Western Standard - May 17, 2026


CORY MORGAN： Alberta's humiliating negotiation process with Carney must end


Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

180.55362

Word count

861

Sentence count

36

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 yeah i just get tired of these victory laps being done when there's no victory so i mean among
00:00:11.740 politicians in the federation only alberta must go through the humiliating ritual of groveling
00:00:17.900 and negotiating with the federal government to develop its industries and export its products
00:00:22.020 ontario's premier doesn't have to beg for permission to expand automotive manufacturing
00:00:26.500 and Quebec doesn't have to snivel if it wants to expand a maple syrup plantation.
00:00:31.860 Alberta, though, is reduced to having to offer concessions to be allowed to do
00:00:35.840 what every other oil-producing jurisdiction on the planet does, and they don't hesitate.
00:00:42.240 There's little indication the federal government has any interest in allowing Alberta to expand
00:00:45.980 its resource production and export infrastructure.
00:00:49.380 Kearney has talked and talked and talked.
00:00:51.740 For over a year now, we are an inch closer to getting something done than we were a year ago.
00:00:56.480 Premier Daniel Smith keeps setting deadlines and they keep passing.
00:01:00.100 Now Smith's celebrating that her and Carney had more officially entrenched the MOU they created long ago.
00:01:05.500 But what does that mean?
00:01:06.820 Has Carney repealed the No More Pipelines Act, which has stalled development in Alberta for years?
00:01:11.640 Has Carney repealed the tanker ban on the West Coast, despite tankers constantly docking in eastern Canadian ports?
00:01:18.120 Has Carney retracted his assertion that Indigenous consent is going to be required to get projects constructed?
00:01:24.300 Has Carney retracted his assertion that provincial permission must be attained by BC or Quebec to get pipelines constructed?
00:01:32.600 Unless all of these things have been done, nothing of note is going to be expanding in Alberta. 0.95
00:01:37.040 Canada is uncompetitive on the world market and is going to remain so until the government chooses to get out of the damn way.
00:01:42.660 No pipeline has ever been talked into the ground, but Carney and Smith appear determined to try that method.
00:01:48.800 Alberta and Albertans have had enough as private investors, as have private investors.
00:01:53.480 I mean, according to an RBC report, over a trillion dollars in potential investment has already fled Canada in the last decade, and most of that was oil and gas.
00:02:02.460 The conditions causing that capital flight haven't been addressed.
00:02:06.120 Thus, that capital flight's just going to continue.
00:02:08.600 If Mark Carney truly wants to see these projects done, he can say so at any time.
00:02:13.180 He can declare these projects to be in the national interest and that he'll use his constitutional authority to get them done.
00:02:19.660 He won't do that, though.
00:02:20.500 He just offers more mealy-mouthed promises and more negotiations.
00:02:24.540 His major projects office, remember that thing?
00:02:27.280 It was created almost a year ago with the ostensible goal of fast-tracking approvals.
00:02:31.240 So far, it hasn't approved a single one.
00:02:33.120 I think we can safely call that initiative a failure.
00:02:36.100 It's an office of false hopes and continued deferral.
00:02:39.440 Nothing more.
00:02:40.480 It appears to be that way by design.
00:02:42.520 Carney pretends the holdup is with a lack of interest from private investors,
00:02:45.740 and that's just an outright lie.
00:02:46.820 Private companies desperately want to produce and export more oil and gas while world energy prices are spiking.
00:02:53.420 They've made it no secret, though, of what's holding them up.
00:02:56.320 Sunova CEO John McKenzie called Canada's energy policies myopically focused on the climate agenda,
00:03:02.600 arguing they've made resource development and investment in the country uncompetitive with the rest of the world.
00:03:09.260 Canadian Natural Resources Limited CEO Scott Stouth argued that companies investing in carbon capture and storage
00:03:15.600 shouldn't face an additional industrial carbon tax on top of those costs,
00:03:20.880 helling the policy an economic burden that undermines long-term growth.
00:03:24.800 The Oil Sands Alliance, all the heavyweights,
00:03:26.560 they released a statement saying because of complex regulatory processes,
00:03:30.160 uncompetitive carbon frameworks, and fiscal systems that don't incent growth,
00:03:33.980 there's not been a major new Greenfield Oil Sands project sanctioning Canada since 2013.
00:03:40.180 An investment has dramatically declined.
00:03:42.420 premier smith i guess she was obligated to show she was willing to deal with the federal government
00:03:47.080 in good faith but the time for playing nice is done she needs to approach these negotiations 0.99
00:03:51.860 now with teeth and scheduling a referendum on independence will do that no more pussy 0.93
00:03:56.180 footing around just announce it's going to be held and that it's going to be asking the
00:03:59.940 constitutional question not lucasic's status quo version albertans have had enough waiting things
00:04:05.080 are stalled quit putting out these press releases and false victories shaking hands premier smith
00:04:10.280 must start the referendum clock ticking, and it must make it clear that Carney's inaction
00:04:14.000 is going to increase support for the S-side. If she doesn't schedule the vote, not only is she
00:04:18.780 setting herself up for more embarrassment as Carney plays with her, but she will be opening 0.74
00:04:23.600 up her right flank for a party split as independent supporters start to put real pressure on her.
00:04:28.300 Nothing shy of a project scheduled with dirt anticipated to move soon is going to satisfy
00:04:33.200 Albertans now. No more paper, guys. Smith must demand nothing less and must give Albertans the
00:04:38.440 democratic means to express their thoughts on the federation through a referendum talk is cheap
00:04:43.420 and we've had enough all right