations is that it just reminds us once again that we need to get away from oil and gas,

00:29:03.300 because otherwise we're going to remain more or less enslaved.

00:29:08.680 But as soon as we get independence, if we do have a renewable grid

00:29:13.360 that is independent of oil and gas,

00:29:16.720 then it doesn't matter if the price of oil doubles in less than a year.

00:29:22.460 It doesn't matter if there's invasions and wars.

00:29:25.960 And so I think one of the good things we see with Iran

00:29:30.900 is that Europe is more resilient now as a result of having to wean themselves off of Russian oil.

00:29:38.500 I mean, they got it from other sources, but they also aggressively pursued a more green agenda,

00:29:45.060 and they started to look back at maybe reopening some nuclear. And so I think we'll see the same

00:29:51.220 thing with iran where um you know you see the spike in oil prices but you also see people um a

00:29:59.940 spike in green energy companies because um that's what we're going to that's what's going to power

00:30:07.140 the future and it's what's going to get us away from these and i this is it's such a this one is

00:30:14.020 so much more delicate i mean in a way it's having less of an impact than 73 because

00:30:21.300 we aren't as dependent on oil as we were in 73 and certainly not as dependent on foreign oil

00:30:27.860 but the delicacy geopolitically i think is um much more intense and you have you know trump

00:30:36.180 um who tends to contradict himself sometimes in the same sentence and um you know he was saying

00:30:42.980 how he wants everyone to all his allies to help him then he's also in the you know a minute later

00:30:49.140 says we don't need anybody and then he wants China to help you know secure the Strait of Hormuz

00:30:57.860 and of course China has been sitting on the sidelines relatively quiet about all this and

00:31:04.340 you know the Iranians are letting all the Chinese tankers go through of course because that's their

00:31:09.060 main client and so they're not going to be bombing any of the Chinese ships or mining

00:31:14.780 any of them.

00:31:16.460 And so there's no reason for China to kind of be helping out on that front.

00:31:21.980 And you know, depending on how this kind of goes over the next few weeks, you could see

00:31:28.640 where there's going to be right now there's kind of silence on the part of allies other

00:31:34.000 than Germany who's spoken up and said we're not involved.

00:31:36.840 But I think you could get more vocal opposition saying, you know, especially given the fact

00:31:43.760 that Trump has been unable to really articulate the reason he got into this war.

00:31:50.880 You know, at one point, he said it was just to destroy their nuclear capability.

00:31:55.420 But in June of last year, he said they'd already obliterated their nuclear capability.

00:32:00.240 And so, you know, why would you need to do that?

00:32:02.620 And whether it's, you know, to stymie their ability to build ballistic missiles, whether it's regime change, there's, you know, a host of things floating around.

00:32:13.320 And this is going to be, I think, of all the oil wars of which there's, you know, as you mentioned, there's been dozens over the years that could be defined as oil wars.

00:32:24.900 And while oil isn't the objective here, it's certainly what has been weaponized.

00:32:30.660 And so I think this is, you know, yet again, another becomes another oil war.

00:32:35.080 And I think this will be a defining moment in terms of how we go forward in terms of energy production.

00:32:46.780 Yeah, I think so.

00:32:47.700 And, you know, for Canada, I think it's a turning point for us, too.

00:32:51.120 You know, we we now sort of, you know, and I find it bizarre every time we have these conversations throughout my lifetime.

00:32:58.800 We're now having, you know, a pricing conversation every day about, you know, what our price per liter is at the pumps. So a net exporting country of crude oil. I know it's heavy oil. I understand the, you know, the positives and the negatives of what we produce and what we, you know, send through the pipelines mostly into the US.

00:33:23.060 but you know it is it seems a little disheartening again we're at that point where we're we're having

00:33:28.340 this discussion and we haven't kind of figured out a path yet um you know if you had to think

00:33:34.500 about a path for canada so you know i mentioned nuclear i mentioned you know you're you're talking

00:33:39.700 about renewables where do you see canada going so if you had to kind of give me your you know

00:33:45.060 you've been doing this and you've been looking at oil for years you were in the industry

00:33:48.740 you know crystal ball it for a minute with me where would you where would you say we are in

00:33:54.420 two years from now well i think we'll be farther ahead in the renewable world i mean the the

00:34:00.260 encouraging thing i think in the east at least is the electricity grid is becoming more and more

00:34:06.980 important in terms of you know the energy world and you know quebec has almost you know it's almost

00:34:13.620 100 percent hydro there's like you know they occasionally use natural gas during you know

00:34:20.020 peak hours or something um and ontario i think we're using between 10 and 15 percent gas um but

00:34:28.660 you know that figure is going down and as you say you know we're we've got nuclear going on we've

00:34:33.860 got more solar and wind being installed quebec has a lot of wind being installed um and i think

00:34:41.220 the renewable blip in Alberta, you know, I think my guess is one of the problems with both the

00:34:50.820 States and Canada is that the oil and gas world versus renewables tends to be almost entirely

00:34:57.700 political. So, you know, when you have a Republican government in the US, you get rid of all the

00:35:03.140 environmental regulations and all the subsidies to renewables and you give tax breaks to oil and

00:35:09.780 gas and then the democrats get in and just reverse that formula and to a lesser extent we've seen

00:35:16.580 something similar here where you know the harper governments you know um embraces the oil and gas

00:35:23.300 industry and um for you know to some degree kind of stymied uh renewables and then um you have you

00:35:32.420 know justin trudeau sort of sitting on the fence trying to play it and now we have you know carney

00:35:37.860 I think looking at the kind of real politic of this and how do we best manage the fossil fuel

00:35:46.900 resources without kind of destroying the economy, but at the same time, managing the environment

00:35:53.780 and then bringing the renewables up. And I think you'll see renewables coming back to Alberta when

00:36:00.420 there is a different government, which I think there's a relatively good chance of. And so

00:36:07.860 for the most part, I think we're moving forward.

00:36:10.740 And I think you'll see the same thing in the U.S.

00:36:13.940 where, you know, depending on what happens

00:36:18.940 in the midterm elections, you could see as early as November

00:36:23.300 seeing a kind of a sea change in terms of kind of mood.

00:36:28.620 And oddly, even though, you know, Trump has done everything he can

00:36:32.220 to kind of squash renewable investment,

00:36:35.820 um it's actually gone up during his first year in office and so you can delay the future but you

00:36:44.300 you can't prevent it from arriving yeah no i appreciate that you know and that's that's great

00:36:50.540 advice and a great comment dawn thanks again for taking the time i really appreciate you uh sharing

00:36:57.580 you know uh your book your some stuff and some some knowledge that you gained by actually working

00:37:04.060 in the industry uh for those of you who haven't read the book the book is called on oil on oil

00:37:09.660 and donna talk about some of the other books you've written because you've written you know i

00:37:13.820 was amazed uh you know how many books you've written and and you know please take a few minutes

00:37:18.940 to tell well uh you know one of the books i i wrote uh is a novel that's uh has oil as its main

00:37:28.140 theme a novel called long change and when i worked in the oil fields um i wanted to write a novel

00:37:35.500 about oil and i tried to when i graduated from university but i just really didn't have the

00:37:41.420 tools i think at that point and so i sort of put it on the back burner but i came back to it kind

00:37:46.860 of 30 years later and finally wrote that novel so i have a series of novels that that's one among

00:37:53.500 them and I wrote a two-volume history of Canada which was kind of a companion to CBC did a big

00:38:03.020 30-hour series on the history of Canada called Canada People's History so I did a couple of

00:38:08.620 books that worked with that and I've also written children's books as a kind of sideline I guess

00:38:17.020 but I'm mostly going back and forth between non-fiction and fiction books which are kind of

00:38:23.500 a cure for each other in many ways yeah well thank you don i appreciate the time and for

00:38:29.980 those of you please uh pick up the book uh you're going to learn a lot about the history of oil and

00:38:35.660 gas uh what's going on in the world and please remember download the app and subscribe when you

00:38:42.620 can and stay tuned for more shows on oil and gas.

True Patriot Love - March 17, 2026

The Truth About Canada's Oil Industry - with Don Gillmor

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