Western Standard - The Pipeline： Just(in’s) transition

00:00:00.000 good evening i'm derek phildebrandt publisher of the western standard you're watching the pipeline

00:00:29.280 Today is January 11th, 2023. Thank you very much for joining me today. I'm here as usual with the

00:00:37.200 Western Standards opinion editor, Nigel Henniford. How are you, Nigel? I'm good. How are you? So far

00:00:43.380 so good? I was going to say pissing vinegar, but maybe not quite pissing vinegar today. We'll see

00:00:48.020 by the end of the show. I'll get work. Let's take a vote on it. Yeah. And also joined by the Western

00:00:52.820 Standards senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan. Corey, always pissing vinegar with you. Oh,

00:00:57.240 nothing but. You had a good show today, eh? It was. I got some good rants out. Good. Right on. Okay,

00:01:02.440 well, we got some good topics to go through today. The federal government's gun grab is now slated

00:01:08.680 to begin with a pilot project in Prince Edward Island. They're targeting gun owners, the law

00:01:13.960 abiding gun owners at least, on the poor island because they just don't have as many guns per

00:01:19.400 capita and they're small. And the idea is to test out the government's gun theft program there,

00:01:25.800 learn some lessons, use it as a pilot program, and then roll it out across the country. I'm

00:01:32.360 sure the RCP are really looking forward to knocking on doors of these criminal hunters in Alberta.

00:01:41.240 We're also going to talk about Justin Trudeau's announcement of the Just Transition,

00:01:47.160 starting to lay things out. This has been coming for some time, but the Just Transition, if you're

00:01:52.120 in one of these evil jobs in oil and gas or or anything that extracts anything out of the ground

00:01:57.480 like this your job is slated to be eliminated by fiat by the federal government but don't worry

00:02:03.880 uh you can get a job putting up some solar panels so we'll be talking about the just transition

00:02:09.560 also um uh one ndp candidate here in alberta says daniel smith has no mandate

00:02:15.960 um in fact rachel not only has been saying that but not on a variety of issues the ndp have been

00:02:21.160 saying it. Does the premier of Alberta have no mandate? I don't know. We're actually going to

00:02:25.740 talk about it. Might be a case to be made. There's been no election yet. We'll see. Before we get in

00:02:30.780 though, I want to thank my favorite sponsor, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. Very relevant

00:02:35.820 having the CSSA sponsoring today's show talking about the federal gun grab starting in Prince

00:02:40.680 Edward Island. I've been a member of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association for more than a

00:02:44.880 decade because I trust them with my membership dues to protect my rights as a law-abiding or

00:02:50.580 otherwise law-abiding firearms owner in Canada from confiscations and restrictions by the federal

00:02:56.340 government. The CSSA is doing the work that is necessary to make sure that Canadians are as well

00:03:02.820 informed as they possibly can be about what is reasonable for controlling firearms in the country,

00:03:08.900 standing athwart efforts by the federal government to seize all of your guns. If you're not yet a

00:03:13.620 member of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, you should be. Go to cssa-cila.org or just do what

00:03:19.780 I do and Google them, sign up, become a member today. It's worth absolutely every penny. Okay,

00:03:25.460 so excellent segue into our first topic, the gun grab starting in Prince Edward Island. So this

00:03:32.900 goes way back, geez, about two and a half years ago, federal government introduced, didn't do by

00:03:41.460 bill, but they did it by what's called an order in council. That's essentially a cabinet decree. 0.88

00:03:46.080 So no vote in the House of Commons, just the cabinet decides this.

00:03:49.920 They were to ban 1,500 different firearms.

00:03:51.860 Now, not as bad as that sounds, because they were banning a bunch of things that have always been illegal in Canada.

00:03:57.000 They had some rocket anti-aircraft missiles in there.

00:04:02.060 They had some German Panzerfaust anti-tank guns.

00:04:07.120 They had some very interesting things that I was very saddened to learn were made illegal,

00:04:12.660 Because if I knew that I could buy a Panzerfaust or Russian anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, I'd have totally gone in on them.

00:04:19.440 I just hadn't seen them around the Calgary gun show when it comes to town.

00:04:23.700 But it began there. Now there's a bill before Parliament right now where they're going to expand upon that list.

00:04:29.440 That's kind of the latest controversy with it, where they're now just they're expanding what is assault style firearms that include very basic, simple hunting rifles.

00:04:37.280 If they just happen to be semi-automatic with a detachable magazine.

00:04:39.880 So this is all now starting to get real. This is not based on the bill. This is based on the order and counsel. Federal government through the RCMP say that they're going to pilot this.

00:04:54.260 So here's their reasons. Islanders own a few guns and represent a, quote, low risk assessment before the RCMP expand the program nationwide. 0.77

00:05:05.020 That was first broken by Black Locks Reporter, which we contract doing a lot of our work on Pirroland Hill.

00:05:11.040 They say Prince Edward Island will be used as a pilot and will be the first point of collection.

00:05:15.760 That's the term they use, collection. They don't say theft.

00:05:17.880 collection based on the small number of firearms set in August 31st transition book for the

00:05:23.860 Minister of Public Works. As a result of lessons learned, gaps analysis and risk assessment would

00:05:28.320 inform the second phase of national rollout. Now, phase two of the national rollout is planned for

00:05:33.340 spring of 2023. Once IT case management system is in place, said the memo, the department acknowledged

00:05:41.100 quote, very limited interest from the industry and supporting the quote, buyback program proposed

00:05:47.060 three years ago. Now I refuse to call it a buyback because back implies the federal government had it

00:05:53.220 to begin with. Second, it implies the federal government is buying something. They're stealing

00:05:57.780 something and handing money to someone that they have determined. We'll start with you, Nigel. You

00:06:05.860 seem to have something to say. Do you think it makes sense for them starting in Prince Edward

00:06:11.620 Island to kind of pilot this before they get to a more troublesome area like Alberta?

00:06:15.460 right up until the moment that they describe Prince Edward Islanders as low risk. What is

00:06:20.260 that? If you're from BEI, if you live there, and they say, oh, they're just low risk. Wait a minute.

00:06:27.700 Maybe I'm not such a low risk as you think. Like, maybe the buyback will get some pushback there

00:06:32.980 that we didn't anticipate. I could be wrong. We have to read into what they mean by low risk,

00:06:37.300 but I would guess that low risk means it's less likely there. It's a different culture. It's less

00:06:42.420 likely that people are going to refuse entry of police into houses to confiscate their property.

00:06:48.260 It's less likely that someone will physically resist arrest. I mean, they might have those

00:06:54.660 issues out there, but I would imagine culturally Prince Edward Island is different than Alberta.

00:07:01.060 Guns are not as deeply ingrained as a part of the culture there. So perhaps that's what they 1.00

00:07:04.820 mean by lower risk, that the police are just going to have less guff from trying to steal

00:07:08.820 people's property. I would imagine that's what they thought, yes. I wish they had started

00:07:15.780 with their pilot project somewhere where they actually do have a gun problem. Where would that be?

00:07:22.180 Downtown Toronto. I mean if you're going to go house to house and asking for firearms,

00:07:28.420 try and pick up a few illegal ones at the same time. They're only going to go house to house

00:07:33.380 who registered firearms owners. They're not going to go house to house where they suspect

00:07:37.780 there are criminals with crime guns. They're only going to go to houses, I imagine,

00:07:43.540 where they suspect someone had the firearm legally.

00:07:46.660 How do they know that? I mean, there's no gun registry, right?

00:07:51.140 Yes and no. There's kind of two ways they can do this. One is if they had a restricted firearm

00:07:58.420 to begin with, and that restricted firearm was then made prohibited. So if you have a handgun,

00:08:03.860 AR-15, something like that, those were registered. If you have handguns, you have restricted

00:08:10.900 long guns like AR-15, et cetera, or now the Ruger Mini, it's a freaking hunting rifle, I don't know

00:08:17.700 why, but you had to have them, oh, Ruger Mini wasn't actually restricted, but you had an AR-15,

00:08:25.140 you had a pistol, they were registered. The government knows, at least at some point,

00:08:30.020 that you had it and so they'll know you so those will probably be the very first places to target

00:08:34.500 the second place is the target will be people who might not have uh restricted guns but they

00:08:39.940 have non-restricted guns so they don't know what the guns are but they know you have a license

00:08:45.140 for them so they'll probably just go to licensed houses i i'll bet you dollars to donuts the only

00:08:50.900 places they're not going are uh houses with people who do not have a license who have not registered 0.96

00:08:56.180 their guns and use their guns for nefarious purposes. They're not getting a knock from the

00:09:00.380 RCMP on the door. I return you to my basic point. Start in Toronto. You never know what you might

00:09:05.880 find. Corey, what do you think they're starting with a gun grab in PEI, not downtown Toronto or

00:09:11.620 Alberta? Yeah, well, Toronto would be, that would indeed be dangerous. And, you know, because then

00:09:16.960 you will encounter the real criminals are there. Very few of the guns they're actually looking for

00:09:21.360 in the places with. Yeah, it's ridiculous. But I mean, hey, you know what, maybe we'll see that 0.92

00:09:27.460 on the ground and see the failure of this whole initiative in action. I looked it up. PEI has

00:09:32.040 6,444 people with PALs, which is a firearms license. Doesn't even mean necessarily they

00:09:38.440 own even a non-restricted firearm. I mean, you can get the license. It doesn't mean you have a

00:09:42.200 firearm. So are they going to go to 6,400 doors and ask, do you now have firearms that weren't

00:09:49.480 on the restricted list, but now have been illegalized due to the arbitrary changes in the

00:09:54.300 laws. And I suspect of those 6,400 people, even if the culture is different over there, most of

00:09:59.400 them are going to say no. Somebody comes to my door and asks what I've got in my house. I'll say

00:10:03.980 come back with a warrant. It's none of your business. What they're going to tell you though

00:10:08.000 is because under the Firearms Act, police do not need a warrant to enter your home if it's a

00:10:14.140 firearms inspection. They can knock and you legally have to grant them entry. Now I'd still

00:10:19.740 recommend people refuse entry to police into your home without a warrant. There's only two

00:10:24.300 legitimate reasons for police to enter a house. One is they have a warrant approved by a judge

00:10:29.420 or two they have they meet the legal definition of they have reasonable grounds to believe

00:10:35.180 a people are in imminent danger or a crime is underway. That's it not just hey we think you

00:10:42.620 you vaguely think you might have something

00:10:45.240 that Justin Trudeau doesn't think you should have.

00:10:47.380 So, you know, if they come legally, yeah,

00:10:50.120 they might say they don't need a warrant,

00:10:52.960 but I wouldn't allow them in without them.

00:10:55.100 No, and I'd be intransigent.

00:10:57.000 I'm going to make them work it all the way to the end then.

00:10:59.380 And I suspect a number of these people would too.

00:11:01.000 The resources, even for this 6,400 people,

00:11:04.200 they would have to dedicate from officers

00:11:05.720 who have not expressed interest in wanting to do this.

00:11:09.020 I see a pending failure on the small experiment with this.

00:11:13.840 Just to let them know, just imagine, once you get to Toronto,

00:11:16.740 where there are law-abiding firearm owners as well, lots of them,

00:11:19.340 or Alberta and Saskatchewan, where you get crabby law-abiding firearm owners

00:11:23.480 who really are not going to cooperate.

00:11:25.100 But isn't this the thing, Corey?

00:11:26.520 The stated objective of this is what?

00:11:30.000 Firearm safety, less gun crime.

00:11:32.820 These are not the guns to go after, if that's the objective.

00:11:36.540 It's the opposite.

00:11:37.220 These are the rule-abiding people. They follow the rules, and that's why I think they're going to be twice as crowded.

00:11:42.240 These people pay their parking tickets, for heaven's sake.

00:11:44.400 You know, licensed firearms owners are statistically less likely to commit a crime with a gun in Canada than non-firearms licensed owners.

00:11:54.920 Even though licensed gun owners are a fairly small minority overall in Canada,

00:11:59.860 I mean, a big minority in Alberta, but a fairly small minority overall in Canada,

00:12:05.000 you're statistically more likely to commit a crime if you're not a legal gun owner.

00:12:08.740 You're more likely to commit a gun crime if you're not a legal gun owner than if you are a legal gun owner.

00:12:15.000 So I think there could be several unintended consequences of this.

00:12:19.320 So you remember, at some point this spring or late spring or early summer,

00:12:24.500 the federal government announced they're going to ban the purchase and sale of handguns.

00:12:28.980 And the federal government assumed, well, that means that'll more or less put a stop to handgun sales right away.

00:12:33.120 everyone will get the message because we're hinting we're obviously going to

00:12:36.000 ban them the federal government was shocked shocked when handgun sales hit

00:12:42.240 sky-high new records everybody went out and bought handguns not everybody I

00:12:47.820 certainly don't own any I don't know any handguns if you're watching RCMP but the

00:12:54.620 so that was the unintended consequence of it it fueled gun sales now if they

00:12:59.760 start because they're piloting on the opposite end of the country and in a

00:13:03.900 small little area this is gonna start raising a lot of attention of gun owners

00:13:08.160 in the rest of the country maybe who haven't been paying as much attention

00:13:10.860 and we're gonna start seeing what happens I have a feeling this is gonna

00:13:14.880 make it even more difficult for them to go house-to-house and seize people's

00:13:18.360 firearms if they're piloting at Prince Edward Island first we're gonna see what 0.96

00:13:22.000 happens there and and the likely shit show that ensues so by the time they 0.95

00:13:27.900 get around to, say, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba, BC, Ontario, I have a feeling that a lot of people 0.96

00:13:36.060 have just had boating accidents. The cops come to their door and say, I don't know what happened,

00:13:43.820 officer, geez. So by the time they get around to the rest of the country, everyone's been well

00:13:47.020 warned. We've known they're doing this for some time, but, you know, they offered, they asked

00:13:51.100 people to hand in the guns. Almost zero guns were handed in from this, but now they're going to get

00:13:57.420 more active in enforcement so people have held on to the gun so far but once they start actively

00:14:01.260 trying to confiscate and steal from people i'm feeling a lot of guns are just going to have

00:14:05.820 boating accidents um do you think this is going to what are there any other unintended

00:14:12.300 consequences either of you think are going to come from piloting this in pei yeah well

00:14:19.500 obviously if it looks like it's going well in pei from the federal point of view people are going

00:14:24.380 to take notice and they are going to take whatever avoidance action they think they can get away with.

00:14:31.020 I mean it's the best thing that we've got going for us here in Alberta and in Saskatchewan though

00:14:36.620 is two provincial governments that are very ready to say no to this and make as little accommodation

00:14:43.500 to the to the RCMP as they themselves can get away with. So that's where I want to go with this now

00:14:49.340 is Alberta and Saskatchewan. Both governments, the Smith government, the Mo government,

00:14:56.220 respectively have said, we will not comply. Saskatchewan passed, I think called the Saskatchewan

00:15:02.220 Firearms Act. It's a little complicated, but essentially it puts up this, this is the only

00:15:08.220 time I've ever liked bureaucracy. They put up this intentionally hugely bureaucratic piece of

00:15:12.940 legislation that just makes it very, very, very difficult for the RCMP to practically seize

00:15:19.420 people's firearms and still follow provincial law. In Alberta, they've just said, we're not

00:15:25.500 enforcing it. The RCMP and prosecutors have other priorities. Go to you, Corey.

00:15:32.940 How effective do you think that'll be though? Because the federal law of the land is still

00:15:36.140 going to say, you're not allowed to have this property, you have to hand it into the government.

00:15:39.260 how effective do you think this can really be as a tool since we don't have our own provincial

00:15:44.720 police forces in Alberta Saskatchewan? I think it'll still be fairly effective because they

00:15:48.880 don't it gives them an out not to bother with it I think some of the seizures or charges you might

00:15:53.640 see happening would be coincidental you know if there was another crime that had happened they're

00:15:58.740 searching a household now they found that this person's non-compliant they'll add that to the

00:16:02.080 charges and they'll do it but to the point of dedicating the resources to try to go house to

00:16:07.180 house to the, what, tens of thousands of homes in Alberta, hundreds of thousands of homes that may

00:16:12.820 potentially, there's just, it's logistically impossible. And I mean, with the unintended

00:16:17.540 consequences you spoke of as well, law-abiding firearm owners are using the firearms safe for

00:16:22.460 a good secure location. Well, how many now are going to move them somewhere else because they

00:16:26.560 feel that'd be where it'd be targeted? Now you've got a firearm that moves into an unsafe stored

00:16:31.160 location because it's hidden. They're going to make things worse. Well, let's talk about the

00:16:36.660 reaction or perhaps lack of reaction from the Alberta NDP on this. This is a big issue.

00:16:44.640 But, you know, correct me if I'm right, Nigel, but I haven't heard a peep from the Alberta NDP

00:16:48.900 about this, other than that they say there shouldn't be an Alberta Provincial Police Force,

00:16:54.000 that Alberta should not control its own policing in Alberta, should be controlled from

00:16:57.400 Ottawa. Has the NDP spoken up about this at all that you've seen?

00:17:02.520 Not that I have seen. And, you know, it stands to reason that they wouldn't. First of all, it's not a vote winner in Alberta. So nobody is.

00:17:11.760 Well, not among their pool of voters, I'd say.

00:17:14.240 Well, certainly. They're not going to enlarge their pool by making a strong case for supporting the government in its efforts to collect legal guns.

00:17:26.100 You know, like that's not going to help them.

00:17:28.780 The other thing is, don't forget who runs the provincial NDP.

00:17:32.940 It's not Rachel Knottley, it's Jagmeet Singh.

00:17:35.840 Jagmeet Singh is in lockstep with Trudeau on this as part of the deal that they have between them

00:17:40.520 to maintain the federal government's time in office.

00:17:46.860 So it sort of stands to reason that the NDP would not be taking a strong pro-Alberta, pro-gun owner position.

00:17:58.780 on this, because that's not what their federal party is saying. In fact, quite the reverse.

00:18:05.320 Well, okay. So I know Corey's done quite a bit on this before the, you know, how the federal

00:18:10.400 provincial NDP are actually one organization within their constitution. There is, it's the

00:18:16.280 only federated party in Canada, whereas, you know, conservatives, liberals, et cetera, have,

00:18:22.460 they might be allied parties between federal and provincial levels, but they are quite separate.

00:18:26.560 They are connected, but I wouldn't say this is necessarily just because Jagmeet Singh favors this. I think Rachel Notley and the NDP favor this. Within their voter universe, I mean, if you were a gun owner in Canada or the United States, the chances of you voting for a left-wing party are now statistically nil.

00:18:47.880 There are very, very few, at least legal gun owners who vote for left-wing parties anymore.

00:18:54.800 It's now become a very partisan issue.

00:18:56.900 If you have a gun, you almost universally don't vote or vote for right-leaning parties.

00:19:01.400 So I think it's just that there's not a lot of votes for the NDP to pick up by doing this.

00:19:06.340 They alienate their hardcore, more progressive left urban base by doing this.

00:19:13.120 Corey, do you think there's any point in the NDP standing up opposing this?

00:19:20.660 Or are they just going to?

00:19:22.200 They're doing what's most politically expedient for them is just stay silent on it.

00:19:26.060 Because their own base does want to see a gun grab.

00:19:29.360 And as Nigel said, they are running contrary to where Jagmeet has been outspoken on it.

00:19:36.060 And I mean, typically they'll allow some degree of independence at the parties.

00:19:39.620 unless a fight comes between the provincial leader and a federal, they'd rather not have that even

00:19:43.540 come out. Because in the end, with their party structure, if it came to such a standoff,

00:19:49.880 Singh would be able to override a provincial leader technically. It's unlikely. But there's

00:19:55.180 no real way to enforce it. Jagmeet Singh is... Well, he could pull her party status, but that's...

00:19:59.700 Yeah, but what would happen instantly is the Alberta NDP would say, fine, now we're

00:20:03.440 our own separate provincial NDP. Yeah, it's a very unlikely eventuality. It would never,

00:20:07.040 I don't think would ever really come to that. I mean, and there have been disagreements.

00:20:11.720 Notley was not the friendliest towards energy and pipelines, but relative to Thomas Mulcair,

00:20:17.160 she was practically a rig pick. So, you know, there has been daylight on some issues. There's

00:20:22.980 not really an enforcement mechanism. It's just, it is a very bizarre and I think unhealthy thing

00:20:27.880 to have federated political parties like the NDP where it really is one and by supporting one,

00:20:32.780 are obliged to support another I've often split my votes federally and provincially I've I voted

00:20:38.840 while rose provincially and at least sometimes conservative federally or I voted or I vote

00:20:45.020 provincially conservative I voted federally libertarian or PPC but you know whereas with

00:20:50.600 the NDP your money goes to both it's bizarre stuff okay let's move on to Justin's transition

00:20:59.720 And that's right, Justin is transitioning the oil and gas workers into new green eco-friendly jobs.

00:21:09.900 So the federal government, Justin Trudeau has been talking about this for some time, using the term just transition that, yes, I'm sorry, we're going to have to eliminate your industry.

00:21:19.080 We're going to have to eliminate these high-paying, mortgage-paying jobs that, you know, some of which you have to be highly educated for, some of which are just kind of the only way for a lot of blue-collar people to make their way up in the world.

00:21:35.380 We're sorry we're going to have to eliminate these jobs, but we're going to provide new jobs in their place.

00:21:40.240 We saw this with coal in Alberta. The Alberta NDP did kind of a just transition thing in their eyes at least. Eliminated the coal jobs and offered people jobs screwing in eco-friendly light bulbs and putting up solar panels or something to that effect.

00:21:57.480 Trudeau is now saying this is where we're going federally. And I don't think we've seen much in the way of detail yet. But I don't know. How serious a package would you expect this to be, Nigel?

00:22:10.240 Well, not terribly. And whatever it is, I don't see how there's anything that the federal government can do to replace this particular industry.

00:22:19.380 This industry employs about 140,000 Canadians. It was 165,000 in 2014, so they've already been successful in whittling it down.

00:22:30.560 But those Canadians who are working in the energy industry are earning, on average, $125,000 a year compared to the national average in the year that that was taken, which was 2019, $57,000, double the national average wages.

00:22:51.160 One third of those workers are women.

00:22:54.160 55% of them are immigrants.

00:22:56.600 There's a tradition.

00:22:57.420 That was the first job I had when I came to this country.

00:22:58.840 And immigrants didn't even include in the new fees.

00:23:01.520 Yeah, they're always welcome.

00:23:04.780 For the record, immigrants speak better English than the Newfies. 0.97

00:23:07.540 Sorry, Arthur.

00:23:08.440 Yeah, Arthur's...

00:23:10.280 I should say more intelligible English.

00:23:12.580 So, just transition.

00:23:16.400 Transition to what?

00:23:17.820 To another $125,000 top-level job?

00:23:22.040 I mean, let's not be patronizing, but a lot of the guys who are on the rigs

00:23:26.060 are not going to roll over seamlessly into computer programming.

00:23:30.060 In fact, I've seen how that worked.

00:23:31.360 30 years ago, I ran a paper on Vancouver Island that was a big mill town.

00:23:35.940 And that's what they wanted to do.

00:23:37.120 They wanted to get, well, they lost their contracts.

00:23:41.200 They had no option.

00:23:42.800 And so there was this transition from being a forestry worker to what?

00:23:48.680 And they decided computers.

00:23:50.800 And so right by my office, there was another office where these guys were the grade 8, grade 9 education.

00:23:57.240 who'd come out of school early, gone into the forestry industry, made big money,

00:24:02.840 and now they were being shown how to use a 386.

00:24:06.920 It didn't go well.

00:24:09.060 And I suspect that just transition is a label for a BS program

00:24:16.520 was going to take people out of the oil and gas industry,

00:24:20.000 where they did earn very high wages,

00:24:21.720 some of them earn a lot more than $125,000,

00:24:24.720 and put them into something where they can't earn a third of that.

00:24:30.920 I mean, let's face it, putting in solar panels and working on windmills,

00:24:36.940 these are not jobs where you make that kind of money.

00:24:39.460 So I think the whole thing is a hoax.

00:24:41.380 Or put it this way, it's a public relations exercise

00:24:45.720 to put the best possible face on something that is going to be deeply wounding

00:24:50.500 to a hell of a lot of people, and not only in Alberta.

00:24:52.940 This is right across the country. Our industry here in Alberta affects something like 168,000 jobs in B.C., Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic, Canada, people who earn something from the Alberta and Saskatchewan energy industries.

00:25:12.820 It's like about $30 billion that's earned here that's spread out across the country. So this is huge.

00:25:18.740 Corey, you've got quite a bit of history in the patch.

00:25:21.680 I think you were a landman?

00:25:23.200 Surveyor.

00:25:23.800 Surveyor.

00:25:24.940 Surveyor.

00:25:25.840 You've worked in the patch.

00:25:27.300 I don't think you've – did you ever work the rigs themselves?

00:25:29.700 No.

00:25:30.040 No.

00:25:30.460 I was an advanced man.

00:25:31.820 Yeah.

00:25:32.480 Okay, but you've spent a lot of time in the industry.

00:25:36.980 You know, I remember a speech from Rex Murphy once he came to Calgary,

00:25:39.800 and it was just – he could make drilling for oil emotional.

00:25:45.980 He's just – he's the poet laureate.

00:25:47.900 of Alberta, and he's a new fee. So many of our greatest Albertans are new fees. But,

00:25:55.180 you know, he talked about how this was the greatest welfare program in the history of Canada,

00:25:59.660 you had, you know, provided a place where, you know, young, unemployed or underemployed young

00:26:06.140 men and women could come from Newfoundland, or rural Alberta people could come with, you know,

00:26:11.900 high school or sometimes even less education you know oil patches is not just that there's a lot

00:26:17.660 of really highly educated people there's engineers all sorts of crazy stuff but you know you can work

00:26:22.860 the rigs uh with not a lot of background you can come from poor families poor backgrounds

00:26:29.180 and this was the the greatest place by far for opportunity unless you got lucky with

00:26:34.380 the business or something. You know, is there any way that Trudeau could structure this program

00:26:43.660 to provide anything comparable? If money's not an object? Is there any way like if Trudeau just

00:26:49.340 opens up the checkbook? Is there any way to structure something that can provide anything

00:26:52.540 comparable to you? Oh, and there's no industry growing like that. You know, people talk about

00:26:55.980 tech. Well, look at it. Look at all the layoffs. Shopify is laying off. Amazon's laying off.

00:26:59.500 Twitter is laying off. It's not a growth industry. And the presumption of this whole

00:27:04.460 just transition is that this industry is in decline. But that is contrary to what's happening

00:27:08.940 everywhere else in the world. You know, petrochemical production demand is projected

00:27:15.580 to go up for decades. And we have it here, we should be increasing. In fact, there is a labor

00:27:21.180 shortage in the field right now. So it's ludicrous when we're sitting in this situation to say we

00:27:26.620 we want to transition people out of this and you don't have somewhere to send them to. And as you

00:27:30.620 said, it's a broad industry. I mean, we always think of the rigs and the guys work in there,

00:27:34.520 but there is a whole lot more to it. Everything from the campies cleaning the rooms and the cooks

00:27:39.480 to truckers to production accountants in the city. And these are all, again, major roles that

00:27:47.000 are paying very well that we need. And there's no easy place to transition them to it. As Nigel

00:27:52.620 said, it is a farce, but pursuing this farce can do a lot of damage. And the thing that worries me

00:27:57.340 is that if the markets are left alone, it'll continue to grow out there and there will be

00:28:02.180 no need to transition, at least for a few decades. Is the government anticipating interfering in that

00:28:07.500 market, thus causing the need for the transition? Well, I think that's the whole point. And I

00:28:10.840 suspect that, yes, and that's where the real fear comes in. They already are. I mean, I suppose they

00:28:16.960 could go further. No tankers, you know, bragging, bragging pipelines. They haven't flipped up the

00:28:24.460 switch, but they've, they've just turned down the power supply. They can get worse. There's

00:28:29.320 always room to get worse. Okay, well, let's switch it up. You know, we started all the way out east

00:28:34.900 that we kind of worked towards just transition for the broader west. But let's now finish it

00:28:39.820 with Alberta, does Danielle Smith have a mandate? So the 1.00

00:28:45.680 nominated NDP candidate in Red Deer, North Alberta, from

00:28:50.220 getting her name right, Jaylene Tweedle, says that Danielle 0.97

00:28:54.720 has Daniel Smith has no mandate to govern Alberta. But we've

00:28:59.560 also seen this from the NDP all over, including Rachel Notley

00:29:02.320 back in November said that Daniel Smith has no right to act

00:29:06.340 on some of these policies like an Alberta pension plan

00:29:10.100 as opposed to the Canadian pension plan,

00:29:12.480 Alberta Provincial Police Force, Sovereignty Act.

00:29:17.900 I don't know, these might be good things,

00:29:21.420 but I think it actually raises an interesting point.

00:29:24.200 Daniel Smith has not had a general election.

00:29:27.520 She has not faced the voters at large.

00:29:30.700 So the UCP has a mandate broadly to govern,

00:29:34.660 maybe not for some of these individual policy items, but broadly to govern.

00:29:39.760 But, you know, Daniel Smith was not elected in the last election.

00:29:42.400 She has a mandate from United Conservative Party members, but not Albertans at large.

00:29:48.680 We'll start with you, Corey.

00:29:49.640 Do you think the NDP has a point in saying Daniel Smith doesn't have a mandate to do these things?

00:29:54.840 It's kind of where you are. It's yes and no.

00:29:56.760 I mean, it's unreasonable when they were first coming out, call an election, call an election, call an election.

00:30:00.160 When you've been elected the leader, you don't have a mandate.

00:30:01.620 Look, that's not how our system works.

00:30:02.940 And we know that I need a mandate. He didn't say that until he was high in the polls, the wild rose he thought was destroyed.

00:30:08.340 But well, speaking of NDP silence, E.B. is out in B.C.

00:30:11.160 He didn't even have to defeat a single person in the leadership race to become premier as an NDP premier.

00:30:16.520 And I don't hear Notley saying, you know, David, you should call an election over there.

00:30:20.760 So there's their standard as usual is double, if not triple when it comes to things.

00:30:24.620 But that said, Danielle Smith has proposed some some pretty serious policy changes.

00:30:30.540 And when you are only six months from a scheduled election, I think it would be more responsible to campaign on those platform things rather than starting to implement them.

00:30:40.420 And I don't think there's any indication there's going to be a provincial police force, a provincial pension plan or any of those things in place or even moving towards being in place by May of this year.

00:30:50.480 So those will be questions coming up.

00:30:52.780 And, you know, if Danielle Smith was trying to ram those through before the election, then I think maybe there's some questions to be asked.

00:30:59.240 But at this point, I think it's just posturing. And, you know, Albertans will decide whether or not Premier Smith has a mandate in May.

00:31:07.120 So, Nigel, there's I hate to equivocate, but there's kind of two. There's a lot of several points on both sides of this.

00:31:15.500 I take Corey's point that maybe she should wait till she has a mandate. But people also want to see action.

00:31:21.100 They want to see governing. And many Albertans want to see how she's different than Jason Kenney.

00:31:25.740 So at the same time, you know, I don't think she could sit around and kind of do nothing and just kind of mine the house for six months, then get to it after. 0.99

00:31:33.500 But a lot of these things, it seems they're putting in place the pieces to be able to implement if they get a mandate in the next election.

00:31:40.720 They're putting in place the pieces to move towards an Alberta police force, move towards an Alberta pension plan.

00:31:47.740 Sovereignty Act, they did just, they outright passed it.

00:31:50.360 They haven't invoked it on anything yet.

00:31:52.480 But, you know, the Sovereignty Act doesn't affect you on a daily basis the way, say, Canada Pension Plan or police will.

00:32:00.940 It's just sort of there.

00:32:02.380 And a future government can repeal it with a simple bill in the legislature.

00:32:06.120 Do you think the NDP has got a point here that she doesn't have a mandate and she should either call an election or not really do all that much until the next election?

00:32:14.800 So if the NDP did have a point, then they would have to be ruled by their own narrow stretchers here.

00:32:22.200 And I don't recall the NDP being in any way restrained by a lack of a mandate.

00:32:28.900 Surely you wouldn't imply that politicians could be inconsistent.

00:32:33.040 I certainly would.

00:32:34.600 And I think that the NDP, you know, nobody, I mean, just to take one,

00:32:38.540 nobody asked to have their children educated to wonder whether they were boys or girls.

00:32:43.740 And that all got started off with the NDP.

00:32:46.900 Carbon tax.

00:32:47.840 They never mentioned a single word about the 2015 election.

00:32:50.140 so let's not get too hung up on the ndp making a pious face and saying which he has no mandate

00:32:56.060 tell you what danielle smith premier of alberta ran has paid the most attention to health care

00:33:04.300 reform the sovereignty act and to relieving the distress of a rising inflation on the the economy

00:33:12.460 just have the details of that one you always have a mandate it doesn't matter who you are or how

00:33:17.500 long you've been premier, you always have a mandate to relieve the distress of ordinary

00:33:23.400 Albertans who are going to benefit from that program of tax relief. That's number one. You

00:33:30.300 don't need to fight an election to know that as premier, that's your job. Number two, you always

00:33:36.760 have, if you are premier, however you got there, you always have a mandate to make healthcare work

00:33:43.280 better. You don't need to go to an election to say, this is what we need to do, and here's how

00:33:48.740 we're going to do it. She can be judged at the election if it doesn't go well, but she certainly

00:33:55.680 has a mandate to make improvements if she can see how to do it. And then the third thing, you want 1.00

00:34:00.880 a mandate for the Sovereignty Act? Look, Jason Kenney won his position on the basis of taking

00:34:10.560 it to Ottawa. And he lost his position. I think we're all agreed around this table anyway. He

00:34:16.240 lost his position when he didn't adequately take the fight to Ottawa. So, does the UCP

00:34:25.220 government have a mandate to take a tough line with Ottawa? Yes, it does. Has Danielle Smith 0.96

00:34:31.920 been consistent with that? Yes, she has so far. We'll see how it goes. But I would say that she

00:34:38.980 has not stepped outside the narrow lanes in which the NDP would like to confine her.

00:34:45.780 There's also, you know, I don't think the NDP are responsible for this, but

00:34:49.940 I don't think most people understand how our system of government works.

00:34:53.620 People act like they're electing a premier. You know, you were never elected premier,

00:34:58.660 your members made you a party leader. Technically only one in 87 Albertans vote for the premier.

00:35:05.300 the premier is merely an MLA only people in a single constituency vote for the premier

00:35:10.980 or you know or conceivably maybe two people uh people in two constituencies or maybe three or

00:35:17.140 four i don't know how many parties are around uh vote for someone who could potentially be premier

00:35:24.020 technically there's only 87 people in alberta who vote for the premier and that are those are

00:35:29.860 MLAs. MLAs vote for premier. MPs vote for prime minister. It's essentially a glorified electoral

00:35:36.740 college, similar to the American system. Most Americans don't technically vote for president.

00:35:42.280 They effectively do. But, you know, we don't elect premiers. We don't elect prime ministers. You

00:35:48.360 elect MLAs and you elect MPs and they select who it is. Now, you normally have a good idea because

00:35:53.080 there's a leader of a party. But I mean, geez, 19, some point in the 30s, Albertans elected a

00:36:00.800 government with no premier. When the social, when social credit swept away the United Farmers of

00:36:05.560 Alberta. To the surprise of everyone, including the social credit, social credit, which is barely

00:36:11.400 even a political party, didn't even call them social party, social credit league, they just

00:36:15.040 won a majority of seats, and they had no leader. And so what did they do? Well, they elected one

00:36:20.720 of their own. And that guy wasn't even an MLA. It was Bill Eberhardt, and he had to run the

00:36:24.660 by-election to come in. So I just don't, I know I'm getting a little too into the weeds with this

00:36:29.880 stuff, but I think there's a misunderstanding of the system. That being said, the only real way

00:36:35.020 to determine, does someone have a mandate to do something, I have to admit, boils down to,

00:36:39.460 do I like that person and what they're doing? I mean, we're going to say they have a mandate.

00:36:44.840 If we like what they're doing, we like the person. And if we don't like the person,

00:36:48.280 and we don't like what they're doing, we say they don't have a mandate. That's more or less what it

00:36:53.020 boils down to. I think the only real time you can make a very clear case someone has no mandate is

00:36:57.940 they get elected on one thing and they do something completely different or something

00:37:02.480 that was out of left field. Rachel Notley in the carbon tax was one such thing. It was, 0.52

00:37:07.960 it didn't even get fine print. They didn't even allude to it. And they got elected. And one of

00:37:12.660 the first things they do is carbon tax. That was a pretty clear case of no mandate.

00:37:18.280 Bill 6, the farm bill they did, they had a little something for it. It was a bad idea. But I'd say much more terrifying than doing things without a mandate is when the NDP do things that they do have a mandate for. Most of the worst things the NDP did when they came to power in Alberta were things that they had a mandate for because many, many Albertans didn't pay attention to their platform.

00:37:39.260 They just wanted to get rid of the PCs and Richard Motley seemed nice.

00:37:42.880 No one reads a platform. So I don't know. What do you think, Corey?

00:37:46.260 Is it more dangerous when governments do have a mandate?

00:37:48.360 When they're NDP, that's for sure. And ironically, I mean, it's a good point to make.

00:37:53.260 That was something I remember Daniel Smith saying in the past when she was a radio host.

00:37:57.540 A leader is lost if you lose your caucus. That's the point.

00:38:00.980 That's the tip. She learned that lesson herself quite in the hardest of ways, as have many other leaders.

00:38:06.380 if you don't have a mandate among those other MLAs, you are not going to stay in there for

00:38:11.180 terribly long. One of the things the NDP were really hoping for, actually, because they were

00:38:14.000 trying to foster those post-leadership divisions, was that there was going to be a split party or

00:38:17.920 some floor crossers or people stomping out the door. And that didn't happen. And they've been 1.00

00:38:22.440 pretty distressed about that. And I think that's part of why they're moving on to this mandate

00:38:25.340 canard as well. Yeah. All right. Well, we're going to wrap it up there. Thank you gentlemen

00:38:30.080 for joining me today. I thank all of you for being with us. If you're not yet a member of

00:38:33.600 Western Standard, please do. The Western Standard is bailout free. We refuse to accept a penny of

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00:38:54.920 click on membership, sign up. It's going to be money well spent, I promise you. Thank you very

00:39:00.240 much for joining us today and God bless. Here's a quick look at what commodity prices are doing

00:39:04.080 in Lethbridge today. Cash barley is down $4 at $4.37, feed wheat is down $3 at $4.42, and corn

00:39:11.420 is down $2 at $4.40 per ton. In the milling wheat markets, March Minneapolis futures at 1.5 cents

00:39:17.960 at $8.96 per bushel, with local hardwood spring bid for Jan Feb movement at $11.55 per bushel.

00:39:25.460 Looking at canola, nearby futures slipped $3.90 at $8.3770 per tonne, with delivered

00:39:31.460 buys for February movement at $18.55 per bushel. In the pulse markets, nearby red lentil prices

00:39:37.140 are higher half a cent at $0.33 per pound, and yellow peas are trading at $13.25 per bushel.

00:39:43.540 And in the cattle markets, February live cattle are lower $7.50 at $1.5768 per 100 weight.

00:39:49.380 For more information on pricing or picked up options, give me a call at 403-394-1711.

00:39:56.920 I'm Matt Busiekum at Marketplace Commodities, accurate real-time marketing information and pricing options.

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00:40:09.280 These guys are on the front lines helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms, regulations and legislation in Canada.

00:40:16.520 and more importantly educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong

00:40:21.680 people. To become a member, it's absolutely worth every penny. You can become a Western 0.90

00:40:28.360 Center member for just $10 a month or $99 a year.

Western Standard - January 12, 2023

The Pipeline： Just(in’s) transition

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