Western Standard - November 03, 2021


O’Toole silent as Trudeau starts shutting down energy industry


Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

186.54597

Word count

1,051

Sentence count

60

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Justin Trudeau announced an emissions cap targeting Western Canada s oil and gas sector at the COP26 summit. Why is Conservative leader Aaron O'Toole's silence on the issue so deafening, especially when Canada's flags are being lowered on Remembrance Day?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Nobody should be surprised that Justin Trudeau used the COP26 summit as a platform to announce
00:00:12.880 an emissions cap targeting Western Canada's oil and gas sector. Trudeau campaigned on imposing a
00:00:18.900 cap and the climate summit provided him an ideal international stage from which to announce it.
00:00:25.000 The Trudeau family's disdain for the West and our energy sector is well established.
00:00:29.280 Pierre Trudeau castrated the oil and gas sector with his national energy program back in the 80s.
00:00:33.660 When the Western yokels became upset, he responded by literally giving Western protesters the middle
00:00:38.340 finger when he later passed through the region. It was later known as the Trudeau salute.
00:00:41.760 Justin Trudeau sees the prairies as nothing more than a flyover country that bores him as he looks
00:00:46.500 out the window of his Challenger jet en route to a solemn beach vacation. To see Justin carrying on
00:00:51.900 a legacy of assailing Western Canada's energy sector is not shocking at all, or at least it shouldn't be.
00:00:57.680 What is surprising though, is the federal conservative leader Aaron O'Toole's complete silence on this.
00:01:04.220 Trudeau's act of international virtue signaling at the expense of the West's oil and gas sector provided
00:01:11.600 O'Toole an opportunity to demonstrate some leadership and backbone. God knows we've been looking for it out of
00:01:16.060 them. A thoughtful and strong rebuttal to Trudeau's short-sighted emissions cap could have established
00:01:21.140 Trudeau as an opposition leader willing to take on a debate with Canada's interest in mind. Instead, O'Toole is
00:01:27.060 avoiding the issue at all costs and is focused on the issue of Canada's flags being lowered while Remembrance Day
00:01:31.940 approaches. Perhaps somebody should tell Aaron it's time to take on more than one issue at a time. It is possible to do it.
00:01:37.440 The flag issue is pressing and it's an emotional one, but it's short term. Trudeau is likely going to raise the flag
00:01:42.740 shortly before Remembrance Day so they can be lowered symbolically and he'll paint himself as a hero who's sensitive to both
00:01:47.480 Canada's First Nations community and veterans. Whether it works or not, we'll see. O'Toole's stance on the
00:01:52.360 flags though will be forgotten within weeks while the emission cap he let go unimposed could damage
00:01:57.320 Canada's economy for generations. O'Toole is terrified of upsetting the precious voters within Quebec and
00:02:03.960 Southern Ontario. Indeed, the CPC is going to have to make serious inroads within Central Canada if they
00:02:08.200 hope to win the next federal election. Opposing Trudeau's proposed emissions cap on the oil and gas sector
00:02:12.920 doesn't mean sacrificing Central Canadian voters. The emissions cap is going to harm Canadians from
00:02:18.200 coast to coast as inflation is growing and energy poverty is looming for all of us. O'Toole could
00:02:23.720 have been critical of Trudeau's plan without being regionally divisive, but it would have taken time
00:02:28.600 and effort to make the case that the plan is bad for all Canadians. O'Toole chose to try and hide from
00:02:34.520 the issue rather than show leadership on it. Energy security. It's going to be a pressing issue for all of
00:02:39.640 us in the very near future. The fate of Enbridge's Line 5 is very questionable right now. If it's shut
00:02:45.000 down, both Ontario and Quebec are going to suffer immediately and dearly with energy shortages.
00:02:49.400 Europe is currently increasing its coal consumption while Russia is expanding their production of oil
00:02:53.880 and gas in order to feed the ever-hungry energy consumers of India and China. President Joe Biden
00:02:58.920 is begging OPEC to increase output due to skyrocketing energy prices. Even Norway is unapologetically
00:03:05.080 increasing its oil exploration and production in order to meet world demand. There's no better
00:03:10.440 time than right now. To point out Canada's clean, ethical, petrochemical products are available to
00:03:16.040 fill North America's growing energy needs. We're here. We've got it. An emissions cap targeting oil and
00:03:21.400 gas within Canada, though, is going to chill investment and slow production. Energy demand isn't going
00:03:27.640 away. Thus, Canada is going to be finding itself importing more oil than ever from nations with terrible 0.88
00:03:33.240 environmental and human rights standards. We're going to be paying a premium for oil while literally
00:03:37.960 shutting down our local supplies. It's self-destructive and it's ludicrous. Why can't Aaron O'Toole make
00:03:43.720 this case? Why is he refusing to? Western Canada's energy sector has been working to reduce emissions
00:03:49.000 intensity for decades and has had great success. Between 2008 and 2011, the emissions from a barrel
00:03:54.360 of oil produced in the oil sands have been reduced by 22 percent and they're continuing to drop.
00:03:59.240 Carbon capture and hydrogen technology have made incredible advances in reducing emissions thanks
00:04:05.160 to research done by Canadian energy producers. We can increase energy output while still keeping
00:04:10.520 the emissions under control. A responsible opposition leader like O'Toole should be celebrating
00:04:17.240 those accomplishments. Energy producers hardly feel incentivized to continue investing in emission
00:04:22.040 reduction technology if they can't even get positive recognition for it, much less a fiscal reward.
00:04:28.360 O'Toole could have opposed Trudeau's plans without taking regional sides. He could have been a force
00:04:33.240 for Canadian unity, actually, as he made a case for the entire nation on the benefits of embracing our
00:04:37.880 clean ethical oil and gas sector. In his silence, O'Toole has actually fed regional division within
00:04:43.000 Canada. Oil and gas producing provinces rightly feel they have no allies left on the federal front
00:04:48.040 and they're being left out in the cold by O'Toole and the Conservative Party of Canada. While Western
00:04:52.760 Canada contributes heavily to the Conservative seat count, they still get the cold shoulder from the
00:04:56.600 party leadership in times of need. It almost feels like our equalization payments. We keep paying
00:05:01.880 and we don't get anything back, whether in dollars or respect.
00:05:05.960 Aaron O'Toole had the chance to stand out as a leader willing to put it all on the line for Canada.
00:05:11.160 He could have taken the tough but principled road in defending our oil and gas sector against Trudeau's
00:05:15.480 incursions. O'Toole instead decided to hide from the issue and Western Canada is going to pay
00:05:20.280 dearly for his cowardice. It's time to stop supporting a party that won't support us. Come to think of it,
00:05:25.480 it's getting near time to stop supporting a nation that won't support us. But that's fodder for a whole new column.