The world is still turning, but my Lord, it's screwy. The news cycles are just changing faster than we can keep up with them, and trying to interpret them as they change and twist and maneuver, so we'll try and work through some of those today.
00:07:52.180But, I mean, think of all those little skinny African children who now aren't so confused about whether their peepee means they're a boy or a girl.
00:08:31.200And the Liberals are saying they're going to eliminate the April 1st carbon tax increase, but they're not quite sure how they can do it because it's mandated by law, but there's no part of it sitting.
00:08:44.640So they're scrambling to try and figure out how they're going to get to stop by April 1st.
00:08:48.840But it just shows you the idiocy of what's going on down there in Ottawa.
00:08:53.080Well, in a slight way, I mean, it's only going to cost us so much more.
00:08:56.640I almost hope, almost hope that they can't find a way to do it because having that increase in the midst of an election campaign will just help remind people this is what the Liberals have to offer for you.
00:09:13.900I saw a video of police laying a beating on something.
00:09:15.940Oh, yes, they should have mentioned that.
00:09:17.620There was an arrest in northeast Calgary yesterday.
00:09:20.600Apparently, a police officer pulled a man over for a dirty license plate.
00:09:25.200The man didn't want to talk to the officer and walked away from him into a convenience store.
00:09:30.980Then when the gentleman came out of the convenience store, the officer tried to connect with him again, and that didn't go well.
00:09:38.760The officer put the man under arrest, and the fight was on.
00:09:42.720So a very dramatic video there on the site of, it looks like, four or five Calgary police officers jumping on this guy and trying to restrain him all over a dirty license plate.
00:09:53.880Well, sometimes if you drive around these days, every license plate is dirty.
00:10:00.040Yeah, it sounds like the pretense for pulling him over might have been shaky, but the bottom line is, even if they're being jerks, don't start struggling, it never ends well.
00:10:07.060Do what the police tell you to do within reason, right?
00:10:26.860Record these things and let us judge and have a look and see who was being the moron in these cases.
00:10:31.180It looks from what I saw that this gentleman perhaps might have taken a few more knocks than it was warranted, but he was also being stupid.
00:11:19.900Yes, and the reason we're covering all those stories and Sean's down in Houston, covering those things and the rest is because you guys have been subscribing.
00:11:57.900Okay, I saw a good question there from a commenter, Kenzie Kraken.
00:12:01.400It looks like asking if I think Smith is wasting taxpayer money going to the United States.
00:12:05.480You know, that's a good and fair question.
00:12:08.440I typically support a lot of what Premier Smith does, and I think in this case, going to this Houston show, if it's a trade delegation with a mandate in mind and a goal, yes.
00:12:17.820I think in this case, it's a good use of taxpayer dollars as her as a representative of Alberta.
00:12:23.360Now, we might see them doing stupid things that we'll find out about later, like if they're having themselves, you know, $50 shrimp cocktails and booking $5,000 a night hotel rooms.
00:12:32.540People like Franco Tarazano will expose that, and we will beat on them for it.
00:13:10.040There's ones we like more or less than others.
00:13:12.500It's a matter of trying to mitigate and get the best you can out of the bunch and try to keep them accountable.
00:13:18.560That's why it's important for us to stay on the case of the politicians we like, just as much as getting on the case of the ones we don't like.
00:13:25.600I have not been thrilled with the budget performance of the UCP.
00:14:34.760It's on us to ask the tougher questions.
00:14:36.320It's on us and independent media to ask those questions, of course.
00:14:39.760And to try to be fair about them, but not give a pass when it's somebody who we feel we like or is more ideologically inclined along where we are on things.
00:14:50.720So, yes, in a vamp fashion, say, can you imagine our lefty friends screaming if Daniel Smith cut anything of actual substance?
00:14:58.840And just on that final note, I mean, I saw a press conference a little while back where they had Ninchy, the leader of Albert NDP, was going on about Daniel Smith's cuts.
00:15:06.380Not one person in that scrum said, what cuts?
00:15:50.840I mean, I understand some of the generalities of where you're going to be coming from.
00:15:54.080But what are they going to be the main priorities that Canadian Taxpayers Federation is going to be pushing on in these next couple of months?
00:16:15.840He still wants to hammer businesses with a carbon tax, and he hopes you won't notice when those businesses pass on those costs to you through higher prices.
00:16:31.740And balance the budget by making spending go down.
00:16:35.020Like, look, for the last decade or so, this government in Ottawa has been on the runaway spending train, wasting money like crazy, hiring 108,000 extra government bureaucrats.
00:16:46.100So, what we need to see is a plan to balance the budget within two years by making spending go down.
00:16:54.060And finally, we need to see not just ending all carbon taxes.
00:16:57.980We need to see massive, massive tax cuts.
00:16:58.980We need to see massive, massive tax cuts.
00:18:44.440And now, I mean, that's part of what Carney's hoping that helped him was getting out of that tax and seeing if maybe that's what's turning around a little electoral fortunes.
00:18:54.960So we've got Franco in the lobby again.
00:20:21.540So they've got no excuse, and we'll remind them of that in the weeks to come here.
00:20:27.200So getting on to other things, one of the, you know, we're in the midst of this bizarre trade war and the tariffs and counter tariffs and the rest going on.
00:20:35.280Something you pointed out, I mean, a strategy, and we're not hearing that tactic much.
00:20:39.620I mean, it sounds like among the many things, I mean, it depends on the hour, what President Trump, me or me, want from us.
00:20:45.420But he does say he wants to draw Canadian businesses down to south of the border.
00:20:50.660Taxing further up here wouldn't help us defend from that.
00:20:53.840I mean, as you said, let's streamline, make this a great place to do business and cut business taxes.
00:20:57.880It'll make it even harder for President Trump to snipe them.
00:21:00.020Yeah, you know, I understand the sentiment, right?
00:21:04.100Like when someone pushes you, you want to push back.
00:21:10.860But like folks, retaliatory tariffs are just a tax on Canadians, right?
00:21:16.480So when President Trump imposes tariffs, well, that is a tax on American businesses and is passed on to American consumers, okay?
00:21:25.860So just because President Trump wants to increase taxes on Americans, that doesn't mean that Ottawa should then go ahead and increase taxes on Canadians.
00:29:55.860They're coming from the right side of things.
00:29:57.640As I said, media is not holding the politicians accountable enough, or at least not legacy media.
00:30:03.080But the CTF does, and they put it out there.
00:30:06.120So check them out, Canadian Taxpayers' Federation.
00:30:08.460They're a good group out there to make sure we're trying to keep those politicians as honest as we can.
00:30:13.580I mean, it's always an endless push and pull game.
00:30:16.280And as I kind of said in my opening monologue, it's so important for us to be informed when we go into this election in particular.
00:30:22.100Because we're having a hard time getting unfiltered information from any of the leaders, particularly the liberals.
00:30:28.980So get some of those outward groups that are going to ask those questions, or at least put out the stats and the numbers and cut through the BS on your behalf so you don't have to try and translate it.
00:30:37.640I see in the lobby we've got our energy and business reporter, Sean Polzer, down in Houston, who I envy terribly.
00:30:44.120I love Texas, but it is a working trip, though.
00:30:48.480He's down there at the Petroleum Gathering.
00:30:53.180I don't seem to have any sound out of Sean right now, though.
00:30:55.900Hopefully that pops on there pretty quickly.
00:30:58.540And yes, his mic appears to be muted for the moment.
00:31:01.400But he's down there, and you can see him, and it's nice and sunny wherever he's sitting.
00:31:05.660And we've had a lot of stuff going on down there.
00:31:10.300As Dave mentioned, stories have been coming up from down there with Sean.
00:31:14.920The Smith government has been proposing basically a royalty and kind sort of thing to backstop pipelines as well.
00:31:23.300I believe there was a deal, at least, to have an agreement with Japan on possibly getting liquid natural gas on the go down there with increasing our exports on that.
00:31:58.900Yeah, I remember that from these videos.
00:31:59.900And yes, I've managed to put on some Texas barbecue, a couple pounds at Derek Bilderbrand's expense.
00:32:07.860Well, you know, that's the only thing where Texans, I don't dare utter it when I'm down there, but I still think their barbecue is overrated.
00:32:27.340Well, the top highlight was probably Premier Smith's address just moments ago, barely an hour ago.
00:32:35.780We've got a breaking news update up on the site.
00:32:39.060I think it's safe to say that she wowed the crowd, although there's definitely a lot of homegrown partisans.
00:32:47.200But I think that the message on the terrace, I saw your segment briefly with Franco, is starting to register with the people that at least know anything about oil and gas around here.
00:32:59.840And of course, being in Houston and being at Sierra Week and IHS, we've got, you know, some of the biggest luminaries of the oil world all gathered in one spot.
00:33:09.700So what kind of reception has there been, actually, for Canadians down there?
00:33:16.120I would imagine, I would hope that the business community is just looking at the dollars and cents and not taking it personally.
00:33:21.360It's not like we're, you know, seeing the sporting community booing each other's anthems and other such foolishness.
00:33:25.580I mean, they're just talking about dollars and cents down there, I imagine, not bitter.
00:33:32.160And, you know, the message here is that the American Energy Advantage is predicated on the partnership with Canada.
00:33:37.600Like, they really couldn't do it without us.
00:33:39.700So just assuming that there is a 10% tariff, which is not as bad as a 25% or even a 50% tariff, you know, it seems to be going up by the minute here.
00:33:52.180Just even a 10% tariff, if they were to back those barrels out, Canadian barrels out of the market and replace them with American barrels, they're exporting about an equivalent amount that they're importing from us.
00:34:05.260It's a higher value product because you get more byproducts out of it, like diesel fuel and, you know, even wax and sulfur and these kinds of things out of that heavy barrel.
00:34:17.460So it's actually worked more and they would have to replace them with their own higher cross barrels.
00:34:21.740And it would actually reduce that 4 million barrels a day of exports that they have.
00:34:26.500I mean, if you recall, you're an oil guy, you know, that, you know, the oil export ban has only been lifted in about the last less than 10 years.
00:34:38.780You know, and basically less than 10 years, they've gone from zero to being the world's largest LNG exporter all overnight.
00:34:46.340And, you know, shifting around those flows threatens that, what they call energy dominance, you know, they're creating a department of energy dominance.
00:34:58.300No word if Elon Musk is going to head it up.
00:35:01.840Well, LNG is the big thing these days.
00:35:04.460I mean, it's finally a means to export that, you know, natural gas, which normally was just a domestic product.
00:35:09.480I mean, this last couple of decades, it's really become a commodity.
00:35:12.480I remember seeing the facility being built down in Louisiana.
00:35:16.100I was down there some years back and they built a massive LNG terminal and quickly.
00:35:21.480But up in Canada, what did it take us 15 years to get one that still isn't quite operational yet on the West Coast?
00:35:28.440So, I mean, it's nice to have all these aspirational ideas about exporting more, but are we hearing anything concrete about how we might be able to actually get it done?
00:35:37.100Well, that's actually the mantra here.
00:35:38.740And I mentioned that in the article is it's not so much drill, baby drill, because, you know, the amount of resources that are available is well known.
00:35:48.000Alberta government is putting out a resource assessment later on today, if it's not already out by the time I get there.
00:35:53.840But Smith was talking about it briefly in my presentation is, you know, trillion barrels of oil, thousands of trillions of feet of natural gas.
00:36:01.680So now the problem is, is how do we, you know, get those resources to market?
00:36:08.040So the new slogan around here is build, baby build.
00:36:13.640And the sense is that is the American advantage because they can get these projects to market really, really fast.
00:36:21.440It's like you said, the whole LNG infrastructure down here on, on the Gulf Coast, I'm going to, I'm going to call it the Gulf Coast, not the Gulf of America, not the Gulf of McDavid, not the Gulf of Alberta, right?
00:36:31.640The Gulf Coast, they've, it's, it's gone from zero to, you know, in just less than a decade.
00:37:12.180So I spoke to some folks from Tourmaline, Calgary-based, Mike Rose Company, biggest natural gas producer in Canada.
00:37:21.340They're actually the first one to actually start stripping LNG through, through Gulf of Alberta.
00:37:27.520But, you know, there was a comment made, like, just even with the number of projects that are on the West Coast that are already set in motion, you know, once those come online, we are going to be the world's fourth or fifth largest LNG producer.
00:37:41.100You know, it's still not too late to get into that game.
00:37:45.300And Daniel Smith's announcement yesterday with the government of Japan to, you know, sign this LNG.
00:37:52.460It's, you know, there is no business case for LNG, Corey, you know that.
00:37:56.740Our prime minister has told us how many times there's no business case for LNG.
00:38:00.880And yet the LNG demand around the globe is going to double within the next however many years.
00:38:06.460And it's because of data centers, it's because of electric cars, it's because of pulling all these other countries out of energy quality, it's because of the wars in Ukraine and in Russia.
00:38:17.360You know, so I don't think that the demand side of the equation is really the problem.
00:38:22.700You know, the problem is, like I said, getting those trucks and shuffles into the ground.
00:39:01.860Well, how much time is left on that conference?
00:39:03.760Are there some more kind of bigger events or meetings or conferences you're looking forward to yet?
00:39:09.000Well, we're kind of hitting the high point here, I think, because today there's Premier Smith is probably on our way to the airport as we speak.
00:39:18.840Brian Jean, I did an interview with him.
00:39:21.660Hopefully, we're going to get that up on the site here pretty quick, assuming that I can get a decent internet connection.
00:39:27.380And he's going to be around here until tomorrow, and then things start winding down on Friday.
00:44:47.500If you want EVs to actually make a possible run, the best thing the government can do, which is contrary to so much of the nature, get the hell out of the way.
00:45:35.560A massive debt, massive deficit, a totally divided nation, electric vehicle mandates that went nowhere, a carbon tax that completely failed.
00:45:49.260He's going to be able to sit and point at and say, look what I got done while I was in Canada.
00:45:53.700Closest he has was this giant investment.
00:46:00.220He's talking about with a high speed rail line out in Quebec and Ontario that obviously isn't going to get built, but it will waste billions more dollars of ours as they try.
00:46:20.400The only other part of his legacy I'll close, as Dave mentioned earlier, though, 10 years, the government has spent $11.2 billion on overseas gender initiatives.
00:46:28.040You know, imagine being in a third world country, not able to get clean water, having difficulty finding employment, bad housing.
00:46:35.200And what do you get from Trudeau, some dildo showing up at your place with drawings to show you that you might not be a boy.
00:46:40.980You might be a girl because that's what's most important to you.
00:46:44.220And all you want to do is frigging eat.