Learn English with the Prime Minister of Alberta, Ralph Peters, on the results of the Public inquiry into a decade long campaign by foreign special interest groups to block development of Alberta's oil and gas resources. In this speech, he says the report shines a blinding light on the vast amount of foreign funding flowing across the Canadian border into the energy sector.
00:00:00.000well good morning everyone our government was elected on a commitment to investigate the
00:00:17.880existence of well-funded foreign special interest groups that had been waging a decade-long campaign
00:00:24.120to landlock Alberta's oil and gas resources I'm pleased to report that we have officially
00:00:31.200fulfilled that commitment I'd like to thank Commissioner Steve Allen for the hard work and
00:00:37.500due diligence that went into the inquiry and for submitting a comprehensive final report that
00:00:44.520report along with the Deloitte report is now available on the Government of Alberta website
00:00:49.440those reports together provide extensive evidence of sophisticated and well financed campaigns such
00:00:57.720as the tar sands campaign that specifically targeted the development of our resources
00:01:03.000there have been many suspicions and theories about those campaigns over the years during my 13 years
00:01:10.680experience working in the energy sector I personally saw the evidence of these campaigns as they targeted
00:01:17.700pipelines like Northern Gateway pipeline line 9 Energy East KXL and Trans Mountain I could see the
00:01:26.340antics and tactics of these campaigns on the ground I could see these campaigns as they stacked regulatory
00:01:33.060proceedings organized grassroots activities litigated when things didn't go their way targeted policy
00:01:40.320makers discredited regulators and even chained themselves to infrastructure what the public
00:01:47.320inquiry report does is to document with a significant level of detail who was involved and what their motives were
00:01:55.960the organizations involved in these campaigns celebrated their successes as each pipeline project was delayed or
00:02:04.840cancelled while they boasted Albertans were hurt people lost their jobs businesses went under families were hurt
00:02:14.320government revenues from royalties were impacted we lost billions of dollars in royalties we saw pipeline bottlenecks
00:02:22.960and that led to heavy discounts and led to curtailment while other jurisdictions were able to build infrastructure we have been
00:02:31.840deliberately blocked Albertans have a right to be upset and while there is justification to be be upset I truly believe that sun sunlight is
00:02:43.280is sometimes the best disinfectant and this report does exactly that it shines a blinding light on the broader movement
00:02:51.920and the vast amount of foreign funding that is crossing the Canadian border often untraced
00:02:57.920these organizations operated like a business the commissioner called it an industry unto itself
00:03:05.600they applied for and received funding and grants from multi-billion dollar foreign foundations that foreign funding was used to not only target pipelines and projects but to influence domestic public policy legislation and regulatory processes that should concern all Canadians we are not talking about small money here the amounts involved are profoundly large
00:03:35.600approximately 15 billion dollars of foreign funding directed towards Canadian charities came across the border
00:03:43.600foreign funding of Canadian based environmental initiatives was at 1.28 billion dollars between 2003 and 2019
00:03:53.680many of these organizations operate as an industry adapting to emerging markets and trends
00:03:59.600and jumping from cause to cause and that money comes across the border with a lack of transparency
00:04:06.560and disclosure the funds are hard to find and difficult to trace it's like tossing a penny into a muddy pond
00:04:15.040and trying to find it the deeper it sinks the more murky it gets and the harder it is to find
00:04:21.920that's why the commissioner's number one recommendation is for better transparency and governance
00:04:28.080for over a decade these campaigns targeted our energy sector and it waged waged on from protests to blockades
00:04:36.240to lawsuits and celebrity arrests and even dangling from the iron workers memorial bridge
00:04:42.720the goal was always to landlock Alberta's oil and gas that was the ultimate goal of the tar sands campaign we saw it play out
00:04:52.640step by step by step and it continues today divestment campaigns operating today have claimed to achieve
00:05:00.720over 1 000 divestments from fossil fuels representing 8 trillion dollars recently we saw president joe biden
00:05:10.240continue his pleas for more opac oil in order to rescue the united states from high fuel prices
00:05:18.320if only canada could have provided americans with a stable source of energy from a trusted friend friend
00:05:24.400and ally that adheres to the highest esg standards if only we could have avoided this energy crisis
00:05:32.720to be clear americans are looking for someone to blame for today's skyrocketing energy prices
00:05:38.000i know a few organizations named in this report that they could thank for that imagine if the northern
00:05:46.080gateway pipeline had not been vetoed in 2016 it would have been delivering 525 000 barrels a day
00:05:53.920of oil to overseas markets markets that are experiencing an energy crisis and are stockpiling crude
00:06:01.120that we can't deliver because infrastructure was blocked the world is in an energy crisis with a
00:06:07.760shortage of supply of oil and natural gas Alberta could have helped let me repeat that Alberta could
00:06:17.040have helped but we have been blocked because of these campaigns instead other oil producing jurisdictions
00:06:25.680like Saudi Arabia and Russia have been given a strategic advantage they are able to ramp up production
00:06:33.200and use that wealth to fund their energy future whether that is hydrogen renewables or clean natural gas
00:06:41.520it is a transfer of wealth with zero impact on reducing global ghg emissions it doesn't make sense
00:06:49.600and it clearly doesn't achieve the outcomes those campaigns claim to stand for such as reducing emissions
00:06:56.800and protecting the environment but we can't change the past we can't change how we got here today but we can
00:07:06.080learn from the observations of this inquiry we have to focus on the future we have to learn from the very
00:07:14.320well-executed strategies that these campaigns employ employed so effectively we have to learn from that
00:07:21.520so we can protect the energy resources of the future now knowing how these campaigns operate we can predict
00:07:30.080that these kinds of campaigns are coming after the next thing whether that's hydrogen carbon capture
00:07:36.480utilization and storage critical and rare earth minerals small modular reactors or lng
00:07:42.880energy it's money looking for a cause we need to ensure that we do not frustrate or delay the
00:07:48.960development of energy resources of the future the things that are needed here in Alberta to reduce
00:07:54.960emissions and set Alberta up to diversify and be competitive in a world that is moving to lower
00:08:01.520carbon emissions our government remains committed to the best interests of Albertans and protecting and
00:08:08.000supporting the Alberta Alberta's energy sector I'm pleased to say that we accept the commissioner's
00:08:14.400recommendations and all and already are acting on many of them this includes demonstrating national
00:08:21.360leadership in emerging low carbon resources development enabling indigenous participation and responsible
00:08:28.160energy development through the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation and things like the site
00:08:33.760rehabilitation program and earlier this year we established an esg secretariat which is set to help capital
00:08:42.800to attract capital to Alberta by sharing a positive unified and compelling narrative that showcases
00:08:49.760Alberta's esg performance and ambitions the bottom line is that Alberta's natural resources belong to Albertans and
00:08:59.200decisions about their development should be made by people of this province and we are committed to
00:09:05.360ensuring that that occurs at this time I'd be happy to take questions um okay so we will take questions from
00:09:13.440the floor to start and then we will rotate between the floor and the phones um each reporter will have
00:09:19.280one question and one follow-up so to start we'll start with Tom Vernon from global hi minister thanks for taking my
00:09:25.360question just going through this I mean the revelation that environmental organizations were campaigning
00:09:31.200against Alberta infrastructure projects I mean you named a few examples of what they were doing these
00:09:35.440are very public examples was anything in the fair did this report find anything nefarious
00:09:41.920well the report itself didn't suggest that anything illegal was going on we weren't asking them to look
00:09:48.480into whether there were illegal aperture illegal things happening but what we do know and if you
00:09:55.360ask people in Alberta who lost their job if they think anything wrong happened I'm pretty sure they would
00:10:00.880say yes people were hurt they lost their jobs they lost their savings their families were impacted the
00:10:07.040province was impacted the income that we need in this province to pay for essential services were impacted
00:10:13.200so was it illegal no was it wrong I think the majority of Albertans would say it was wrong and
00:10:19.840they want to know how it happened who was involved and how they can make sure it doesn't happen to the
00:10:25.120energy resources of the future looking at the recommendations um better engagement uh with first
00:10:32.800nations better tracking of greenhouse gas emissions better development encouraging development of low
00:10:37.440carbon solutions I mean aren't these the sorts of things that we've been hearing from these
00:10:41.280environmental organizations to begin with well I think what we can learn from the report
00:10:46.880is and understand from their strategy is how successfully they deployed it and implemented
00:10:53.360and how much they collaborated together to work together in a common interest on the other hand
00:10:59.840what the report found is pro resource proponents operate in silos they often work as if they're competing
00:11:07.680with one another we have to change that we have to learn from their tactics on the need to work together
00:11:14.720and to not work in silos if we want to ensure that they're these types of campaigns don't impact us as
00:11:20.960we try to develop hydrogen imagine where they would go where they are going with hydrogen they labeled the oil
00:11:28.960sands as dirty oil as tar sands they're now going after after hydrogen and blue hydrogen made from
00:11:37.280natural gas they're going to call that dirty hydrogen we can't ever let that happen in alberta
00:11:43.760okay we'll take a question from the phones
00:11:49.200thank you the first question is from david staples edmonton journal please go ahead
00:11:53.760so they from 2003 to 2019 they identified more than a billion dollars of foreign funding related to
00:12:03.600canadian canadian initiative uh on environmental causes but they pinpointed i think about 54 million
00:12:12.080that we have the number now between a billion and 54 million for the anti-alberta energy campaign
00:12:31.200was it a failure to not get more precise numbers on that to not actually come up
00:12:36.240with a final number here's how much it was because we're kind of left between the two numbers
00:12:42.320sure well that you know what the numbers were confusing to me as well i read through the report
00:12:47.440three times the entire report and i would encourage everyone to read through the whole report plus the
00:12:53.360deloitte report and i understand some of those numbers are confusing because i had to write them down
00:12:59.040and try to understand them but i also understand the difficulty that the commissioner and deloitte's had
00:13:05.200in tracing those funds and what this does is it highlights the need for their first recommendation
00:13:11.920which was for greater transparency greater disclosure and greater accountability and you
00:13:17.120know what these groups could change that today today they could actually release their records they
00:13:24.640could disclose the where they get the funds and what they're using them for they require that from
00:13:29.680public public corporations to disclose climate risk and esg initiatives they could follow their own
00:13:36.320advice and do it themselves but you're right those numbers are are confusing there's big numbers i
00:13:42.080mentioned in my my speaking notes there's big numbers it's 15 billion dollars across the border
00:13:47.760targeting charities now of course some of that is going to be benign and it's truly for charities
00:13:52.640then he found there was 1.28 billion went to target environmental initiatives that's when he gets
00:13:58.080into words wordsmithing and and tracing the documents and the funding grants using computer searches and
00:14:05.920words that's where it gets complicated but in that he found a significant hundreds of millions of dollars
00:14:12.000targeted to towards marine planning well guess what marine planning is that's what led to a tanker ban
00:14:18.320that's what vetoed and killed northern gateway it was marine planning there's hundreds
00:14:22.480of millions of dollars spent on conservation initiatives creating things like the great bear
00:14:28.160rainforest well to my understanding you can't build a pipeline through the great bear rainforest
00:14:34.080so all of those things ring fenced alberta and served to land block it so that's you know
00:14:40.400again i just mentioned that because of the difficulty of tracing those funds but the fact is
00:14:45.760it doesn't matter if you're somebody who lost your job and was hurt by it you don't care if it was a
00:14:50.000hundred million dollars or ten billion dollars you lost your job you were harmed alberta was harmed
00:14:56.000we need to learn from their tactics and we need to to move forward and make sure it doesn't happen to
00:15:01.440the next resources of the future okay in terms of in terms of this being a nefarious any nefarious
00:15:10.560activity do you think that just in the general sense of that word that the fact that this he finds that
00:15:18.000this was an invisible campaign um that it was invisibly that was one of the goals of the campaign
00:15:23.440setting out the tar sands campaign to be invisible is that aspect of it in your mind was that nefarious
00:15:29.680on the part of the people organizing this effort i think if you go back to the original tar sands
00:15:35.040campaign document from 2008 it spells out the tactics it spells out the playbook all the characters
00:15:41.600and actors how they would build on their strength how there would be funding agencies how they would
00:15:46.800utilize it um we we see that and we saw how the strategy played out those funds came across the
00:15:53.760border extremely difficult to to trace they they moved to regranting organizations who then regranted
00:16:02.880out and it shifts from charity to charity from cause to cause from litigator to activist from communications
00:16:09.440to research it's all over the place and it's hard to trace and i think that was the the point of his
00:16:16.400recommendations around transparency and accountability and we're going to follow those we're going to
00:16:21.760do what we can to implement i think it's important it's not important only for alberta but it's important
00:16:28.080for all canadians because that is money that's crossing the border 15 billion dollars 2.5 billion almost
00:16:34.8002.5 billion dollars in 2018 that's money looking for a cause it's money that the commissioner has proven
00:16:42.000and documented has been used to influence domestic policy legislation regulations regulators laws
00:16:50.640regulatory process only canadians should have a say in that not foreign funded foundations
00:16:57.680worth billions of dollars in other countries
00:17:01.760thank you we'll take a question from the floor
00:17:04.480hi minister it's uh julia wong cpc news you're throwing some pretty big numbers out but really the
00:17:08.800report found it was 54 million dollars in foreign funding that was put towards these anti-alberta
00:17:14.160energy campaigns the report itself cost 3.5 million dollars the province's own war room budget is
00:17:20.880about 30 million dollars over four years so was this whole endeavor a mistake the 3.5 million dollars is
00:17:28.640money well spent it's a drop in the bucket compared to the billions of dollars that has been crossing the
00:17:34.400border under the guise of charity and the untraceable aspect of it and with respect to the 54 million
00:17:41.360dollars frankly i'm surprised and that's that any grant would blatantly say it's for an anti-alberta
00:17:50.160energy campaign i'm surprised that any money would cross the border being that blatant the fact is a
00:17:56.400lot of money crosses the border for other initiatives the most likely was the obvious one was the marine
00:18:02.400planning and that was in the hundreds of millions of dollars and specifically i can point to to one
00:18:08.240thing that was underway in around 2010 and it was to it was the start of the tanker ban it was called
00:18:14.400pencema the pencema initiative ocean planning and guess what there was money coming from the the more
00:18:20.560foundation almost 10 million dollars to set up and pay for that domestic process to do marine planning
00:18:27.040here in canada now that if that isn't anti-alberta uh if that isn't meant to stop stop the development
00:18:37.120of the oil sands there nothing is the way to cut that off was a tanker ban and that's what they got
00:18:42.320and it was paid for and funded out of these foreign foundations in the united states that should make
00:18:47.680albertans outraged i know it makes me outraged because again i go back and say where would we have been
00:18:53.600today if the northern gateway pipeline had been built we'd be supplying energy to the world in a
00:19:00.560global energy crisis instead now it's russia and saudi arabia and other countries that are doing that
00:19:07.360but worse those countries will take the wealth from doing that and they will use it to fund their
00:19:12.880energy future they will use it to get a strategic advantage over albertans and canadians to get ahead on
00:19:19.120hydrogen carbon capture technology and innovation we've been put at a competitive disadvantage because
00:19:25.840of these foreign funded campaigns and i'm not okay with it and i don't think albertans are okay with that
00:19:33.280minister i can't help but notice that you're standing here alone without the premier without
00:19:37.200steve allen you've had this report for several months i'm sure the schedules could have been arranged
00:19:41.200for everyone to be here this was the premier's campaign promise why is he hiding i don't believe the
00:19:46.880premier is hiding there's a lot of initiatives underway in the in the province today and a lot of
00:19:52.480important initiatives this is something that he's known has been near and dear to my heart i've spent
00:19:59.760practically my whole lifetime studying this and understanding this i lived through it when i worked
00:20:05.040in the energy sector i've stayed close to it every single day as the campaign's going through
00:20:11.200commissioner allen well he's completed the report his work is done
00:20:15.840he's letting his report stand it's 650 pages thoroughly researched documentation he's letting
00:20:22.960that stand it's an excellent report report and i think it should be required reading for albertans i
00:20:28.800would encourage everyone to read every single page of that report thank you we'll take a question from the
00:20:35.440the phone thank you graham thompson i politics yes minister just over a question you've been asked i
00:20:43.680think um several times of it just get it clear in my mind i'm quoting here from the allen report
00:20:50.880saying he has not found any suggestions of wrongdoing on a part of any individual or organization no
00:20:57.360individual organization in his view has done anything illegal indeed they have exercised their rights of free
00:21:04.480speech but you've spent two years three and a half million dollars investigating people and
00:21:10.480organizations who were simply exercising the rights of free speech according to allen so was it worth it
00:21:18.720in the sentiment you're thinking it was wrong maybe not illegal but you spent all this time and money
00:21:23.680investigating people who were doing legal activities exercising the rights of free speech
00:21:29.120well look the report was never meant to be something that would censure or impugn or punish it was never
00:21:36.080meant to be finding whether something was illegal or not frankly i don't care if the activity is legal or
00:21:43.840illegal it doesn't impact or detract from the fact that albertans were hurt people lost their jobs
00:21:50.640people lost their homes their investment their income the province has been set back at a competitive
00:21:56.160disadvantage the fact that it's uh whether it was legal or not was not part of the terms of reference
00:22:02.000we didn't ask him to find that and frankly it doesn't matter i think the report speaks for for itself
00:22:09.040and again if you wanted to ask an albertan who lost their job an albertan who was going to have a job
00:22:15.120working on a pipeline working on an energy project working in one of our oil and gas companies or a laborer
00:22:22.160that would have have good a good paying job if it was wrong that person i'm pretty sure would say
00:22:29.920it is wrong and they'd be outraged okay to follow up then what in this report would stop these
00:22:39.120individuals organizations from continuing to exercise their right to free speech look i don't think
00:22:46.080there's any any issue or concern with anybody exercising their right to to free speech and
00:22:51.600there's no doubt that many of these organizations and activists have genuine concerns for the for
00:22:57.040climate change in the environment that's a given but what's the problem here is the lack of
00:23:03.040transparency the lack of disclosure of foreign funding coming across the border and what it's used for
00:23:09.840where it came from i i think that's the problem and i think the other issue here is it's not a matter
00:23:16.880of freedom of speech or express or expression it's a matter of disclosure and transparency and i think
00:23:23.840the other key thing is the report found that these groups operated as business an industry under unto itself
00:23:31.360their job was collecting funds collecting grants using them for causes and we know that this is now
00:23:39.040it's money looking for a cause it's going to come after the next thing and we we can't let that
00:23:43.520happen because we need to be able to diversify in our province to be able to build the energy
00:23:49.760resources of the future whether it's hydrogen carbon capture small modular reactors critical and rare
00:23:55.760earth minerals we suspect and we predict they're coming after those things and i think this report
00:24:00.960is extremely important to show what happened in the past and to use that to learn from it and prevent
00:24:06.960it from happening in the future and the first thing the first recommendation is the most one of the
00:24:12.720most important ones because it asks for transparency and disclosure as i said in my speech those organizations
00:24:20.960could fix that today they could post the sources of their funds they could sort post what they use it
00:24:28.080for they could disclose it tomorrow just exactly like what they're asking public corporations to do to
00:24:35.200disclose their esg initiatives and climate risk they could do that themselves and that's what we're
00:24:39.920asking them to do thanks we'll take a question from the floor hi this is audrey never from french cbc
00:24:46.000um the report says that commissioner allen specifically can't parse out the effect of
00:24:50.400environmental campaigns hampering the oil industry from the impact of the general reduction in the demand for
00:24:57.600oil and gas so how fair is it to blame environmentalists for the loss of jobs in the oil industry industry
00:25:04.640when we know that it is inherently a cycle of up and downs well i think as you can see in the report the
00:25:12.720the commissioner could not conclude that the campaigns were the sole cause of project cancellations
00:25:19.280pipeline cancellations pipeline vetoes and i think he's documented that the estimate of those project
00:25:25.520cancellations was between 100 billion dollars and 129 billion dollars he can't point in a public
00:25:32.800inquiry in quasi-judicial proceedings with a certainty of proof that those campaigns were the sole cause
00:25:39.440we know that market factors are a play but what we can't we can't deny is those environmental
00:25:46.800organizations celebrated they celebrated when all those projects were were killed or vetoed or canceling
00:25:53.280canceled and they boasted that it was their work that canceled them and people lost their jobs and
00:26:00.000just in the last few days as we see quebec quebec is banning the development of their natural resources
00:26:06.400i saw this morning an environmental organization tweeting and taking credit for it saying it took years
00:26:12.880of work to get to that point years of work and now and they say we we want other provinces to do the
00:26:18.880same as quebec we don't know if that organization receives foreign funding the problem is it's not
00:26:24.640there's not transparency and the problem is it's less transparent today than it was five years ago
00:26:30.800because they know that that that we're we're onto them that we're tracking it we're tracing it we're
00:26:37.120trying to understand where their money they've become more more um there's been less transparency
00:26:44.640so those those groups take credit for it and i think uh all you have to do is take one look at
00:26:52.000what happened to northern gateway pipeline i saw that i experienced it from day one as they stacked the
00:26:58.320regulatory proceedings with a mob the mic process as they litigated when they didn't like the result
00:27:05.200they had activists i had a colleague that got uh molasses dumped on them to to to replicate an oil spell
00:27:13.600these groups were real they targeted they celebrated it when the projects were cancelled
00:27:19.840and i'm pretty convinced that they they're not the sole cause they're a pretty darn big cause of
00:27:26.000what happened to all our energy projects in alberta um as a follow-up going forward what plans does
00:27:33.040your government have to amend legislation to ensure that non-profits um disclose their funds for
00:27:40.160example or just amend legislation to um reach the goals that you've stated just there and how does
00:27:46.480that align with your government's stated goal of cutting red tape for organizations that's an excellent
00:27:51.520question um there's a lot of recommendations in there about uh amendments to the societies act
00:27:57.760and there's work underway we're taking a look at all those recommendations and comparing it to our
00:28:02.160legislation so that work is is underway and uh you know what if it's if if something were to be amended
00:28:10.240that added red tape to save billions of dollars for the province and to save the energy sources of the
00:28:16.320future i think that's not something that people would be too offended offended about now the other
00:28:21.920thing that's important there is not only legislation in alberta but federal legislation for the most part
00:28:28.160a lot of these disclosure uh requirements are in the federal legislation so we're going to continue
00:28:34.720to advocate and to push the federal government for those types of disclosure disclosure laws a number
00:28:41.280number of work was underway uh previously um under the the previous conservative government to amend that
00:28:48.640legislation that work was stopped when the trudeau government came came in and incidentally when you
00:28:54.320look through that report and you want to start looking through the uh the deloitte report you're
00:28:59.200going to find that the uh organizations that were found to have participated in the campaign because
00:29:05.200the the number of angle organizations in canada um the the federal government funding to those exact same
00:29:12.960organizations increased by something like 798 percent after 2015. so we we're in a situation now where we have
00:29:21.920the federal government funding those organizations that are targeting alberta alberta energy projects
00:29:28.800along with uh multi-billion dollar foreign funding that needs to be looked at and that needs to be
00:29:34.240considered as well thanks we'll just take another call a question from both phone lines thank you alex
00:29:42.000mcquake western producer uh thanks for taking my call uh we've been hearing from ranchers and farmers who are
00:29:48.160supportive of the oil and gas industry and are politically conservative who are frustrated with
00:29:52.480the unilateral cutting of lease payments and the environmental impact of oil and gas infrastructure
00:29:57.520on their land this report talks about transparency and accountability for those opposing hydrocarbon
00:30:03.760extraction in the province we support the same level of transparency and accountability with
00:30:08.880multinational corporations not looking up to their contractual obligations affecting alberta's ranchers and
00:30:15.440farmers how will you demonstrate that sure i've spent a considerable amount of time over the summers
00:30:22.320talking to farmers and landowner groups and as some as some of you know i grew up in a rural area
00:30:29.280where there's gas development and there's some of these old inactive wells there and there's a
00:30:35.120landowner group that's out there that i spent considerable amount of time with trying to understand the
00:30:39.760situation and it's absolutely unacceptable that if and when oil and gas companies aren't paying the full
00:30:46.640lease payment to uh to farmers farmers have the wells the the infrastructure on their property they've
00:30:53.280signed a contract for it these oil and gas companies need to need to pay the the uh the surface right
00:31:00.240holders in full and uh we're we're taking some steps to to take a look at the surface rights act to to
00:31:07.360make sure it's being complied with specifically section 27 of that act and how these uh energy
00:31:13.680companies are dealing with the the ranchers it's a problem i'm aware of it we're addressing it
00:31:20.160will you commit to launching an investigation into the costs associated with the impact of multinational
00:31:25.760uh oil and gas companies not living up to their obligations for those in the province or for those
00:31:30.720in the province's uh agricultural sector we're actually regulating it under the aer we have the
00:31:36.800authority and the regulations to require them to do things we've taken steps inside the aer with our
00:31:43.680liability management framework to ensure that the the timely cleanup of oil and gas wells that there's
00:31:50.480mandatory inventory reduction and i'd like to point out there's very few uh oil and gas companies that
00:31:56.800aren't meeting up to their commitments in fact there's some that are exceeding it brilliantly
00:32:02.720just recently i i saw an esg presentation by one oil and gas company that has a lot of inactive
00:32:10.000inventory and they're committed to getting to zero by 2040 and by that i mean to have all of their
00:32:16.720environmental liabilities inactive and old oil and gas wells completely cleaned up by 2040 that's going
00:32:23.440to require a significant amount of spend but they're committed to do it and i want to want to go out
00:32:28.480and start challenging all the oil and gas companies to meet that to meet that target and to meet that
00:32:34.240challenge i think it's important i think we've heard enough from alberta ranchers and that that this
00:32:41.200needs to be addressed thanks we'll take the last question from the floor uh katherine grukowski with alberta
00:32:47.520today um so you described these uh environmental organizations as being well funded but at the
00:32:53.760same time 54 million compared to the multiple billions in pr uh it seems like it's more of a
00:33:00.080david and goliath story at the same time i'm looking through this report and it says the canadian energy
00:33:05.840center the attempt to tell alberta's story it um it is quote uh it may well be that the reputation
00:33:14.800of this entity is damaged beyond repair it says that the crown corporation is seriously compromised by
00:33:22.080having provincial cabinet ministers sit on the board so how has this fight back strategy actually helped
00:33:28.480it looks like there's a lot of harm and second question how will you be changing tactics as a
00:33:34.720result of the findings in this report okay i guess there's a lot of questions there the first one was
00:33:39.360it goes back to the uh the confusing numbers and trying to understand and as i said yes they they
00:33:45.360are confusing a great deal of time needs to be spent to understand it but that number of 54 million does
00:33:52.160not even touch the tip of the iceberg of the funds that were coming in um that was funds and and money
00:33:58.560that was specifically worded blatantly worded to to be targeting alberta's oil and gas development
00:34:07.040hundreds of millions of dollars came came came in and across the border to target marine marine planning
00:34:13.200conservation initiatives public relations and it addresses what that these concerns about uh the
00:34:20.240difficulty tracing and tracking the money address the number one recommendation from the report report
00:34:26.240that we need accountability transparency we need disclosure and uh so i think that that attracts it with with
00:34:33.520respect to the canadian energy center well it's it's transitioned now beyond its early days when there
00:34:40.560was a lot of concerns raised and it's been doing some really good research and advocacy as of late it's
00:34:46.640published a number of very detailed good significant research and their latest campaign in new york city
00:34:54.240uh has reached over 12 million people that's the campaign to talk about friendly energy canadian energy
00:35:03.280cleaner closer committed to net zero the canadian energy center is being is aligned with esg initiatives
00:35:10.320to get that message out and we'll continue to work with it to to make sure it builds upon these recent
00:35:16.960successes and i think one of the things that we can take away from the report i think your third question
00:35:22.160was about what we can do with those findings is to learn from their tactics what the report said is
00:35:28.000that the environmental organizations were collaborative they worked extremely close with each other they
00:35:34.480understood their strengths and weaknesses they understood who did best and they collaborated
00:35:40.000whereas the the pro resource uh whether it's industry associations think tanks companies uh they worked in
00:35:47.360silos and they they often competed well that's that's uh the remaining uh many of the remaining uh
00:35:54.800recommendations in the commissioner's report address that and address how can we get the pro energy
00:36:02.080groups to work more collaboratively and i think there's a role in the canadian energy center to use
00:36:07.280their research and their their uh their research and their ability to have traditional ad campaigns and reach
00:36:15.680targets and markets in new york city to work with those groups so that they all are deploying their best
00:36:22.480skills and they can they can work collaboratively and i'm committed to to uh to doing more in that area
00:36:28.640and making sure that we can learn a little bit from the playbook of the angles they've executed their
00:36:34.240strategy brilliantly we can do the same to protect our energy resources of the future
00:36:39.200the future okay we'll uh shift to the phones tom ross 660 news
00:36:51.120i'm just trying to find my question here sorry um i guess more on on the canadian energy center
00:36:58.800how can you still stand by it though when you know that it just hasn't been working at this point and
00:37:04.240and and even the the report itself um steve allen says that labeling the the campaigns as anti-alberta
00:37:11.760or anti-albertan is not helpful or constructive why are you still referring to things as anti-alberta
00:37:17.840well i think l anti-alberta was given a definition in the terms of reference for the commissioner it was
00:37:23.600giving given a very specific definition and it it meant uh campaigns that targeted uh that were meant to
00:37:32.240frustrate or delay oil and gas resources here in alberta that's the definition of anti anti-alberta
00:37:38.880it's meant to target our number one industry and our resources so i i wouldn't get too too overly
00:37:47.360excited about the word anti-alberta that can be a distraction and we've learned and we're well aware
00:37:54.320of how some of these environmental organizations work to discredit things and i think that's that's an
00:38:00.720area where this has happened happening with the canadian energy center as i said it's uh it's long
00:38:06.960overcome some of its initial growing pains it's changing it's adapting it's adapting to uh the
00:38:13.520new reality where we're where esg initiatives are are more important than ever before it's adapting
00:38:19.920to uh the reality of a world where uh uh energy sources and the world is seeking uh energy slow
00:38:26.320sources with lower lower emissions it's adapting to that and it's using it's it's using its strengths
00:38:32.800which are in the research area and ability to reach target markets like new york city with
00:38:38.800traditional ad campaigns and that work will can will continue and i think what we can learn from the
00:38:45.040findings of the report is that we need an organization like that more than ever because
00:38:51.520we we understand we now know the sophistication of how some of these campaigns are operated so we need
00:38:58.560to use we need to understand that and move forward and uh you know i think the the canadian energy center
00:39:05.040is adapting to those those areas and it's it's it's achieved quite a bit of success lately with some of
00:39:10.400its research and advocacy did you have a follow-up we've lost our phone connection okay um well let's uh
00:39:22.160we've lost the phone connection okay do we have anybody else on the line okay just hold for a sec