Smith shuts down the War Room
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Summary
A special edition of The Pipeline, coming to you from the Global Energy Show in Calgary, Alberta, where Western Standard's Business and Energy reporter Sean Polzer fills in for our usual opinion editor, Nigel Heddeford, who's on the floor of the show.
Transcript
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Hey, I'm Derek Pilgrim, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.
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Today is June 12, 2024, and we've got a special edition today.
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We're coming to you from the ground floor of the Global Energy Show here in Calgary, Alberta.
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We're trying to do some business, meet with oil and gas companies, find some new advertisers.
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But we're also, we have another side of that mission, and we're talking to people in the energy industry here, talking to leaders about what's happening, which is one reason.
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We don't have our usual Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel Heddeford, here today.
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Filling in for Nigel is Western Standard's business and energy reporter, Sean Polzer.
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Thank you for joining us here on the floor of the Global Energy Show.
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And, as usual, one of the men who has worked on the ground of the industry is Western Standard Senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan.
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Hey, I wouldn't miss the chance to hit this show.
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It's pretty good. And we get free lunch. I get free lunch.
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Somehow I got a better pass. But I get lunch, at least. You get lunch?
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The NISCOP, the Committee of Parliamentarians appointed by the Prime Minister, not a parliamentary committee, it's a significant difference, but it's figured that we've got roughly 10 members of parliament, or parliamentarians, so I guess I include senators, who are witting or unwitting agents of foreign powers.
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And, well, we're not allowed to know who that is.
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We're going to talk about it because, guess what, we're going to find out who it is.
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We're going to talk about some energy issues, of course, what's going on here.
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Sean has been talking to some of the most significant leaders in Canada and Alberta's energy industry.
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I want to talk related to that, the War Room. Everyone remembers the Energy War Room?
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Well, it's been kind of quietly shut down, and words kind of come out about that while we've been here.
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So, you know, let's start with spies in Parliament.
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Corey, I mean, it's been a long road getting here.
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It started with Sam Cooper, the Globe and Mail, doing some really great reporting where he had some sources inside CSIS, provide them with some pretty bombshell intelligence showing very significant foreign interference, primarily from the People's Republic of China in the last several federal elections.
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the liberals denied it they said it's racism it's racist to talk which is the
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the leftist reaction to everything is uh i have point a well you're racist that's the reaction
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to everything that didn't work and this has gone been a long road from there to here
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where now we've got a committee of parliamentarians uh the plurality of which are liberals
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who have put out this report based on the intelligence they've got,
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saying we've got, I think, 10 parliamentarians, that's MPs and or senators, who are...
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But I think, I mean, I've already said before, also advertising to Saudi Arabia,
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I guess that wouldn't make us an AP, but 10 parliamentarians, also media involved.
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the pretend parliamentarians who are winning or unwitting agents of hostile foreign powers.
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The Liberals have refused to release this. The Conservatives were very quiet on it the very
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first day. My instinct was that I think it's highly improbable that only the Liberals have
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been targeted for foreign infiltration. Maybe they might be the biggest target of it from the People
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Republican China, because the Liberal Party is traditionally very friendly to the people
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of the public. But, I mean, ethnic politics is a thing. We've been around politics. We
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know it's there. And it's inevitable that there's going to be some hands washing each
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other in these things. But then the Conservatives have come out stronger at this point. So at
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this point, the Conservatives are probably willing to accept that there's going to be
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some casualties on their side as well. But this is a natural security issue. We've got
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to know the names. Liberals have steadfastly refused to release this. 20 bucks on the table.
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What are the chances that the Liberals get their way and we never find out? I'd say those chances
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are none. It's going to come out. It's just a matter of when. It might be this week. It might
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be a year. They might kick the can down the road that long. But this is too big. There's too many
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people have seen it. Too many people know, as I said, Wark, a security expert who called it
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textbook treason, who said it was nauseating what was said in here. And these were witting
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participants. Some of them had direct, I mean, these are our parliamentarians. Somebody's going
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to leak it or it's going to be forced. And then, I mean, this was the liberals who wanted more than
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anything for this not to exist, even their own committee. It's racist. Yeah. Yeah. Even their
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own committee had to conclude, yes, this is happening. I mean, this is like a corporation.
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If you had a bunch of, it was exposed. Yeah. You've got a bunch of high level managers who
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We're embezzling, but we're not going to tell the shareholders who they are,
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and we're just going to let them keep doing it.
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Because that's the thing, if they aren't exposed, then they're still doing it.
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And as you said, the Conservatives changed their tone.
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I mean, the foreign powers don't care about our parties.
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They just want to make sure they've got some influence of senators or members of Parliament.
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And they've probably got to a couple of Conservatives.
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But you might as well come out and say, well, we're just as outraged.
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We know that Inside Talk has probably let them know what the names are, but nobody's
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Sean, treason is a strong word, but I can't think of another word that appropriately describes
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working with a hostile foreign power, or actually, arguably, a foreign power, period, against the interests of your own country.
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Now, that might get a bit more complicated in Canada, where defining what the country is is a bit ambiguous.
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A bloc amphi probably, and quite legitimately, doesn't really care about the interests of Canada,
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they care about the interests of Quebec. Many Albertans might even feel similar. Like,
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I don't really care about the interests of some federal issues that don't relate to the West.
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It's just not of interest to me. It's interesting that you mentioned that because
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in the panel today, Devin Griesen, his infrastructure, utilities, and corridors
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minister, identified foreign interference as a policy risk for things like ports on the west
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coast or uh you know shipping oil down into the united states so i think like when you say treason
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is a very strong word it is a very strong word and i think one of the things that's going to come
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out of all this is basically just how endemic it is in in the system do you know what i mean like
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like i don't i think it goes beyond 10 mps and we're talking about uh you know civil service
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There's witting MPs who are like actively and willingly involved, wittingly involved.
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I don't know, but there could be many others who...
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There's probably bureaucrats and senior staffers.
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People in Parliament could be beyond the 10 who are, I mean, just not wittingly involved.
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Even here today, upstairs, I've got some sessions with foreign governments.
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There's a ministerial area that's kind of roped off from the media where they're having
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meetings with uh nigeria and china is here and algeria and various effect members so um i think
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there's kind of a higher level that maybe you could call treason but i think there's also kind
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of um almost an institutional kind of you know because this is how business gets done and in a
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lot of these countries you know you gotta use a few bombs and pour a few drinks you know there was
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There's the liberal scandal that was that big company with, too recent, Raybald's.
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But there's a part of it that was like, you know, they were paying off officials.
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I know guys who do business in China, and you have to pay corrupt port officials to get the crap off a boat.
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You want your stuff unloaded from the cargo ship.
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I think the fault there is the corruption on the Chinese.
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You want to do business in China, you've got to grease the wheels.
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I'm not sure Canadians actually should get charged for this.
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But when you're talking now elected officials, the highest levels of government, that's a whole different.
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I mean, when I was in the oil field in my younger years, I know that there was a number of payments that went to local band leaders and members to get your job done that weren't necessarily on the books as well.
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But there's levels and levels of, I guess, malfeasance.
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And the energy sector, or SNC-Lavalin, I mean, there's things we still should be watching for.
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Corporate espionage is, of course, a whole rail mullet's on as well.
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But the immediate issue on the table, though, is do we have senators, do we have members of parliament that are compromised, that are purposely...
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I kind of like what you've been doing on Twitter or whatever it's called now.
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You know, liberals made their crazy daily accusations that the conservatives are going to, I don't know, put women in concentration camps or something.
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And your response is, what for power are you working for?
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Because until the liberals are willing to disclose the names on this list,
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it's fair game that they're all not above suspicion.
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I mean, I'm pretty sure most of the ones I keep throwing that up have nothing to do with it.
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But if you want to clear your name, I can't think of a better way than releasing the bloody document.
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Something else I threw out there on X, I don't know if somebody should do it.
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If a fake list came out and a bunch of people were falsely accused,
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I guess the only way to clear their name would be to release the actual list of names
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It's just saying if somebody did something like that.
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But, I mean, we could come up with a fake list tomorrow and put it out there,
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and that would essentially force the federal government to release the real list.
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Now, in the meantime, we would get sued for defamation because we'd be tarred.
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Once the list came out, you'll get sued pretty hard.
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Yeah, because there'd be 10, well, actually, what if we got it right?
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There's a chance we'd get, like, a couple right randomly.
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Well, and that's why I'm saying, who do you act for?
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A certain federal environment minister who sits on the panel of the Communist Party of China already, and that is in the public.
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Yeah, he's doing it in the open, though, unlike the other ones.
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Well, and this is where it can kind of get complicated.
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Some people might not even see themselves as agents of foreign powers,
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because they're doing probably what seems legitimate and fine in their eyes.
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Well, actually, you know, like, and it depends what countries would draw the line at.
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Arguably, the United States can be a part of this.
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They're not hostile foreign power to us in the way that China is, but they can have hostile interests.
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If the CIA purchased an MP in Canada, it's still a bloody problem.
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Absolutely. And also, you know, there are one of the big reasons we've not been able to get enough pipelines built to tidal water is that some of the major players in the American oil and gas industry, well, they see us as a competitor and they don't want us getting to international markets.
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They want us captives, left in Canada and parts of the States.
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Exactly. So there are hostile American interests against our oil and gas industry, and they will work with green, like radical green elements in Canada. Now, would that radical green element in Canada see themselves as an agent of a foreign power? I mean, probably.
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Some of them actually are. Some of them actually are based in the United States.
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I know they are. But like, you know, say a Canadian MP who oppose MLAs, MPPs, who oppose
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Alberta Saskatchewan's ability to get a pipeline to tidal water, and they might be getting some
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backing from American interests. They might not see themselves as an agent of a foreign power,
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even though they effectively are working with a foreign power against Canada's interests.
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For them, they're ideologically opposed to this, and they're just finding allies where they can get it.
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When it's an ideologue, I mean, they'll take an in-justify-the-means approach,
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because they feel they're on a moral high ground.
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So, oh, sure, it's not good to be beholden to a foreign power, but my cause is so important in the world that...
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They might not see themselves as beholden to the Americans.
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But they are working for certain American interests.
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I'm not sure that that's the case in this particular issue.
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I think that those people will be named on the list because we're talking, when we define
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cost of foreign powers, we're not normally talking about the United States, but make
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no mistake, the United States has a huge interest in Canada and doesn't leave us entirely to
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I was just about to say, when things like even trade negotiations, members of parliament
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Okay, well, let's turn a little closer to home here.
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but I wasn't at liberty to use the information.
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But the war room has been kind of quietly shut down now, or is being quietly shut down.
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Can anyone have some petroleum products for this squeaky chair?
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So the war room, this was a creation of Jason Kenney.
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in the 2019 Alberta election, he used the term war room up front to kind of give a sense
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of, you know, like an election, you have a room full of, full of nerds who are at their
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computers researching stuff and doing a rapid reaction.
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They came up with the name Canadian Energy Center.
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And I said, I will not the word, but it just kind of stuck because that's what it was
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called before it was called Canadian Energy Center.
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And, you know, it did a fair bit of good work, did great research and whatnot, but it was a little overly involved in direct media communications, and it had some early missteps, things like plagiarizing a logo, little things like that.
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Yeah, if you need to play the record backwards, it'll tell you to ban plastic straws or something.
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I mean, even those of us on this side, a little bit like, come on, guys, this is a little bit.
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So it had some early missteps that its brand never really recovered from, limped along.
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I thought Smith was actually going to close it down like in her first week when she became premier.
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kind of the way, you know, Jip Redd has sold planes.
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You know, that wasn't actually technically a smart idea.
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It kind of provided a psychological break with the Redford regime.
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I thought shut it down the war room might serve a similar kind of purpose.
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She didn't, but it's now been kind of quietly shuttered.
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Some of its functions, it had some legitimate functions,
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but they're being kind of just moved to other parts of the government.
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Was it a mistake to shut it down, or should it have just...
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had a total complete overhaul of its mission as its organization it failed let it go i mean start
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something new then if you really feel it needs to be done and it is a sad end to something i think
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had a lot of potential the reason it was campaigned upon the reason it was created because there was
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a lot of unchecked misinformation constantly being thrown out there against the the industries of
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western canada and saying that was what i envisioned a group of nerds sitting there
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holy cow, here's a bunch of baloney out of Greenpeace or out of here, out of there.
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We're going to respond quickly to the press, on social media,
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and counter that before this BS grows legs.
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It was a classic example, too, of government saying, well, here's the issue.
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And, of course, rarely does that turn into something good.
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It just turned into a poorly run communications office is all it ever was.
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of milk and toast releases and nothing that couldn't have already been done from the energy
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ministry or things like that. So, I mean, it's unfortunate it even took this long to just fold
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this in and just call it what it is, a comms department, if they really want to create
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something that's going to be reactive, because that's what I wanted to see, something that,
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yeah, you know, Greenpeace said this, that an hour later, this war room has put out a release
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saying, no, that, but it never turned into that. It was never that. And maybe we'll need that down
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they'll have to do it differently that's for sure well even the environmentalists i remember seeing
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an interview with a guy on the west post on one of those groups it was like a normal or whatever
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and said like there's no shame in telling your story like there's there's no shame in standing
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up for your legitimate interest and and and telling the story and i think what happened was
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they kind of got away from that but we were getting their releases and it's just it became
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very data driven very uh kind of geeky uh really hard to understand well that's what it became
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later on yeah as if i think i actually got better later on when it became more geeky it became just
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about more hard data it sounded more like a think tank even yeah but government didn't really need
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to do it yeah then it became redundant yeah but so early on the problem was government communications
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are bullshit to begin, generally. I mean, it's always a spin on things. And you should always
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take what the government says with a heavy dose of salt. But it was engaging in direct
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media. I mean, government engages in direct media. It's a form of propaganda. And propaganda
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isn't always misleading. I mean, good propaganda isn't. It just gives you a good spin on what
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truth is uh but it's propaganda nonetheless and generally shouldn't exist and
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was it doomed from the beginning because of that or do you think there was another path this could
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have taken uh that was just simply like a data center uh just provided information for other
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media to pick up rather than trying to try to develop itself into its own media organization
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in a sense uh like a competitor except directly owned and operated by the government uh but set
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up in a weird way as a private corporation not a crown corporation so that it wasn't even subject
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to freedom of information right and you know i think that uh the premier and ministers like uh
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schultz like i was thinking yesterday uh like the interception of environment and energy um i think
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they've done a good job of communicating that message kind of more in a more kind of practical
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way that kind of makes sense to people like you get fringy smith going off to cop 28 and she's
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she's spoken extensively about energy issues and she's she's really up on them she's really well
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versed and she has a way of kind of putting it into the perspective that people can understand
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i i think that that's what the energy center kind of got away from like that was probably
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their mandate was to kind of tell the story and then by the end there they weren't really telling
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the story yeah it's like more like you you get these data information houses all the time that
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you know are analyzing properties for acquisitions investors and you know just numbers and it just
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becomes very uh somebody has to take those numbers and put them into kind of a common man's language
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i think the premier's actually done a fairly good job on that already
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So, the Energy Center itself is no more, but it's not entirely going away.
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There's some functions of it that are kind of being chopped up and moved around.
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It's going to Intergovernmental Affairs, which is overseeing directly from the Premier's office.
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So, Premier Smith is taking over the Energy Center. She is.
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And you know what functions are moving into it?
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functions so there's I think they had six staff three of them were the ones
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that were kind of crunching all these numbers so those people are moving over
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to government relations and then I would imagine what's going to happen is the
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cabinet ministers and other officials have got like a briefing you know when
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these developments come up we make some talking points LNG, pipe wide expansion
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west coast you know right that's a little more policy driven yeah as opposed to just right
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on the numbers like so the research functions is pretty much what it was that's that's not
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the bad thing i don't think i mean i think where they fell down was on the communication like
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you're talking about they're trying to do direct communication without kind of standing up and
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saying like we're arguments for this right like this yeah it's got the interest of the people
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over that you know at the core right it was almost like they were kind of disguising what
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the distribution was right and i think that that's probably where the conflict came because
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after a while nobody really knew what it was like what it was supposed to do and
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they're getting 30 million dollars like what to buy ads in times square
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yeah all right they weren't really controlling the narrative you know like you know they weren't
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getting on the panel shows on cbc or you know putting that message out there like in a way that
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was uh objective to be able to say hey listen this is a vital industry it's a vital economic
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industry, not just Alberta, but from the whole entire country. We're talking about GDP. Somebody
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was saying every barrel of oil that gets sold drives down the price of groceries in all parts
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of the country, right? That was the message I wasn't getting at. You know what I'm saying? Instead,
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we've got a lot of charts and graphs. All right, well, we're at the Global Energy Show. It used to
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be the Global Petroleum Show. Actually, you've been following us for a long time. It was the
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the national petroleum show i think back in the 70s when this thing started uh but sean you're
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our business and energy reporter uh you've been here on the ground uh taking in the speeches
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taking in the panel discussions and that uh premier smith speaking uh today as well i think she
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actually also spoke yesterday right yeah uh but once you kind of give us uh well you've been following
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the global energy show for a long time because you've been you've been an energy reporter long
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Can you just give us a little background on what it is that's here and how it got to where it is today?
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Well it was kind of started as the National Petroleum Show during the National Energy Program
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and you know it was part of a forum for you know the industry and the developments in the industry
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and over the years it's kind of been almost a bellwether for you know the economic fortunes of
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of Alberta. So it's gone through a lot of iterations and a lot of changes. You know, like you said,
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it was a national petroleum show. That was a global petroleum show. Now it's a global energy show
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because we're supposedly moving beyond petroleum. Second, it's the greatest indoor show on earth
00:26:15.560
because we're now actually on the stampede grounds. But it tends to go up and down,
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tracks the industry, the boom and bust cycles. So when you have a really good year, then you've
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got this huge show and masses of exhibits. I'm actually quite astounded by how huge this thing
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is. This is the biggest. No. You don't know who I have to kill to get a booth here. I'm not joking.
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All right. So, you were at Premier Smith's speech yesterday. Yeah. Give us the highlights of what
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access? Well, basically, we're kind of at an inflection point with the energy industry in
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Alberta. So we've got Trans Mountain Pipeline to the coast is on. We're pumping an extra 600,000
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barrels a day off the coast as we speak. We've got a major LNG project that's coming on next year.
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So these are the first times that Alberta, which has been landlocked, has had access to these
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international buyers in asia and we've been reliant on the united states basically forever and ever
00:27:21.520
so it's uh kind of a turning point and with the election coming up in the united states
00:27:27.120
uh later on this year there's a lot of talk of what uh a trump presidency would look like
00:27:32.880
well we'll get to that and what specifically what it means for we're going to get to the trump
00:27:37.840
That it's time for Alberta, basically, to stand up on its own, and I mean, in terms
00:27:50.080
of federal policies, environment policies, but also within, as an oil jurisdiction, not
00:27:57.480
only in North America, but globally, we've truly become a global player just in the last
00:28:04.600
So let's talk now the potential impacts of a potential Trump restoration here.
00:28:11.560
I think they had Minister Devin Gresham speaking today, and then he was focusing on that,
00:28:16.200
about Biden or Trump administration and what that might look like. Why don't you tell us
00:28:22.360
about that discussion that was going on? Well, he actually worked on the Trump campaign,
00:28:26.120
I believe this in 2016. So I think he's probably personally quite bullish on what a
00:28:34.200
chocolate administration would mean for Alberta in terms of getting some of these pipelines built
00:28:39.480
and access to these U.S. markets. Oh, is there a discussion about Keystone? Does he think the
00:28:45.320
Keystone gets put back on the table? It definitely could. He didn't mention it specifically, but
00:28:49.720
there was talk because his portfolio is in corridors. So he's talking about opening up
00:28:53.880
not only to the U.S., but also to Mexico as well, so Keystone would definitely be a part of that.
00:28:59.880
And, yeah, I think he's kind of positive, but at the same time, some other speakers are a little bit worried
00:29:07.880
because Trump is anti-trade, and then Canada can get wrapped up into these trade processes that he has
00:29:16.880
that means China, like, if they were to smack a 10% tariff on every barrel that would come into the U.S.,
00:29:22.880
and what that would be for Canada. So there was talk that having these new pipelines to the coast
00:29:30.400
open up and diversifying away from the American market is itself not that big.
00:29:36.800
What was the discussion around a second Biden presidency?
00:29:41.600
More of the same. Environmental restrictions, caps on industry,
00:29:48.400
You know, IRA, what was it, the Inclusion Reduction Act, subsidies for green energy, and, you know,
00:29:56.780
I think expensive oil industry, whereas a Trump administration would probably see removal
00:30:03.860
of rollback of some of these ED subsidies, more open approach to drilling in Alaska and
00:30:12.580
other parts of Canada, which is kind of a more favorable industry.
00:30:16.720
Corey, I think a second Trump presidency, I think it's fair to say Trump is a more destabilizing factor than Biden.
00:30:31.480
I mean, Biden at this point is just a senile, great, great, like, God, the latest videos of Biden are even more senile than the last.
00:30:40.940
I feel like just non-ideological, non-political, non-partisan, like it's elder abuse what they're doing to this man.
00:30:50.440
He is, like, he's drooling, he can't put a sentence together, we can't say one way or another, but we're not even sure he's continent during major international events.
00:31:03.200
I mean, it is, like, you've got to put this poor old man on an ice float and let him, I've been in office longer than I've been a lot.
00:31:17.720
What do you, do you think there's, I guess it's a bit off topic, is there any chance that Democrats have any way of switching out the candidates?
00:31:26.580
because he hasn't been to convention yet, and if he himself does not accept the nomination,
00:31:32.460
I mean, this is way off topic, but we just got to talk about it, because the guy can't talk.
00:31:38.440
If he doesn't accept the nomination, I think that makes actually the delegates free.
00:31:41.900
They've done free delegates all of a sudden, even though the primaries have happened.
00:31:44.860
If he doesn't accept the nomination, and it's kind of an open convention,
00:31:50.040
I guess if he continues to degrade, it could lead to that be pretty unprecedented.
00:31:54.280
Actually, the idea of convention selecting delegates was actually pretty common until not that long.
00:32:04.040
Sorry, the delegates at conventions selecting the president.
00:32:08.280
But after first ballot, I think then they all get released.
00:32:11.480
So if a candidate doesn't accept it, they get to pick their own candidate.
00:32:14.940
And the American campaigns, as we know, the presidential campaigns are a year long.
00:32:19.480
It's already halfway through the campaign right now.
00:32:22.160
And to change candidates at this point, I mean, again, if they fear that Biden is truly actually going to be inept by the time voting day comes, they might have to do something drastic that like we haven't seen before.
00:32:37.600
I mean, Kamala, I mean, that's not going to do it for them.
00:32:44.140
But Kamala is, you know, far left of the American mainstream.
00:32:50.600
she's not at risk of crapping herself on national television.
00:32:54.040
They should have put Biden to pasture a year ago.
00:32:57.480
I'm sure a lot of them are probably realizing that now,
00:33:00.140
because to change it out this close to election day.
00:33:02.980
Of course, the thing is, too, if the polls continue not to look good,
00:33:05.720
I mean, their internals, I'm sure, paint quite a picture.
00:33:10.380
Trump is a dislikable figure to enough mainstream Americans.
00:33:20.600
I mean, I think it was pretty politicized, but nonetheless, he was convicted.
00:33:26.580
He's done enough that he should be very beatable.
00:33:35.300
I mean, it's one of those areas I don't like saying because I know it all.
00:33:39.120
But American politics these days, they are foreign to me.
00:33:43.800
Obviously, there is a strong appeal aside from the weakness of Biden.
00:33:47.680
people really are attached to that weird orange man and he's not going away there's a very good
00:33:53.320
chance he's going to be the next president you know i i guess just pulling it back full circle
00:33:57.400
in places like this when we've got international companies when we got domestic companies this is
00:34:02.580
the right time to have at least those discussions how's your contingency going to work if it's this
00:34:07.460
person versus that person or even i guess that outlier third option might have a different
00:34:12.460
democrat popping out of the works but uh protectionism is always a big area that's a
00:34:17.240
concern. And the Republicans and the Democrats, neither of those parties are really better than
00:34:21.500
the other. If they think protectionism is going to help their campaign, they'll do it.
00:34:24.180
They're both protectionist, just kind of in different ways. They're both protectionist
00:34:27.680
parties at this point. There is no committed free trade, free enterprise party. The Republicans
00:34:33.700
still have probably more of the Democrats. The Democrats are more internationalist than the
00:34:40.860
Republicans who are more nationalist. But Republicans still have a free market wing to
00:34:46.100
party which the democrats don't really have anymore but neither party can stand up and say
00:34:50.740
we're the party of free trade for the party of free enterprise that just doesn't exist anymore
00:34:57.140
the uh nafta 2.0 whatever they call it now i'm still calling i can't i can't make it out
00:35:05.700
so that's coming up for renegotiation in 2026 so there's some talk about trump you know if trump
00:35:13.940
is president you know then there's a good chance that uh that'll be ripped off north american free
0.94
00:35:18.660
trade you know what i'm calling it right now cheese i want the cheese gods to save us from
00:35:25.220
our own cheese mafia in canada the cheese the milk and cheese mom you and i are the only ones
00:35:30.100
who care about supply management we keep trying to make that an issue but you know i i'm going
00:35:35.380
off topic again here but paulia cannot look canadians in the eyes on the camera and say
00:35:43.140
I care about inflation. I care about cost of living, but I'm also going to protect the milk
00:35:48.600
market. I am going to protect the cheese curd cartels and keep the price of dairy products
00:35:57.340
three to 400% higher than it should be in a free enterprise market because of a couple thousand
00:36:05.800
votes mostly in Quebec. NAFTA negotiations is where that could fall. Because every time we have
00:36:13.980
trade negotiations anywhere in the world, we have to make massive concessions somewhere else to
00:36:19.220
protect the milk mafia. And, you know, like, you know, Trump can say, I'm going to slap a 10%
00:36:27.140
tariff on your oil, or we're going to have free trade in cheese and milk. And that could be it.
00:36:36.560
What do you think the chances are he comes after the Milk Mafia that we actually might finally relate?
0.91
00:36:43.280
He could be doing Canadians a favor by making it up.
00:36:46.060
But they also made the point, like Corey was saying, Biden has relative stability.
00:36:50.980
You know, you kind of know what he stands for, right?
00:36:59.100
You're going to wake up one morning and it's...
00:37:01.600
like he's he's like a walking uh i guess it's just a general democrat direction
00:37:08.060
he's an institution biden doesn't really exist at this point no biden's not even alive
00:37:14.480
the ship is on cruise control there's a bidenism that could be re-elected with a guy plugged into
00:37:20.300
a machine like like on star trek pike red light means no green light yeah god that's oh wow
0.71
00:37:45.500
And, you know, I just feel, I actually kind of feel bad for a fight.
00:37:48.380
I never thought I'd feel bad for the guy, but I feel bad for him at this point.
00:37:51.440
It's beneath his dignity, what they're doing, putting him out there.
00:37:54.700
Old presidents of this age, they're put on a nice float,
00:37:59.980
And the only reason he's running is basically against Trump.
00:38:03.320
He's running because I think the Democratic institution is quiring.
00:38:06.640
I think they're afraid that if he's not running, the presidential nomination gets captured by the radical left.
00:38:14.800
He's not just not radical left. He is just the Democratic Party doing whatever on autopilot.
00:38:20.060
If he's gone, the radical left stands a very good chance of capturing the Democratic nomination.
00:38:25.920
well they've got their work cut out for them and what they got to do pragmatism versus hanging on
00:38:31.440
it'll be interesting to watch and i mean that's where again it shows the the importance i guess
00:38:36.640
just to trying to use the crystal balls for business leaders for our political leaders
00:38:40.700
because you got a number of scenarios that could happen the worst of all though is trump because
00:38:44.520
let's face that guy is unpredictable you just don't know what and that's what i get worried
00:38:49.640
about too though is and from our federal leadership there's nothing we can do here but
00:38:53.240
Trudeau, thankfully, has been a bit quiet about it lately, but he likes to antagonize Trump.
00:39:01.460
And even though the grudge should be against Trudeau, unfortunately, the fallout will be against Canada.
00:39:09.300
Well, if we're lucky, his anger gets directed towards the milk mafia, and we get affordable dairy products.
00:39:21.940
And then hopefully hide the oil industry and kind of slip it under the rug and say, oh, yeah.
00:39:39.960
I mean, as long as I've been in California, I've never actually been to this thing.
00:39:45.800
I came in today before the exhibition area opened up.
00:39:48.660
I came down to the Western Standard section we've got.
00:39:50.600
And they had to get someone to help find it for me.
00:40:00.100
And as I said, you don't know who I had to kill to actually get a booster.
00:40:07.100
Because you've got the tourists downtown and Stephen Avenue is full.
00:40:16.100
this is the very first event of what i believe is now canada western canada's largest uh enclosed
00:40:22.500
convention center uh it's got an interesting point to note on the architectural design of
00:40:27.220
that i do as i discovered yes so we have a 350 000 square feet just in the exhibition area what
00:40:34.020
we're in and all of this and as i circled it hiking after drinking my morning coffee i discovered
00:40:39.060
they did not put a single washroom in the entire exhibition area you have to leave the secure zone
00:40:44.340
go into the concourse and use the bathroom when when when there's bigger
00:40:49.140
events down the road there again half a billion dollars on this guys and you
00:40:53.520
didn't think to put a crapper in the thing man you need to open a puppet here
00:40:58.260
oh well I think I saw somebody coming in on X and they said you know it's the
00:41:02.640
perfect time for ACCO to come in as a display or you're talking about stick
00:41:06.060
one of their trailers here that they stick on rail sites and so on yeah right
00:41:09.000
in there you need to use one we've got it covered for you guys and you know
00:41:23.900
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00:41:26.860
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