Western Standard - Canadians for affordable energy

00:00:00.000 So, hey, Dan, good to see you again.

00:00:02.000 Corey, it's always a pleasure. Just what a day.

00:00:04.880 Oh, boy. Yeah. Well, for a person with your specialty,

00:00:07.820 some of the commenters have already been looking forward to seeing you.

00:00:10.140 I mean, you've been outspoken on energy issues and consumer issues for a long time.

00:00:14.540 And as I kind of said, now's the period where it's a mixed blessing, 0.74

00:00:18.220 where you can say, I told you so.

00:00:19.940 I mean, you've been shouting this from the rooftops for a long time,

00:00:22.380 and now it's really come home to roost, hasn't it?

00:00:24.400 Well, you know, I live here in Eastern Canada in Oakville.

00:00:26.500 It's nice to be able to finally look at my neighbors and say, you believe me now?

00:00:32.220 What did it take? $1.85 a liter?

00:00:34.600 Heading to $2 a liter before, you know, you finally woke up?

00:00:39.040 My kids say it's a little bit like shaking someone's head and hearing the rattle here.

00:00:43.420 There's a little less of that now, thankfully.

00:00:46.320 So, I mean, you know, something you didn't see, I'm sure, not many of us.

00:00:50.480 I mean, we saw the lack of local energy security,

00:00:53.180 and we've been kind of throttling our local production abilities

00:00:56.180 and transportation abilities for oil and gas.

00:00:59.960 But we didn't anticipate the Ukraine-Russia war to really take it

00:01:03.420 and exacerbate it so quickly like this.

00:01:06.060 We're in kind of a lot of trouble across the country.

00:01:08.020 This, you know, on top of the inflation from a lot of other factors,

00:01:10.940 we're in for a rough ride, I imagine.

00:01:13.380 Well, look, denying your own resources and your ability to help stabilize the world

00:01:17.860 after, what, 30, 40 years of being subject to the vagaries of inflation

00:01:22.680 and OPEC should have waken people up to the reality that the hard-fought move

00:01:28.000 in the mid-20s, 2003 to 2010, both to increase Canada's oil capacity

00:01:35.140 and the U.S. fracking, wasn't done out of, you know,

00:01:39.320 out of the goodness of our hearts or because we were bored.

00:01:42.360 It was done because the alternative was that we were on our knees and, you know,

00:01:47.680 at the beck and call of those who had oil and those who had hydrocarbons.

00:01:52.520 The fact that we got there only to find a generation of people now saying,

00:01:58.700 times are good, you know, money's easy, we got all our fat pensions,

00:02:03.140 we got all of our roads paid for and all our hospitals paid for, not really,

00:02:06.780 but, you know, I think we've taken for granted the very thing that gave Canada

00:02:12.800 a substantial boost in its prosperity over the past 20 to 25 years.

00:02:18.260 And we've looked a gift horse in the mouth by saying, hey,

00:02:21.420 who gives a damn that we can raise $25 net billion from the oil and gas sector

00:02:26.140 that pays for our hospitals, that pays for education, that pays for our roads,

00:02:29.340 and it doesn't matter where you are in this country.

00:02:31.160 I think what's happened now, Corey, is that this is a little bit like dumping

00:02:35.380 a, you know, a coal pail of water on everyone's head and making them stand up

00:02:40.300 and realize, hey, you can't take these things for granted.

00:02:43.240 You got Russia laughing.

00:02:44.800 You got the United States embarrassingly going on Bendini to Iran and to Venezuela,

00:02:49.460 two countries with great environmental track records, great human rights records.

00:02:54.600 Now we're saying, oh, can we get a bit of oil, please?

00:02:57.060 Because we were too busy shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline.

00:02:59.500 I spent a lot of time working with media in the United States in my previous job at GasBuddy,

00:03:04.720 and it's amazing.

00:03:06.380 They could not see what was happening in Canada, the deconstruction, the attack,

00:03:11.180 the activism, the foreign-funded groups that were destroying our oil and gas sector

00:03:15.740 while Canadians sat back and lived high on the hog. 0.58

00:03:18.800 The Americans didn't believe this was going to happen.

00:03:20.880 Well, now reality is beginning to bite, and they're having none of it.

00:03:25.660 Unlike many Canadians who have realized far after it's too late, America's actually preemptively

00:03:31.520 saying to Mr. Biden, you and your Congress, you and your Democratic friends over in the

00:03:36.260 House of Representatives, get ready, because we're going to put you on the 30-yard line,

00:03:39.420 and we're going to punt you right through the end zone. 1.00

00:03:41.020 Yeah, they've got some midterms coming up that they're not looking very good for right

00:03:45.060 now, and nothing sours political support faster than hitting everybody in the pocketbook just

00:03:49.560 before the election.

00:03:51.080 But they don't seem to be showing, like, what I'm wondering, are we going to learn?

00:03:53.900 And I mean we in general, not to mention that the government's learning from this.

00:03:57.460 Like, Biden, as you said, is going and groveling to Saudi Arabia, but he's never uttered a

00:04:01.840 peep on even considering increasing Canadian supply.

00:04:04.420 We're right on his doorstep, and he just absolutely will not consider that as an alternative.

00:04:08.480 No, no, because they're beholden to the green grifters who have been having a good run of 1.00

00:04:14.740 his party.

00:04:15.700 I mean, there's actually some people I speak to, many of my friends in America say they

00:04:19.800 didn't like Trump, but it was sure a heck of a lot better back then than it is now.

00:04:24.180 Look, you limit your options when you forget the recent history of your country, and Americans 0.96

00:04:30.100 have to be able to understand that their place in the world, and global security goes hand

00:04:36.040 in hand with energy security, the extent to which you compromise that, you play games

00:04:40.540 with that, you'll learn the lesson the Europeans are learning. 0.73

00:04:43.800 Even Boris Johnson today knows that his net zero fantasies have been blown to smithereens.

00:04:48.340 Like it or not, they've got to frack.

00:04:51.180 Like it or not, they've got to build nuclear.

00:04:53.380 Like it or not, they've got to accept that oil is still very much a part of the foreseeable

00:04:57.360 future for the next 50 to 60 years.

00:04:59.380 So all these ideas of, you know, this political demagoguery of, you know, we have to have

00:05:04.200 net zero by a certain period of time, we have to get rid of, you know, internal combustion

00:05:07.480 engines.

00:05:08.560 That is now very seriously being challenged, and not by folks like me or you.

00:05:13.540 When Elon Musk says you've got to make more oil, it kind of makes it a little interesting

00:05:16.620 for the greenies to go out and say that, you know, it's all about climate, we have to

00:05:20.140 get rid of these things.

00:05:21.500 No one on the right mind wants to go down that road.

00:05:23.260 So I think we have to have policies in this country based on reality, not stuff of, you

00:05:28.440 know, magic and make-believe and a narrative that I think has been, you know, has led us

00:05:32.740 to this point where demagogues and very, you know, unsavory dictators like Vladimir Putin

00:05:38.440 and like, you know, Maduro and others hold the balance of power by holding the energy which

00:05:45.440 we currently have.

00:05:47.140 Well, so I mean, are we seeing any rumblings of reality coming from the East? 0.92

00:05:51.020 Now, I know for Energy East, for example, it wouldn't help us right now unless it was

00:05:54.500 already in the ground of producing.

00:05:56.120 Are we finally starting to set our sights farther down the road?

00:05:59.460 Like, we understand that, you know, it would take years to get some sort of good energy

00:06:04.320 corridor going, you know, connecting the country east to west, but can't we get started on

00:06:09.460 this thing realistically, not regulating it to death, not trying to throttle it?

00:06:13.320 And we're not seeing any of that discussion starting either, though.

00:06:15.320 Well, you know, the damage is there, isn't it?

00:06:17.080 But then the main line, which is Energy East, is already built to Ontario.

00:06:20.200 And I said to people, it was two-thirds built. 0.88

00:06:23.640 You sat around, you farted around, you did your nonsense. 0.61

00:06:27.700 And you did the same thing for, you know, for Trans Mountain Pipeline.

00:06:31.180 You wound up costing the taxpayer tens of billions of dollars that could otherwise go to,

00:06:36.000 I don't know, programs that would help Canadians, especially in difficult circumstances.

00:06:40.140 Instead, our virtue signaling, our desire to ignore reality, our desire to wish away that

00:06:47.860 which is obvious, a little bit like the governments are taking the view that, you know, the sun

00:06:51.940 rises in the west and settles in the east.

00:06:53.820 I mean, if we want to be a bunch of flat earthers about this, that's fine.

00:06:57.180 But perhaps you want to choose another job rather than leading a country, because what you've

00:07:00.560 done here is led the country down a very dangerous path.

00:07:02.800 It can't pay back its bills.

00:07:04.740 It's not attracting capital.

00:07:06.780 It's incapable of maintaining its economic growth at a time in which prices have risen

00:07:13.060 60 cents a litre just in the past, you know, two months alone.

00:07:17.300 I don't see how we're going to get out of this unless someone finally has the gumption 1.00

00:07:21.020 to stand up and say, it's pipelines, stupid. 1.00

00:07:25.600 It really is. 1.00

00:07:26.740 And that's what it's coming down to.

00:07:27.980 Yeah, I mean, there's no single item really of any kind of good we can point to that raises

00:07:33.300 every single aspect of our standard or cost of living aside from energy.

00:07:37.700 I mean, that one's a, you know, when it goes up, everything goes up.

00:07:40.440 We can't avoid that.

00:07:41.460 I mean, we're just, like I said, seeing the first tastes of the inflation.

00:07:45.640 Once trucking companies, farmers, of course, producers, we're going to be in a great deal

00:07:50.740 of trouble once those prices come all the way down to the consumer level.

00:07:54.640 Trans Mountain, there's another one, as you said.

00:07:56.280 They bought it because they'd cornered the company and pushed it too far, but that thing's

00:08:00.740 been stalled.

00:08:01.660 I mean, they keep saying it's under construction, but it should have been done a while ago.

00:08:05.220 And from what I can hear, it's funny.

00:08:06.740 They got a cone of silence on it too.

00:08:07.960 I can't get any workers to talk to us.

00:08:09.740 They'll be fired for even considering talking to us.

00:08:12.360 That thing isn't moving.

00:08:13.320 It's not going anywhere.

00:08:15.440 Again, shouldn't we see some movement to expedite it?

00:08:17.480 I mean, that won't help with domestic supply, but it'll bring in some income because we've maxed

00:08:21.120 out our export capabilities and we could pay for, as you said, hospitals and all

00:08:24.520 the other things people want.

00:08:26.160 Let me make it really easy for people that are listening in here, Corey.

00:08:29.860 If you open one pipeline, say the Trans Mountain expansion was open tonight, that $0.28 discount

00:08:37.980 the Canadian dollar is getting versus the U.S. greenback is contributing to the inflation

00:08:43.220 of everything we have.

00:08:44.560 Open up a pipeline and you'd go back to the good old days of 2010, 2008, 2014, where the

00:08:50.860 Canadian dollar was trading on par, sometimes stronger than the U.S. greenback.

00:08:56.320 Let me put it in very simple perspectives.

00:08:58.100 You'd be saving $0.28 a litre on the price of gasoline.

00:09:01.040 You'd be paying $0.28 in what you're paying today.

00:09:04.260 No amount of taxation, removal, or anything can do what that once did.

00:09:07.960 We have sacrificed our status as a petroleum-producing country capable of sending our products that

00:09:14.800 are desperately needed to a world that is lined up to say the most ethical nation that produces

00:09:19.840 energy is, in fact, Canada.

00:09:21.800 And you don't just do it.

00:09:22.700 You have the best practices for it.

00:09:24.560 And despite the negativity and the disinformation, that alone would save every person driving a

00:09:31.760 car today $0.27 a litre.

00:09:35.780 Now, think about it.

00:09:37.040 You multiply that by your Dodge Caravan, which takes 70 litres.

00:09:41.440 Now, that's a $15 savings right from the get-go every single week.

00:09:47.560 What would that mean over the year?

00:09:49.100 A savings of $1,500 to $1,800.

00:09:52.200 Corey, this is a no-brainer, but obviously some people are conflicted with it.

00:09:56.020 And it seems to me that if we don't want to build pipelines in this country, then be prepared

00:10:00.500 to accept a decrease in your standard of living because you have voted for it, especially

00:10:04.380 the folks around here in Eastern Ontario and in the GTA and around Toronto.

00:10:09.740 It's a bitter harvest we're about to indulge in.

00:10:13.200 And for that reason, it's not just gasoline.

00:10:15.560 It's not just diesel.

00:10:16.680 It's the price of everything, most notably food, where we can't, there's no room for argument

00:10:20.760 or there's no room for debate.

00:10:22.360 Yeah, well, and the reality check is definitely here.

00:10:25.720 I just, I wish I could hear more rumblings of voices like yours with people saying, well,

00:10:29.460 okay, this is where we're at.

00:10:30.820 This is how we got to get out of it.

00:10:32.580 This is what we could do to ease it.

00:10:34.280 And I'm not seeing that discussion yet.

00:10:35.960 And it really worries me.

00:10:37.860 Even from the, if we want to play the, well, we want to be good world players and help the

00:10:41.940 world and be selfless.

00:10:43.160 Well, the best way we could do that is getting good, clean, liquid, natural gas to these

00:10:47.600 countries that are suffering in this energy crisis right now, or getting good ethically

00:10:51.240 sourced Canadian oil products out to them.

00:10:53.920 And again, we, we aren't allowing any coastal access.

00:10:56.620 These things are all choked up.

00:10:58.600 They are, and it's a deliberate policy.

00:11:00.760 And I know that people don't like it, but I got to tell you, Corey, it's a little easier

00:11:06.020 to make that argument now than it was two months ago.

00:11:08.260 You know, the old expression, Tennyson, was it, to hear the truth, you've spoken twisted 0.97

00:11:13.420 by days to make a trap for fools seems to ring very, very true here.

00:11:17.900 I think we're getting more people listening and those who don't listen, those who think 0.95

00:11:21.860 that they control the message, well, pox on their doors, but they're going to become increasingly

00:11:26.760 irrelevant.

00:11:28.140 And I would challenge, of course, my friends who I've worked with for 30 years in the mainstream

00:11:32.460 media, good luck with continuing to try to suppress it.

00:11:35.700 I had a CBC talk show host try to do that to me last week.

00:11:39.020 Oh, there's nothing clean about oil.

00:11:40.760 And I said to him, I reminded him, name a single project in this country that can be built without

00:11:44.560 it.

00:11:44.700 Name a single EV that can be built without it.

00:11:46.980 Name to me any windmill or any photovoltaic, any solar panel that can be built without it.

00:11:52.460 The fact of the matter is, and even Elon Musk recognizes this, oil may not be what you

00:11:57.900 want it to be.

00:11:58.860 But at the end of all of this, it's the main reason why we prosper as a country.

00:12:02.620 And we are moving ahead in a very clean way as a civilization.

00:12:06.520 And that's probably bad news to the bad news green bears out there.

00:12:11.900 Well, and just one final question.

00:12:13.460 It's from a commenter, Peter LaFontaine says, you know, can Dan comment on the green saying

00:12:17.380 this is why we need to accelerate the expense of renewables?

00:12:19.740 And I'm hearing that from some others.

00:12:20.720 They're saying, well, this is actually evidence that we need to move harder on windmills and

00:12:23.980 we need more solar and more, I don't know, goat power or whatever we're supposed to do.

00:12:30.640 But they're actually taking that tact rather than recognizing that maybe we need these

00:12:34.560 petrochemicals right now.

00:12:35.620 Yeah.

00:12:35.900 They got it spectacularly wrong.

00:12:37.200 And now they want to do even more.

00:12:38.600 Look, I think the fanaticism has to end.

00:12:41.560 And sooner or later, they have to give their heads a shake because, frankly, they got it

00:12:45.640 wrong, spectacularly wrong and dangerously wrong.

00:12:48.200 And they've made the world a far more dangerous place.

00:12:50.800 And they've created two problems, which is greater than their climate emergency or climate

00:12:54.800 crisis.

00:12:55.680 We have an energy crisis, a real one that's hurting people.

00:12:58.840 And we have now a global security crisis.

00:13:01.180 That's something that has never been discussed.

00:13:03.680 You know what, folks?

00:13:04.540 You've had a two for one shot and you lost.

00:13:06.680 It's time to pack up and go.

00:13:07.860 Well, I really appreciate that.

00:13:11.260 And I know you're going to be in for a busy week and you already have been as people keep

00:13:15.220 calling back.

00:13:15.760 Jeez, Dan, you were right.

00:13:17.760 So I, you know, but the discussion is not over, as we said, you know, we really got to

00:13:22.380 make sure, OK, people realize there's a problem, but we've got to make sure they realize where

00:13:25.680 the solution is, too.

00:13:26.980 So the work isn't done.

00:13:28.960 And I appreciate you always speaking out in that front.

00:13:31.500 You're the only among the few liberal, former liberal member of parliament that I enjoy

00:13:37.100 talking to you.

00:13:38.000 We'll have a few more.

00:13:38.840 Watch.

00:13:39.180 The day is young, Corey.

00:13:40.240 Oh, there's some out there.

00:13:41.280 I know that.

00:13:42.000 And I appreciate it.

00:13:42.960 I was one of the young ones 20 years, 30 years ago.

00:13:45.080 So some of them are a little maximum, but there's a change.

00:13:48.300 The change is afoot.

00:13:49.580 So where can people keep up with what you're doing, Dan, and find out more about you?

00:13:53.620 Sure.

00:13:54.240 I run affordableenergy.ca.

00:13:56.920 The site often has blogs and this kind of information that gives people a bit of a heads

00:14:01.340 up in terms of what's on my mind.

00:14:03.500 I've been a little busy of late, so you haven't seen as many.

00:14:06.700 Also go to gaswizard.ca.

00:14:08.720 I don't just talk about energy and say it's wrong or right or it's expensive.

00:14:13.900 I actually try to do something about it by predicting those prices a few days ahead.

00:14:17.160 So try to go there.

00:14:18.360 I'll try to save you a few bucks.

00:14:19.560 And maybe along the way, this current form of the Liberal Party will do what I did, which

00:14:25.700 was to give two energy rebates and maybe some help to Canadians rather than finding cute,

00:14:29.740 trendy ways to, as it were, fleece them.

00:14:33.120 Excellent.

00:14:33.780 Well, thanks again, Dan.

00:14:35.000 Always a pleasure talking to you and keep up that good work.

00:14:38.460 You bet.

00:14:38.960 Take care.

00:14:39.540 Bye, Kerry.

00:14:40.240 All right, bye.

00:14:40.620 Bye, everything.

00:14:51.040 Bye, no.

00:14:52.960 Bye, guys.

00:14:53.300 Bye, guys.

00:14:57.580 Bye, guys.

00:14:58.080 Bye, guys.

00:14:58.500 Bye, guys.

00:14:59.000 Bye, guys.

00:15:01.460 Bye.

00:15:04.540 Bye, guys.

00:15:06.280 Bye, guys.

Western Standard - March 07, 2022

Canadians for affordable energy

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