A special episode from the Global Energy Show in Calgary, where Western Standard Opinion Editor Nigel Hannaford and Senior Alberta Columnist Corey Morgan discuss all things energy and the upcoming G7 Summit. Plus, a look at Tesla's Elon Musk's apology to the Prime Minister of Canada.
00:00:30.000I am Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline, coming to you from the floor of the Global Energy Show right here in Calgary, Alberta.
00:00:41.440A special episode, we've been here all yesterday, we're going to be here all today, and tomorrow from one of the most important events on the global calendar for the energy industry.
00:00:52.880We had Corey Morgan Show here live today. Speaking of what, I guess we'll introduce Corey first today, Senior Alberta Columnist.
00:00:59.140A pleasure to be here. I mean, this is a historic type of show. It's quite something to take part in.
00:01:03.160It is. And we've got Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.
00:01:07.760Lots of opinions down here. More than 600 booths, 700, I think. An incredible show. Second biggest in the world.
00:01:14.520One big, beautiful oil show. To rule them all.
00:01:18.200Absolutely. One big, beautiful oil show.
00:01:20.920Yeah. Well, we'll be talking about how you can resist deportations of illegal migrants by burning down your city.
00:01:30.700We're going to take some great lessons from California.
00:01:33.500We're going to talk about the upcoming G7 Leaders Conference coming up not very far from where we're sitting right now in Kananaskis, Alberta, just west of Calgary.
00:01:44.800That's coming up in just a few days, I think, right?
00:01:50.900Be sure to catch our live coverage as we're keeping a rolling block.
00:01:54.240Indeed. We're going to talk about what we expect there.
00:01:56.260Some interesting guests on the dinner invitations. We'll be talking about that.
00:02:02.160But before we get to that, oh, we're going to talk about one big, beautiful apology or retraction from Elon Musk trying to heal the feud between the two titans of American politics today.
00:02:17.040But before we get to that, we're going to start with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's speech to the Global Energy Show or Global Energy Exhibition.
00:02:50.120This was actually a tremendous show from Premier Smith.
00:02:54.840What we've got to remember, Derek, Corey, is that those of us who live here and cover this stuff all the time find a lot of it familiar.
00:03:02.120But if you are not from Calvary, if you're not from Alberta, if you're not even from Canada, you come in and quite frankly, having a presentation from Premier Smith is just an eye-opener.
00:03:16.760She was on top with her figures. We heard all the figures before, but she was rolling them out.
00:03:22.600There were eyeballs going, good Lord, Alberta, really? And I think most important was the interview that she did afterwards with Peter Mansbridge.
00:03:33.420Peter Mansbridge, another grand old man of Canadian broadcasting, didn't always agree with everything he said and thought when he was in Business Club.
00:03:42.940He did a really clever interview and it gave the Premier a chance to lay out her strategy for dealing with Mr. Carney without actually saying, this is my strategy.
00:03:57.400She is giving him time. Time to show whether he is going to offer good faith to Alberta.
00:04:05.140Time to see whether he can bring his whole party under control.
00:04:13.560Like one of the things that, let me just, I made this note and Smith made the observation that although he has said some encouraging things,
00:04:23.240he has got a group of MPs who were there in the last part of it and really liked the way things were going.
00:04:30.500So he's got a huge leadership turnaround to do, but he has shown that he can be pragmatic and she uses evidence for that.
00:04:39.540The fact that almost before he had tried out the Prime Minister's chair, he had signed away the carbon tax and she is hopeful that that kind of pragmatism will characterize his tenure as Prime Minister.
00:04:54.840So, Corey, you know, it was nothing we hadn't heard before on that front, you know, hopeful, you know, Gilboa, sorry, yes, Freudian slip.
00:05:08.280There's some pressing company over my shoulder we can't see right now.
00:05:12.360The, you know, Carney's saying the right things, but we have to see action.
00:05:17.400We don't really know what it means yet because there's two Carnies.
00:05:20.340There's the Carney we saw who's elbows up during the election.
00:05:23.180And then there's the Carney who wrote the book Values, which is implacably anti-pipe wine, anti-oil and gas, anti-resource development.
00:05:32.460Was there anything there that she hasn't said before?
00:05:36.260No, but as Nigel said, I mean, it's a brand new audience, though.
00:05:39.180It's letting others who don't watch the typical international audience.
00:05:43.500And in this industry, I mean, you know, energy in general is very integrated and you don't necessarily read the newspapers of every other country you're involved in or jurisdiction.
00:05:51.640And getting a leader to speak diplomatically on the challenges that really are happening with our, I guess you could say, national authority and whether or not we can get projects done here.
00:06:01.560I think it was a very good opportunity and she's taken full advantage of that.
00:06:07.240I think the feds perhaps might regret not having a larger presence here to speak on their behalf and perhaps what their agenda might be.
00:06:13.820Well, let's before we get into the new pipeline and infrastructure bill, let's talk about that.
00:06:20.320I noted that in some of the interviews I did with people on the floor of the show here yesterday that there is no major representative of the federal government here.
00:06:31.020I'm sure they've sent some bureaucrats, some some firecratchers around to take notes, you know, and, you know, there's probably some people in the back rooms here, but no prime minister, no energy minister, no environment minister.
00:06:43.120I think they'd be smart not to send the environment minister here.
00:06:45.760I can't recall her name, but she's from Quebec and very many ways considered to be a protege of Stephen Gilbeau, who I can't, I can't, I can't, can't ruin my parting shot is mostly not here.
00:07:00.640Stephen Gilbeau, actually, let's just say for those watching at home, we actually are perhaps expecting Stephen Gilbeau to come for an exclusive interview with the Western Center.
00:07:10.000Maybe arriving by the end of the show, but the environment minister would not be a welcome person here that you'd have a very real risk, if not probability that that he would probably she would get booed here.
00:07:25.140But Tim Hodgson, the new energy minister, I'm surprised not to see him here because he's got a resume that is not at odds with other folks here.
00:07:35.380And he gave a speech at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce just a few weeks ago.
00:11:15.780But when it actually comes to sending the signals, the big-picture symbols, it's not there.
00:11:25.060Well, I think that's a good way to move to the new, I forget the exact name of it, but the National Infrastructure of Priority Bill that the liberals have just introduced.
00:11:35.700Kearney had just met with the premiers and says, you know, give me your list of big projects ready to go, shovel-ready projects.
00:11:43.680You know, the politicians love the term shovel-ready.
00:11:46.160Well, actually, the problem is the big things we need are no longer shovel-ready because no one's bothered applying to build a new pipeline in Canada across provincial boundaries or international boundaries.
00:11:55.380Ever since, the No War Pipelines Act or the Impact Assessment Act, whatever you're calling it, has been passed.
00:12:00.580They got the message, you know, why would you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on an approvals process that you know is going to lead to nowhere.
00:12:08.940It's just going to get you nothing but grief and bad press.
00:12:11.100So none of those things are shovel-ready.
00:12:15.320You know, parts of it say, yeah, the federal government can identify this infrastructure, these infrastructure projects like pipelines, highways, major economic infrastructure pieces.
00:12:29.180But it also seems to imply that provinces have a veto at the same time.
00:12:57.320That's the only signaling I see out of this.
00:12:58.960So some of the stuff we're hearing from them, too, is saying, well, we haven't heard from private industry saying that they're interested in picking it up either.
00:13:05.080Well, if you weren't even willing to come into the room where private industry is gathered, it sounds to me like you don't want to hear from private industry.
00:13:11.140And you don't want to hear them say, what would you like to get done?
00:14:02.380And she emphasized that a number of times this morning.
00:14:05.300So, again, it would have been a fruitful thing to have some kind of representation from the federal government on this floor here.
00:14:19.600Nigel, before we started rolling here, you were saying that she was trying to appear to be the reasonable person, trying to give him a chance.
00:14:30.500Did you get the impression that she expects him to disappoint, that she expects him to fail?
00:14:57.420Mr. Carney would fly out here or she would go out there or they'd meet in Winnipeg, you know.
00:15:02.800And then there would be a lovely announcement that they're going to make everybody.
00:15:05.760That would be just to raise expectations that may not be met.
00:15:08.940But she certainly, I know there's a lot of people in Alberta who would just like her to be feisty and walk around with her fist.
00:15:18.260Well, I guess the elbows, the fist's up anyway.
00:15:20.500And say the things that people would just love to say if they could find themselves standing beside Mr. Carney.
00:15:27.560But, you know, that's not necessarily the way to do it.
00:15:31.880That's not going to help making the Prime Minister of Canada not only against you on policy, but also personally just finding you offensive.
00:15:42.460You might recall that Mr. Trudeau made himself personally offensive to Donald Trump.
00:16:11.980Well, speaking of Trump, let's change gears.
00:16:15.380We're going to have a bit more American discussion than we normally do on the pipeline today.
00:16:19.200I try to avoid too much American stuff because you can listen to, you know, commentary on American news on American sources.
00:16:25.340They tend to know more than we do, but some of this stuff is just the ramifications are so big for us, you know, both for north of the border and just for the kind of broader Anglo-sphere conservative world.
00:16:38.420And, you know, the nuclear bomb on that was the fallout between, that's a good pun, was the fallout between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, arguably the two most powerful men in the world.
00:16:52.100And the richest man and the man, the man who controls the internet, as someone put it the other day, the man who controls the nukes, the man who controls the internet.
00:17:02.920Some kind of falling out with them coming from the one big beautiful bill.
00:17:07.520From what we can tell, Musk thought it was just far too timid in its spending cuts, wanted to go much further.
00:17:14.800And if that's the case, I think Musk is right.
00:17:17.460But you can cut a trillion dollars off the deficit, it's still just a scratch of the surface of the fiscal mess the United States is in right now.
00:17:27.660But this culminated in a tweet from Elon Musk where he said,
00:17:31.060And the real reason that the Trump administration won't release the Epstein files from Jeffrey Epstein is because Trump is in them.
00:17:43.180I'd be surprised if he's not mentioned somewhere.
00:17:45.780Epstein, Glenn Maxwell, they hobnob with all the most rich and powerful people on the planet, pretty much.
00:17:52.340Which in, I think, what we know pretty well at this point to be a leveraged scheme, possibly involving foreign intelligence services, that kind of thing.
00:18:03.200We really have only begun to scratch the surface of that.
00:18:07.380But does that mean everybody mentioned that they have ever met with in their life is implicated and has done wrong?
00:20:02.840But your point about people being implicated by just by being on the same sidewalk as somebody else.
00:20:09.720I mean, I had coffee in Ontario once with an NDP member of parliament.
00:20:15.340I mean, is that going to come back to Ontario?
00:20:17.040If your name appears on the flight manifest going to the island, okay, you know what?
00:20:20.680You've got some explaining to do at that point.
00:20:22.640You're not 100% guilty, guaranteed, but you're probably guilty.
00:20:26.440If Trump's name were to be on the flight manifest going to Pito Island, I mean, that is something.
00:20:31.620But if it just shows up, it's not to bring up a non-pleasant reference, but, I mean, there's photographic evidence passing around the internet,
00:20:40.100which tries to associate Mark Carney with Epstein.
00:21:08.020But, but also, but did the fallout have to be this public and, uh, and, and nuclear, like, uh, both men have a lot at stake here.
00:21:18.160Um, I think, uh, you know, proceeding, I, I think it should be noted, uh, maybe we need to update our story on this.
00:21:24.540Uh, if Chris Oldborn's watching, update it.
00:21:27.300Um, this was preceded, though, by yesterday, J.D. Vance tweeting that, uh, you know, during the time that Elon was leading Doge, um, you know, he took a 25% hit to his net value because, well, who are the people who like to buy Teslas?
00:21:42.780Not people who drive gas-guzzling trucks, gun-toting Republicans.
00:21:46.740It's Democrats, people in California who like to buy Teslas to save the environment.
00:21:52.480Um, so, you know, Tesla has taken an absolute, it's just been massacred in the stocks and in sales since, uh, really since his affiliation to begin with, with Trump, but especially since Doge.
00:22:03.480Um, so I think there was kind of, that was the opening there, uh, J.D. Vance said that, and he says, like, we should thank Elon for his service.
00:22:11.100Like, he made a, a huge, like, a gargantuan personal financial sacrifice to do this, thank him.
00:22:16.200So it was, it was, Trump was never going to fire the first apology.
00:22:20.840I mean, that just seems beyond his personal capabilities, I think.
00:22:25.160Uh, but yeah, this does seem to be kind of constructed that people on both sides are, I don't know.
00:22:29.980Uh, but is it also kind of a split or internal, uh, tension between the, uh, national conservatives, the populists in the party, and the so-called tech pros, these kind of two of the big dominant wings of the Trump coalition?
00:22:45.720Well, I mean, I think part of this, I'm glad you mentioned, like, what, what Musk lost in politicizing himself and getting into that.
00:22:52.480I mean, we're talking, you know, an unimaginable billions of dollars.
00:22:55.780He must have known going in that this is going to cost, it's not like he's going to worry, you know, he's going to be impoverished.
00:23:02.080I mean, when you, when you, now you're down a hundred billion, but you still have hundreds of billions, it's not really measurable in your lifestyle.
00:23:07.360But he knew he was taking that on and joining with President Trump, which tells me he did it for ideological reasons.
00:24:12.700But again, I mean, he's kind of walked it back because the temper's cooled a little on these things.
00:24:17.440But in today's world, get that two pieces out of the tube.
00:24:20.760As you said, these tweets come out in the middle of the night.
00:24:22.880These are things that are impulsive from both Trump or Musk.
00:24:26.900And now it's, you know, it's just a whole new dynamic.
00:24:30.140Well, I've got to wonder, too, if we're going to take a less charitable view, is Musk angry that Trump is ending the EV mandates, electric vehicle mandates?
00:24:39.520Like, not many people actually want to drive those things.
00:24:43.960I mean, there'll be more in the States than in Canada because they've got warmer climates where EVs are less of a terrible idea.
00:24:51.300It's still a generally terrible idea unless you really only drive around the downtown core of a big city.
00:24:55.560But EV mandates have been what is propping up EV sales because most people don't want to buy the things.
00:25:02.500It's Biden saying, you know, they want to phase up, you know, California and then the Biden administration said they want to mandate electric vehicles by a certain date.
00:25:11.480Canada, on paper, at least still has the damn things.
00:25:15.540If I'm being less charitable, I might say that Musk was thinking, well, that's going to kill Tesla.
00:25:21.240Look at all the sacrifices I'm making.
00:25:28.800Well, you may, I've read that theory and, you know, it may be so, but if you're interested in an electric car at all, a Tesla would be the one you would want.
00:25:40.220And the thing would be, if you can afford those kind of prices, then probably the government rebate.
00:25:49.560It's the mandates that they're going to ban the internal combustible engine for vehicles by 2030 or 2030 something and require that everything be an EV.
00:26:00.320I mean, that would put Tesla in a very good spot.
00:26:03.580Well, so I don't pretend to be, you know, the Musk whisperer.