CMS： Hey Trudeau! Leave Trump alone!
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Summary
In business, a business owner doesn t have to like every customer. They know when to shut up. When Trudeau and his ministers start taking shots at Trump, it s not just the Republicans they annoy. People tend to rally the troops when an outsider starts poking their nose into their business. And there s many American governors, business leaders, and other people of influence who aren t thrilled with Trudeau s words either. We need to be solidifying and expanding our relationship with our biggest neighbor, no matter who's leading that country.
Transcript
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election. Trudeau's actions are only going to add personal satisfaction to Trump when he vindictively
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punishes Canadian businesses upon becoming president, and don't think for a second he won't
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do it. In business, a business owner doesn't have to like every customer. A wise business owner,
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though, won't express their dislike to their top customer. They shut up. They know when it's best
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to shut up. When Trudeau and his ministers start taking shots at Trump, it's not just the Republicans
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they annoy, by the way. People tend to rally the troops when an outsider starts poking their nose
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into their business. And there's many American governors, business leaders, and other people of
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influence who aren't very thrilled with Trudeau's words either. We need to be solidifying and expanding
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our relationship with our biggest neighbor in Al-Wai, no matter who's leading that country.
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The Trudeau liberals certainly don't need to be kowtowing to Trump or any other politician for
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that matter. In trade issues, they do need to show some strength. But they also need to exercise a
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degree of careful diplomacy. During the next four volatile months of campaigning in the USA, the
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wisest thing the Canadian government can do is just to shut the hell up about it. Trudeau won't
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have an influence on the outcome of the American election, but he sure as hell will be setting the
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tone for Canada's relationship with the next administration. And so far, that tone isn't
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good. Nuance, diplomacy, wisdom, and economic sense are all concepts that have eluded Justin Trudeau
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so far. That's why the liberals are facing an almost certain electoral obliteration when they
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finally allow Canadians to vote. It's a lot to ask and expect of the Trudeau liberals, but if they could
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just lay off the attacks against Trump, it would do us all a favor on both sides of the border.
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God knows Trudeau has enough to deal with at home. Maybe he should try doing that for a change.
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All right. Well, that's what's got me going today and we'll see how that goes. I'm sure he won't shut
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up, but we can at least ask, right? All right. Well, let's see what else is going on out there.
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We have in studio, our news editor, Dave Naylor. How's it going, Dave?
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Oh, easier than a one-armed paper hanger. It's just crazy, isn't it? This last week.
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You don't have to search for things to put in there now. You just have to curate and figure out
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what's the best. But obviously our viewers and listeners are interested in your health after
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your recent medical procedure. I understand you're having some uncomfortable Uber business.
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There has been. Yes. As some folks know, I drive Uber in my spare time. I like it. I enjoy it. It
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gets me out. I talk to people. And as others might not know, yes, I had recent surgery on my left butt
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cheek and it's very, very uncomfortable still. It's recovering, but I have a big pillow on the front
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seat of my car. And when I get in and out to get people luggage and things, they see me easing in
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slowly into my seat and so on, looking at that pillow. And all I can imagine is they're thinking
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this driver's got to be loaded with hemorrhoids or something, but it stunts the conversation for
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the ride. Maybe it'll get me some sympathy tips though. There you go. That's all you can hope for.
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So as I mentioned, a very busy morning today, Corey. We're leading off to the side right now with
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an interesting story actually out of Lethbridge. There was a big motorcycle charity run there on
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on Saturday. And there's a group called the Commandos Motorcycle Club. And they're a group
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of veterans and former soldiers who get together, ride motorcycles and raise money for charity. Now
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they are not the Hells Angels or the Bandidos of the world. They're not an outlaw motorcycle gang.
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But Lethbridge does have a bylaw that allows police officers to remove patch-wearing bikers from
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drinking establishments. So these 35 poor members of the the Commandos were in a local bar,
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just drinking soft drinks and food and the cops arrived and said, get out. So they're they're
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defending their their action on that. Another fun story out of Vancouver Island where a burgeoning
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couple decided they would go to the Coldplay concert in Vancouver. And I guess that's where things sort of
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started to go fell apart where the gentleman asked the girl to pay her share. And she thought,
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no, it's a date you're paying. Well, he took her to court and actually won. So we've got a complete
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list of exactly what she what he spent on the date, including 63 bucks for Smitty's. I don't know what you
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can spend on Smitty's for 63 bucks. Tons of fallout, obviously, from the Trump assassination attempt.
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We've got Lee Harding with an interview with a former top Mountie who describes it as, quote,
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a colossal cock up, quote, the Secret Service actions. And we got our Mike Thomas putting together
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all the Secret Service sort of excuses, including the lamest one ever was that they they didn't put a
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sniper up there because the roof was too slanted. And it's not. It's not. So we got all that stuff to come.
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Our Linda Slobodian has got a great column. On Boxing Day, there was a machete attack at the
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Calgary Zoo with an indigenous guy stoned on fentanyl, going around trying to
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slash people and kill people at the zoo. Well, he was sentenced this week to basically time served.
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And Linda's got an exclusive interview with the victim, who was one of the victims who was slashed.
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And she says, look, this was a hate crime. This is being ignored by the justice system. And
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and, you know, she didn't even get to see the guy in court, really.
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Yeah, I remember that one when it happened. Actually, it was quite terrifying.
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I haven't got a chance to grab Linda's column yet. I imagine she might have pointed out it was
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probably a Gladue case. Yes. And even the victim has a family has a sympathy for the family and
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saying, you know, his mother looked bedraggled. And, you know, he's but yeah, you know, hopefully
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they can rehabilitate him. Some idiot last night in Edmonton was waving around a replica handgun.
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And you know what happens when cops see that they shoot them. And that's what happened. And he's
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now in critical condition as ACERT investigates. And DEI in the United States in full retreat.
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This is a week or so after a major tractor company cancelled all their DEI stuff. We now know that
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Microsoft has also done the same thing firing their entire DEI team. And John Deere capitulated after about
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only a week of internet pressure, they have now said they're going to concentrate on selling tractors
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and not sponsoring pride parades. So that's some good stuff in the States. I just want to mention
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one more Linda column that actually came in yesterday. You remember she broke the story on the 14 year old
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who was dancing in trans bars in Edmonton and the kid is autistic and mentally and her mom's just
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pushing her to do this. Well, the people who are hosting the Burnaby Pride Day this Saturday have hired
00:12:06.600
her as the main headliner. So they're going to bring in this poor 14 year old girl who's going to be
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dancing in front of lecherous, lecherous perverts. So that's a great column from Linda too. So
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coming up on the website this afternoon, we'll have the latest on that big storm in Toronto yesterday,
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including some incredible footage flooding in Drake's mansion. It looks like they just opened the
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front door to a river. So and I understand our business expert Sean Polzer will be joining you again
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today. I'm sure he can fill you in more on all the DEI stuff. Great. Well, yes, there was quite a list
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to cover and I know you got a whole whack more. So well, thanks for the update, Dave. I'll let you
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get back to your desk there to keep sifting through these news stories and getting them out there.
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Pleasure as always, Corey. Right on. Thanks, Dave. It's always nice to talk to Dave in person in the
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studio, look him in the eye and see if he's being truthful about those stories or not. Yeah, some of them
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are just beyond the pale and it finds, you know, almost to be too hard to believe. And as he pointed out,
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yeah, Linda wrote on that with that that 14 year old who has been out at strip bars. You know,
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this whole issue just gets so insane. The activists, the lunatics, like I couldn't care less about drag
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shows. Calgary's had them for decades. I remember back in the 90s, there was a bar in Calgary called
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Boys Town, I believe it was, and they had weekly drag shows. They get out there, do their thing,
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have a good time. Good for them. Right on. Have fun. I don't care. And most people didn't. But it's just
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the activists have to keep pushing the envelope, pushing the envelope, pushing the envelope. And
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the problem, the line, the issue that people have now, this is a 14 year old autistic child
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doing sexualized shows, not just in drag. This has been covered. If you want to research it,
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the videos that were posted with Linda's stories and so on. She's performing strip teases at 14.
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Ironically, you know, if a straight 14 year old girl was put on a stage in a strip club,
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the police would be in there arresting the sick buggers who are sitting around watching her
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and whoever put her on the stage in the first place. But they're terrified when it comes to drag.
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Suddenly, somehow, this becomes above the law. No, it's not. And it's really, really deranged. I don't
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know what kind of person wants to sit and watch a 14 year old doing a sexualized dance and striptease
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like that. But we're putting up with that. And unfortunately, these sorts of things end up
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in flaming the intolerant. And then you get backlash against the other drag shows that were
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people were just having fun, where they were grown adults doing their thing in a private venue,
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where they should have every right to do so. We've got to draw a line in the sand with the
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activists. It's the activists who push the line so far that nobody can handle it anymore. So I
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noticed Jordan asking, you know, why doesn't Linda come on, by the way? Yeah, I've had Linda on in the
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past a couple of times. She's out in Manitoba. She just much prefers writing. As you can see,
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she's very prolific. She covers a lot of things, and she's been at it a long time,
00:15:01.640
rather than coming on the shows. I've had her on. She likes to chat now and then on the shows,
00:15:05.000
but she's not big on coming onto these live sorts of things. It's not everybody's bag, you know.
00:15:10.120
It doesn't love listening to the sound of her own voice as much as I do, where I can look forward to
00:15:14.360
doing this every week and babbling at you. But rest assured, Linda will keep breaking those things and
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and writing on them. This is my last, you know, reminder to remind you the reason Linda can do
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that. Dave can do that. Jonathan Bradley's putting out those stories. Jen, all those folks we got all
00:15:28.200
over the place. We're one of the busiest newsrooms in Western Canada, actually a physical newsroom
00:15:32.680
is because you guys have subscribed. So hey, if you haven't subscribed yet, get out there guys.
00:15:37.400
Westernstandard.news slash subscription will get you past the paywall. $9.99 a month, 100 bucks a year,
00:15:43.320
just like a newspaper subscription. And it keeps all these reporters running so that you can have a news
00:15:47.720
source and doesn't take a penny of your tax dollars. Very important point of principle and
00:15:52.440
just a point of being responsible. All right. Let's speak to somebody else who's got a responsible
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viewpoint on things. It's been a while since we've had her on. She's been on before though,
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Crystal Witbrangel of the Montreal Economic Institute. And she recently gave us a column
00:16:05.400
on emissions caps and energy use. Hi, Crystal. How are you doing? Hi, I'm great. How are you today?
00:16:10.680
Oh, good, good. I've got lots of ranting and raving in me, but I'll let things cool down so you can
00:16:15.240
explain more in the column and what you, I guess, expressed. I mean, you talked, it was entitled
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Friends Shouldn't Let Friends Buy Natural Gas from Bad Places. And you spoke though at length on,
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I guess, the emissions caps and how investment is really getting pressured on Canada's energy sector.
00:16:34.680
Yeah. So last year, the government had proposed, the federal government had proposed a cap on emissions
00:16:41.640
for the oil and gas sector to cap them between 30 to, or sorry, 35 to 38% below 2019 levels. So
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essentially it's a cap on production is what the column is about. And it really just talks about how
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we as a global economy are going to see increased demand for oil products, oil and gas products
00:17:07.160
through 2030 and beyond. And if Canada is not willing to allow our product to market, our product being
00:17:16.840
the responsibly produced oil and gas, you know, done with very high environmental regulations, somebody
00:17:23.160
else will. And we've seen that happen in the past couple of years where Japan and Germany and Greece have
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all come to us as Canadians and said, you know, we want your resources. And when the federal government
00:17:36.440
turned down Germany, they then struck a deal with Qatar. So it's not that oil and gas production
00:17:42.680
is globally just going to cease, it's still 82% of energy use. It's just going to be done elsewhere,
00:17:50.520
much to the hurt of Canadians. And for what gain really, because the emissions are still going to be
00:17:57.480
there and likely going to be increased because they're coming from places with less environmental
00:18:02.920
protections than we have here. Well, and as well, some of those producers are often a little less
00:18:08.360
than friendly with human rights protections and labor, you know, restrictions as well. I mean, Canada
00:18:13.240
is one of the most ethical producers in the world, yet we're the ones punishing ourselves the most often
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for what we're doing. Exactly. And the oil and gas sector employs over 700,000 people in this country,
00:18:25.720
which, you know, accounts for 12% of our GDP. So this is a huge sector. In Alberta, of course,
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we're going to feel it most heavily when the cap on production ultimately comes in. The government
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is saying this isn't a cap on production. This is a cap on emissions. But we found last year that
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this is a cap on production. And Deloitte has now released a report saying it will be a cap on
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production. And in Alberta alone, we're looking at 54,000 job losses by 2030 linked to this emissions cap.
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So we're going to feel it, we're going to feel it hard. And for what benefit really? I think a more
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broad discussion needs to happen about global emissions, and not what Canada can do to reduce
00:19:07.160
our local emissions, if we're just contributing to a increase globally. Yeah, well, and it's just the
00:19:14.840
attitude has caused an investment chill. I mean, the stats you put, it's staggering how much investment
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in the energy sector has plummeted from 2014 until 2023. I mean, this is all started prior to the
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emissions cap. But I mean, this is the investment community responding to signals from the federal
00:19:34.200
government saying that they're not going to allow future production essentially. Exactly. And further,
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if this emissions cap does go in by 2030, there's going to be a $75 billion less investment
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than there would have been by 2030. So we're seeing already there's a huge hit in the investment
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community up to now, it's only going to get worse. And investment certainty is a big part of it when it
00:19:59.240
comes to the regulatory environment. And if there's this pancaking of policies, one on top of the other,
00:20:05.720
on top of the other, which we do see when it comes to climate change and emissions regulations,
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is just policy after policy. There's very little certainty around that. And it's very complex. So
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it's become this very murky environment for investors. And quite frankly, I don't blame them.
00:20:23.080
Well, and you know, some of the, well, the Canadian circumstance, the irony is two things. I mean, for
00:20:30.360
one, oil and gas generate a heck of a lot of revenue for Canadians everywhere, not just in Alberta,
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it's a massive part of our GDP. And as well, we end up having oil and gas imports coming in
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on Eastern Canada, while we're having difficulty getting our product to market in the West,
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again, due to a government that just doesn't allow us to build the infrastructure to move it around.
00:20:52.840
Exactly. Yeah. And so that's been a huge problem. And it will just continue to become a problem,
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especially as global demand continues to increase. And when our allies and these other countries are
00:21:03.800
trying to get off of the oil and gas supplies from places like Russia, or other nations that have
00:21:11.720
really just atrocious records, when it comes to, like you mentioned, human rights, and other things,
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it's really a constant question of what we're doing. We're missing the forest for the trees is really
00:21:24.520
what's happening here. So, I mean, I know it's difficult, you guys, you know, put out your reports,
00:21:29.880
you try to stay nonpolitical, which is fair enough, but there's a good chance we're going to have a
00:21:34.440
change in governments coming in, you know, in a year and change, perhaps, that would change the
00:21:39.640
investment environment. Do you feel that some of this damage could be undone, at least?
00:21:44.440
I think there's going to be a lot of work needing to be done under any government when it comes to this
00:21:51.480
regulatory environment and providing some level of certainty to investors. There's been just change
00:21:57.560
after change constantly, which a lot of these huge, what I'm looking for, like CCUS, for example,
00:22:07.080
that are plugged onto existing facilities, they're lacking in the ability to continue on and grow and
00:22:14.600
get more online because of the investment environment. And so any government is really
00:22:20.040
going to have to do quite a heavy job of telling investors and proving to investors
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what can be done in this country and what won't be undone, you know, in four to eight to 10 years,
00:22:33.480
because these things take long, long amounts of time. So if we want to be able to move forward and
00:22:39.960
actually do our job in reducing emissions globally, we need some level of certainty here. And whether
00:22:46.040
that's under the current government or a future government, it's definitely should be a priority.
00:22:50.440
Well, and something else you mentioned in the column is Ottawa is not really trumpeting the
00:22:55.400
amount of progress the industry has made in reducing emissions. I mean, presuming emissions
00:22:59.480
are a problem, fine. The Canadian industries have actually been doing very, very well in reducing
00:23:04.040
the emissions, but they're not getting no credit for it. They're still just constantly get accused of
00:23:08.760
being environmental monsters. Yeah, exactly. So the efficiencies in this sector have been really,
00:23:15.320
really impressive. We've reduced the emission intensity per barrel of oil. So how many emissions
00:23:22.120
are being released per barrel of oil quite substantially and, and overall as well. So
00:23:28.520
there is a lot of work that has been done. And this has been done because these companies
00:23:33.320
and, you know, these investors believe in this, and they believe that we do have a part to play in,
00:23:38.520
you know, reducing emissions. And so continuing to innovate, to be able to do that is very important,
00:23:45.000
which is where some of that investment comes in as well. I just mentioned with CCUS, for example,
00:23:50.760
like carbon capture is, has a lot of potential, but it is not yet at the level that can make these huge,
00:23:59.160
great big, you know, changes that the government is really saying they should be able to do. And to be
00:24:05.320
able to get there, we need the investment. And the companies that invest in this sort of thing
00:24:10.440
are those who are producing and exporting in that. So if they're not able to be investing,
00:24:16.360
we're not going to get that forward momentum in that area either. So future emissions reductions
00:24:22.840
and intensity reductions are going to be quite, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not just, you know,
00:24:31.960
as you kind of point out, it's not just a domestic market or the international market to purchase our
00:24:37.800
products. It's the investment market that's international that people have to realize.
00:24:41.720
People are looking to get a return on their dollars, whether they're in the United States
00:24:44.600
or Europe or their pension funds. And if they can't get a good return here, they're going to take
00:24:49.960
it somewhere else. And they have been. Exactly. And even the emissions back to the emissions coming
00:24:56.040
from somewhere else, like if we look at British Columbia. So when that province instituted its
00:25:01.320
carbon tax back in 2008, the market share for imported cement, which is very emissions intensive,
00:25:09.480
went from 6% to 40%. So they didn't reduce their emissions that stem from cement production.
00:25:16.280
They just exported the emissions in terms of where the cement was coming from. So we lost that market share.
00:25:22.840
So that's what's going to happen here with oil and gas is we're going to see a lot of it exported
00:25:27.560
and emissions intensity grow because these other countries don't have the same sort of rules,
00:25:32.600
regulations and checkpoints that we already do and pride ourselves on. So yeah, it's quite a conundrum
00:25:39.720
and it's quite a headbanger for most of us here. Yeah. Well, some of the ethical case that can be made,
00:25:46.520
I mean, as you sort of pointed out, India, China, I mean, these are high emitting countries. They still
00:25:51.240
burn a heck of a lot of coal. If they could get cost effective liquid natural gas, they would be
00:25:56.440
more than happy to use that. And it's of a lower emission intensity than the coal,
00:26:01.160
but we got to make that case to Canadians because we get demonized for the natural gas as if it's a
00:26:05.240
bad thing. I mean, maybe use the word mitigate. I mean, we can mitigate when it comes to addictions
00:26:09.880
and drug use. Well, why can't we accept the mitigation of harm when it comes to fuels?
00:26:15.000
Exactly. Countries around the world, like you mentioned, China and India are looking to reduce
00:26:20.600
their emissions footprints as well. It's not just Canada. And one of the easiest ways of doing it is
00:26:25.800
to get off of coal and transition away from coal and onto natural gas. So by being the fourth largest
00:26:31.720
producer of natural gas, Canada is well positioned to help these countries get there and overall reduce
00:26:39.080
the amount of global emissions. So our regulations are more stringent. Our product being natural gas
00:26:46.680
is cleaner and burns less emissions. So it's a win-win across the board and without hurting the
00:26:51.880
Canadian economy to the extent that we're talking about here when we're talking about such a huge hit
00:26:57.160
with this emissions cap. Yeah. Well, I mean, if we can get the word out, I think there's a lot of
00:27:02.600
misconceptions with a lot of Canadians, I think often outside of the West, it's not necessarily their
00:27:06.200
fault, perhaps not getting the whole picture. And that's a lot of what you guys have been doing
00:27:09.480
with the Montreal Economic Institute. It really is appreciated. It's a tough slog and you're getting
00:27:13.880
it out there. So before I let you go, you know, where can people find your work and, you know,
00:27:18.840
get this stuff out to other folks who need to hear and read it?
00:27:20.920
Yeah. So we are online at www.iedm.org and all of our studies, commentaries, you name it, you can find
00:27:32.520
it there and the wide range of issues, energy and environment being one of them. Definitely.
00:27:37.160
Yeah. And despite the name, it's not just Montreal centered, it's a, you're covering national issues.
00:27:42.760
Exactly. And I'm here in Calgary, so we are very much a pan Canadian think tank at this point.
00:27:49.960
Excellent. As we said with the Western Standard, you get some columns and op-eds out there as well.
00:27:54.760
So I really appreciate you guys, you know, fighting the good fight for us out there and
00:27:59.640
for your coming on today to talk to us about it.
00:28:01.640
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It's always so much fun chatting with you.
00:28:05.480
Great. Thanks, Crystal. Hope we get to talk again soon.
00:28:09.480
So, yeah, guys, look that up. There's a lot of great resources and a lot of articles and things from
00:28:13.400
Crystal and others at the Montreal Economic Institute. Look it up. It's well worth it. So, you know,
00:28:18.920
some of the questions that came in, and it's interesting from Jordan actually talking about
00:28:24.440
with the natural gas, with the export of it, what would it do for our domestic prices?
00:28:29.960
Not much on domestic prices, because it's basically when it comes to domestic prices,
00:28:35.480
a lot, it's on the world gas prices. So if anything, it might reduce it a little bit,
00:28:40.360
because when you're adding more to the markets, you might reduce the world price a little bit,
00:28:45.240
and that'll take your gas bill down a bit. The problem we have in Canada with a lot of our
00:28:48.840
natural gas, our energy, our bills, when you look at your bill, the gas itself is just a small part
00:28:54.440
of it. It's all the add-ons and extra costs and taxes and garbage that makes it so bloody expensive.
00:29:01.240
And as you were saying, you know, wouldn't it increase our prices if rich Asian buyers are upping
00:29:07.080
the bids? No, no, it wouldn't, because they're already bidding on all the energy they can.
00:29:12.280
So as long as we're adding more product to that market, it would actually, it should stabilize
00:29:18.680
or even possibly reduce world prices. But like I said, a lot of our issue domestically isn't
00:29:23.640
the world price that really costs us, it's all the rest of the garbage and add-ons and stuff from
00:29:28.200
the government that makes everything so costly and unaffordable, which is so ridiculous when we live
00:29:34.760
in an energy capital like Canada. You know, I was talking to somebody the other day,
00:29:38.200
I spent four winters working in the Arctic on oil and gas programs up there in exploration.
00:29:45.080
There are, look it up, in the Northwest Territories and a bit into the Yukon,
00:29:48.200
even by Eagle Plains and areas, there are thousands of capped wells. They've been doing it
00:29:52.280
since the 60s up there. They've pretty much stopped it all now because the McKinsey pipeline
00:29:57.800
got stunted and held up by the Berger Commission in the 70s.
00:30:00.680
And they've sat on it and eventually the price of the pipeline got so high. The government approved
00:30:06.920
it a few years ago, say, okay, we're finally going to let you guys do it. And it had gone up,
00:30:11.080
I think from like 2 billion to 14 billion and the partners and it said, it's not worth it.
00:30:16.120
And they left it there. We have another Alberta worth of oil and gas sitting up there. It's just
00:30:20.680
sitting up there, guys. They're taking it out of the ground, but we know it's there. We've done the
00:30:24.840
seismic. We've done the exploratory drilling. The work is done. It's there. But we're living under this,
00:30:31.160
absurd myth that we can replace oil and gas as fuel sources. The lunatics like Trudeau and Gilbo
00:30:40.680
really think that we can just somehow snap our fingers, shut off oil and gas, and that we will
00:30:45.880
just magically switch to other sources of energy. All it will do is cause a catastrophe economically
00:30:52.760
and humanly. I mean, we can't live without energy in Canada. We will freeze to death. But they don't,
00:30:59.640
these guys aren't bound by logic. They aren't bound by common sense like that. So they are perfectly
00:31:05.960
fine leaving all of that abundant energy up there untapped because they just think we're all going
00:31:11.480
to go solar soon anyways, or have little windmills or other little magical areas. You know, unicorn piss
00:31:16.760
and the laughter of children is somehow going to turn the lights on in your house. It doesn't work that way.
00:31:22.600
And Jordan pointing out again, more nuclear. He said, yes, nuclear is another option. Saskatchewan
00:31:26.760
has a lot of uranium resources. Nuclear is very capital intensive to get up and running.
00:31:33.880
But once it's going, it does generate energy and it doesn't have emissions. Yet the environmentalists
00:31:38.600
hate that too. This is some of the logic we've got to realize, or we got to push back with these
00:31:42.840
environmentalists, is that we'll never pacify them. We'll never make them happy. They are like
00:31:50.120
trying to ration with a street preacher who's screaming and raging on a street corner about
00:31:55.400
their whatever faith it may be. You can't reason with them. They're nuts. They're nuts. Anybody who
00:32:00.520
thinks we can just shut down oil and gas? They're crazy. They are immune to logic and reality. Listen to
00:32:07.160
David Suzuki sometime. Listen to Justin Trudeau. I don't suggest that. I mean, you don't want to
00:32:11.400
stab yourself in the ear with a pencil if you listen to Justin too long. Well, you know what I mean.
00:32:15.960
But that's what's good coming out of the Economic Institute. We'll try to get to the rational
00:32:19.880
people. Talk about it. Emissions have been reduced with conventional energy. We have excellent controls
00:32:25.480
in place and we're getting better and better with it. Brenda Kutcherin. But yeah, either way,
00:32:32.840
Brenda, I see a lot on X there. It says, you know, it takes so much energy to produce batteries,
00:32:36.200
solar and wind. Yeah. And that's absolutely right. Like they act as if these renewables
00:32:41.880
have no footprint. They act as if it doesn't take any resources from somewhere else to build
00:32:46.280
these other energy sources, which by the way, are intermittent. So we need to get that messaging
00:32:52.280
out there. Hopefully the rational people will catch on to it and we can go with that. I mean,
00:32:58.280
if it gets there, if the energy sources get there, people will switch. I will. You know, I've talked
00:33:04.600
about that before. I think I mentioned it on the show. I got a beat up old lawn mower I use at home
00:33:08.200
at the acreage. I need my exercise. So I hand mow and push that thing around and everything.
00:33:14.200
And it's getting older and older. It's a gas powered one. One of these days, it's going to
00:33:17.800
blow up on me. I'm using it as long as I can get away with. You know what? When I do switch,
00:33:22.120
I'm going to go with one of the rechargeable electric mowers, not because I'm trying to save the world,
00:33:27.080
not because of, you know, reducing emissions or something like that. It's because it's come to
00:33:33.880
a price point now on those mowers and they hold the charge well enough that it's worth me having
00:33:40.840
it out there and using it on my lawn. That's all. It's worth it. So I'm going to go with it. I don't
00:33:46.200
need to be forced to it though. I don't need a gun to my head to do it. I'll do it when it makes financial
00:33:50.680
sense to me and it becomes practical. And people will do that if and when electric vehicles get
00:33:55.800
that way or solar powering and things like that. They will get there. Just leave them be. If the
00:34:01.000
product becomes good enough, people will switch. Commenter Sleeping Lion is saying,
00:34:05.080
are you saying street preachers are irrational? No, I'm saying they're batshit crazy. They're beyond
00:34:10.920
irrational. And if you've gone to a corner and listened to some of them, they're nuts. But hey,
00:34:15.800
they have the right to be nuts. They have the right to stand on a corner and spew out whatever
00:34:19.800
loony interpretation of their religious texts they have. I do believe in their right to do that,
00:34:25.560
but I have the right to call them out as the kooks that they are. So yes, I'm not typically
00:34:30.920
big on street preachers. And you know, you don't want to get me going on Palowski.
00:34:34.840
I've gone on about him before. Again, the guy was ill treated, but he's still a nut. And I will say it
00:34:42.440
when that is the case. Yeah, Brenda saying switch to a battery mower. The battery didn't last two years.
00:34:46.520
Okay, well, that's unfortunate. The newer ones from what I've gathered tend to go better. I mean,
00:34:51.400
I think of it like 10, 15 years ago, how would you even have considered a battery powered skill saw
00:34:56.520
or a battery powered even the drills and that I mean, you'd see them as a convenience around the
00:34:59.880
house, but you wouldn't see contractors using and they were still plugging in, but they've gotten good
00:35:03.560
enough. Then again, the cost and the practicality and the rest, they've switched. Either way, just let the
00:35:11.240
market decide it. Quit trying to do it through regulation. We'll get there. Now, speaking of
00:35:16.920
markets deciding things, this is a great story to get into as well as we get into business things.
00:35:23.320
I've been watching. So Elon Musk, you know, boy, he sees it. If you talk about that term that was
00:35:27.320
kind of trendy for a little while, disruptor was one of them, right? And Musk is a disruptor,
00:35:32.040
and he certainly shakes things up. I mean, it's easy to be a disruptor when you got, you know,
00:35:35.960
hundreds of billions in the bank to play with. And he just likes to get out there and poke the
00:35:41.720
stick in the ant's nest. And with what he's done with X has been fantastic. The left all predicted
00:35:45.800
it would fail years ago when he bought it and it seems to be flourishing so far, but now he's doing
00:35:51.080
what so many other people and businesses are doing in the United States and they do all around the
00:35:55.080
world. When we're talking about, it kind of ties into what I was talking to Crystal about before too,
00:35:59.400
is that capital will move to better locations, you know, if you let the market do it. Musk,
00:36:07.640
he'd already moved Tesla out of California. I guess California has gone nutty. It's gone
00:36:12.680
way off to the far left under Gavin Newsom. They've been punishing their businesses. The city's like,
00:36:18.920
man, this is tuberculosis, losis ward in here or something going on today. But either way,
00:36:25.400
it must be that global warming causing something. He's now moving SpaceX and X, the headquarters of
00:36:31.960
those are going to Texas. And we're seeing that all around the United States actually,
00:36:38.200
migration out of California, out of New York, they're leaving. I mean, new immigrants are coming
00:36:43.560
in and moving into these areas, but interstate migration from professionals, from companies,
00:36:49.400
they're leaving and in the hundreds of thousands. And it kind of bodes really terribly for California.
00:36:55.400
California is in dire, dire condition. It's making me think of, you know, a North American Venezuela.
00:37:01.240
When you look at it, California's got everything. I mean, they got beautiful weather. They got some
00:37:06.520
great agricultural businesses. They had the tech sector. They had oil and gas. They have Hollywood.
00:37:11.560
They have all of this stuff down there and they blown it. Their policies have been so horrible
00:37:17.560
that people are fleeing. They are leaving. And what the problem is when the productive leave,
00:37:23.560
what's left behind tends not to be the cream of the crop. I've talked about that when I worked in
00:37:29.640
Steubenville, Ohio, for example, that was an area that's in the rust belt. It was really, really booming
00:37:34.440
back from the thirties all the way up and until the eighties when basically a lot of factors came in
00:37:42.040
and these smaller cities and so on that produced iron and had foundries and everything were all
00:37:48.280
crashing. So Steubenville, I think it peaked at like 120,000 people. It was down to something like
00:37:53.480
20,000 when I was working there. So you had this weird ghost town. They had like 20 story art deco
00:37:59.240
buildings downtown. Yet you had this almost bomb blast zone outside in the inner area where all the
00:38:04.680
houses had just been dilapidated and bulldozed down. And then there was a bit of a college a little
00:38:08.600
farther outside of their university that was doing okay. But there was a rough, rough town. The thing
00:38:15.720
is the people who had ambition, the people who had skills, the people who were marketable, they left.
00:38:21.640
They left 30, 40 years ago. But the people left behind, a lot of them were lazy, unskilled, troubled,
00:38:29.960
and they dominated the area. And there's one thing that even the most unskilled and lazy people can do
00:38:35.240
is breed. So yeah, you know, those households are full of more and more people and you're getting
00:38:39.880
generations of more socially and economically dysfunctional people layered on more. And
00:38:44.840
unfortunately, that beautiful little city is really, really a rough spot to go. We're watching
00:38:48.760
the entire state of California start to do that now. And it's going to be interesting to watch where
00:38:53.000
that goes in the next decade because it's a lot easier to drive out resources than to bring them back
00:38:57.640
in. And it's really actually quite sad to watch because it is a beautiful state in a lot of ways,
00:39:02.360
but they've really just devastated it with, well, like Venezuela, socialism and stupidity.
00:39:08.360
All right. Well, let's get on to somebody who's not so much into socialism and I haven't found
00:39:11.320
it to be too stupid. Sean Polzer's in here. If we can catch you between sneezes and give us an update
00:39:20.040
on the business world. Excuse me there. A little bit of the allergy.
00:39:25.400
Well, I put on some ragweed today before I came into the studio.
00:39:28.680
Yeah, that must be the reason. So either way, this Sean writes for the Western standard on our
00:39:35.640
business and energy files and among other things. What's topping the story, Sean?
00:39:45.000
So if you recall, a couple of weeks ago, there was a US, I guess, farm retailers,
00:39:52.760
the farm, Walmart, uh, tractor supply. I don't know that they actually sold tractors, but, uh,
00:40:00.440
Canadians, it's like a version of Canadian tire. You know, it's not just tires so much. It's just,
00:40:04.760
it is kind of a generalized hardware and neat. Yeah. They're really nice stores, tractor supply
00:40:08.840
in, uh, in the smaller towns. Yeah. And then, so they, uh, kind of capitulated to a
00:40:14.440
online, uh, uh, campaign, activist campaign, um, to, uh, revoke some of their, uh, DEI and, uh,
00:40:24.920
green energy and woke, uh, you know, uh, inclusion policies. And they said they were
00:40:30.920
going to focus more on, uh, veterans and farm groups like 4H and kind of a little more of their
00:40:36.360
core constituency. So these, uh, same folks, they went after John Deere, which actually does make
00:40:41.320
tractors. So John Deere is, uh, is one of the oldest, uh, publicly traded companies in the
00:40:46.600
United States. It's like, goes back to about 1837, you know, it predates Canada. Yeah. So, uh,
00:40:54.120
anyway, today they, uh, issued out a statement that they are, uh, going to, uh, uh, abandon some of
00:41:01.160
these, uh, policies as well to kind of focus on their, uh, core constituents. So, uh, you know,
00:41:07.080
this idea that somehow the customer is always right. And, uh, you know,
00:41:11.080
it's not just these groups lobbying though. Do you think to a degree, maybe some shareholders
00:41:15.960
are finally speaking up to, I mean, they're saying, Hey, I bought stock in your company
00:41:19.480
to make money. I bought stock for you to give me a return on my investment, not to go out funding
00:41:25.160
and taking part in these, you know, DEI hires and programs and things like that. There's got to be
00:41:30.920
internal pressure. We probably don't see as well. Well, absolutely. And I think the poster child for
00:41:35.160
the whole thing is, uh, Bud Light, you know, Dylan. And knowing your market, right? If you're running
00:41:40.360
a little trendy coffee shop, by all means, dive into that. This is Bud Light. This is the rodeo beer.
00:41:45.560
They, they, they don't. The rodeo beer. Exactly. You know, UFC. So, you know, they, they're trying to go
00:41:52.360
back to UFC and, uh, resign some of those and the NFL and you know, those kinds of motto sponsorships
00:42:00.120
and kind of undo some of the damage that they've done. So I, I think there's a, you know, like once
00:42:05.080
bitten, twice shy kind of mentality amongst one of the biggest marketing flubs since the new Coke,
00:42:11.400
the new Coke, I'm old enough to remember. Um, we've got a tale of two pipelines.
00:42:19.720
Uh, so we've got, uh, Keystone XL and we've got Trans Mountain. So, uh, Trans Mountain as everybody
00:42:27.240
knows was, uh, the government funded boondoggle that was about $35 billion, uh, you know, $30
00:42:33.240
billion over budget. But now that it's up and running, it's, uh, shipping oil to, uh, North Korea,
00:42:40.360
Japan, China. And this thing has taken off like gangbusters and you know, the prices that we're
00:42:45.480
getting for oil are like, uh, less than $5 under, uh, you know, brand prices. So that's like 80 bucks.
00:42:51.560
It's like this thing is turning into a gold mine for the Alberta government.
00:42:55.240
Well, it's good. And for people who don't understand, like because of our limited access
00:42:58.680
to outside markets, we used to sell our product at a heavy discount compared to West Texas.
00:43:03.320
Right. Going overland, uh, down to, uh, Gulf of Mexico.
00:43:06.920
Yeah. So now that's the biggest difference we have is now that we can access competitive markets,
00:43:11.960
we, we, we don't have to apply such a discount to get them to purchase.
00:43:14.760
Absolutely. And that's the other half of this story. So Keystone XL was supposed to be that
00:43:19.240
overland pipeline that was going to go down to the Gulf of Mexico and ship, uh, something like
00:43:23.080
a million barrels a day, you know, down to these refineries in Houston. And, uh, Canada, US, uh,
00:43:29.000
trade tribunal basically put the kibosh on a $15 billion damages claim, you know, after Joe Biden
00:43:36.840
canceled it on his first day of office. So, uh, if you recall, um, Barack Obama rejected
00:43:42.520
it and then Donald Trump came in and encouraged them to reapply. Um, they couldn't get it done
00:43:48.520
in the four years before, uh, you can argue whether or not he lost the election.
00:43:52.760
Well, I'm not going into that, but, but either way they got most of it done though, right? Like
00:43:56.600
there's just a little piece just crossing that border that had to finish it off.
00:44:01.000
Like about 150 yards. We just kind of, maybe just launch it over, you know, just spray it over
00:44:07.640
there. They'll have to clean it up by rail. That worked out well. Ship it over by rail and then
00:44:11.960
come back and there's, there's a big loop of rail cars. But anyway, um, so trans Canada, which actually
00:44:18.680
was forced to change its name to TC energy because don't say the P word, don't say Canada. Yeah.
00:44:24.920
Down and down in the States or Canada or pipeline. Yeah. So there was this idea that somehow their
00:44:31.480
name was politically prejudicial. So they, they changed it to TC energy to try to get it approved.
00:44:38.040
But, uh, no, uh, trade tribunals tossed it. Uh, the sad part is that the Alberta government has got
00:44:44.600
about, uh, I don't know, something like $2 billion sunk into it. It was, this was, uh, Jason Kenney
00:44:50.600
took an equity stake in the pipeline back in 2020 to try to get it jumpstarted. We've got a separate,
00:44:57.640
uh, kind of claim in front of the tribunal, but you know, if, if they're going to turn down $15
00:45:02.200
billion from, uh, Trans Canada, Trans Canada, quote, TC energy, then chances of Alberta getting
00:45:10.840
its money back are probably slim to none. Got a column that mentions that coming out
00:45:15.080
in the next couple of days, because his premier Smith is considering getting into business with the
00:45:19.080
heritage fund, but that's a separate issue. Well, a premier Smith has said on multiple
00:45:24.200
occasions that she kind of wants to see a Keystone XL come back on the books, but I don't think so.
00:45:29.560
I think like this, I think this is the final nail in the coffin. I think it's done. It's dead.
00:45:34.760
Better than a doornail. Who, who would want to bring it back after all this?
00:45:38.280
I mean, I mean, all you can hope for is that if Trump got elected this fall,
00:45:41.480
that he would give the thumbs up yet again, you connect that final piece, but you're going to
00:45:45.960
get investors to entrust billions to get that running again.
00:45:48.760
And if I'm the company and I'm, you know, like, like, do I want to go through this?
00:45:52.120
How many times are you going to deal with that?
00:45:53.720
It's almost like Groundhog Day, right? Um, let's see. Um, so CNRL was fined
00:46:00.360
about 250 grand for, uh, dead birds on its tailings ponds, right? So, uh, we don't know how
00:46:07.080
many actual dead birds there were, but chances are, you know, a hundred or a couple hundred.
00:46:14.040
And, and the irony is, is that, um, conservative estimates on the windmills,
00:46:20.280
which nobody can track or suggesting like maybe 40,000 a year.
00:46:24.280
Well, I mean, it's usually ducks on the tailing ponds as well, which I don't want to see slaughter,
00:46:27.800
but I mean, go to any Chinatown and see how many are hanging in the average window.
00:46:31.640
And I mean, a good restaurant's going to go through a hundred ducks a day anyway.
00:46:34.680
Well, I don't want them covered in oil. No, no. I'm a deep fryer, but that's about it.
00:46:40.440
But again, the fines don't reflect the amount of damage. That's all. I mean,
00:46:43.240
you want to mitigate, but come on guys, it's a hundred ducks.
00:46:46.040
And then, uh, in fact, um, the Canadian, I think it's the Canadian government
00:46:52.040
that does the endangered species. Anyway, so there's three, uh, species of, uh, woodland bats
00:46:57.800
in Alberta that were put on the endangered list, uh, specifically because of the windmills,
00:47:04.040
because they're killing like, uh, so like the numbers of these things have been going down.
00:47:10.440
And like I said, nobody knows exactly, but it's about 10 per windmill and there's, uh, you know,
00:47:16.760
about two or 3000 windmills in Alberta now. So you do the math. That's like, uh, you know,
00:47:23.000
yeah, well, it's back to what I was talking about earlier. I mean, you know, we talk about renewable
00:47:26.280
energy, but people forget to mention there is an impact. I mean, it's, there, there is absolutely
00:47:30.520
an impact beyond the visible sightlines. And then finally, um, last week, um, during the stampede,
00:47:37.080
I was covering, um, the, uh, Canadian blockchain consortium, uh, trade mission, uh, to Alberta.
00:47:44.120
So this was kind of, uh, a gathering of about 70 of, uh, the biggest and brightest minds in,
00:47:50.680
um, it's, uh, blockchain. So blockchain, we tend to think of it as cryptocurrency like Bitcoin,
00:47:59.000
but it actually kind of goes beyond, beyond that because, uh, we're talking about authentication,
00:48:05.400
uh, protocols and, um, they've had some meetings with, uh, the government, Premier Smith,
00:48:11.480
and at least seven different ministries on how maybe this, uh, blockchain, uh, technology could be
00:48:18.120
implemented into Alberta. And we're talking about things like, um, land titles, uh, getting rid of
00:48:24.520
notaries, uh, of a lot of the expensive lawyers when you're, you know, when you're signing these
00:48:29.800
documents, like you get into a car crash, tap phones, AI generates police report, like insurance
00:48:37.000
claims are all automatically set on the file and insurance is, is a big issue that's coming up here
00:48:43.000
in Alberta. You know, how, how do we keep the costs down? So, because, uh, blockchain even more than
00:48:49.800
say, uh, cryptocurrency is about, uh, authentication, right? So it's about, uh, secure systems and the
00:48:58.280
Alberta government, uh, apparently this fall is going to be introducing some, uh, privacy legislation
00:49:03.880
to try and, you know, get on top of it before it, uh, kind of takes over like, because this technology
00:49:09.400
is coming. So, so what, what the cabinet ministers are saying is like, they won't be able to seize your
00:49:15.960
bank accounts. They won't be able to seize your assets. Like, you know, we saw during the trucker
00:49:20.680
convoy, uh, you know, all these, uh, different kinds of things. Things are changing so fast.
00:49:29.160
They're not going to be able to steal money right out of your pocket. You know, this is a problem
00:49:32.440
with cash. Like I know that a lot of what the Western standard readers like to use cash, you know,
00:49:37.320
and feel a little more secure, but actually cash is not a very secure, uh, method of exchange.
00:49:41.480
They can get stolen too. I mean, keep it in your pillow. If somebody breaks in your house,
00:49:45.240
or identity theft, you know, like, uh, they were talking about cases where people were
00:49:50.600
selling people's homes, you know, completely out, uh, from under them without them even knowing it.
00:49:56.440
Right. So this blockchain technology is going to prevent all that.
00:49:59.800
Cool. Yeah. And it's a, it's really, really interesting.
00:50:03.000
All right. Well, thank you for the extended update. Lots going on in the business world as well. And, uh,
00:50:08.360
I'll, I'll get you some Claritin before you come in next week.
00:50:10.920
All right. Thanks, Sean. And, uh, we'll see outside in the newsroom shortly.
00:50:17.960
Excellent. All right. That is our business and energy man, Sean Polzer with the update. So that's
00:50:23.880
all the time we got today, guys. Thanks for tuning in. We covered a lot of ground. There's just so much
00:50:28.520
to cover right now. Holy cow. So much news. It's nuts. Keeps us rolling though. So thank you all for
00:50:33.640
tuning in this week. Hey, share these links with other people, get it out there, spread the word,
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beat the government funded media. They're all going broke. Anyways, check out course talk. If
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you want to see a horror story either way, uh, thanks for tuning in today, guys. We'll see you