Western Standard - Alberta's push for West Coast pipeline

00:00:00.000 a big announcement from the alberta provincial government on the pipeline front what's happening

00:00:03.360 big big big announcement happy day for alberta the premier smith has announced they're going to

00:00:09.840 start ahead and start pushing for a bitumen pipeline from alberta to bc she's brought

00:00:16.720 three companies on board trans mountain they know a thing or two about building a pipeline

00:00:21.680 enbridge and south bay corporation and they're going to get together and plot routes and all

00:00:27.840 the various things you need to plot for a pipeline and then they're going to have it into prime

00:00:34.640 minister carney's major projects office by mid-2026 so you know that puts the court the ball in mark

00:00:44.160 carney's court and especially puts the ball into premier eby's court in bc and he already has had

00:00:50.400 a press conference mocking the idea saying it's not a real thing and you know call me when you're

00:00:55.920 you got something concrete yeah so we'll go to elisa you watched the conference uh elisa mr eby

00:01:02.080 has uh jumped the gun i guess he got a little while the globe kind of leaked a bit of stuff too and and

00:01:06.640 uh he's not responding uh with much enthusiasm well i think dave gave a great lead on that uh i'd also

00:01:14.720 have to mention how uncomfortable premier eby looked in that press conference the the what david eby is

00:01:20.960 factoring in is that he's lost that green environmental support that's not um that's not a

00:01:27.600 block that he can count on anymore and he's got his ndp diehards and he's still got a certain level

00:01:34.480 of popular popularity in the province um which john rustad doesn't have um but i can tell he's factoring

00:01:41.840 this in the problem is david eby's record on saying no to energy is has a is quite hypocritical he just

00:01:49.840 seems to hate pipelines but he'll take uh carney's money for pretty much any other energy or energy

00:01:57.040 facility like his recent agreements with the federal government out at the richmond airport for example

00:02:04.240 but he's looking nervous the one thing i noticed was as he stuttered through his press conference and

00:02:09.040 i don't know if dave agrees with me that was not a comfortable looking premier um but it might be

00:02:14.320 because he didn't really understand the details but he chided premier smith by saying when you have

00:02:19.760 something that doesn't require government funding let me know problem is and we all know this it's

00:02:25.920 guys like david eby and a decade of juxtun trudeau and the gamesmanship that they played and tearing

00:02:31.680 this country up that has forced government to be one of the proponents one of the uh one of the groups

00:02:38.400 involved it should never be this way and this is a larger conversation for the economy of canada

00:02:44.640 um every big announcement has to be a government announcement and that is so different in the

00:02:49.680 united states that's almost a rarity down there um so it might spark several different conversations

00:02:56.320 but i think it's not only a great day for alberta it's a great day for canada problem is uh that mr

00:03:03.520 eby may not even be around by the time this lands in mr carney's office oh you can always hope um the

00:03:11.760 yes but the you made the observation at least that uh it shouldn't be this way and you know 10 years

00:03:20.480 ago it wasn't companies got together and they made their pitch and why is that no longer the case first

00:03:28.400 of all i'm all for danielle smith getting things moving if she can bless her heart we need more

00:03:35.440 leaders who are prepared to put their stick their necks out and go and try and get things done but

00:03:43.040 what mr carney has done is create an atmosphere for investment in the energy industry which totally

00:03:53.360 discourages big companies the deal now yeah he may approve a pipeline but it's got to carry

00:04:00.320 decarbonized oil decarbonized oil you say what could that possibly be it's the carbon in the oil

00:04:07.360 that gives us any value as a fuel well what they mean is that in order to call it decarbonized fuel

00:04:14.480 you need to take the amount of carbon dioxide that you used in producing it and push it underground well

00:04:21.440 that's what there are companies in alberta who are looking at a way to do that and talking about

00:04:27.680 the pathways alliance the technology has been demonstrated in saskatchewan at weyburn

00:04:34.160 but there's one thing to do it in weyburn and it's another thing to do it on the massive scale that

00:04:39.280 would be required to decarbonize a million barrels of oil a day the companies are very well aware of the

00:04:49.040 of the cost challenges they would have to meet and mr carney is very well aware that that's likely

00:04:57.040 to discourage them the other thing that might discourage them is the fact that as a major

00:05:02.400 project it would skirt the usual approval processes end up in the in that little office that he's

00:05:09.840 established with is it within his own government to handle major projects and who knows by what standards

00:05:16.720 it will be judged and by what connivance is it could agreement could ever be caught so not surprisingly

00:05:24.480 the big players are saying you know what let's just see how this plays out premier smith is trying to

00:05:31.760 at least clear some of the some of the bureaucratic way for ahead for them good for her i hope it works

00:05:40.080 every alberton should be hoping it works because of the there's big money here but even if it works

00:05:46.240 i don't know how it's going to play out in a long hole when you have to measure the the price that

00:05:53.440 you're getting for the oil against the tremendous cost of bearing and carbon dioxide there's a whole

00:05:57.840 another story there but that's the other issue is go ahead elise go ahead elise no sorry i was just

00:06:09.680 going to say very similar to the ev mandate the question it's very fine and dandy to flood the

00:06:16.640 market with evs or flood them or or put the requirements of the decarbonized uh bitumen or

00:06:23.440 carbon or decarbonized oil but the reality is we haven't we have 92 uh million dollars missing

00:06:32.720 that went to friends and family of the liberals on apparently green research we haven't invested

00:06:38.480 in these what is i would say commonsensical ideas if you really want to address these issues there

00:06:45.280 hasn't been a significant a billion dollar investment in decarbonization carbon capture is not the winner

00:06:52.640 winner chicken dinner that everybody thinks it is the companies are are spending more than they're

00:06:57.280 maybe even making off of it it's not demonstrating its real value because it's not hooked into something

00:07:02.400 else we have a very fragmented uh regulatory environment we have a very fragmented clean energy

00:07:08.480 slash energy environment they're still pretty isolated away from each other we have the ability we could be

00:07:16.640 a leader in in the western world in how we address these issues but we keep diverting tons of money

00:07:24.080 millions and billions to these untested un uh unimaginable projects so yes we can do it's like

00:07:32.160 the ev market we do not have the infrastructure to manage decarbonization we can't yeah you can buy

00:07:38.560 an ev but where are you plugging it in if we all had evs we'd break at least in british columbia we would

00:07:43.920 break bc hydros back so that's my frustration nigel is that there's all this lovely chit chat and i very 0.88

00:07:51.680 much want to buy into it we all want to be better right but the reality is is the infrastructure is

00:07:56.800 not there and then you look at the tremendous i'm not into your electric car fantasy come on we drug

00:08:07.680 to get a pipeline going if you want to decarbonize that fine great blah blah blah i just need a pipeline

00:08:13.680 however you slice that i want a pipeline if you want decarbonization great but then show me that

00:08:18.640 you understand what it takes to do that we have a bunch of uh reactive politicians in this country

00:08:25.040 that have gotten away with not demonstrating their skill set they there is zero skill set on this file

00:08:31.040 at the federal level at least they know darn well what it takes it's not that they haven't been told

00:08:38.720 what is going on here is that they're not that keen to see the pipeline or even to see everybody

00:08:44.720 running around in motor cars at all whether they're gas or electricity the whole idea of the green

00:08:50.400 movement is less and less and less but you'll be happy it might it might be because they have

00:08:56.000 politicized the supreme court of canada so is carney's office this project office immune

00:09:01.600 to the constant cyclical legal litigation that we see on these issues you know one of the issues that

00:09:09.760 we haven't talked about is first nations obviously they're going to be key to this whole thing uh there

00:09:15.520 was some first nations representation at the press conference uh with premier smith so i'm sure she'll be

00:09:21.040 looking for uh you know first nations to be part owners of this of this pipeline and then and there will

00:09:26.960 be some first nations scrambling to uh to get that part of that pie because it it brings in uh it brings

00:09:33.360 in money where the problems come in is when you'll get these hereditary chiefs uh like we saw uh over

00:09:40.240 past years and uh coastal gas and you get hereditary chiefs and blockades and trains being blocked and

00:09:48.720 and all that sort of stuff so uh it's it's going to be a bit of a long road but you know i'm hopefully

00:09:54.000 optimistic on this and premier smith said indigenous consultations start on day one so did premier

00:10:01.600 smith mention it all though the no more pipelines bill and the tanker ban because i noticed she had

00:10:06.960 that big list of demands and the clock's running out on that she's suddenly gone quiet did she draw a

00:10:12.080 line in the sand and is she jumping beyond it now and kicking a new demand down into mid 2026 or is she

00:10:17.200 going to finally do something because to be honest i'm starting to find premier smith to be high on

00:10:21.920 posturing and low on action we've got a sovereignty act we've got a number of things she's constantly

00:10:27.600 threatening to use them maybe it's time to get a little more assertive because the reality is if

00:10:32.960 carney doesn't stand he's got the authority he's got the final authority that bill five gives him the

00:10:38.080 ability to cut through a number of the the roadblocks cut through a number of the things as nigel said he

00:10:44.320 doesn't really want to do this so it's time to start putting some pressure on that man

00:10:48.560 i wouldn't disagree with that uh corey i will i will say that in doing what she announced this

00:10:56.960 this morning she is trying to do something yeah uh so i'll give her credit for that maybe you have

00:11:03.440 to do that first before you go back and start lodging as i said she's she's put the ball into car

00:11:09.760 in these quarters again right like it was put in with the the tanker ban and the no more pipelines the

00:11:15.120 reality is you can cut the pipe you can trench it no company's going to put a nickel into that

00:11:21.120 until the pipeline ban is gone and the tanker ban is gone they're not going to touch it so that i'm

00:11:26.880 just saying her conference perhaps should have come with a reiteration of those demands like we're

00:11:30.320 trying to create the environment to bring in private investment but we've got those giant roadblocks that

00:11:35.040 still he won't touch yeah well the pressure is now there right yeah we've got a we've got an actual

00:11:40.560 project we've got work started on it so uh pressure builds on him but i think you're right i think

00:11:47.280 premier smith has to get uh uh more more hard-line not saying she's not trying at all i'm just not

00:11:52.480 sure if how many times can you just keep saying we're gonna do this until you realize he's the

00:11:56.560 problem and we're gonna have to start calling him out i think the power drive is in the relationship

00:12:02.560 that where you see quebec starting to wane on their hard stance now that alberta has joined forces or is

00:12:09.120 going to support quebec uh in their secular bill which would be the notwithstanding cause and that

00:12:14.960 whole argument that we discussed uh last week um i think their their relationship is melting it's not

00:12:21.680 as frosty as it once was and i think quebec as the economic storm looms on our shores in canada i think

00:12:28.400 quebec who has a very um doesn't have a strong sort of free market economy it's heavily rooted in

00:12:36.800 government spending i think they're recognizing the revenue streams that energy could bring and

00:12:41.600 jobs that it could bring uh to attract more young people and a more diversified investment uh into

00:12:49.120 quebec so there may be that or quebec is also feeling the same heat that we're feeling in british

00:12:54.560 columbia on the u.s tariffs especially around forestry for example and obviously auto um so i think

00:13:01.520 some of the things that i've been watching coming out of quebec from the premier demonstrates to me

00:13:06.320 as he and he even said it last week he is warmer to a to a pipeline from alberta than he has ever been

00:13:13.760 so things are moving very quickly and that recession i think plays a that's that's basically here i know

00:13:21.120 it's here in dc already plays a larger part uh than we may we may consider um you know a lot of politicians

00:13:29.680 are going to fall off of that uh perch um or that you know that that pulpit that they've been standing

00:13:35.760 on with energy i think all right well we will pull things a little closer like i said i i do hope it

00:13:42.320 is something that's going to lead to getting some resources out it's just ridiculous that we're

00:13:45.600 shutting ourselves in like this for so long and i i wish ridiculous to us but if if if you're actually

00:13:52.320 of an entirely different mindset and you're the prime minister oh yeah not ridiculous at all this is

00:13:56.960 working out of the way it's supposed to work you you keep making the offer you keep making it look

00:14:01.920 like you're keen but you set conditions on it that make it virtually impossible for anybody to finance

00:14:07.760 it or do it well a hundred billion dollar deficit may be looming in the near future so i would think

00:14:14.080 that the economic genius of uh mark carney would realize you do have to have some revenue flow

00:14:19.120 somewhere but uh we'll see if that sinks in or not uh he seems to much prefer the keynesian method

00:14:24.640 that we'll just borrow ourselves rich

Western Standard - October 03, 2025

Alberta's push for West Coast pipeline

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