In this episode, I sit down with the Canadian Campaign for Affordable Energy (CPAE) to discuss the current state of the energy sector, and the role of the federal government in driving up energy prices. We talk about the impact of the Trudeau government's policies on energy prices, and how they are driving up the cost of living across the country.
00:00:00.000So you're with the Canadians for Affordable Energy, and boy, you've got to have a busy, busy time.
00:00:05.080I mean, you're very outspoken on social media, but, you know, energy costs, I mean, inflation in general,
00:00:10.920and of course energy costs impact all of it all the way down the line, are pressuring everybody.
00:00:16.160But our government, I guess I'll just kind of start you there, seems to want to do nothing more than make things even more expensive for us.
00:00:23.140More expensive and more confrontational in being expensive.
00:00:25.900They're driven by an ideology, an ideology that basically says energy can be any price.
00:00:31.280Canadians will go along with it as long as you can contrive and connive and tell them that the world is coming to an end.
00:00:37.680I mean, I won't get the science of this all, but the economics clearly indicates there's a big problem in this country.
00:00:43.240You have a government that's allowed energy prices to go through the roof two ways.
00:00:47.880Their green policies on carbon taxes, which, Corey, you've talked about many, many times.
00:00:51.720And the second that's not discussed as much is the blocking of pipelines and regulations, which is discouraging investments, leaving the country.
00:00:58.620And with it, a drop in the Canadian dollar, which is only worth 135 pennies to buy one U.S. dollar.
00:01:04.880Corey, that adds significantly to the price of everything.
00:01:08.860In terms of gasoline in your province, about 26 cents a litre.
00:01:11.960In my province, 28 in the Maritimes with a 15% HST, more like 30.
00:01:17.040These are real factors driving the cost of living through the roof.
00:01:22.460Yes, and you can talk about monetary policy and the government overspending and printing too much money and all these other things.
00:01:29.200But we keep tap dancing around what is, in my view, the elephant in the room.
00:01:33.740Even the Bank of Canada has to recognize now, finally, after two terms of saying gasoline is, in fact, driving inflation up and down.
00:01:42.300When it's down, of course, the Liberals take credit for it.
00:01:44.680When it's up, they're conspicuously silent, as we saw today, or I should say yesterday, when an announcement came that, in fact, inflation is up again.
00:01:51.660Reality is, this is a country blessed with an abundance of energy.
00:01:54.380And we are despoiling and ruining it for generations and undermining not just affordability,
00:02:00.740but I think the benefit and the gift that has been given to every Canadian of energy resources the world desperately wants,
00:02:05.860but which we have a few ideologues in Ottawa preventing it from happening.
00:02:08.680Yeah, I mean, it's, we are an energy powerhouse, or we should be.
00:02:13.160I mean, the natural resources we're blessed with, whether it is the hydro in the east or the natural gas and oil we have in the west,
00:02:19.500but we have an ideologically driven federal government that doesn't want us to export it even.
00:02:24.060I mean, not even talking about our domestic, you know, use of this,
00:02:27.360because it's kind of ridiculous that we have so many energy resources.
00:02:30.060We pay such a high domestic price, but we have a prime minister telling us there's no business case to export it to other countries.
00:02:36.200And then lying, as his Minister of Environment has done on many occasions,
00:02:40.500saying, you know, these are industries that are making tons of profit.
00:02:43.580Let them pay their fair share rather than passing it on to consumers.
00:02:48.980Maybe he's dangled in a few too many buildings and bridges and whatnot.
00:02:52.300But the reality is, for most of us who have spent a bit of time in politics, some of us in the real private sector, in the real world,
00:02:58.740and those of us trying to struggle to make ends meet.
00:03:01.360You know, I don't come from a family of great wealth.
00:03:03.800My parents both lost their shirts back in the 1980s when the last Trudeau government spent so heavily that we wound up with 23%, 24% interest rates.
00:03:11.840I think the country is going down that road again.
00:03:13.820And when you have leaders in this country who are determined not just to impose something they know cannot work.
00:03:20.100Germany has proven that renewables do not work.
00:03:23.280You know, France is having trouble having to look back at coal.
00:03:36.540And yet we have a group of people in Ottawa, elites, committed to shutting down the country's resources.
00:03:43.840And as a result and as a consequence, shutting down our economy.
00:03:47.020It's only a matter of time before another bond rating agency comes in, downgrades our credit.
00:03:51.400And if you think, you know, 6% or 7% interest rates are tough to handle, wait until that happens and you have to pay 10% or 11%.
00:03:57.880Then I think things will get very real.
00:03:59.560And those here, my neck in the woods in Toronto, who live in, you know, fantasy world and believe their food is delivered by stork or by, you know, by pixie dust, will now have to get more real about the direction taken.
00:04:11.280It's a very deliberate policy by this government to undermine the Canadian economy by throwing out everything that's good in favor of things they know did not work.
00:04:18.360So, I mean, I believe citizens are catching on.
00:04:50.180We're here at the end of the day to ensure that Quebec gets its fair share.
00:04:54.460Look, I think the country is in the wrong, is definitely down the wrong path.
00:05:00.280And to get away from there, we need a whole new way of approaching this.
00:05:04.220I'm going to be very blunt about this because I've never been a member of any other party but the Liberal Party.
00:05:08.840But, my God, the Conservative Party today under Pierre Palliev reminds me a lot of my Liberal Party in the 1990s.
00:05:15.160It's practical, pragmatic, realistic, and saying, these are the problems.
00:05:19.280This is where we go and this is how we're going to get there.
00:05:21.880To me, I can see a lot of Liberals of my generation, the ones who are still working, the ones who are still out there busting their chops, going in that direction.
00:05:29.760And I think that's something that the Conservatives should take very much to heart.
00:06:24.220Overnight in Nova Scotia, when you saw a 30, 40 cent a liter increase hitting people who happen to be, you know, far less better off than the rest of the country on average.
00:06:33.700When you start hitting them and impacting them and then saying, oh, here's a bit of, here's a, here's a, here's a couple of pennies to pay you back in terms of a rebate, which they know don't work.
00:06:42.400When you start hitting consumers, you start making people poorer, you force them to make decisions that they are not comfortable with.
00:06:50.040I expect that the real blowback is going to come in provinces like Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI, and Newfoundland.
00:06:55.260When on election night, when that should happen, and I think liberals know this, they lose most of the seats in that region of the country.
00:07:00.180Then the rest of it will be a steamroll.
00:07:01.900Because I think here in Ontario, with some exceptions, I think we're going the same direction as well.
00:07:06.060Yeah, well, ideals and green dreams or even family loyalty to particular parties tends to go out the window if you can't make the rent or the mortgage payment or you're worried about getting your kids through school or even buying groceries for some people.
00:07:17.980So I could see a definite turnabout in the Atlantic provinces.
00:07:32.040When you get a pollster calling, you tell them you're not happy, you're not going to support this particular coalition government.
00:07:37.120I think when it gets to 40% and 45% from the peer-poly of conservatives, I think we may very well see Mr. Trudeau take a long walk off a surfboard in Tofino somewhere.
00:07:48.140Yeah, I was speculating earlier that that might come pretty soon.
00:07:51.060But, I mean, you know, when you look at the pool that this Liberal Party, I said it when I introduced before at the start of the show when you were coming on.
00:07:57.620I said, you know, you're a member from back in the days when Liberals were pragmatic and sane.
00:08:02.080Now it's a party dominated by ideologues.
00:08:04.860I don't know where or who they might draw for a leadership that might turn things around.
00:08:18.200And I think at this point it's trying to protect the 70 or 90 or 100 members you think you can keep by having a transition at the leadership level.
00:08:26.540But if you're going to keep on the same dangerous path to economic perdition, good luck with that.
00:08:32.820You might be reduced to a rump, the same as which I saw in 2011.
00:08:36.800There's significant consequences and blowback coming.
00:08:40.900Every time there's an interest rate increase, more and more people's noses go on the proverbial waterline.
00:08:46.020Food prices are endemically inflationary, driven by energy prices to a large extent, which the federal government seems to be committed insanely at trying to raise.
00:08:55.160We should be pulling back, removing those carbon taxes, hitting net zero hard and saying if we can achieve it scientifically, fine.
00:09:04.800Because it's an idea that is extraordinarily pernicious to Canada and is likely to lead not just to economic dislocation, but potentially to a constitutional crisis on a scale I haven't seen in my lifetime.
00:09:19.880I mean, we can keep pointing it out at least and, you know, letting people know and at least moving towards a better future, hopefully with things.
00:09:28.320And that's what you've been doing out there.
00:09:29.840So before I let you go, where can people find you with the Canadians for Affordable Energy and then Gas Price Buddy and such?
00:09:37.120Energy, affordableenergy.ca is a site I often put my blogs up on.
00:09:41.980And if you want Gas Price Predictions, gaswizard.ca is probably the easiest one.
00:09:46.620And if you need to get a hold of me on Twitter, gaspricewizard.
00:09:49.160I'm usually there, usually having a little bit of fun with everybody.
00:09:52.580Yeah, so likewise, Twitter is kind of my favorite playground too.
00:09:55.120But there's some serious business goes on there as well.
00:09:57.660So I appreciate you rushing in to come to talk to us today and the stuff you do, Dan.
00:10:01.740I mean, as I said, you know, sure, it could be a long wait, but I mean, we can mitigate the damage by continually exposing this and pushing while we can.