Western Standard - Carney comes a-courting Alberta but it's all flirt, no commitment

00:00:00.000 Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show.

00:00:21.280 It is Thursday, February the 19th. Our guest tonight is Erika Baroutes.

00:00:26.520 are subject whether Ottawa intentionally sets up Alberta to fail for readily observable partisan

00:00:33.720 goals. Ms. Barutes is no stranger to the program. She is the department head of applied politics and 0.91

00:00:40.300 public affairs at Macamie College, an Alberta senator-elect, the founding president of the

00:00:46.580 United Conservative Party. And I think it's fair to say that when you call the premier's office,

00:00:51.080 you get a call back right i would sure hope so erica welcome to the show

00:01:00.680 thank you for having me tonight we're exploring a crazy wild-eyed proposition that makes every

00:01:06.040 everything that makes life hard in alberta starts in ottawa three things one there's the pipeline

00:01:11.720 upon which so many revenue hopes are riding but which because of ottawa's demand for green

00:01:17.400 conditions may never get built. Secondly, there's the impossible Ottawa demand that by 2050,

00:01:23.460 Alberta must have a net neutral energy grid. Impossible because of the third thing,

00:01:29.360 population growth driven by Ottawa. It was challenging enough when there were three

00:01:34.280 million Albertas, which is what the population here was only five years ago, in July 2000.

00:01:41.120 Check it out with Statistics Canada. Now there are more than five million people living here.

00:01:47.400 That's the insane population growth that Premier Smith is talking about now, and it's

00:01:53.720 not slowing down.

00:01:55.240 You see the effects in schools, in the health services, you might even see it soon with

00:01:59.820 energy security providing power for an extra two million people in five years when you're

00:02:05.580 looking at 10 years to get approvals to even start building something is incredible.

00:02:10.800 So we're going to talk about that.

00:02:13.540 meanwhile, we have a globalist prime minister who wants to cut ties with America, Alberta's

00:02:18.080 biggest customer. He's a proponent of global financial cooperation, climate-focused finance

00:02:24.060 reform. Economically, he's a Keynesian, and there's no problem borrowing money, and he's a liberal,

00:02:30.400 and Alberta is almost 100% conservative. I think we've got plenty to talk about. But Erica,

00:02:36.000 before we get into that. Matt Jenneru crossed the floor yesterday. Now, I think you've got

00:02:44.260 some history with Mr. Jenneru, do you not? I do. So I'm not going to call it crossing the floor.

00:02:52.020 I'm going to call it unresigning his resign seat that he talked about in November. So he was not

00:02:58.460 only crossing a floor to the Liberals, a party that has never been elected in Edmonton Riverbend,

00:03:05.180 but also that he like undid his resignation that he put out in November stating that he wanted to

00:03:12.900 spend and focus more time on his family. Maybe his family was like no we're good you just go back and

00:03:18.720 then he decided you know what's what what else could I do as a dumpster fire oh I'll just cross

00:03:23.800 to the liberals. So my history with him is actually Matt Jenneru his wife and I actually all worked

00:03:29.660 together at the legislature in, I think, 2011. He then ran as an MLA for part of the riding in

00:03:36.660 which he now represents as an MP. Under the Progressive Conservative Party, he's been

00:03:42.860 a attendee or supporter of the UCP during my time as president, and then has been a member

00:03:50.920 of parliament for the Conservative Party of Canada. So I've known Matt for a long time.

00:03:56.680 The sad thing is, am I surprised he would do something like this?

00:03:59.160 And the answer is no.

00:04:00.460 But I generally just feel very bad for his constituents because this is not what they elected him to do.

00:04:08.440 And he is just, you know, fanboying over Mark Carney and hoping for a better role than he was going to have in Pierre's government.

00:04:17.120 Well, that's.

00:04:19.440 That's all my feelings there.

00:04:21.200 But, yeah, I did work with him.

00:04:22.600 i'm not surprised that he did this which is also a sad thing to say now okay we were pretty hard

00:04:29.200 on him yesterday here at western standard uh or maybe i was and but at any rate why should we

00:04:37.240 be hard on him

00:04:38.440 well i just i think this is you know one i wish that if someone wanted to cross the floor they've

00:04:47.460 got to sit in as an independent or a by-election is struck. He alluded to having a by-election

00:04:53.340 into stepping down in two months from now and then retracted that because he got a maybe shiny

00:04:58.400 new offer. Or perhaps he thought that maybe his skeletons weren't going to come out of the closet

00:05:03.160 and it was safe to cross the floor now versus November. Who knows? But I do think it's just a

00:05:09.180 very sad thing for democracy. It's a very sad thing for the people of Edmonton Riverbend. There

00:05:14.560 was interest by both the liberals and the conservatives to have a true by-election which

00:05:19.480 matt committed to and then revoked when he felt it was opportunistic for him to do so

00:05:24.560 you just were used the magic word skeletons come on you can't just leave us hanging i'm not getting

00:05:31.220 into that that's not my story i i just think everyone has skeletons and i think that there was

00:05:40.040 you know some some apprehension that matt generu didn't cross the floor under in november

00:05:46.300 and now why why did that change either you know his family was like we he doesn't even live here

00:05:53.280 anymore his family lives in vancouver or in bc so i don't know how he's going to be an mp here but

00:05:58.500 i guess that's not totally a skeleton but that is interesting look good well i'm not i'm not

00:06:04.680 given hot goss here i mean there's people can go look into it if they want exactly would you think

00:06:11.220 he actually ever was what we would call a real conservative in the harper style or the poly air

00:06:16.380 style i i don't know i think that he has been maybe more of a progressive conservative but he

00:06:26.320 did run under many different leaders he ran under pierre so you know i find his um comments

00:06:34.540 that like this isn't a leader i was hoping for when he's known pierre his entire political history

00:06:41.900 pierre has been consistent with who he is so i think it's just a cop out to say that you no

00:06:46.700 longer support the direction of the of the leader i think it was more what's in matt jennery's best

00:06:52.940 interest versus what is in the best interest of his constituents um and albertans and unfortunately

00:07:00.220 I think that I can believe by his character but because you know I was I was a staffer with him

00:07:08.140 I remember doing some cabinet tours with him and and his wife planning that back in the day and

00:07:14.520 he then ran um and and I think he I thought he was actually a pretty good MLA uh under under

00:07:23.020 the progressive conservatives is he has he done a lot for Edmonton Riverbend I mean that's up to

00:07:28.180 them. They did re-elect him, but they re-elected him under a very different

00:07:31.240 situation than I think what they're getting now.

00:07:36.400 Okay, well, I guess we'll leave Mr. Jenneru to pay taxes in British Columbia on his family home,

00:07:42.920 at least, and move right off. Better off here, notwithstanding the troubles we have. And it's

00:07:49.560 the troubles we have in Alberta, Erica, that we really want to turn our attention now.

00:07:54.320 So you heard the preamble. There's all these things that seem to be stacked up, making it hard for Alberta to do what Alberta wants to do, under the leadership of Premier Smith.

00:08:07.320 I'm not sure that it makes that much difference who is Premier of Alberta.

00:08:13.740 It didn't seem to do so when it was Rachel Notley in power.

00:08:18.280 The Liberal government, and I'm calling it the Liberal government, including the Trudeau years,

00:08:24.440 because there's been a consistency of approach, especially as regards Alberta under the new management,

00:08:31.480 just seems to be set up to make it difficult for us to succeed, more likely to fail.

00:08:37.100 So do you think the liberals are, in fact, intentionally setting Alberta up to fail,

00:08:44.720 wrapping up our costs by higher immigration?

00:08:47.900 That's a good question, I would say.

00:08:50.400 Well, let's just...

00:08:51.280 Yeah, go ahead.

00:08:51.840 Sorry.

00:08:52.080 There's this too.

00:08:53.440 As they do that, they simultaneously make it harder for us to make money,

00:08:58.180 I mean, through our main industry, oil, to pay those costs.

00:09:01.620 And, you know, is it all a plot to just make it easier to elect liberals?

00:09:07.100 here in Alberta, what do you think?

00:09:12.040 So I think it's a good question to ask

00:09:15.900 because I would say under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,

00:09:20.720 the wanting to punish Alberta

00:09:23.300 or do introduce policies that have malicious intent

00:09:28.320 against Alberta and Western Canada

00:09:31.600 is definitely, I would say it was definitely proactive

00:09:37.020 in order to do that um under mark carney i don't know if it's just lack of policy and politics

00:09:45.420 um by him that is trying to do like one step forward that equals two steps back

00:09:53.920 um i mean he's had no problem kind of poo-pooing his own party's previous uh policies on some level

00:10:03.780 and wanting to maybe make it appear that he wants to play ball with Alberta

00:10:11.780 or with Western Canada, but it almost is like in spirit or in symbolism

00:10:18.920 rather than actual tangible things.

00:10:21.620 So I think he's in a place where he's going to have to, you know,

00:10:25.020 do the business or get off the pot and pick a lane on,

00:10:29.320 And is he going to give Alberta and Canada's economic economy what it can do to thrive?

00:10:39.600 Or is he just giving a bunch of falsehoods?

00:10:41.820 I don't think he's doing it maliciously in the same way his predecessor did.

00:10:45.880 But I do think there's some poor policies that if he's truly serious about this, he's going to have to use his constitutional power to make this happen, including access to Tidewater.

00:10:58.180 and it doesn't appear to me that he's wanting to do it he's wanting to say the right things but not

00:11:02.820 do the hard work okay well that's that's one way of looking at all right um you did say that you

00:11:09.740 you were he was not doing it maliciously but it's possible to do it intentionally but without malice

00:11:16.700 let me just expand on that a moment what we have here is a prime minister who is uh still holds on

00:11:26.100 to ideas that were fashionable 10, 20, even 50 years ago.

00:11:32.840 He is, for instance, a Keynesian.

00:11:34.640 He believes that the ideas, if your economy is under-functioning,

00:11:39.460 then you borrow money, and they talk about priming a pump.

00:11:43.060 So he believes in that approach.

00:11:45.480 He is also committed to the green philosophy.

00:11:52.020 That has not changed.

00:11:53.400 He laid it out in his book, Values.

00:11:55.200 And although he says, well, yes, we can do the pipelines, they have to contain decarbonized oil, which is oil for which there has been a compensating amount of carbon dioxide buried in the ground.

00:12:11.320 They literally pump it underground.

00:12:13.920 So that's not a good business model.

00:12:17.500 It's extremely costly to do that.

00:12:19.380 and oil is not so expensive that the producers can absorb that cost.

00:12:25.900 So really he's saying, well, you can do it,

00:12:27.460 but you've got to do it with one hand tied behind your back

00:12:29.720 and then, of course, other people are going to have a competitive advantage

00:12:33.200 and you're not going to be able to sell any.

00:12:35.440 So he makes it sound as if he's all for development,

00:12:39.960 but actually it has to be done in such a way that it's unprofitable

00:12:43.640 and therefore he's not in favor of development.

00:12:46.500 Meanwhile, you pile people in.

00:12:48.960 Let's face it, this is a federal policy that's driving immigration.

00:12:52.660 I know the premier is talking about it right now.

00:12:56.520 So if you expand the population that much, don't let them make money.

00:13:03.400 You've got a prime minister who's actively working against you.

00:13:07.540 And you're saying he's, well, just am I misunderstanding the man here?

00:13:12.780 no i think i think you're that's a good point on intent versus malice and i would say you know i

00:13:20.420 feel like he's not giving a to our face f you to alberta like justin trudeau did but he might be

00:13:29.300 actually then worse based on what you're saying is that he's doing it you know when we turn around

00:13:34.580 and he's doing it behind our backs and so um i hope that's not the case but i'm seeing that even

00:13:41.580 When you saw this MOU, which I felt was a good symbolic, not, you know, all the tactics and rollout or or true progress of moving the needle.

00:13:51.420 I saw the MOU as a great first step.

00:13:54.560 But what we've seen now is actually kind of a pivot in some of his economic or energy policies.

00:14:03.020 I mean, he just got back from China where he's now agreed to significant EV investment.

00:14:10.160 uh and we've seen then like what does that mean does he think that that can replace part of the

00:14:15.940 energy mandate that he's been talking about and i fear that that's the case that they're going to

00:14:21.240 invest more in the production of evs and uh the use of lithium which we have in alberta over

00:14:29.960 the oil and gas sector and so i think he's a little bit he's a little bit sneakier maybe

00:14:37.820 and I don't know if it's ignorance or um corporate strategy that he's used in the past

00:14:44.880 but it does look like he says more of the things that Alberta wants to hear but is actually doing

00:14:50.920 as little as Justin Trudeau to to move that needle example I mean he said that they would

00:14:58.960 provide consent not just consultation to the First Nation coastal tribes that are standing

00:15:05.280 in the way of a new pipeline they're looking at you know try to pivot away and look at focus down

00:15:11.680 here where the tmx is as opposed to up north where we we already have um other pipelines that that

00:15:18.460 are not um oil and gas that we could run along the line so it seems like he's over promising

00:15:24.860 and under delivering where justin trudeau's commitment was just like i don't like you and

00:15:29.180 don't care and i don't know which is worse for alberto well um i guess um i guess mr co i would

00:15:37.580 argue that mr carney's uh pose is a little worse because he he is personable he comes across well

00:15:44.940 he seems as mr trudeau seemed like a seemed like a teenager who'd stolen the keys of the of the

00:15:53.580 Ferrari and was doing damage. Mr. Carney does seem like the adult in the room. I can't believe

00:15:59.100 I'm saying this, but he does, you see. But when you are the adult in the room and you lean forward

00:16:03.900 and assure people that we're doing the right thing, there's a tendency for them to believe it,

00:16:08.140 where it was very easy under Mr. Trudeau to realize what the problem was. And it wasn't us,

00:16:13.980 it was him so now we you mentioned the um like this the immigration thing is really makes it

00:16:23.980 incredibly difficult we were supposed to have a net neutral grid by 2035 that was mr trudeau's plan

00:16:34.060 we said it was impossible which it was and they probably helped our argument that we had some

00:16:40.140 very cold days when we began to on the very edge of a very edge of brownouts well that's when there

00:16:46.460 were three million people in alberta now there are five million and although they've been working on

00:16:52.940 building new capacity they haven't built the new capacity for an extra two million people

00:16:59.340 uh that takes time they're working on it it will happen but what's the population going to be by

00:17:05.020 then you keep piling people in so um you know we constantly have these weights on our ankles as we

00:17:12.940 try to go jogging and it is incredibly hard for the the government of alberta it's incredibly

00:17:21.020 hard for danielle smith but it could be the same who whoever the prime the premier was you keep

00:17:27.820 getting more piled on you as you're trying to catch up now mr carney has a way of expressing

00:17:35.020 the challenge, which makes you think that perhaps it's all perfectly reasonable in just one of those

00:17:41.020 things. But he has the power to stop it. He can reduce the immigration. He can, 0.97

00:17:50.420 given the challenges that it presents in Alberta, he can forward more money to Alberta.

00:17:55.860 or he can simply make it change the rules so that alberta itself can make more money but i don't

00:18:05.920 see him doing any of those things so to your point perhaps he's the more dangerous character

00:18:10.140 than the mr trudeau and and the more i see mark kearney the more i feel that way i wanted to give

00:18:17.680 him a lot of grace in the first several months he's approaching a year his training wheels can

00:18:22.700 no longer be used as an excuse, because I do think he's more strategic. And I think that he's now,

00:18:30.460 like I said, over promising, under delivering to immigration. He acknowledged the problem that I

00:18:36.540 think Justin Trudeau wasn't willing to acknowledge that we do have basically an open door immigration

00:18:41.340 policy that needs to be reformed. But when you look at the immigration website under the government

00:18:47.660 of Canada, their targets that they set for themselves under Mark Carney are being destroyed

00:18:55.000 in Q1 or Q2. They're already surpassed what they're saying their levels are. And so it's

00:19:02.040 one thing to say, we're going to fix this problem and then really do nothing about it when you have

00:19:06.640 stated you acknowledge the problem and that reform is required. But they're exceeding these numbers.

00:19:12.660 It doesn't seem like they're slowing anything down.

00:19:15.300 I would say Alberta can be a proof point that, you know, 250,000, almost 300,000 new individuals in a year means that since Barkharni took office and right before at the end of Prime Minister Trudeau's tenure, that they weren't doing anything to fix it.

00:19:31.960 And we were seeing a flood of the individuals that were here having their family members come over and getting quickly processed because there was someone here to vouch for them.

00:19:41.080 And to me, that's even more concerning as the one quick process and to the speed in which that number can grow so quickly because one person has a family and they're bringing them over and that can go from one individual here to 10 with no safeguards, no guarantee of employment.

00:20:00.580 I think that's the other challenge where a lot of individuals that want to come here want to be able to contribute to the economy.

00:20:06.980 But at this volume and at this lax of policy, we're actually getting people that are using and leaning on the system more than we have people contributing.

00:20:17.300 And absolutely, someone needs to take leadership and drastically reverse this because it's only going to get worse before it can get better.

00:20:24.980 Well, I'm going to just say what I wish Janelle Smith could say, but probably dare not, because people would just tell her she was trying to excuse something that wasn't very well performed.

00:20:38.060 But the reforms that she has made in healthcare and in education would, I think, have met her objectives if our population was that three to three and a half million that it was when she took office. 0.73

00:20:54.980 But if you have another million and a half people piled in on top, of course you're going

00:21:01.300 to find that all the improvements you've made in the way health is administered, the way

00:21:07.300 education is done, are just going to be swallowed up by all the new people here. 1.00

00:21:13.600 Do you think she's able to use that reasoning?

00:21:17.460 it's a tough one because i know as she you know gives a address to albertans and we'll talk about

00:21:25.700 the significant influx of population that has crippled some of these systems i mean look at 0.96

00:21:31.760 some of her policies i think she's doing it indirectly and i applaud it where she has put 0.56

00:21:36.420 putting citizenship on license plates aligning it with your health card because there's 0.63

00:21:43.960 more health card numbers or health numbers out there than there is population. And then that

00:21:49.920 means to me that there's individuals abusing the system or that there's administrative errors that

00:21:55.360 we need to correct. Either way, it's a problem that needs to be addressed. And so by really

00:21:59.960 understanding the impact of what immigration and emigration or migration has on our population

00:22:09.440 is proof points that I think she could use.

00:22:12.020 Right now, I think that as I sit here and say,

00:22:15.240 yeah, we should prioritize Canadians for employment.

00:22:18.120 We should prioritize Albertans first. 0.93

00:22:20.120 We should look at giving our support services

00:22:23.000 to people that are Canadian citizens

00:22:25.060 over people that just moved here.

00:22:28.240 In many circles, you get called a racist for that.

00:22:31.380 It's almost like we forget that every color can be an immigrant,

00:22:34.420 um but that we you the left labels it as this is ignorance and tries to compare us or pit us

00:22:43.200 similar to the u.s and i think that unfortunately that's working that makes it more difficult for

00:22:49.280 peter smith to call a spade a spade i i agree with you look we're almost out of time last question

00:22:55.400 i noticed that in the press we are still referring to this government led by mr carney

00:23:03.720 as a new government now in actual fact it's the same government 10 years old who's had a new

00:23:09.440 leader for a year but even if you say it's a new government is it still a new government

00:23:17.660 after only a year with mr carney at the helm how long how long before we make mr carney accountable

00:23:24.300 for what has happened on his watch or not happened well first off that's all bs you didn't see

00:23:31.200 Danielle Smith getting that out and saying it was a new government. She had to wear everything that 0.99

00:23:36.220 happened under the UCP from 2019 onwards. And so I say that that is a media spin by a party that

00:23:45.680 funds you, and Klopkoff, the CBC, driving a narrative that is completely unfair. A year

00:23:52.980 when you have a minority government is like dog years, right? You've got to prove to keep things

00:23:59.640 moving and in our system it's legislated but it must happen constitutionally by five years

00:24:04.920 likely by four for a federal election do we really leave training wheels on for one fourth of

00:24:10.840 someone's lifespan no so i think it's you know since his first budget um i i think the newbie

00:24:18.520 card is it should be eliminated i also think that it should be even faster than that given that

00:24:24.040 everyone surrounding mark carney was part of the previous administration with the exception of

00:24:30.680 divo leaving and trudeau right priscilla freeland is still getting job offers and finally removing 0.98

00:24:38.600 herself like all the same actors were there so i think it's a cop-out i think that it's media spin

00:24:45.000 to give the grace that maybe some of us that even will never agree with mark carney gave him um in

00:24:51.880 hopes that he could fix western alienation but now i just think he courted alberta in a way that

00:24:59.440 he was never planning to make us go steady with them very well that's an excellent note to end on

00:25:06.380 never meant to go steady with alberta we'll we'll lead on that maybe i'll write an op-ed about it

00:25:12.860 for you guys yes yeah erica barute is always a good source on alberta politics thank you for

00:25:19.060 being with us. And for The Western Standard, I'm Nigel Hannaford.

Western Standard - February 20, 2026

Carney comes a-courting Alberta but it's all flirt, no commitment

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