Smith says Guilbeault should apologise to Albertans
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode, Alberta s premier, Rachel Notley, talks about her vision for the future of the country's electric vehicle production and infrastructure, and why it's not possible to get rid of gas-powered vehicles in Canada.
Transcript
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going to start things off with some positive news. First of all, we say good day. Premier,
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thank you for joining us. Hi, Bruce. I see our credit rating was upgraded, and that is very
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good news. It would seem that your strategy to invest and pay off debt is working. Well,
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I think it's important to know just how significant that is, because when we get
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a higher rating, it means that we pay lower interest charges when we go to renew our debt.
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And we've got a lot of debt being renewed over the next three years. If you remember,
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a lot of debt was racked up under the Notley years, but we got up to nearly $80 billion worth of debt,
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in fact, more, because we ended up paying $13 billion down last year. We want to make sure
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that the debt is on a permanent downward track, ultimately having in the line of sight to be
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debt-free again. It's why we've put 50% of all surpluses are going to go towards debt repayment.
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And I'm glad to see that the credit rating agencies are noticing, because when that $26 billion comes
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up for renewal, obviously, we don't have money sitting in the bank to pay it off. It is sadly
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going to have to be renewed at higher rates, double the rates that we did initially. It's
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going to increase our finance charges, but we'll get a little bit of a bonus that we'll have lower
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rates, and so a little bit less in interest, which means we'll have more money to be able to meet our
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commitments to Albertans. Hey, another week, and another whopper of an announcement from the
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federal government. This time, it's the electric vehicle mandate. They want to get us all off of
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gas-powered vehicles, and they want to do it in short order. Premier, is it even possible what
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they're proposing? No, it's not possible. And everybody has said so as well, which is the thing
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I find so remarkable. It's like everybody is looking at the naked emperor thinking he has clothes and
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nobody wants to say it. Well, as you know, I am not afraid to speak truth. And here's the reality
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that we face. One is that not only would it be impossible to ramp up the production to that
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level, that's one thing you have to keep in mind, is the entire country buys about a million and a
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half cars a year. So you're talking about ramping up the level of EV production so that 20% of that
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volume in two short years is going to be electric vehicle. That's one reason why I think it's going to
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be impossible. The second part of the problem is that people aren't buying them. If you look at
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what's happening in the United States, both GM and Ford have just scaled back their production
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because they've got a bunch of inventory growing on their parking lots because people are concerned
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about charging stations. They're concerned about the cost of batteries. They're concerned about
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range and what happens if they don't have the right range. And so it's not the kind of car that
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works for everyone. Number three is we want to build a hydrogen infrastructure. We've already
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demonstrated that's the direction we're going with the investment in air products, which is a net zero
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hydrogen facility. They'll be producing hydrogen fueling stations. Edmonton International bought
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three or a hundred hydrogen Toyota Mirays, and we bought three of them from them. So we've started our
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fleet of hydrogen vehicles in our government where we launched and helped support, supported the hydrogen
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buses that are piloted right now in Edmonton and Strathcona. We're working to do dual fuel vehicles
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to convert semi-trucks. But this is the point. This is all early stage. None of that is going to be
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available by 2026 to roll out so that it's 20%. So the other aspect is the power grid. The power grid
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cannot support more than two plug-in vehicles on a block. People have to upgrade their homes so that
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they can accommodate fast chargers. The grid needs to be upgraded so it could accommodate that.
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And in addition to that, think of all of the costs associated with the batteries that are needed to
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make sure that we can continue with this kind of volume. We've got a number of investments being made
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in Eastern Canada, but they're not going to be up and running. Stellantis isn't going to be up and
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running with batteries by the time we get to 2026. So you're looking at all of this just thinking,
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this is nothing but magical thinking. The impact is going to be severe though. I mean, I've told people
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that we better buckle up because we're going to end up seeing rationing of gas-powered vehicles.
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When I talked to the manufacturers, this is what they told me. If we only buy 2,000 electric vehicles
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in this market, it means to be able to meet their 20% target, they're only going to be allowed to sell
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8,000 gas-powered vehicles. So in a province that sells 200,000 or buys 200,000 vehicles a year,
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that means that by the end of January, we're going to be into rationing and you're going to have to
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get on a list to wait till next year. That's the only way I can see this working. And I want people
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to be prepared for it because it's not doable, but it's going to have an enormous impact on the
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lives of everyday Albertans. Well, I'd like to see more premiers across the country speaking out
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against it, Premier. I'm glad you are. You just gave us a lot of reasons to be concerned with it.
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The consumer choice ought to matter in this as well. Listen, let's talk about the plastics ruling.
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I know the federal government has decided to appeal the ruling, of course, and your government
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made an announcement this week about that. Yep. I know that the federal government has two
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options when they lose in court. One is to appeal and one is to say, yep, the court's right will
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change the law. And that's what they should have done in this case. Plastics are not toxic.
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Let's be very clear about that. Just even look around at your desk and look around through the
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course of the day and see how many times you come into contact with plastic. I'm just perusing my
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desk and almost there's probably 20 objects on my desk that are made of plastic. That's not the
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same as asbestos. It's not the same as mercury. Those are truly toxic substances that do have to
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be regulated in a different way. What they were doing is they were making an arbitrary designation
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of plastics as toxic so that they could justify using the criminal law power to enter into our
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area of jurisdiction. And they got called out on it. The court said it was unreasonable. The court
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said it was unconstitutional. And what did the government do? Well, they're appealing it. They're
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making us continue to fight it out in court. And we're going to do it. We're going to meet them every
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step of the way. I just wish that they would do the right thing. Recognize that there's a better way
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for us to manage plastics with recycling. We're starting to unroll our extended producer
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responsibility program next year. I think there's going to be all kinds of uses for plastics to be
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collected and mechanically disaggregated or chemically disaggregated so that they can be
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turned into useful products. That's the direction we should be going as opposed to, you know, wooden
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cutlery and paper straws. That's not going to have the kind of impact on the environment that we're
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looking for. 100%. Look, it's been a tumultuous year to say the least when it comes to dealing with
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the federal government. The plastics, the electricity grid, now the electric vehicles.
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What do you see going forward in 2024? Are they going to relent? Will your strategy change any?
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My strategy from the beginning is to really engage in a spirit of cooperative federalism.
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I talked, as I've said to you before, I have always talked about how we want to align our carbon
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neutral targets to 2050. Work with the federal government where we can, and we have been able to.
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I mean, there's exciting things that are happening. Our net zero hydrogen is going to build out new
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transportation fuels. Our net zero Dow petrochemical plant is going to create a whole new stream of
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petrochemical products and plastics that are net zero. Heidelberg's net zero cement facility will be the
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first in the world, and it will reduce, it'll eliminate the CO2 emissions for a major construction
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material. We're hoping to be able to get a net zero steel plant as well to help with additional
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decarbonization of construction materials. Those are really practical things that we can work with
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the federal government on. We know that our friends in Saskatchewan and New Brunswick and Ontario
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are pursuing small modular nuclear, and so we want to partner with them on that. I think that there's
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an appetite now to see if it will work in our market. We're going to continue building out the
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hydrogen infrastructure as well so that we can offer more alternatives for zero emissions vehicles
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for our citizens. But why not work collaboratively? This is what I'm just scratching my head over.
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Why does the environment minister continue to make unilateral pronouncements in our area of
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jurisdiction that are clearly unlawful, clearly in violation of the constitution, clearly harmful
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to consumers, and get away with it? So I would say that I will have a constructive relationship with
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those federal ministers that want one. But I can tell you, I've already determined that Stephen
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Gibbo is not one of them. He's an ideologue. You have to remember, he climbed the roof of our
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premier, Ralph Klein, as an advocate when he was an environmental extremist. I guess he still is.
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But we also had him climb the roof of the CN Tower. These are the stunts that he pulled. It's kind
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of appalling, really, that somebody who has that kind of history was made the environment minister.
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And I don't think he's even issued an apology to our province for how he disrespected our former
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premier. So I have to tell you, I had hoped that with the passage of time that he might have
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moderated, might be somebody that we can work with. But I think the only way we can reset with
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the environment ministry federally is to have a change of minister. I've been pretty forthright about
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that. I think you can't deal with somebody who's as ideological and as disrespectful as he is.
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Well, I know I speak on behalf of a lot of Albertans when I say thank you for standing up
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for us continually to Ottawa. Listen, Premier, Merry Christmas to you, to David and the entire family.
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Do me a favor, would you? Over the holidays, take a break. Take some downtime.
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I'll have a couple of days to see family. But Merry Christmas to you too,