Western Standard - Fawcett v. Fildebrandt： Should Alberta hold wind & solar hostage until Ottawa relents on oil & gas？

00:00:00.000 Good day, I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching

00:00:15.420 Fawcett vs. Fildebrandt on both the Western Standard and Canada's National Observer. I'm

00:00:22.980 joined. I guess this is only our second episode, but I guess

00:00:26.820 I'll say as usual by Canada's National Observer lead

00:00:31.920 columnist, Max Fawcett. How are you?

00:00:34.540 I'm well, Derek. Thanks for that. We made it through the

00:00:37.620 first episode. We are on to number two, so we survived.

00:00:40.980 Yeah. And the first one, I think, was a little less

00:00:43.240 disagreement than we had actually hoped, unfortunately.

00:00:46.860 Get a build towards it. So we'll get there today.

00:00:48.800 I don't think we're going to have that problem today.

00:00:50.740 Today, we're going to be debating the question, should Alberta use wind and solar projects favored by Ottawa as bargaining chips for oil and gas projects favored by Alberta?

00:01:05.280 Kind of coming off of the six-month moratorium that was put on wind and solar projects here in Alberta.

00:01:13.620 But to get started, why don't you introduce our guest?

00:01:15.960 Sure, we have a perfect guest.

00:01:17.940 I just learned not a few minutes ago that Donna Kennedy Glenn's here used to negotiate 1.00

00:01:22.760 these sorts of, perhaps not these, government agreements, but she had a long career in the

00:01:27.760 oil and gas industry before she was elected as an MLA in 2012, served for three years in the

00:01:33.500 legislature. She was Alberta's first associate minister of renewable electricity. Do I have

00:01:40.820 that right? Electricity and renewable electricity. There we go. So obviously a subject matter expert.

00:01:47.480 She blogs, she tweets, she writes columns for post media, and she is someone who neither

00:01:55.980 Derek or I particularly know where she stands on this issue.

00:01:58.960 So I think it's going to be going to be an interesting guest.

00:02:01.020 So Donna, thanks for joining us.

00:02:02.160 Donna Hicks Thanks for inviting me.

00:02:03.800 It's kind of interesting to be sitting between you two.

00:02:06.140 I kind of feel like a bit of a buffer zone.

00:02:08.980 I'm old enough to be like a maternal influence here, maybe, or crackheads.

00:02:12.980 It'll be fun.

00:02:13.980 Thanks for inviting me.

00:02:14.980 Donna Hicks Did you just call us crackheads? 1.00

00:02:15.980 Donna Hicks No. 1.00

00:02:16.980 I will. You could crack some heads. Yeah, Max and I were kind of discussing back and forth who would be a good person for this. 0.79

00:02:26.040 We thought about getting someone who's raw, raw Alberta oil and gas or someone who is gung ho wind and solar.

00:02:34.280 And then as I was consulting around, your name came up and it was like a light bulb.

00:02:38.240 And I think Max and I were both. That's absolutely perfect.

00:02:41.220 I can't think of someone who'd be a better subject matter expert than you.

00:02:44.960 And we don't actually really know your answer to where you come down on this question.

00:02:49.180 Maybe before we jump into that question, though, let's kind of deal with maybe what inspired the question, which was the Alberta government introduced a six-month moratorium on wind and solar projects in Alberta dealing with kind of land use issues.

00:03:05.080 I know that, you know, people who live where these things are built are on balance less favorable to them than the people who want them.

00:03:14.620 They tend to be more urban.

00:03:16.520 They kind of, I don't mean to load the word too much, but maybe pollute the landscape with windmills and solar panels that aren't as natural as they would otherwise be.

00:03:29.380 I know you've written on this moratorium.

00:03:35.080 Do you think it's the right move?

00:03:37.720 I think it's the right move.

00:03:39.620 I think it was very poorly communicated.

00:03:41.920 And I think that's actually the biggest problem

00:03:44.000 with this question.

00:03:44.840 I think we've done incredible things in Alberta

00:03:49.200 with renewable energy.

00:03:51.280 More than 90% of the solar installed, you know,

00:03:54.880 is here in the last year.

00:03:57.520 What's going on?

00:03:58.960 It's amazing what's going on,

00:04:00.800 but it needs a cooling off period.

00:04:03.900 I don't think the words out of control is accurate,

00:04:07.140 but I think things are going so well

00:04:10.040 that we do need a pause.

00:04:11.840 And the fact that our electricity operator

00:04:14.540 and the utility commission didn't slow things down

00:04:17.840 of their own volition or couldn't or wouldn't,

00:04:20.980 that's a question.

00:04:22.980 I don't blame the government for saying,

00:04:25.380 whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on here?

00:04:27.660 Why are we attracting in this province

00:04:31.220 all this renewable energy, getting it installed.

00:04:34.220 It's not just our system.

00:04:35.500 I mean, what else is going on?

00:04:37.480 And just figuring out if we can cope with it.

00:04:40.040 Siemens did the same.

00:04:41.300 Siemens, the guys who make the wind turbines said,

00:04:44.840 whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, things are going too fast.

00:04:47.460 We need to slow this down.

00:04:49.620 We're hitting a pause.

00:04:51.160 And I think the government doing the same thing.

00:04:53.780 Yes, to listen to the rural base.

00:04:55.720 That's really important to this government.

00:04:57.980 Never been a stronger rural base,

00:04:59.440 but it's not just the rural base that needs listening to,

00:05:02.700 it's also the electricity operator,

00:05:05.360 and what's this doing, and can we keep doing this,

00:05:08.120 and what's going on, and why is this happening?

00:05:10.740 I was really grateful to see this happen.

00:05:14.200 I have a lot of concerns

00:05:17.620 about the way the decision was made.

00:05:20.360 It's interesting, I've listened to,

00:05:22.240 in the days and weeks since the decision was made,

00:05:25.200 people from rural communities,

00:05:27.340 The president of the Rural Municipalities Association was on Ryan Jesperson's show recently and

00:05:31.360 I thought he made some really good points about how suburban rural landowners are looking

00:05:37.520 at this issue.

00:05:38.520 And I think Derek's right.

00:05:39.520 It's easy for me sitting in Calgary to say we should build as much wind and solar as

00:05:42.420 possible because it's not being built on my backyard.

00:05:45.280 It's not impacting me at all.

00:05:47.560 It is impacting them.

00:05:48.560 I think it's a bit rich for a government that sort of really identifies with land rights

00:05:54.360 to be interfering with the exercise of land rights

00:05:56.840 by farmers and people who hold these properties.

00:05:59.820 I mean, that they should be able to determine

00:06:02.140 what is the best economic use for their land.

00:06:04.180 But it's really more the reputation that this gives us,

00:06:08.480 the message it sends to the world,

00:06:09.860 the message it sends to investors.

00:06:11.600 This is ostensibly a pro-business government.

00:06:14.960 And they didn't talk to anyone involved in this industry

00:06:17.060 when they made this pause.

00:06:18.120 They announced the pause

00:06:19.820 and then they decided they would talk to the stakeholders.

00:06:22.540 And I'm just trying to imagine

00:06:23.660 people would react if the NDP did something like that. Let's imagine that they say whoa whoa whoa

00:06:28.380 drilling is getting out of control in the oil and gas industry, we have all these liabilities piling

00:06:32.220 up, six month pause and now we're going to go talk to Suncor and CNRL. People would lose their minds

00:06:38.300 that this is a sort of an overtly anti-business decision by a government that is ostensibly

00:06:44.300 pro-business and that's the part I can't wrap my head around is why didn't they talk to these

00:06:48.460 companies, these entrepreneurs, and these landowners before they made this big move.

00:06:53.980 I'm a lawyer by training. It kind of creeps up on me sometimes. It's a bit of a challenge if you

00:07:01.740 put it out there and say to the world, hey, we're going to do this. What does that precipitate? It

00:07:07.020 precipitates lawsuits. It precipitates a whole bunch. It's a rush. We've already got, if you go

00:07:12.380 to the AUC, the Alberta Utilities Commission website, you can see the list of applications.

00:07:17.660 there are so many applications there. I think the stats are that if all those projects were

00:07:22.140 approved, we'd have 200% of the renewable energy we've already got. It's astounding,

00:07:29.640 the interest. So from a commercial perspective, I don't think the province, legitimately,

00:07:36.260 I don't think the province is saying, oh my gosh, we're going to scare everybody away,

00:07:39.980 because clearly that's not happening. I agree that it was kind of, it felt like it came from

00:07:46.020 nowhere. But how would you do this? Like it would be all of a sudden, you know, we're going to have

00:07:51.700 a pause on renewable energy nine months from now. What do you think the next nine months would look

00:07:58.200 like? So I don't know that there's a right way to do this. What I think got really messed up in the

00:08:04.700 delivery system is the communication. I get it. I grew up on a farm. I grew up on a farm that was

00:08:12.420 expropriated, a family farm, multi-generational family farm that was expropriated so Ontario

00:08:20.460 Hydro at the time could put down through that 500 kV line from the Bruce Peninsula.

00:08:26.160 I saw my father cry for the very first time in my life when that happened. It's a really big deal.

00:08:32.180 I get land rights. I get it at a really granular DNA level. But that's part of the question,

00:08:39.440 what's going on with the land. But the bigger question for all Albertans is, are we building

00:08:45.540 a grid that's going to work? And we can keep piling on and, you know, I like the color green

00:08:52.240 as you guys have both noticed, but we're getting to the point where being the cheerleaders for

00:08:58.280 green and being the place, the destination for every German, Argentinian, Copenhagen,

00:09:05.380 fill-in-the-blank company that wants to invest in Canada, and they come here first.

00:09:10.700 That's got some negatives, too. And I just feel like we needed a breath, and I'm glad we've got

00:09:15.900 it. I don't think anyone would accuse Alberta of being a cheerleader for green energy right now. I

00:09:22.320 think that the success that we've seen in the wind and solar market has happened in spite

00:09:27.200 of the provincial government, not because of it. They certainly haven't been out there

00:09:31.240 championing wind and solar. Here we go, here we go, that's what I want. And if you look at

00:09:35.720 the comments by the premier's chief of staff recently that wind and solar are ugly, it's a

00:09:41.560 scam. This is not a government that believes in this technology. This is a government that I think

00:09:47.680 is overtly hostile to this technology. Oh, wait a minute. I was the first minister responsible for

00:09:54.460 renewable energy in the whole country. Donna. I was. I know you are, but this, the progressive

00:10:00.560 of conservative government Redford government which was I think the Smith government would say

00:10:05.880 is quite different from the Redford government they would I don't think I think I think Daniel

00:10:09.160 Smith would say she is not Alison Redford okay and we're all okay with that I'm not debating that

00:10:15.040 let's not go back and redo that history but the idea that we are opposed to green in Alberta is

00:10:23.020 false. That's a false narrative. I've got three kids who are in their 30s. I've got grandchildren.

00:10:31.420 Do you think that somebody urban like me doesn't want green? Of course I want green. We all want

00:10:37.580 green. I just, I'm really practical. I'm a farmer's daughter. I want this to work. And right now,

00:10:45.100 what I see when I look at how the operating system works, I'm afraid it might not keep working. And

00:10:51.440 I just think it's not very smart

00:10:54.140 to spend my grandchildren's money

00:10:56.080 to build a system that may not work for us.

00:10:58.800 We're smart enough, we've got enough money

00:11:01.840 in this province, we've got enough clarity.

00:11:03.820 Let's build this right.

00:11:05.520 Like there aren't any master plans that we're following.

00:11:07.940 Frankly, Ontario is not the model to follow.

00:11:10.900 Where else are we gonna look to see how to do this?

00:11:13.200 I think it's worth pausing and getting this right.

00:11:15.840 I think not to agree with Max,

00:11:19.180 but to give a little bit of credence.

00:11:21.180 are picking on me. Yeah, we're going after you now. I think it would be fair to say, though, that

00:11:25.020 at a minimum, this government, the UCP government, is less ideologically committed to wind and solar

00:11:31.140 than, say, the NDP was. The NDP, you know, they saw it as a righteous mission, whereas the UCP,

00:11:37.820 I think, views it more as, well, it's expected of us, and fine. We like it, it's expected of us,

00:11:45.300 it's a business, but I don't think they see it as, like, a moral crusading cause the way the NDP did.

00:11:49.780 Oh, no, no. I agree with that. Oh my gosh, we all agree. Just pause for a moment. Pause. Soak it in.

00:11:57.140 But I would go one further. I would say that they see it as a threat to the market share of natural gas and of the fossil fuel industry.

00:12:04.500 I think they are very different from the PCs in that respect. I think the PCs saw it neutrally in business terms, in jobs terms, in investment terms.

00:12:13.180 And I think the UCP sees it in a much more ideological worldview perspective where you have the green, you know, wind and solar on one side and you have fossil fuels on the other.

00:12:24.400 And I think they feel compelled to defend the status quo.

00:12:28.240 I mean, I think to Donna's point, Albertans support green energy.

00:12:32.020 I think by and large, especially in the cities, they support being, you know, being environmentally friendly.

00:12:37.180 They support doing things about climate change, maybe not as much as people in the rest of the country, but they they want to do the right thing.

00:12:43.180 I think the government is a little bit out of step with where a lot of Albertans are right now on

00:12:47.660 this issue. I think this government got forced into this defense of posturing because of the

00:12:54.860 federal government. There is no choice. When a federal government comes to you, an activist-led

00:13:02.140 federal government, you cannot deny that, says we're going to have an electricity standard

00:13:08.380 that gets rid of natural gas while the rest of Europe and the West is applauding natural gas

00:13:15.580 and actually importing LNG like crazy. Well, maybe this is the perfect pivot then to the main

00:13:21.940 question. I guess this was the setup. So when the six-month moratorium came in, it surprised me. I'm

00:13:28.900 not in the industry, but it surprised me. So I think surprised a lot of us. And I take them on

00:13:34.620 they're at face value that this is about land use and just getting the regs in order and letting it catch up.

00:13:41.400 Okay, rightly or wrongly, I take it at face value.

00:13:43.620 But it immediately struck me as, huh, this sounds a little bit like what Ottawa's been doing to the oil and gas industry,

00:13:53.580 throwing sticks in the spokes of this stuff.

00:13:57.820 And, you know, Ottawa is able to, through hook or crook, able to intervene in, at the very least, the expansion or continuation of the fossil fuel industry, taking oil and gas projects favored by Alberta and taking them as hostages and often shooting the hostage.

00:14:16.880 And then this six month moratorium on wind and solar kind of dawned on me that, hey, there's hostages we can take. I don't have a problem with wind and solar, but I know Ottawa really likes them. Those are projects that Ottawa wants to see go forward.

00:14:31.940 Maybe we should take them as hostages and, you know, we could then we can give ourselves some leverage to when we're talking with Ottawa to say, OK, nice solar solar farm.

00:14:46.940 You got there. Shame if anything were to happen to it. Why don't you give us tech the tech frontier mind back?

00:14:52.940 So your thought on the question, should Alberta use these wind and solar projects as a bargaining chip or hostage, if you will, to give it leverage in negotiating with Ottawa on, say, the West Coast tanker ban, the Noir Pipelines bill, quashing of specific projects like Tech Frontier?

00:15:13.900 Well, my first reaction, Derek, to the word hostage, kind of...

00:15:18.980 It's a strong word.

00:15:19.640 It ruffles my feathers.

00:15:20.580 It's a strong word.

00:15:21.340 i worked in countries where people were taken hostage so it's it's a real it's a real let's say

00:15:26.780 bargaining chip but yeah bargaining tips a little more palatable it kind of tones the rhetoric down

00:15:32.700 just a little bit so my first reaction was no no no this is you know technically this is a really

00:15:42.140 you've got to do this logically how much renewable energy can we absorb how do we integrate it is

00:15:48.620 natural gas something that's you know evil we're hyping up the ideology and the language and that's

00:15:55.100 not useful so my first reaction was no let's get back to what's practical but my second reaction

00:16:02.940 after i thought about it was we could talk practical and facts forever and we've tried i i'm

00:16:10.460 i'm like that i like numbers i like crunchy stuff but most people we're not talking that way anymore

00:16:16.620 people don't care about facts they care about the narrative and I was also thinking about Peter

00:16:21.980 Lougheed you know Peter Lougheed was this calm kind of unruffled guy probably would not have used

00:16:29.820 the word hostage my word but but you know he did do that turned off the taps he turned off the taps

00:16:38.860 he went to the extent of finding a natural gas fields natural gas field in southern Alberta

00:16:45.500 working it created a company to work it up and then said to said to the feds you want that great

00:16:53.580 deal with me or else we'll turn it off so i i don't think it's a character for this province

00:17:01.020 to get its dander up and to say enough enough enough there are things within our jurisdiction

00:17:09.260 And I think that's actually, under all this pile of noise and stuff, I think the essential

00:17:17.720 question is, who gets to make this kind of decision?

00:17:21.380 And frankly, in my gut, it's the province that gets to make this decision.

00:17:25.960 And it really rankles me that the feds are trying to tell us, in moral terms.

00:17:31.760 And also, I mean, I've got farmer friends who live in these communities where there

00:17:37.020 are lots of wind turbines and solar fields, they're getting calls. They're getting called

00:17:42.760 out on Facebook for being, you know, are you dinosaurs? I just wrote a book last year called

00:17:48.220 Teaching the Dinosaur to Dance. I mean, I'm asking these guys to kind of engage, work backwards. You

00:17:54.880 can't put up with this stuff. You shouldn't be taking it on the chin, but they are. So

00:18:00.920 there's a part of me that says yes to what you're saying, but there's also a part of me that's saying

00:18:08.140 turning up the rhetoric and just screaming at each other and pulling our hair out some more.

00:18:14.180 I don't know. Watching national news is really hard right now.

00:18:18.700 I see this is, I'll let you, one second, but just to your last point there. The reason I thought of

00:18:25.920 this came up as an idea is because all we have so far

00:18:30.340 is rhetoric, we're, you know, the West Coast tanker ban,

00:18:33.220 no more pipelines act, tech frontier,

00:18:35.900 all we've been able to do is, you know,

00:18:38.040 the premier can hold a press conference,

00:18:39.560 they sit at the lectern with an Alberta Canadian flag

00:18:41.640 and they wave their finger at Ottawa, we get angry.

00:18:44.040 Maybe they write a little missive and send it

00:18:46.160 to the prime minister's office

00:18:47.300 or a staffer reads it and disposes of it.

00:18:50.700 This is a way of actually squeezing them where it hurts.

00:18:55.920 And I don't like that a country should ever have to come to this. I think it's crazy, but

00:19:02.820 I think the Peter Lougheed comparison is really apt and very telling because in that situation,

00:19:11.160 you had Peter Lougheed, you had Pierre Trudeau, both top of their game people. And he brought

00:19:17.400 something to the table that was leveraged and Trudeau responded. Daniel Smith is bringing

00:19:21.900 Alberta jobs, Alberta investment, and Alberta prosperity to the table and saying, if you

00:19:27.280 don't do what I want, I'm going to cut my own nose off.

00:19:29.840 This is not Daniel Smith's policy.

00:19:32.400 This is an idea that I'd like to consider.

00:19:34.660 I understand, but in this analogy, she is threatening the feds with Alberta jobs, Alberta 0.98

00:19:40.620 investment, Alberta tax revenue.

00:19:42.660 That's not much of a threat to Ottawa.

00:19:44.180 It's certainly nothing like Peter Laughy brought to the table where he was inflicting pain

00:19:48.660 on central Canadians through the cost of living. At most, she is inflicting collateral pain through

00:19:54.880 an inability to meet climate targets. So the difference in the skill of their tactics is,

00:20:02.360 I think, really telling to me. A couple of points. Number one, the federal net zero electricity

00:20:08.640 regulations do allow for natural gas. They allow for abated natural gas, which is something that

00:20:14.260 the province has said it wants to build. You put carbon capture on your gas, you're good to go.

00:20:18.080 It allows for peaker plants. I think it should allow for more hours in operation than it does

00:20:23.760 right now. That's something that Blake Schaefer has said at the U of C. He said,

00:20:26.860 if Alberta actually wanted to negotiate constructively here, argue for more hours 1.00

00:20:31.180 that you can use those peaker plants. Why should Alberta even negotiate? It's not

00:20:34.960 like the constitution is crystal clear that the production, ownership, and generation

00:20:40.300 of electricity is strictly provincial. Why should Alberta even entertain a negotiation?

00:20:46.000 Because then it doesn't get access to the tax credits and the incentives that the federal government is putting on the table for everyone to reach net zero by 2035.

00:20:53.940 That's a ransom move in itself. You do it our way, you do it our way, or else we're going to hold back all the benefits. Come on.

00:21:01.920 If you're not going to actually try to reach net zero, we're not going to give you funding that gets you to net zero.

00:21:07.880 Like, that's not really a ransom, that's more of an incentive.

00:21:10.260 But we're the province that's doing renewable energy.

00:21:13.640 There's something factually unhinged in all of this.

00:21:17.220 We are the province that is building out more renewable energy as greenfield, as new investment.

00:21:25.200 We're it.

00:21:26.700 Over 95% of the solar installations came to Alberta.

00:21:31.640 Compare that to what's going on in the rest of the country.

00:21:35.340 That's the disconnect for me.

00:21:37.600 We're doing what we're being, good Canadian, green citizens, and we're still getting punched in the head because the facts are we don't have Site C in Alberta.

00:21:48.900 Site C got landed in British Columbia.

00:21:51.120 Can you imagine if we tried to, I did look at hydroelectricity when I was in government.

00:21:56.700 I was chairing an all-party committee, resource stewardship.

00:22:00.200 And at the time, I thought something that would be not too sensitive would be hydroelectricity.

00:22:05.060 It turns out it was very sensitive.

00:22:06.940 But, you know, there they are.

00:22:09.340 They built it right on the border and they got to do that.

00:22:13.580 Now, would we get to do that, do you think?

00:22:16.060 To build hydroelectricity?

00:22:17.300 Yeah, do you think?

00:22:18.060 I think we absolutely would.

00:22:19.380 And here's the great news.

00:22:20.780 If we actually build a bigger intertie with the BC electrical grid, we can take advantage of their hydro and use it to backstop more renewable energy in Alberta.

00:22:29.240 That's been studied time and time again.

00:22:30.840 It's one of the easiest.

00:22:31.840 Why would we bring in electricity from another province?

00:22:34.280 Because it's cheaper.

00:22:35.140 because it allows us to produce electricity in Alberta more cheaply.

00:22:38.460 We have unlimited natural gas. We've got all hell for a basement. Why would we bother?

00:22:41.740 So we would rather produce expensive natural gas than cheap wind and solar?

00:22:45.780 Okay, so I have looked at this. It's an argument worth talking about, and I'm not going to dismiss it.

00:22:51.740 Manitoba's got water galore. They have hydroelectric capacity that's unfathomable to the rest of us of the prairies.

00:23:00.560 so why didn't we hook up manitoba to the oil sands that's a question that was asked asked many times

00:23:06.900 and until you get better tech on those wires you it dissipates the electricity dissipates as it

00:23:13.840 comes you know farther and farther it goes they're learning that in the states right now

00:23:17.240 so it didn't work out the economics didn't work out at the time that it was reviewed it may change

00:23:22.660 Site C, I, you know, VC says it needs electricity. Ontario, Ontario and natural gas, right now they're saying we just need it for peaker plants.

00:23:34.040 How is, and I look at this really closely, I actually, I'm so nerding out on electricity at times, it's kind of embarrassing.

00:23:40.280 We could tell you do.

00:23:41.040 Yeah, I know, but who cares? It's okay. I liked green before I got that.

00:23:48.760 They have got to double the Bruce nuclear facility. They've got to bring on stream

00:23:55.700 some nuclear facilities. They're not going to be able to shut them down. 0.81

00:24:02.220 They've got a 10-year gap that they can't close unless they use natural gas. That's their reality.

00:24:08.900 so it's fine for them to say we're going to negotiate we can live with peaker plants we can

00:24:13.580 live with just you know we're going to be doing brownfield and no greenfield and we're just going

00:24:18.920 to be we're going to be doing carbon capture yes yes yes and emissions credit the reality is is

00:24:23.700 that possible I think it's not personally I think it's not so we could sit here and say we can do

00:24:29.240 all these things too but we're like straight shooters and I'm not saying Ontarians aren't

00:24:34.040 I come from there. I love them dearly. But that's a way to do this is to just say, yes, yes, yes,

00:24:40.980 we can get there. We can get there. And then we don't. We're just straight. Like we're straight

00:24:45.660 saying, why would we leave? Why would we not use the natural gas? And Max built this incredible

00:24:52.880 facility right here in the city of Calgary. Like, thank goodness it got built when it got built.

00:24:58.540 it's an incredibly efficient facility we should be I am grateful we have that facility and yet

00:25:05.520 with all this rhetoric coming from Ottawa it's like I should feel bad about that but that facility

00:25:11.100 is grandfathered in for 20 years yeah I know it is but I'm just saying it's a beautiful efficient

00:25:16.420 facility that any place else in the world would be so grateful to have and we can build even more

00:25:24.100 beautiful, even more efficient facilities under the regs, and they can be around for 40 or 50

00:25:29.320 years. But again, Ottawa has no constitutional leg to stand on here. So the Supreme Court is

00:25:35.260 pretty stacked, and I imagine the Supreme Court will find some way for Ottawa to weasel its way

00:25:39.920 in as it did with the carbon tax, but the Constitution's clear. This is not Ottawa's business.

00:25:43.420 Hold on. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada was appointed to the bench by Stephen

00:25:47.720 Harper. Yeah, there's a majority of liberals on the court. Let's not pretend that the court

00:25:51.440 is the way it is in the United States

00:25:53.060 and it's entirely political.

00:25:54.140 That does the court a disservice.

00:25:55.520 Pretty political here.

00:25:56.400 Oh, wait, wait, come on.

00:25:58.340 Let's not go there.

00:25:59.440 Because that's just, that's not constructive.

00:26:01.740 Whatever it is aside,

00:26:03.260 the federal government is trying to weasel its way

00:26:06.220 clearly into an exclusive area of provincial jurisdiction.

00:26:11.120 Why, again, should we even give it a hearing?

00:26:14.120 Why should we even sit at the same table?

00:26:15.320 For the same reason that the carbon tax

00:26:17.680 was given a hearing and ultimately found constitutional

00:26:19.800 because the climate is federal jurisdiction and that has been proven by the courts and this is

00:26:24.940 what this falls under. The court allowed that in and that was what was a lot of people warned was

00:26:29.500 the constitutional Trojan horse to allow the federal government into virtually all areas of

00:26:34.140 provincial jurisdiction as long as you could justify it as stopping global warming. Can I ask

00:26:38.540 a question to two people who are more who've been in Alberta longer than I have? When did Albertans

00:26:43.840 become so comfortable with saying we can't do this.

00:26:48.920 This can't do...

00:26:49.920 I'm sorry, I don't want this.

00:26:50.920 No, no, hold on.

00:26:51.920 This can't do...

00:26:52.920 Let me finish my point.

00:26:53.920 This can't do attitude that is personified by this provincial government is embarrassing

00:26:57.980 and infuriating.

00:26:58.980 That we look at something, the federal government says, we want to get to this target.

00:27:02.400 We don't even hear them out.

00:27:03.400 We go, well, that's impossible.

00:27:04.760 We could never do that.

00:27:05.760 We don't even want to try.

00:27:07.260 When I came here, I was inspired by people who said, hey, we looked at the oil sands.

00:27:11.800 was a big project, and we figured it out. We put our brains and our muscle to work, and we got the

00:27:16.280 oil out of the sands. Now we're looking at the climate equivalent of that, and we're going,

00:27:21.100 oh, it's too hard for us. We can't even try. That's a money sink. I mean, sure, some people

00:27:26.620 will make money out of it, but it's a net monetary and financial and economic loss. It's not that we

00:27:31.720 can't. It's that why would we want to? We're sitting on all hell for a basement here. Why would

00:27:37.240 we don't want to use it? We're like the only place in the world that is sitting on energy

00:27:42.280 reserves like this and says, maybe we just should leave it in the ground. No one's saying this

00:27:46.760 except for us. So I think it's not that we can't do, it's that we're saying, why the hell would we

00:27:51.040 want to? I actually think you're manipulating the narrative. That's a harsh statement and I don't

00:27:55.820 mean it personally, but I think the fact that we have created this kind of success of renewable

00:28:03.340 energy in this province, we've almost been, and don't quote me on this, but we've almost been

00:28:08.420 over-successful. We've been more successful than we expected, and that's why we have to slow things

00:28:13.800 down. I think we've done way more renewable energy than anybody anticipated in the time frame.

00:28:22.120 The question as to why that is, I think is a really relevant question, and everybody attributes

00:28:27.260 it's it to this market we've got you know you can come in as a generator a bit but that's not the

00:28:33.340 only reason i wrote a whole chapter about this in this book that i published last year teaching the

00:28:39.120 dinosaur to dance i sat in on the abo wind turbine application buffalo wind farm down in lomond i

00:28:47.520 listened to the whole thing and it was really frustrating uh it's the biggest wind farm in

00:28:53.740 Canada, the time that the application was being made. 83 wind turbines, higher, taller, wider

00:29:00.980 in breadth than the Calgary Tower. Incredible build. They flipped it, which is what they do.

00:29:11.720 I mean, I get that. I've been in business a long time. They flipped it. A German company flipped

00:29:16.200 it to a Copenhagen company to operate. The value chain on that investment is 95% out of this

00:29:25.320 country. And the reason, when you dig down, the reason why they're doing it is because they're

00:29:30.980 going to produce renewable energy. They're going to sell turbines, which is smart business. I

00:29:35.500 invest, I've been working abroad for decades. And the third reason, and it's really significant,

00:29:40.980 everybody says, oh, this is too complicated, but people are way smarter than we give them credit

00:29:45.160 for this is not too complicated they get the emission credits if they generate the electricity

00:29:51.720 i went to the market surveillance administrator nobody knows who that is but they exist they exist

00:29:58.360 in alberta to watch what's going on with the market there are people who do this and a year

00:30:04.600 and a half ago they said we're watching this the price of electricity is not driving investment

00:30:10.840 it's the value of the emission credits, which they get to take. Under the NDP government,

00:30:17.960 before this government in Alberta, the value of the emission credit stayed with the government,

00:30:25.480 stayed with the people. I've pitched that personally to anybody who will listen,

00:30:30.600 but who wants to listen? We've got renewable energy bills, it's happening. There's a reason

00:30:36.280 for it. And it's got some ideology, but it's got economics. People are making money doing this.

00:30:42.840 They're not just selling their turbines and their solar utilities and hardware. They're making money

00:30:48.820 with the credits. So good. But let's put that on the table. This is not all about people standing

00:30:55.220 around saying this is where it's about net zero for the investors and the people who are on the

00:31:01.320 front lines of this. This is about making money. And I feel like that gets hidden way back here

00:31:08.460 and people who care about this are the ones being called the dinosaurs and I frankly resent it. I

00:31:15.780 don't think that this is dinosaur thinking to question what we're doing and making sure we do

00:31:21.560 it in a responsible way. It's just interesting that that lens is not applied to the oil and gas

00:31:28.900 activities on these same parts of the province.

00:31:32.180 Derek was talking earlier about how wind turbines are unnatural, they're not a part

00:31:37.500 of the natural landscape, neither is all the oil and gas infrastructure that gets left

00:31:41.120 behind in farmers' fields to rot and rust and pollute their fields.

00:31:45.900 Farmers in a lot of cases don't have the ability to push back against that because the mineral

00:31:49.300 rights are severed from the land rights.

00:31:51.640 They can get sold out from underneath a farmer without them being able to say, no, I don't

00:31:55.300 want this on my field.

00:31:57.080 get a payment, but they don't get the right to say no. So I just think there's an enormous

00:32:01.500 double standard being applied here. Of course people are trying to make money with wind and

00:32:04.960 solar. When was that a bad thing in Alberta? I must have missed the memo where people wanting

00:32:10.140 to make money was now problematic. Not only anyone said that. I think you're saying that's

00:32:15.060 what's driving. Of course that's what's driving. Capitalism's driving. Of course. There's no memo.

00:32:19.180 I agree with you entirely that reclamation of oil and gas, and I would say the oil sand

00:32:26.900 too i think that's actually a really neglected question which i cannot understand why people

00:32:31.620 aren't talking about frankly but reclamation is a huge issue i've written about it i think we've

00:32:37.700 all spoken to the issue um the you know the question the r star program i mean let people

00:32:43.380 on fire for that reason and it was something that it does need to be reviewed i'm glad i i think

00:32:49.300 that is being reviewed right now in the whole regulatory process but this back to the narrative

00:32:55.380 You can throw that narrative on top of this one, but it doesn't, it's a relevant fact,

00:33:02.020 but it doesn't change the fact that we should be looking at reclamation on renewables.

00:33:07.460 Oh, no argument.

00:33:09.460 I don't know. I think it's relevant, but it's just, again, I think we're playing narratives.

00:33:15.860 We're manipulating narratives to effect.

00:33:19.700 You've also had an oil and gas industry in Alberta since Leduc 1.

00:33:23.220 Well, actually, I guess gas predates that, oil sensitive one.

00:33:26.800 We have, I mean, for its flaws, I mean, there have been obviously problems with orphaned and abandoned wells, clearly.

00:33:33.120 It's not been a perfect system, and that's a big flaw in it.

00:33:37.280 But we've known how to do it for a very long time.

00:33:40.000 It's not a new thing, whereas the bonanza of solar and wind, at least on the scale we're seeing, that is a new thing.

00:33:49.120 And, you know, maybe there was a time early in the oil and gas industry where we did need to maybe pause and get it right.

00:33:54.500 And maybe we wouldn't have had the orphan and abandoned well issues that we still are stuck with today.

00:34:00.560 But that didn't happen.

00:34:01.680 That industry has been around longer than almost anyone in Alberta has been alive at this point.

00:34:07.520 I just think it's interesting that all the bonanzas that I've been around in this province for oil and gas, no one ever put their hand up and said we should stop.

00:34:15.460 We should slow down.

00:34:16.420 In government.

00:34:17.560 No one in government.

00:34:18.420 in the Alberta government. 2011. Okay, Peter Lougheed did. Peter Lougheed did, absolutely. Peter Lougheed said,

00:34:25.220 I actually got him on record with this. I remember the story. Yeah, he said actually after he left

00:34:32.260 office, he was, he was, you know, a statesman at the time, we have got to slow down the oil sands,

00:34:38.660 we're going too fast, and we ignored him. Not everybody in this province ignored him, but a lot

00:34:42.980 of people did and i think you know god bless you but i think he's right i i think he was right to

00:34:50.660 say that i i i thought of that immediately when i saw this the problem again is the communication

00:34:58.020 i mean it was just kind of like a blurt from the government without any context and i think

00:35:04.260 everybody took the story and i mean i got really frustrated watching national news for the next

00:35:11.780 week. In fact, I got to tell you this, it's a little bit personal, but I was in the hospital

00:35:18.800 having breast cancer surgery the day that announcement was made. And I did not know

00:35:23.400 that announcement was going to be made. And they do give you drugs. So I was probably on drugs when

00:35:28.220 I left the hospital feeling okay. And I read that announcement and I immediately reacted. In fact,

00:35:35.400 I wrote an article the next few days, but I was off drugs by then, but it mattered that

00:35:44.120 much because our reputation got really tarnished by the announcement and by, it was just like

00:35:52.080 a, it was a trigger and everybody knew it was going to be a trigger. So back to your

00:35:56.760 hostage thing. I don't know. I get it. I get it, Derek. It's very tempting to put the trigger

00:36:03.300 on the table and then see what happens. And goodness knows, we've...

00:36:07.380 My hope would be that we don't actually shoot the hostages. I don't want to shoot the hostages.

00:36:11.460 The problem is that Ottawa takes the hostage, bargaining chips, cashing the chips. But,

00:36:16.100 you know, Ottawa takes those hostages all the time, more on a macro level than an individual

00:36:21.460 project level. Although there have been individual projects like Tech Frontier that were effectively

00:36:26.180 killed, but they kind of did it in the macro way. I know they did not specifically say no,

00:36:29.860 but they knew it was going to be a no and that's why they pulled out they wanted to go forward

00:36:33.540 they pulled out at the last minute they knew it was going to be a no they 100 percent did not want

00:36:38.900 to go forward they wanted the approval so they could sell the approval to someone who would have

00:36:42.900 gone one way or another was not getting approved it was not getting approved and someone could

00:36:47.220 have then done it either way but you know we would you know we there's a west coast

00:36:54.180 either way ottawa takes the hostages and they shoot them my hope would be if we did this that 0.96

00:36:58.260 we're not actually shooting the hostages. I don't want to stop wind and solar as long as it's being

00:37:03.140 done right and responsibly. That's, the object isn't to kill it. The object is to gain leverage

00:37:09.460 so that Ottawa is, we're squeezing where it hurts, and so that they're forced to let up on some of

00:37:14.740 this so that we can continue with oil and gas projects that they're a little less keen to see

00:37:18.820 happen. The problem with it is that it might have worked 20 years ago, 30 years ago, because

00:37:25.940 politics wasn't quite the theater that it is today i don't know that today if we did that

00:37:34.180 that was even the strategy that it wouldn't just devolve into something that was spectacle

00:37:40.820 i i don't know if people would actually believe it and i mean that like i just think we're in a

00:37:46.420 place where it's all theater and it's all acting and so you know people would just go oh yeah

00:37:54.180 there's another thing when Peter Lockheed said that I'm sure people sucked in their breath and

00:37:59.140 went oh my goodness like whoa I know I reacted like that when he said something about the oil

00:38:05.780 sands pause this I think we're just at a stage where I don't know how you break through all the

00:38:12.020 the drama and I just think it would be more hyperbole and it would feed it so do you think

00:38:18.180 think it wouldn't be a wise tactic for Alberta to take. I think in the context we're in, I think

00:38:24.120 it would just be seen as more noise. I think there's an element of boy who cried wolf here

00:38:31.860 where the government of Alberta over the last few years has spent so much time yelling at Ottawa,

00:38:37.080 saying they're trespassing, saying they're stealing, all this stuff that it loses its effect

00:38:42.060 when you put it on the table with something that might be of substance. I think it would

00:38:47.920 help. You talked a lot about narratives. If we started telling ourselves a slightly more honest

00:38:52.840 narrative in Alberta about what's really happening, the federal government is not

00:38:56.940 shooting hostages, Derek. It has spent 30... It has spent... I have to get this out for the viewers.

00:39:02.440 I know they won't believe me, but I need... The West Coast tanker ban was not...

00:39:05.320 The West Coast tanker ban had no impact on LNG, and there was no oil project getting

00:39:10.460 through that part of BC, as I was telling people back in 2011. If you knew anyone in BC...

00:39:15.320 C-69, the legislation under which CEDAR LNG was just approved, and actually fast-tracked.

00:39:23.720 The environmental approval was fast-tracked where the federal environmental assessment

00:39:27.440 was dovetailed with provincial one in BC.

00:39:29.920 The system works.

00:39:30.920 We're not going to see any major stuff like Trans-Canada.

00:39:33.720 We could spend a lot of time on that.

00:39:35.220 We could.

00:39:36.220 I'm not just going to accept that statement.

00:39:37.220 No, but that's fine.

00:39:38.220 But let me at least get in a few more things here around the federal government's approach.

00:39:43.260 It has been inconsistent.

00:39:45.220 has been unpopular here. They clearly care more about climate change than the government in Alberta

00:39:50.180 has for quite some time. But I don't understand how you can say they're killing the industry when

00:39:55.460 they have record production, record profits, a brand new pipeline is being built for them by

00:40:00.500 the taxpayer. And the biggest... That we didn't want the fence to buy. Because the British Columbia

00:40:06.340 government was filibustering it. You and I talked about this on my podcast and you agreed with me.

00:40:11.300 I agree that they played at least as big a role, maybe bigger than the feds, but the feds still

00:40:16.260 played a big role in killing Trans Mountain. The feds approved it once. And then when the

00:40:20.640 approval that was done under Harper's regulatory regime was thrown out by the courts, they approved

00:40:25.700 it again. So this narrative that we have that the federal government wants to like destroy the oil

00:40:31.720 and gas industry, it is just not real. What is real is that the market is changing before our

00:40:38.440 eyes. And if we don't adapt to that, we are going to be the ones who pay the price. Bloomberg came

00:40:43.080 out the other day with a report that said, by 2040, under current policies, no new policies,

00:40:48.840 no new climate commitments, 20 million barrels a day of oil demand will be wiped off the market.

00:40:54.680 What are we going to do to prepare for that? That's not Ottawa that's doing that. It's not

00:40:57.820 Trudeau that's doing that. It is the economy. It is the world. And I think we better spend less

00:41:03.240 time focused on Ottawa and a little more time focused on our future.

00:41:06.880 Let's, we're just in the last few minutes here.

00:41:09.480 Wow.

00:41:10.140 You know, why don't we just, let's give Donna the last word as we wrap up that. 0.98

00:41:14.380 Oh, I, that you, I think you got something on your mind.

00:41:16.820 You just packed a lot in there.

00:41:19.300 The boy who cried wolf.

00:41:22.700 Alberta as the boy who cried wolf.

00:41:24.740 Actually, I do think Alberta's government has cried wolf a fair bit in the last few years in huffing and puffing at Ottawa without actually doing anything to fight it.

00:41:34.700 Like, you know, we pass turn off the taps legislation and don't turn off the taps.

00:41:38.600 We're going to take wine out of the liquor stores.

00:41:40.460 We don't do it.

00:41:41.120 We haven't actually done much.

00:41:42.420 We have yelled at Ottawa.

00:41:43.600 And that feels good, at least for me.

00:41:46.280 But I don't like only yelling at Ottawa.

00:41:49.220 We haven't actually done anything to hit them where it hurts.

00:41:53.080 So I think there actually is something to it, except that I don't think Max likes the yelling at Ottawa.

00:41:57.580 I like the yelling at Ottawa as long as it's accompanied by action.

00:42:01.140 So it's just rhetoric.

00:42:02.660 Yeah.

00:42:02.960 All we've seen is rhetoric.

00:42:04.000 Yeah. To get into the context of all of this, I mean, your comment about the world, what you're saying is the economy's cooling down, China's cooling down. All accurate. We've got a war in Europe that has dramatically changed what the trajectory is for traditional oil and gas companies and their role in this.

00:42:27.700 accidental buying direct, you know, air capture. These are really new things evolving.

00:42:37.520 The, I mean, we haven't even talked about the U.S. and the incentives to do renewables and the

00:42:43.080 incentives to transition. It's, you know, if we didn't have companies being able to pick up the

00:42:50.160 investment, the credit, the emission credits here, they would have gone to the states last year. So

00:42:55.560 So how long can we stay competitive? I don't know the answer to that. The other big hole for us is we don't produce turbines and we don't produce the solar components. Why don't we? The fact that, and we didn't allude to this, that our Minister Schultz is in Germany, which is fantastic, looking at a new geothermal technology that's originated in Canada, but it's being built in Germany.

00:43:18.620 Why is that being built in Germany? I wonder why. Absolutely, we have to stay current with 1.00

00:43:27.500 what's going on. But the fact that Alberta and the prairies have been producing oil and gas

00:43:33.720 and have been an economic engine for this country for the last 25, 30 years is relevant.

00:43:42.400 it. So I don't, I don't think we're, I don't think we're clinging to the past like this.

00:43:49.780 The market's really changed. You can't, you don't go to UC to get a petroleum engineering degree

00:43:55.160 anymore. It's changed. The world's changed. We're moving with it. But for us to keep on

00:44:03.360 beating ourselves on the chest and saying, you know, we're the dinosaurs protect us.

00:44:08.480 I, that's not what we're doing. We've got a really good thing going here with renewables.

00:44:14.400 Great. We figured it out. We've got a system that allows it. Let's pause, figure out what's going on,

00:44:20.720 make sure that we can sustain this, make sure we can continue to make this operable and share what

00:44:27.120 we know and build an economy based on that. I, I get the fighting. I get the public spectacle

00:44:34.640 of all of this, but it really isn't helping any of us. And I, you know, I think that both sides here

00:44:43.120 are playing the same game. And it's a script that we've all gotten comfortable with and accepted.

00:44:49.120 I don't accept it anymore. I'm sick of it. I'm really sick of it. And my kids don't watch that.

00:44:55.680 They go on with their lives in renewable energy and oil and gas and other stuff here in Alberta.

00:45:02.640 So it's meaningless.

00:45:05.260 But I elected politicians to do something, and I expect them to do something.

00:45:09.800 And when they see that regulatory bodies are saying we need to do something, I want them to act.

00:45:16.120 All right.

00:45:16.920 Well, Donna, thanks so much for joining us on, I don't know, the fight, whatever we call it.

00:45:24.820 Do you call this the fight?

00:45:26.260 No, Fawcett versus Phil de Brant.

00:45:28.160 Oh, it's not like a cage fight or anything.

00:45:30.260 No.

00:45:30.720 No.

00:45:30.940 So we're going to have to do one of those promotional fight promotion things.

00:45:34.560 We're building up to it.

00:45:35.620 But I feel like part of the challenge here is that we're at time.

00:45:39.760 We're at time.

00:45:40.520 Just a quick last thought then maybe.

00:45:41.900 No, no, no.

00:45:42.340 I really appreciate Donna's contribution here.

00:45:45.000 I thought it was a lot of fun.

00:45:45.740 It was much more spirited.

00:45:46.940 It was, you know, I think it's a conversation that we should be having in this province.

00:45:51.580 Not the one around sort of like you said, the narratives and the shadow boxing, but the

00:45:57.060 reality of how do we solve these problems, right?

00:45:59.720 because there are problems that need to be solved great all right well i enjoyed it thank you very

00:46:05.240 much uh thank you thank you donna for being our guest thank all of you for uh joining us on faucet

00:46:10.680 versus phil de brant today on whichever channel podcast video uh platform you're on with western

00:46:18.440 standard or the national observer thank you for joining us today have a good weekend

00:46:22.440 nadian shooting sports association without the cssa our gun rights would have been taken long 1.00

00:46:28.200 long ago these guys are on the front lines helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms

00:46:34.120 regulations and legislation in canada and more importantly educating the public about

00:46:39.320 how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people who become a member it's absolutely worth

00:46:44.200 every penny.

Western Standard - August 25, 2023

Fawcett v. Fildebrandt： Should Alberta hold wind & solar hostage until Ottawa relents on oil & gas？

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