Danielle Smith talks prairie values, pipelines, and Alberta’s path to prosperity
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Summary
Learn English with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Premier Smith delivers a keynote at the Canada Strong and Free Network fireside chat in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, on the eve of her re-election campaign. She stresses the importance of conservative values, fiscal responsibility, limited government, and an emphasis on family and community.
Transcript
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Please join me in welcoming a Premier who doesn't flinch when it counts,
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who governs with courage and clarity, and who stands up for not the ideology, but for her land,
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her people, and for the future of this province. Please welcome the Honourable Premier Danielle Smith.
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How to disappoint a large and excited group. My apologies. Premier Smith is just delayed by a couple of minutes,
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but we are looking forward to burning her up on stage. So thank you very much.
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That doesn't happen for me. That happens for Premier Smith.
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So she'll come up in a few moments and give a quick keynote address, and then we'll
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have a fireside chat and talk a while. It's my pleasure to do this again for those of you that
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were at the Ottawa edition of Canada Strong and Free Network events. We did this just back in April,
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and it's also a pleasure because I've known Premier Smith off and on for about 15 years.
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Is she ready? All right. Now you can stand up and applause again for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
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Why, thank you. Thank you. I hear you just gave a standing O to Brian Lilly.
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You know, this is a good thing about him having Ben or an old radio and TV guy. He just has to roll with
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the punches. So I'm glad to be here, and I'm really looking forward to our conversation together.
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And so thank you for the introduction. And it is, I have a few prepared remarks, so I'll go through those,
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and then we'll get into a little bit more interaction of it later. But it is such a pleasure.
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So welcome you here today, and welcome everyone to Calgary. If you're not, if you're from out of
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province, I should probably find out how many out of province folks do we have here. Wow, look at that.
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Almost half the room. That's fantastic. Welcome here. So you'll probably know that there's
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a bit of a difference in conservatism in Alberta than in other provinces. And let me maybe see if I can
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help to explain a bit about why that is. Because I know you're discussing conservatism in our nation
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and the critical role of the West. And so when we talk about conservatism, we often focus on policies
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and politics. But the values that underpin our movement are far older and more profound. They are,
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in the case of Alberta conservatism, it is the values of the pioneers who first settled our land.
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They were a people who came to a vast and open country with little more than the clothes on their
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back and the belief in their ability to build a better life here with their families. And that is
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a truly great nation building project. They embraced the spirit of radical free enterprise and rugged
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individualism. They understood that prosperity was not a handout, but a harvest, a direct result of
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hard work and thrift and a commitment to family and community. And keep in mind, we've only been a
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established as a province since 1905. So a lot of the growth and development happened here over 120
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years. And that's part of, again, I think the reason why we have a little bit of a different founding
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story than the conservatives that go further east. It's the pioneer spirit that is not a historical
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footnote. It is a living, breathing part of our identity. It is the grit and innovation you see in our
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entrepreneurs every single day. And these values, fiscal responsibility, limited government and
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individual liberty are the very values that allowed the west to flourish. They're the reason why Alberta
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is and always will be the economic engine of Canada. We have always known that low taxes and a focus on
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reducing red tape are the most effective ways to create jobs and grow our economy. It's just a matter of
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common sense. We are a province that proves that pro-growth, low tax, free market policies are the
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And this prairie conservatism has always been about more than just numbers on a balance sheet. It is
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about a fundamental belief in the dignity of every individual and the power of communities to solve
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their own problems. It's about building a society where people are free not only to succeed but are
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also encouraged to help one another when times get tough. We are a strong and free people and we
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always stick together. The historical roots of these values run deep. The people who settled here
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faced immense challenges, harsh winters, vast distances and a complete lack of infrastructure.
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They had to be self-reliant but they also had to work together and this balance between individual
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strength and community cooperation is the essence of prairie conservatism. It is a belief that the
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government's role is not to be a master but to be a partner, to get out of the way so people can
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build their businesses, their farms and their communities and take care of their families.
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Today, as we face new challenges, we have to go back to these foundational values. We have to
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continue to advocate for our people. We have to ensure that our industries from energy to agriculture
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to the new industries and technology are free to innovate and compete on the global stage.
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We are a nation-building province and we must ensure we continue to build for the good of all
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Canadians. There have always been those who oppose free enterprise, who stand in the way of innovation
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and the standards of freedom and self-determination. They would rather choose winners in the name of a
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narrow and limited ideology that villainizes outsiders and preaches against prosperity. And the last 10 years
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have made that more evident than ever. If you didn't see the video that I released earlier this week,
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let me highlight some key points that I made there. We all know that Canada is suffering right now with
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its economy. The last few years have brought an unprecedented inflation crisis, high unemployment,
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declining GDP, plummeting productivity and hundreds of billions in capital investment that has fled out
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Canada for other countries. A massive and unsustainable federal deficit and of course the U.S.
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tariff threat, which has exposed just how dependent we are on one single country for the vast majority
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of our exports. It has been an extremely difficult period and many don't seem to want to even recognize
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that there is a problem. But the good news is that with a few simple policy changes the federal
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government could meaningfully reverse these trends. They could create hundreds of thousands of jobs,
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attract back hundreds of billions of dollars in investment, bolster GDP growth, diversify our trade
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markets and create new revenue streams for federal and provincial budgets, all without the
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investment of new tax dollars. All that is standing in the way of that is some common sense and,
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must be said, a bit of courage by our Prime Minister.
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Because more than a century and a half after those prairie homesteaders came to our land, one thing is
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still true. You see, Canada has become, has among the largest supply of valuable natural resources on
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earth. On a per person basis, our endowment of natural resources far exceeds China and Europe and
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Russia and even the United States. And it's not even that close. We have incredibly fertile lands and
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oceans, unmatched supplies of timber, uranium and potash, a treasure trove of critical minerals in every
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province and every territory. And here in Alberta, we literally live on top of a trillion, more than a
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trillion barrels of oil and more than a quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas. These oil and gas
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resources represent an incalculable tens of trillions of dollars of potential wealth for our country if we
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would just develop it. And if we do, that means hundreds of thousands of new great paying jobs, hundreds
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of billions in taxes and royalties that could be used for government services and infrastructure
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and potentially trillions more in all of the spinoff industries that can develop like AI data
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centres and petrochemicals, environmental technology and a host of other industries that would benefit
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profoundly from the wealth generated from its development. But for the past 10 years, the federal
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government led by Justin Trudeau put in place a series of laws and regulations designed to target
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and phase out of existence Canada's largest economic sector, oil and gas. I know that in Ontario,
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they think the auto sector is the largest industry. It's not. It's oil and gas. We have about 150
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billion dollars worth of oil and gas exports that go back and forth across to the United States.
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But first, how did they do this? They made new pipelines virtually impossible to build through the
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passage of the unconstitutional C-69. We call it the no new pipelines bill. It had so much
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confusion and uncertainty and red tape that Canada earned a reputation as one of the very worst places
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to invest in the world. They didn't stop there though. The Liberals then specifically targeted what
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is possibly the most valuable single deposit of natural resources anywhere and that's the Alberta
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oil sands. They completely banned all oil tankers off the northwest BC coast, effectively landlocking a
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multi-trillion dollar asset that would have enriched the lives of Canadians for generations. And then to cap it
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off, the federal government announced an impossible to achieve oil and gas emissions cap or more
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accurately a production cap that makes new oil and gas production effectively impossible. And if they
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stay with the stringency they're proposing would mean we would have to shut in up to 2 million barrels
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of production by 2035. So the funny thing about this particular emissions cap is that it wasn't imposed on
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any other type of production. It wasn't put on aluminum, it wasn't put on cement, it wasn't put on
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steel. The cap was placed on just one single sector, oil and gas. The conference board of Canada just
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released a report, as I mentioned, that not only would the cap cost the Alberta economy roughly one
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trillion dollars in GDP, 150,000 jobs and 200 billion in provincial revenues by 2050 but it would also
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impact federal fortunes too. No other nation would ever think to do what Canada has done in the last
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decade and phase out its most valuable assets worth tens of trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands
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of jobs for people. But there is one silver lining to these economic challenges. I think Canadians right
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across the nation are waking up to what has happened. We are now starting to understand that we have only been
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hurting ourselves. We are far too economically dependent on one customer and if we want to be
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economically prosperous and independent again we have to take advantage of the incredible endowment
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of resources that we enjoy. And it wouldn't take a whole lot to get that started either. I have often
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talked about the nine bad laws but let me just tell you the three that he could get started on right away
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that would immediately turn our nation's economic fortunes around. First, announcing that Canada would no longer
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be implementing the oil and gas production cap. That would send a clear signal that Canada wants to expand
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oil and gas production and reduce emissions through technology and innovation rather than by capping
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resource development. Second thing, we would like them to announce that Canada will be repealing the oil tanker ban this fall.
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The federal government can then work with BC and Alberta and Indigenous leaders to build a new resource corridor
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and bitumen pipeline to ports in the northwest BC coast to access new markets in Asia which is where the greatest
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growth opportunity lies. And third, announce an overhaul of the C-69 no new pipelines law. And I erase these topics in this
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context today for one reason. That the spirit that united our nation from Tofino to Charlottetown would not exist
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under the rhetoric and ideology that has prevailed over the last decade in this nation.
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the nation that built railroads across a continent could not have happened under the last 10 years.
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The Somme, Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, the liberation of the Netherlands.
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Those victories came from a belief in the natural freedoms of Canada and the strength of our values.
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And we need to find that again. We need to restore the spirit of the homesteaders.
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We need to remember the farmers and the miners and the fishermen. The builders of railroads and the navies and
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the warriors who looked apocalypse in the face.
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I am incredibly optimistic about the future of Alberta and Canada.
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We have a resilient economy, a hardworking population,
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and a shared commitment to building a prosperous future for generations to come.
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Belated happy 120th birthday to you. You're looking great.
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That's for all of you. That's not for Premier Smith.
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It is important. You know, as I was going around to all...
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It's very interesting that our birthday, September 1st, happened to fall on Labor Day.
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I saw you get some flack for that on social media.
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But you know what? It actually is very telling because I don't think that there is a harder working
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people than the people of Alberta. And so we were able to tie those two together.
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It was a really good celebration. And it also...
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It capped off... I was at a rodeo. It kind of capped off the rodeo summer.
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And when you think about why do we celebrate rodeo? Well, it's fun to do.
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We get to dress up as cowboys. We get to be able to enjoy some incredible competitive athletes.
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But it also harkens back to those Western values that I was talking about.
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We celebrate our Western values every single year. And it reminds us that we are different.
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We are special. And those same values, they just build into every person who comes here
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and wants to make a living and build a business and be wealth creators and job creators.
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Last time you and I did one of these fireside chats, it was in Ottawa.
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I opened up by asking you, how does it feel to be a trader?
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Because that's what people were calling, Premier Smith. I think wrongly, and I told you that at the time.
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Now I'd like to ask you what it's like to have all the people calling you a trader adopt your
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recommendations, your policies. Your policies that got you called that are now in vogue.
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Well, isn't the left funny, Hayme? That when a conservative politician says something,
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it's outrageous. But when the Liberal Prime Minister says something,
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oh my goodness, what a statesman. Isn't he being very reasonable in how he's approaching Donald
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Trump? Well, absolutely right. So I just can't believe that you have to tell me how the Eastern
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Liberal media is able to do those kinds of mental gymnastics that they're able to completely go
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a 180 when the party that they tend to be aligned with says something. But they're
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immediately out there trying to criticize the conservative for saying the same.
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Very similar to you speaking to Ben Shapiro, which I thought was very smart. You went down to Florida,
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talked to Ben Shapiro, and then, oh, what happened the next day? He's speaking to his audience of 9,
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10 million people, telling them that the tariffs on Canada are a really bad idea and this shouldn't
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be happening. But you were pilloried for that. The Liberal Cabinet was supposed to hear from the
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President of the Heritage Foundation and the guy behind Project 2025 this week. And CBC described that in
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the most, well, very nice tones. Isn't this smart? Well, we met with the Heritage Foundation
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when Donald Trump first got elected because we knew that the Heritage Foundation was one of many
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different influential groups on him. And we wanted to understand what kind of policies he was advocating
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to see if there was some way that we could frame our, the way our talking points and our interests in
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terms of the U.S. President's interests. But you probably also saw that they had to hire a high-priced
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consultant to teach them how to talk to Republicans. Well... But they were all Democrats.
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Well, this is the absurdity, I think, of what we see at the federal level. They were so in the bag for the
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Democrats that they didn't bother reaching out to find out who the Republicans were. I can tell you,
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we have a tremendous Washington office. It was led by James Rajat, now led by Nathan Cooper. And our approach has
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always been, you got to talk to the Democrats because if the White House has a Democrat in,
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they pull from the governors and the House of Representatives and the Senate from their side
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of the aisle. So you've got to meet all those guys. And then same in the reverse. You have to know who
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the future secretaries are going to be. They have not done any of that work in the United States at the
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embassy level. And so now they're playing catch up. Whereas I was on the air at the same time you were
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through Trump One. And so I spent a lot of time studying this guy. I spent a lot of time trying to
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understand why he does the things that he does. I read his book. I read Lighthizer's book. I even
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read a little bit about his favorite president, McKinley, so that I could understand what it is that he's
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trying to achieve. And that's far, far more powerful. Part of the reason I also talked to Ben Shapiro's audience
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is that I wanted them to stop talking as if Canada wanted to be the 51st state. And so
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I don't know if it got reported. They have gotten into trouble. These are people who flew across the
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country to go to this Purdue, is it Purdue? Prager University. Prager University event. So these are
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some of the most well-heeled supporters of the Republican movement. And I said, do you know what
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happens if Canada joins? You have just added another California and there will never be another
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Republican in the White House. What are you thinking? And I think that the calls for us to
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become the 51st state ended up subsiding quite a bit after that. But you know, then it was okay,
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well does Alberta want to join? And you know what I say? I say, I do not want to trade an overbearing
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government in Ottawa for an overbearing government in Washington. Let's not forget,
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let's not forget that as bad as Justin Trudeau was, Keystone XL was also cancelled five seconds
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after Joe Biden got elected as the Democrat president. So we have to make sure that we're
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asserting our economic case regardless of who is in the White House and regardless of who is
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in Ottawa. But I just wanted to let you know that was also one of the other reasons is that what I
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realized with Trump is he is going to be influenced by the people who give his party money, who are his
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supporters, who are his job creators. He's not going to be influenced by me going and saying,
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oh poor me, you're going to hurt my businesses. That is not the way to talk to him. The way you talk
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to him is you talk in terms of mutual interest and most importantly in the American interest. And
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there's a lot of American interest in maintaining their economic ties with Canada, but Alberta in
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particular. In terms of diversifying, I think repealing Bill C-69 is vital. You've long called
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for that, but in your video this week you said, amend it. Are you softening the language or is there
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a reasoning behind that? What's the thinking? I think it probably should be a repeal and replace
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because the reality is that the federal government does have the regulatory oversight over cross-border
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pipelines and cross-border transmission lines. So you can't just leave a vacuum. You can't just
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have no regulation, but you need to have smart regulation. There's a whole section that needs
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to be repealed where they deign to step in and tell us how to approve projects that are 100 percent within
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our own borders. That part can be repealed, but they need to revise how they do the regulatory process
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for how they do cross-border assessments. Because do you remember, like you probably know some of
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the details on that. Like they were asking, there was a whole conversation about being able to do a
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gender analysis to make sure that man camps did not have a disproportionate impact on women. And I think
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there was some sort of intersectionality issue about whether or not it was inclusive enough. And like
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a pipeline is a technical decision-making process that you have to do. There's no gender to a pipeline,
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unless you're speaking French. That's true. In French, everything has a gender. So that's why it
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would have to be revised, because there are some substantial sections that are going to be extremely
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problematic because they're so subjective. They have to get back to a technical analysis of doing
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these things and remove the ideology out of them and then get out of provincial affairs altogether.
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So how optimistic are you? You said you're optimistic about Alberta's future, about Canada's future,
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about Prime Minister Carney working with you. We saw an announcement yesterday that I welcomed on many
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fronts because he was talking my language. I've said since January 20th, this is not just about tariffs.
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Get rid of the tariffs tomorrow. We've still got to alter the way our economy runs. Donald Trump is
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fundamentally altering the global trading system, and we have to adapt. So he was talking about that.
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He was talking about support for canola. He was, you know, pausing but not scrapping the EV mandate.
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That's a good start. Are you optimistic that he'll move on the issues that you're raising? You've gone from
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nine to three. Any hope? We need all nine, but there are certain ones that he has to get started on
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right away. If we're going to get our bitumen pipeline to the northwest BC coast, you have to
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have a rewrite of the C-69 policies. You have to get rid of the tanker ban, and you have to get rid
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of the emissions cap. No point in building a brand new shiny pipeline if you can't encourage your oil
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producers to fill it. And even if it is filled, you're not allowed to load it on a ship to export it
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anywhere. Like those are sort of the, those are, I call it the table stakes. Those are the minimum they
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have to do to at least allow us to get a bitumen pipeline built. And then we have to do the others
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as well. I wish he had just made the decision not to get rid of the net zero vehicle mandates,
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because I can tell you, you should all go and talk to your local dealership, because I can tell you,
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I've talked to one dealership. I don't want to call them out. I just, so I just want you to know,
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but one dealership has said that they're going to stop selling gasoline and diesel vehicles in January.
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They're only going to carry EV and hybrids. Another, another dealership is going to. Why?
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That's how their implementation of the policy. Wow. Yeah, they're going to stop selling. Because
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remember how it works, right? You have to sell 20% of your vehicles as electric vehicles.
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So if you can't get the electric vehicle in hybrid inventory, the only way to meet that 20% is to
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reduce the gas powered diesel vehicles that you're selling. So Alberta buys about 200,000 cars. So
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we're supposed to, out of nowhere, start buying 40,000 hybrid EVs, right? So if we can't do that,
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if we only, if we only buy 5,000 hybrid EVs, just do the math on that, it means that they're going to
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have to reduce the amount of gas powered and diesel vehicles. So don't worry, we're just going back to the
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old Soviet system where you can just sign up to be able to get your, you know, get your car in 2030
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and you'll get your dishwasher in 2031, right? What's that old joke? But the plumber's coming
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in the morning, so you better pick up in the afternoon. Old Reagan joke. But look, by not getting
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rid of the EV mandate completely, he has not helped the auto industry, which I know is none of your
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concern too much, but he doesn't help it because it hasn't given them certainty. Your industry needs
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certainty as well. TC Energy and Enbridge just announced their capital spend for the coming year.
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Where's it going? US. Yeah. So without certainty, you're not going to get the proponent coming forward
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and saying, I will, I will back that Northwest pipeline. What do they need to do to give
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your industry in oil and gas certainty? Well, I can tell you, I think that our industry
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will always find a way. They always have. Even with the past 10 years of anti-energy policy,
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somehow after all of the other pipeline proposals had fallen and Kinder Morgans was the last one and
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they were about to pull out, finally they were motivated to act, bought the pipeline, built it at
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five times the cost the private sector would have. And at least it got built. But that was a failure
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process in my view. If that's the only way to get a pipeline built in this country, we have not learned
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anything. But what our industry does is they look at existing lines and they say, how can I twin that?
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How can I loop it? How can I use compression? How can I put new lubricants in there to be able to get
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more volume? And they keep on doing that. So some of these American projects are actually going to
00:26:04.400
help with Canadian production if we get rid of the emissions cap. I've seen at least two million
00:26:10.960
barrels per day of egress proposals that would bring more down to the United States. And so I suppose that
00:26:16.880
would be the path of least resistance is just working with the Americans.
00:26:21.680
I would say it's worse than that. It's actually allowing, because what happens is they buy it at
00:26:29.360
low price, it gets down all the way to the Gulf Coast, and then some trader packages up and sells
00:26:33.520
it to somebody else for a higher price. And we're not the ones getting the value of that. But it doesn't
00:26:37.520
do anything to help us diversify markets. And this whole exercise we're going through is not to become
00:26:43.120
more dependent on our US neighbour, it's to be able to find new markets. And the only way to do that
00:26:49.440
is you have to be able to build to the BC coast to be able to access those markets.
00:26:53.440
You had, last time I saw you was here at Stampede, and the next day you had Premier Ford standing next
00:27:00.080
to you. I know that you've had other premiers step forward and say, show Alberta love,
00:27:04.000
which was Premier Ford's message. How important is it for you and your province as you advocate with
00:27:10.960
the federal government to be able to point to those other premiers, like you did at COF,
00:27:15.120
or the polling that's come out recently, and say, look, the country is behind us, you have,
00:27:23.840
And I think both of those are important. We did some polling, and I wrote a letter to each of my
00:27:29.760
premiers to tell them what the support for pipeline development was in their province. And it's above 70%
00:27:36.720
in every province, with the exception of Quebec, where it's still 58%. So it is still a majority there. So that,
00:27:43.360
I think, is influential, because that then gives the premiers, they can be emboldened to be able to
00:27:48.960
push the envelope on some of these things. And each of them are. I mean, look at Tim Houston in Nova
00:27:53.600
Scotia. He reversed the frack ban, and he's talking about developing natural gas. Look at Newfoundland
00:27:58.560
and Labrador. I mean, they've got a number of different projects that they're proposing. Manitoba
00:28:03.520
launched its first gold mine in 15 years. British Columbia has sort of a golden triangle of six or seven
00:28:10.080
mines that they want to develop. So every single province, even the left-wing ones, are looking at
00:28:15.200
ways that they can develop resources, develop new revenue streams, get new jobs. So I would say that
00:28:20.400
it's been very influential to not only have the people say, we're prepared to do this, but to also
00:28:26.480
have the premiers look at it from their own interest. Because the C69, although we call it the No New
00:28:32.240
Pipelines Bill, is also the No New Mining Bill. And that's part of the reason why Doug's so frustrated.
00:28:36.960
It's got this beautiful opportunity in Ring of Fire. And yet he's got this convoluted process that
00:28:42.320
we'll never see a mine developed unless they streamline it. The Feds were blocking that for
00:28:47.520
two years. So, okay, we've still got a couple minutes left. Good. I wanted to ask you about
00:28:55.040
the, you mentioned that it's not placed on, the emissions cap is not placed on any other industry.
00:29:01.120
I spoke to a gentleman in Toronto who owns a cement company now, and he was telling me about
00:29:06.800
the impact of the industrial carbon tax. So they still got that. He said, a ton of cement creates
00:29:14.400
a ton of greenhouse gas emissions. So your cement is just going to keep getting more expensive due to
00:29:19.120
the industrial carbon tax. But what would that do if you put the emissions cap on all these other
00:29:25.360
industries? We'd have to stop building concrete buildings, wouldn't we? Completely. Well, they'd have to
00:29:29.840
find a way to abate. And if not, they'd shut in. You'd have to. Like there's, if you put an arbitrary
00:29:35.040
emissions cap in, which they have here, which says that you've got to be, I think, like 40% abated by
00:29:40.000
2030 and then 60% abated by 2035. If you can't reach those targets, it's just like what we're talking
00:29:46.400
about with the net zero cars. If you can't build enough net zero cars, then you just have to reduce
00:29:52.160
the amount of gas and diesel power cars that you sell. If you can't produce enough net zero cement,
00:29:57.040
then you have to reduce the amount of CO2-laden cement that you produce. And so that's a spiral
00:30:03.360
downward. So we're getting very close to them having to realize reality. We're realizing reality
00:30:11.040
here in Alberta. And if you look at Newfoundland and Labrador, look at the jobs numbers that just came
00:30:15.120
out in the last week. Who are the two provinces most impacted? Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador
00:30:22.240
are two oil and gas rich jurisdictions. So we have already, we are already experiencing
00:30:28.720
the results of the last 10 years. Every other jurisdiction is not that far behind us.
00:30:34.880
When you look at if we had gotten Northern Gateway built and Energy East and Keystone XL,
00:30:41.600
we would be producing 2.5 million barrels of oil more per day, which would be generating $55 billion
00:30:48.240
in GDP for our economy, of which the various levels of government get 40%. You can buy, you can fill your
00:30:56.640
NATO commitment with that money. You can make sure that you've got schools and hospitals and roads
00:31:01.760
for that money. And if you don't have a new source of revenue, you just can't keep on borrowing forever
00:31:06.400
as we're seeing. Back in April, you told me that the drop in the price of oil and all the other
00:31:11.120
headwinds was going to result in a $5 billion deficit for your budget. That was your prediction
00:31:17.360
then. It was $7 billion. It's going to be... So how much money are... Well, I'll say last year,
00:31:24.080
because oil and gas prices did help us out, we also got more production to market. We ended up with
00:31:29.760
an $8.3 billion surplus. We were only expecting $300 million. So that's the good news of what happens when
00:31:34.320
you have that volatility. But when it goes down on the other end, we were expecting oil to be 68
00:31:39.280
this year. It's not hit 68 very many days in the first quarter. And so if it continues on at this
00:31:45.360
rate... For Western Canadian select, it's at about what? It's about $10 to $11. There's a differential.
00:31:52.080
So you can normally price off what is WTI and then reduce it by $10 or $11. So we've been trending
00:31:57.280
around $11 less than WTI. But if it continues at what we've seen in this first quarter, we're actually
00:32:02.960
going to have a $6.5 billion deficit this year. So oil and gas... And then the Feds lose out as
00:32:08.240
well, right? Of course they do. Because if those companies are not profitable, the Feds get their
00:32:12.800
money from the corporate income taxes paid and the personal income taxes from the people who work in
00:32:17.360
the industry. And they charge at much higher rates than we do. That's why we get our dollars from
00:32:21.120
royalties. They get our dollars from corporate and personal income tax revenue. They're roughly equivalent,
00:32:26.560
but they're just cutting themselves off when they cut off Alberta. And the other way of looking at it is
00:32:31.920
everybody does well when Alberta does well. And Alberta has been historically happy to share the
00:32:36.480
wealth. But what makes Albertans resentful is when we hear Eastern Canadian provincial premiers say,
00:32:42.560
we don't want you to develop your resources, but keep sending us the money because we want
00:32:45.840
the equalization. That is part of the frustration that we have.
00:32:54.240
Last question for you and then we'll let people get to lunch. I'll circle back to pipelines.
00:32:59.040
Is Churchill realistic for you, for oil and gas, for either liquefied natural gas
00:33:04.480
or for oil exports? Because that's one that the Prime Minister seems to be willing to talk about.
00:33:08.720
It is. You know, I don't want to discount the latest icebreaker technology because I know that
00:33:15.680
Russia's very heavily invested. I think they've got 30 icebreakers. So they have managed to use those to
00:33:21.120
be able to get their product to market. We have none. I think the Americans have one and it caught on fire
00:33:25.840
a few months ago. So that gives you some idea. That's not good. How far behind we are. But it's
00:33:30.480
our responsibility to be able to police and defend our north. And so I think that there's a good,
00:33:37.360
there's sort of good synergy between the economic interest we have and the defense imperatives that
00:33:42.480
we have. So it could be useful, but there needs to be infrastructure built to be able to do that.
00:33:46.320
So I think Churchill or slightly south because Churchill is also a tourism town. And so they may,
00:33:52.720
there is actually another little spinoff line that you could go that is just a port that is slightly
00:33:56.880
further south. But it is also deep water and they could do platforms there. And so we want to talk
00:34:03.200
with the Premier to see what corridors make the most sense. But for sure, if you were able to build new
00:34:09.840
rail infrastructure, highway infrastructure, port infrastructure, a gas pipeline, a bitumen pipeline,
00:34:17.200
and have the icebreakers to be able to make sure that you could have that exported more than six
00:34:22.880
months a year, because I think it freezes over in November and doesn't thaw until May, that's the
00:34:27.840
consideration. Is a six-month transit route going to be economic for anyone to do that? Or does the
00:34:34.400
icebreakers make it a 12-month transit route? And if that's the case, yes. Because then you go up and
00:34:38.720
over to Europe and you can go up and over to the East Coast. So now you can start feeding the East Coast
00:34:43.920
refinery so they don't have to import from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and other places. So I would
00:34:50.240
say that both of those are viable options. Going all the way, the proposal from Energy East,
00:34:57.440
maybe not so much. When I talk to the industry and they look at the economics, they say the very
00:35:04.320
first priority would be going to the northwest BC coast. But we still have to figure out what the
00:35:10.080
economics look like for Churchill. All right. Despite some headwinds, I'm with you. I'm optimistic for
00:35:15.520
Alberta's future and Canada's future. Premier, thanks so much. Thanks, Brian.