Western Standard - Fighting back for oil and gas

00:00:00.000 i'm here on the floor of the global energy show with robbie picard he is the head of picard media

00:00:18.760 and the head of oil uh publisher of the oil and gas world magazine you're up you but you hail

00:00:25.740 from fort mac right yes i'm from fort mcmurray yes i wrote so i and i've so i've been advocating for

00:00:30.920 a long time i started oil sands strong um i worked with canada action for a while amazing hats i

00:00:37.140 worked for canada action for a while doing the i love oil sands campaign and then we kind of just

00:00:40.600 went different ways and then i basically kind of started doing the magazine i took a bus across

00:00:45.940 canada and i realized i have two things so oil sands strong is where you kind of want to punch

00:00:49.840 back like when i took on celebrity jane fonda i took on leonardo dicaprio and i fought the fight

00:00:54.520 but i also realized like even i was talking about you a few seconds ago and there's a personal

00:00:59.100 side of people that promote energy and candidly conservatives that doesn't get humanized as

00:01:04.440 often so oil and gas world i try to tell the human side of the stories of the people behind energy

00:01:09.520 all right yeah so you've been doing this uh a long time you're uh 11 years 11 years you're one of the

00:01:15.480 og uh oil and gas i think og um i mean like uh there it was not really many people in the game of

00:01:23.740 actually standing up no for western energy uh at that time it was i mean it was almost entirely

00:01:29.780 just like these bean counting mealy-mouthed uh communication bureaucrats in i don't name the 1.00

00:01:39.360 companies but we know who they are they're still there yeah yeah they're like they're you know they

00:01:43.800 work for the big oil and gas corporations most you know the internationals some of the big domestics

00:01:48.500 and they really just were afraid of their own shadow they never wanted to punch back yeah um

00:01:54.540 there really weren't a lot of independent punchy guys like you uh but you you're as i said well

00:01:59.640 kind of the og guy for it yeah um you and maybe uh and cody i guess cody bachel yeah the two of you

00:02:05.340 and we always got to give credit to ezra for the book ethical oil that was a big that was a big moment

00:02:09.860 that's that started the catalyst to bring people you know people kind of together you know yeah i

00:02:16.920 i'd say kind of the three of you i mean uh ezra that was just one part of the media thing he was

00:02:20.520 doing but i kind of set the foundation of yeah intellectually i think and then laid out the

00:02:24.040 argument of it yeah and you and cody kind of took it from there uh and it's it's a completely different

00:02:29.580 ball game today yeah now you've got now it's cool now it's yeah it's cool i'm hot you know yeah yeah

00:02:34.680 yeah it's so hot right now yeah uh you know earlier today we were both at the influencer uh

00:02:39.780 big session here yeah they have a whole influencer portion to the oil and gas so the global energy

00:02:45.140 show here yeah uh you know i won that by the way you won it i won it oh i didn't i didn't stay

00:02:49.740 around no you didn't you missed out i did win i was very happy i was shocked but you deserve to

00:02:54.060 win i fumbled my words but i did win it so i was pretty happy about my words were great and i still

00:02:57.840 lost okay um but you win all the time all i do win all the time i'm winning you're one of my

00:03:03.340 favorite people period i'm a winner winning you win all the time this is amazing so winning i i

00:03:08.660 love going to your office when i stole your tribe by that time yeah we still want that back i'll

00:03:11.980 give it back but let me tell you something your office is one of the most like i i spent a lot of

00:03:17.200 time there i think you guys interviewed me at the time and i love it reminds me of an old newsroom

00:03:22.460 that you don't see anymore and you got your kind of your reporters sitting there and they're kind

00:03:25.940 of like scruffling through their stories they would be smoking they would be they could you know

00:03:30.620 what i mean vaping now yeah the vaping and but it's such a beautiful place and i love all of the

00:03:35.360 old magazines i think daniel smith gave you those to put back up yeah the delivery the delivery address

00:03:39.600 is still on them through hellish but that that is you should be proud of that and you should be proud

00:03:43.560 of how hard you've worked to um to protect you know um i'm gonna say authentic media or media with

00:03:50.680 a different perspective so they should be proud of that so you're you're the biggest influencer of

00:03:55.340 them all in a sense so i just wanted to say that my ego is uh big enough to absorb it i don't give

00:04:00.480 couplets i don't mean so that's i appreciate it thank you uh so you know we had this event today

00:04:06.420 this is it's kind of a new thing where there was yeah there's hundreds of these influence oil and gas

00:04:12.040 influencers now and we went from two and a book yeah uh to 11 years ago yeah to hundreds here and it's

00:04:20.640 it's a whole network uh you know you have the modern miracle network that's built into this

00:04:24.980 yeah uh you know canada action uh oil sand strong all of these things and it's it just seems to really

00:04:31.060 have matured now as i don't know if a movement's the right term like i guess i guess it is well you

00:04:37.140 know so i've been at this quite a while and i and i actually candidly to fund this i started my own

00:04:43.820 media company which we do social media websites uh i primarily indigenous clients in fort mcmurray but

00:04:49.600 like we have an office in calgary now small but we're making a presence and we do that type of

00:04:53.420 thing and i did that to power this because you know like one of the things that the big oil

00:04:58.860 companies and they need to stop doing this is that they they instantaneously it's the same thing

00:05:03.100 all the time i can't tell you the amount of times that their branding is being reinvented about

00:05:06.480 six that i can think of they're going to do this big thing they have a big event they hire a major

00:05:10.800 ad agency to put billboards so much money on this millions of dollars millions of dollars have been

00:05:16.860 spent and like not to be arrogant but my reach was almost 600 million last month on my socials

00:05:22.140 which is more than all of them combined and not nearly the amount of money not like and i think

00:05:27.560 i'm glad to see a lot of influence out there that has happened periodically where they kind of come and

00:05:31.140 go but it's like we need to collectively fund this side of the story to the point where like i should

00:05:38.540 this is not my even though it's more or less my full-time job it's my kind of segue from my actual

00:05:44.800 business which i had which don't get me wrong i'm grateful right like my business is doing well i got

00:05:48.700 13 staff and i'm very happy but at the same time it's like to get funding for the magazine and get

00:05:54.840 funding for oil and oil stand strong and oil and gas world has been hell and then you see okay industry

00:06:00.860 oh got this new concept we're gonna their social media is horrible they haven't done anything amazing

00:06:05.520 they don't even the story they're trying to sell has not moved the needle and what we do does i

00:06:11.260 remember when we it was kind of in the early days i left canada action and i was kind of

00:06:16.280 pretty happy with what i was doing and um we traveled from halifax to vancouver island so

00:06:23.020 essentially other than newfoundland pretty much from coast to coast around the country and

00:06:26.300 every city we went to we'd run a poll after about a pipeline uh pipeline like would you support

00:06:31.900 pipelines and every city we were we tipped the scale it was like used to be always negative against

00:06:37.120 pipelines and then when we were done this sort of campaign you know you have 53 55 supporting

00:06:41.700 pipelines now not leave you know i was pretty impressed when she did the wine ban i remember

00:06:45.960 the greenpeace had a protest they had 10 000 people we had 500 at ours but the polls supported us

00:06:52.580 you know so all of that work we didn't get paid for it we had very limited money that was far more

00:06:58.440 effective than anything that the the big companies did and i and and i really hope that they look at us

00:07:03.800 more seriously finding ways to support because i mean a lot of people that were in advocacy that

00:07:09.080 came and gone never got funding and eventually you know you can't afford to do it you know i mean i'm

00:07:14.300 very fortunate that i've got a good business and i got a good base i'm part of the glosky family and

00:07:18.700 like their group of companies in sport mcmurray so i'm very lucky but that being said i want to see

00:07:23.840 far more because you know alberta has contributed the fraser institute did that study and it's basically

00:07:29.840 alberta contributed like i think was three times the more than all the provinces combined from from

00:07:36.620 2007 to 2022 now can you imagine if we had the northern gateway pipeline if we had more respect

00:07:44.820 for this industry that pays for the whole country but it shouldn't be a situation where it's just

00:07:50.160 embarrassingly how bad how bad it is and we need to do more yeah i just the corporate i mean corporate

00:07:57.100 communications in general is always so terrible but especially from alberta's oil and gas there

00:08:03.260 needs to be more well and you see the big guys tend to be afraid of their own shadow it's the juniors

00:08:09.740 some of the mid guys they're willing to fight they're willing to to fund people on their own side

00:08:15.260 yeah it's the big guys they're just they're just afraid of everything they are they're more interested

00:08:21.180 in hiring a bunch of lobbyists to trying to just suck up to however's in power at the time to try

00:08:26.220 and win things over uh but they're not they're not fighting fire with fire uh i'm optimistic that

00:08:32.200 things are starting to change maybe not from the big guys but you know well i'm still gonna give

00:08:37.420 carny a chance i mean i understand a lot of his past and you got depends on which way which way you

00:08:42.780 look at it but i mean he wrote he wrote the books and he did all that that seemed that he'd be very

00:08:47.200 anti-pipeline but when you're in that chair and you need to make a lot of money and you make a lot

00:08:51.540 of money quick and the reality is there is no such thing as green energy there every type of energy

00:08:57.300 has a cost and it has a price and it has a consequence and pipelines and canadian energy is the

00:09:03.620 safest way to build the world and i mean he just made a statement i mean it's embarrassing like i

00:09:08.340 didn't even know this canada has three submarines two of them are not working one kind of works i mean

00:09:13.700 you better call west edmonton mall there's still subs there and get their subs you know what i mean

00:09:17.780 that'll be that would triple the military when i uh i was a sea cadet as a kid and my dream was to

00:09:22.260 be a submarine boat captain yeah thank god i did not pursue no you work i'd still be sitting in dry

00:09:27.780 dock i'd be an admiral of the west edmonton mall we are the second largest country in the world land

00:09:33.220 mass with arguably the largest amount of resources i mean i think the largest coastline a hundred percent

00:09:38.900 of a single real totally third largest proven resource oil was i'm hearing that it's maybe the

00:09:44.260 fourth but but regardless of that we have uranium and potash and we're sitting back and our country

00:09:49.860 we're apologizing for our existence and all this patriotism don't get me wrong like i i'm i'm patriotic

00:09:56.340 but four years ago they were ripping down the canadian flag every single i'm a metis guy and sure canada

00:10:03.140 has some historic problems we also are a very successful country because of our history tearing

00:10:08.020 down monuments attacking our country and now all of a sudden because trump you know sable rattles us we're

00:10:12.820 all pro canada how about we actually be pro canada because alberta's largest trading partner is not

00:10:18.500 canada no it's the united states so i just hosted a bunch of americans in fort mcmurray they were up

00:10:23.300 for called site selectors and i i interviewed all them they were amazing interviews and the other thing

00:10:28.420 that i was kind of flabbergasted by is that the americans don't mess around these guys i got to deal

00:10:33.940 with one of the two minutes like i mean he's already emailing me his contract to sign i'm like holy

00:10:38.740 like i just met you we need to be more like the americans we need to be aggressive we need to try

00:10:43.700 to work our magic to get our oil to market and build our industry yeah all right well thank you

00:10:50.260 for your time rob thank you very much for having me i appreciate it and thanks for the cool new swag

00:10:53.780 you're welcome uh just give me my tripod back for that studio i will give you the tripod back awesome

00:10:58.020 thank you that's robbie picard picard media and uh oil sand oil that's strong and oil and gas

00:11:04.420 world there we go that's robbie picard media robbie picard media oh robbie picard me it's

00:11:11.060 jean-luc picard media got it robbie picard media thank you

Western Standard - June 13, 2025

Fighting back for oil and gas

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