Western Standard - MORGAN： Shut down Line 5

00:00:00.000 Time to quit bickering, end the uncertainty, and just shut down Enbridge's controversial

00:00:04.380 Line 5. Now, before you grab your torches and picks forks, bear with me here. I'm going

00:00:08.420 somewhere with this. Line 5's a major pipeline, carrying essential petroleum liquids from

00:00:13.660 Western Canada, or through Wisconsin, then Michigan, and into Sarnia, Ontario. The products

00:00:18.500 from Line 5 provide heating stock for Ontario and Quebec, along with aviation fuel for international

00:00:23.400 airports on both sides of the border. Now, Michigan's governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has

00:00:28.160 been trying to shut down Line 5 for years, and now she's tossed it over. It's turned

00:00:31.500 into a political football for the White House. It's turned into an international issue. If

00:00:36.760 Whitmer succeeds in shutting down Line 5, home heating prices are going to skyrocket in Central

00:00:41.380 Canada. Thousands of people in Sarnia are going to lose their jobs, because that's where the

00:00:45.140 refineries are that this pipeline feeds, and air travel might get disrupted for months while

00:00:49.200 they're seeking alternative fuel sources. Our already rising energy costs are going to skyrocket.

00:00:53.620 Even Detroit's airport needs the fuel from that line. So why does Whitmer want to shut

00:00:58.300 down Line 5? It's even going to hurt herself. To be blunt, it's because she's an environmentalist 0.96

00:01:04.060 ideologue. Economic realities mean nothing to people like her, nor to the ground-level jobs 0.84

00:01:09.780 that rely on these energy sources. She lives in a cloistered world of privilege, and neither 0.97

00:01:14.720 sees nor cares what human damages her eco-crusade is going to inflict. She's much like Prime Minister

00:01:19.580 Justin Trudeau, in other words. These guys don't see or feel what these high energy costs

00:01:24.760 do. So why do I want to see Line 5 shut down then? Well, I want to see it shut down because

00:01:29.920 it's going to hasten the economic reality check that voters and decision-makers in North America

00:01:35.020 desperately need. I mean, politicians and the majority of the electorate, whether we like

00:01:39.540 it or not, have mentally drifted into an alternative reality where we're going to be able to shut

00:01:44.120 down all these hydrocarbon-based fuel sources without paying a dire economic price for it.

00:01:49.300 They believe renewable resources or renewable sources of energy generation are going to

00:01:53.740 spring up like daisies once the oil pumps are shut down and we'll just all happily dance

00:01:57.380 down the yellow brick road of a green new world. It's not going to happen, kids. Europe

00:02:02.860 right now, they tried, and they're in the midst of an energy crisis like none we've seen since

00:02:07.060 the 1970s. Germany's gone back to burning coal as an energy source, while Great Britain is sourcing

00:02:13.200 natural gas from Qatar. Canada could provide it, but we shut down all our LNG terminals and we can't

00:02:18.080 get one built. India and China, they're increasing their coal mining, while Russia and Norway are

00:02:22.220 ramping up oil production. Even left-leaning economists are beginning to grudgingly admit

00:02:26.760 that the mad rush towards renewable energy sources has been a large contributor to the energy shortage of

00:02:33.180 today. They're starting to face reality, but we need more people to do it. It's despite this crisis

00:02:38.420 unfolding in Europe, and despite the high energy prices spurring inflationary spikes around the world,

00:02:43.200 the political leadership in North America is acting as if none of this is happening.

00:02:47.760 Trudeau just appointed an environmental extremist as the nation's environment minister and is imposing

00:02:53.180 caps on oil and gas emissions. He's talking about shutting it all down. President Joe Biden's

00:02:57.720 begging OPEC to increase oil output while refusing to acknowledge his cancellation of the Keystone XL

00:03:03.160 pipeline has contributed to the domestic energy cost spikes. And now Biden's playing coy with the status

00:03:08.320 of line five at a time when we're desperately in need of domestic energy security. Again,

00:03:12.780 these guys aren't facing reality. But our electorate, are they any better? No, they are no better.

00:03:18.920 I mean, Trudeau recently coasted to a re-election with an NDP-backed minority government.

00:03:23.680 In Calgary, the energy capital, Jody Gondek was elected as the new mayor, surrounded by a crop of

00:03:29.280 union-backed councillors. These are hardcore environmentalists, and despite Calgary's core

00:03:34.380 being a dystopian ghost town with over a million square feet of vacant office space,

00:03:39.520 Gondek's decided to make the declaration of a climate emergency her top priority.

00:03:43.900 And she's stating, we must move beyond oil and gas. The top remaining companies in Calgary's core

00:03:48.660 right now, the few that are still putting money in here, are oil and gas, yet the new mayor's shunning

00:03:52.120 them. They're going to be encouraged to leave while incoming investment is chilled. Amazon sounds like

00:03:58.260 they might be moving out here, but they're not moving into Calgary's downtown. They're not moving down

00:04:01.820 there. People won't wake up until they get a good kick in the ass, and that kick's coming in North 1.00

00:04:05.760 America, and the only question now is whether it's coming sooner or later. I'd rather see the kick 0.99

00:04:09.960 come sooner, as it's going to make it easier to backtrack and recover once things hit the fan.

00:04:14.160 If we continue our slow march to energy poverty, it's going to take a little longer to hit the

00:04:17.880 economic bottom, but it's going to take a lot longer to climb out. The sudden cancellation of line

00:04:22.860 five, that'll provide the shock we need. A bucket of cold water of reality thrown into the faces of a

00:04:29.060 spoiled and sleepy electorate. We have to outright shatter the fairy tale that we have a source of

00:04:34.920 renewable energy, reliable enough, affordable, and ready to replace hydrocarbons right now.

00:04:40.700 It's like the old method of putting a kid off cigarettes when they've been caught smoking.

00:04:44.980 You make them smoke an entire pack in one sitting, so they get a good, solid taste of what they're

00:04:49.340 flirting with. A lot of people are wishing for a world without hydrocarbons. Well, maybe it's time

00:04:54.120 to give them their wish. Let's give them what they're wishing for. After a season of freezing in the dark,

00:04:58.460 and you know where that saying comes from, I suspect we're going to see citizens demanding

00:05:02.280 reality-based energy policies all of a sudden, and the political leadership will finally follow.

Western Standard - November 10, 2021

MORGAN： Shut down Line 5

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript