Western Standard - The Pipeline： Smith, Trudeau clash on Just Transition

00:00:00.000 good evening welcome to the pipeline i'm corey morgan this is our western standards weekly news

00:00:20.080 and issues panel where we'll break things down discuss them and uh sometimes you can solve

00:00:26.640 of questions and problems, but not always.

00:00:29.600 I'm joined, it's a little bit of a different shakeup today

00:00:31.680 by our business and energy writer, Sean Paulsard

00:00:34.920 here on the far right.

00:00:35.960 I think it's your first time on the pipeline, isn't it?

00:00:37.760 Yeah, I think so.

00:00:38.600 Okay, well, welcome to the show.

00:00:40.320 Thank you very much.

00:00:41.160 And of course our opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford,

00:00:44.160 stalwart regular on this show.

00:00:45.640 Good to be back.

00:00:46.560 Ah, good.

00:00:47.700 And yes, we've got a lot to come into today.

00:00:50.580 So before we start into the issues though,

00:00:53.200 we do have to talk about those people who help pay our bills

00:00:56.220 keep this show on the air one of which is the canadian shooting sports association a fantastic

00:01:01.580 organization if you are a person who enjoys firearms whether you're collecting or target

00:01:07.420 shooting hunting any of those things you need to be a member of the cssa it's essential you 0.96

00:01:12.620 want to protect your rights to be able to continue to enjoy those and have your kids enjoy those so

00:01:16.860 check them out it's at canadian shooting sports association cssa-cila.org and as well just one

00:01:25.580 nagging reminder for you guys we do not take any government funding but we do rely on you to

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00:01:38.620 take out a membership 9.99 a month or a hundred dollars a year and you'll get full unfettered

00:01:44.700 access to all of our news stories columns and all that good stuff so yes we will have

00:01:52.380 a few things to chat about today uh where to begin with though and that's part of why we've

00:01:58.140 got sean in here is we've got some energy issues going on we've been waiting for a while on this

00:02:03.260 and uh maybe i'll get you to begin with that sean uh bill c50 finally came out they've renamed it

00:02:11.900 it doesn't seem to quite have the teeth in it necessarily i thought it might but i mean perhaps

00:02:15.500 you could explain a little more what's going on there i mean is it a tension point with with

00:02:19.260 premier smith or uh what's the how did that bill land with things well it's a little bit like

00:02:25.340 putting lipstick on a pig there corey they called it the sustainable jobs bill but really what it

00:02:31.340 is is the just transition bill and it was part of a flurry of developments that kind of came fast

00:02:39.580 and quick almost too much to keep up with um so the bill itself was released a day ahead of a

00:02:45.900 meeting with Daniel Smith and Energy Minister Brian Jean and other representatives of the

00:02:51.740 province that had been promised apparently before the election. Hours before the meeting,

00:02:59.340 Jonathan Wilkinson came with Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBanc and they handed

00:03:05.180 out $325 million to the city of Calgary for electric buses on top of another $150 million from the

00:03:12.300 Canadian Infrastructure Bank and then proceeded into the meeting, made lots of comments about

00:03:20.860 having no lines in the scion. I think the quote that he made to the Canadian press was,

00:03:28.220 I would never take extremist positions on issues and hardline positions. And then the very next

00:03:35.740 day we get a report from the Canadian energy regulator for the pathways to net zero, which

00:03:41.020 which basically calls for 70% elimination of oil and gas,

00:03:46.160 83% reduction in oil sands, 60% reduction in natural gas.

00:03:51.500 Basically all our worst fears

00:03:54.380 that Premier Smith has been saying all this time.

00:03:57.940 Well, that's it.

00:03:58.780 I mean, the bill kind of in their talk

00:04:00.560 reiterates what they'd like to do.

00:04:02.480 I mean, what they want to see with this reduction

00:04:05.020 in petrochemical production and sales,

00:04:08.500 but they haven't quite gotten into the how, have they?

00:04:11.020 I mean, there's only so many ways they could make this happen, Nigel, but where do you think it's going?

00:04:15.720 Well, you know, it is a, nominally, both parties want the same thing.

00:04:22.760 Premier Smith has outlined her government support for the overall gas, overall goal of eliminating carbon emissions, bringing it to net zero by 2050.

00:04:36.040 the federal government wants to do the same thing by 2035 so you think there might be room there to

00:04:43.560 come together but it doesn't seem to work out that way because the feds want to do it their way

00:04:50.000 which is by capping emissions whereas our premier wants to do it the alberto way which is by

00:04:57.120 producing more efficiently and reduce and reducing the emissions that way and just

00:05:02.560 taking a little longer to do it. By the way, not jeopardizing electricity supplies while we're

00:05:08.780 doing it. So I think it's a sort of a, and as a matter of fact, one of our columnists, Ken Green

00:05:15.060 from the Fraser Institute, hell of a good writer, a fellow I've known for years, and I kind of trust

00:05:20.940 his judgment on these things. He too is sort of saying it's a discussion over means rather than

00:05:26.260 ends on the surface. What's really going on? Well, that's where we get into speculating about what's

00:05:37.620 going on in the back of people's minds. And we probably shouldn't do that because we don't know

00:05:41.760 for sure. But I'm wondering if this is actually something that Ottawa really has a position where

00:05:48.380 Alberta could win as well as they do. Well, I don't know if they're even taking Alberta into

00:05:54.460 consideration when they do these things.

00:05:56.120 This is all aimed at Alberta.

00:05:57.680 Oh, I understand.

00:05:58.960 They're not taking our good interest

00:06:00.820 on their part.

00:06:04.120 So here's one of the weird things.

00:06:07.480 Like China, 1.00

00:06:08.740 as we know, what was the figure that you

00:06:10.600 trotted out yesterday?

00:06:12.600 Sean, about how much

00:06:14.020 of the, what's the fraction of

00:06:16.540 the world's CO2 transmissions

00:06:18.560 that China is 0.73

00:06:20.460 responsible for? About a third.

00:06:22.360 About a third. Okay, it's a third.

00:06:24.460 All right. So why is it so large? They're a large country, but they burn a hell of a lot of coal.

00:06:33.160 All right. Natural gas is cleaner. If cleanliness is measured by the amount of carbon dioxide,

00:06:40.920 well, then natural gas is clean fuel. Why don't we sell them natural gas? 0.73

00:06:48.100 Federal government doesn't want us to do that. Now, that's not a funny thing. This is where

00:06:52.780 you start to wonder why people make the decisions they do.

00:06:58.540 You've got two provinces side by side.

00:07:02.940 Each has, it thinks, the constitutional jurisdiction

00:07:06.820 over its energy, its environment, and Ottawa comes along and says,

00:07:12.760 no, it's one atmosphere, so we're going to dictate what both provinces do.

00:07:18.500 One atmosphere. You can't have it all to yourself.

00:07:21.200 Then we come to the China issue, and the one atmosphere argument falls down dead.

00:07:29.820 Oh, no, we've got to, Canada has to meet its own emissions targets.

00:07:34.060 Doesn't matter about China, we're just doing it here. 0.99

00:07:36.580 Well, what about the one atmosphere?

00:07:37.860 No, no, no, don't, you know.

00:07:39.520 So there's something really strange about the way Ottawa thinks of these things in relation to the provinces.

00:07:45.740 Well, it's more ideological than pragmatic, really.

00:07:48.240 I mean, they won't accept mitigation.

00:07:49.500 And, you know, natural gas, certainly it emits, but it's a heck of a lot less than coal.

00:07:54.640 But they won't go for that middle ground.

00:07:56.340 No, they won't.

00:07:56.860 I mean, the Paris Accord, which is what they say they're trying to meet the terms of, actually has a provisional, is it Article 6, that says if you sell natural gas to somebody else, you can count that against your own emissions.

00:08:09.020 Well, if you help other countries reduce their own emissions, then yes, you can claim those credits as well.

00:08:15.560 And apparently there's enough potential in Western Canada anyway, so over to northeast

00:08:22.240 BC with LNG to basically offset the country's entire emissions profile by exporting natural

00:08:28.580 gas to Asia.

00:08:29.580 So do we know why they don't want to go for that?

00:08:31.880 I'm not exactly sure.

00:08:33.680 And I did put that question to the chief economist of the Canadian Energy Regulator, and they

00:08:40.040 had not factored that into their calculations.

00:08:42.620 So, and to their credit, basically the only assumption that they made was that Canada

00:08:47.800 reaches net zero.

00:08:49.600 So they worked backwards from there.

00:08:51.640 Normally when you're trying to work out a hypothesis, you try to work through the facts

00:08:55.260 and then you come up to the, you know, the hypothesis at the end.

00:08:59.080 Well, in this case, they started with the hypothesis that we are going to reach net

00:09:04.540 zero by 2050 and then work backwards and said, this is how they're going to do it.

00:09:07.900 But there was no provision for exports or reducing other countries' emissions.

00:09:14.320 And then also, there was no provision for increases in population.

00:09:19.760 Canada hit 40 million people last week, and we're expected to be pretty close to 50 million by 2050.

00:09:25.900 All of whom, of course, exhaled carbon dioxide and burned it in their cars and are eating their homes.

00:09:32.040 Absolutely.

00:09:32.440 Well, then getting back to assumptions, you know, that the whole premise of this, at least when they named it as well, the transition was that energy jobs are going to disappear.

00:09:42.300 They're not going to be around anymore.

00:09:44.280 Demand apparently is going to disappear for our hydrocarbons and they're going to have to train these, you know, energy workers into a new career environment or something of the sort.

00:09:57.320 But I mean, for most economists, there's no indication that demand, world demand for petrochemical products is going to be dropping anytime soon.

00:10:05.720 So that leaves the fear that that just means that they plan on shutting it in here, despite what world demand might be.

00:10:10.500 Is that sort of my interpreting that right?

00:10:12.800 Yeah, I think so.

00:10:13.420 The U.S. government's Energy Information Agency, in fact, protects U.S. oil consumption to rise by 2050, partly due to things like population increases to about 19 million barrels a day from 16.

00:10:29.480 So it was previously at about 20. It's gone down to about 16, and they see it climbing back up to 19 by 2050 and essentially just staying there.

00:10:37.980 I had a piece on the weekend about Brazil.

00:10:41.100 Brazil wants to pretty much double their oil production and overtake Canada as the world's

00:10:45.320 fourth largest producer.

00:10:47.520 So governments around the world are still increasing investments in oil and gas.

00:10:52.740 Shell is increasing its oil production 1 to 2, 3 percent a year.

00:10:57.100 It came out of their annual meeting.

00:10:59.020 ExxonMobil, these 2050 net zero targets, they're supposed to disclose them under these new

00:11:04.920 reporting standards and they basically said that they're not material because

00:11:07.860 it's not going to happen by 2050 and it's gonna have like zero financial

00:11:12.740 impact on their business and if Exxon is saying that you know I think they

00:11:18.780 probably know a little bit more than the International Energy Agency absolutely

00:11:23.680 I mean in Norway as well I think they were in Norway as well North Sea

00:11:27.120 operations it's just we seem to be the only Boy Scouts out there saying we're

00:11:31.380 going to contract. I guess we'll just have to settle for being better people. Hungry and cold

00:11:36.780 people. Hungry and cold and not going anywhere, but my word. Well, and the way that they're going

00:11:41.320 to do it is very interesting as well, because they're proposing to essentially more than double

00:11:47.600 the carbon tax, about $380 a ton, because the idea here is that if we keep it at $170 to $2050,

00:11:54.540 that inflation erodes the effectiveness of the tax at essentially setting in oil and

00:12:01.860 gas, 3% production caps per year.

00:12:05.780 So the aim of these policies is to make oil and gas unprofitable and to force companies

00:12:12.420 to essentially shut it into the ground.

00:12:14.260 It's an interesting light on what they expect inflation to be in the years to come.

00:12:23.060 you go to the grocery again keep that in mind that seven dollar pound of butter when did you

00:12:31.380 save three eight three hundred and eighty dollars a ton for carbon prices that's here um by 2050

00:12:39.300 that was uh i think it was actually after 2040 they uh they assumed it coming in because 170 is

00:12:44.660 is what, 2030?

00:12:46.340 Well, I guess it'll be your guys' problem then.

00:12:49.220 Well, you never know how long you might make it.

00:12:53.220 I mean, part of the challenge too, though,

00:12:54.920 is these guys keep moving the goalposts.

00:12:57.100 I mean, it was only a few years ago,

00:12:58.760 the environment minister was saying,

00:12:59.860 there's no way we're gonna go past 50 per ton,

00:13:03.180 and they've blown that right out of the water.

00:13:06.800 That's gonna cause an investment chill.

00:13:08.400 I mean, why would you wanna put money into a country

00:13:11.020 when the government just seems obsessed

00:13:13.820 with shutting down.

00:13:14.660 Well, they wouldn't want that, would they?

00:13:16.220 Imagine the government of Canada

00:13:18.100 wanting an investment chill

00:13:19.280 in natural resource extraction in Canada.

00:13:22.620 Yeah.

00:13:23.460 Well, and that was another point

00:13:24.380 that the chief economist made

00:13:25.620 was that the government might have to use

00:13:28.440 these policy levers to accelerate that transition

00:13:33.280 to zero by 2050 if some of these other measures don't work.

00:13:36.900 So in other words, moving the goalpost

00:13:39.100 is perfectly within the rules in this scenario as well.

00:13:43.800 Yeah, we can't trust them to stop there. Well, we'll see. I mean, there's certainly going to be some, I think, some battles coming up. I mean, Premier Smith, though, has been pretty clear that she wants to, she's not going to put up with it, or at least she's taken on the most defensive stance we've seen on this from a Premier in Alberta in quite some time. She'll follow through on that.

00:14:05.040 Yeah, and I think she absolutely means what she says.

00:14:12.260 It's a strong team that's facing Ottawa, you know, Rebecca Schultz and Brian Jean and Danielle Smith,

00:14:19.880 and they've got the rest of the cabinet behind them on this.

00:14:23.980 If this is going to work for them, it's going to work like Ottawa says do this, they say we won't,

00:14:31.600 Ottawa tries to sue, and they drag it out in court, hopefully past the next election date,

00:14:37.260 and then with what many expect will be a different government,

00:14:42.040 there'll be a different dynamic between the federal government and the provinces.

00:14:46.900 Only hope.

00:14:48.340 It can just, yeah, it's never looked more likely.

00:14:54.940 Well, that segues into, you know, wondering about the next government or what it may be.

00:15:00.080 So we just had four by-elections that were just held the other day, and two liberal ridings and two conservative ridings, and pretty much it looks like the status quo won the day.

00:15:13.360 There was no significant movement compared to past polling and, you know.

00:15:21.220 Well, you know, one of the ones that is worth talking about is Portage-Lisgar, where Max Bernier, of course, had high hopes of claiming a seat in Parliament, but he didn't.

00:15:36.200 In fact, he didn't even come close.

00:15:38.920 And I don't say this with a great sense of satisfaction, but the numbers are that the Conservative candidate got 20,000 votes and Bernier got 5,000.

00:15:48.660 So what does that mean for the future of the People's Party

00:15:52.960 if they can't make significant headway in a riding like that?

00:15:59.080 I mean, the other place that they tried out was in Winnipeg South Centre,

00:16:04.260 and they got 300 votes, like 1% of the votes.

00:16:10.860 So it looks to me as if the PPC idea has had its chance

00:16:17.220 and doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

00:16:21.220 Now, that actually could be a good thing for the Conservative Party of Canada

00:16:28.880 because in the last election, the people who go through the results

00:16:34.000 and the spreadsheets reckon that the loss of votes from the Conservatives

00:16:39.940 to the People's Party probably cost them about 15 seats.

00:16:43.880 It's disputed, but there was certainly an outflow of the more conservatively minded people who went to vote for the People's Party, didn't vote for the conservatives, split the vote, and the liberals slipped by.

00:17:02.520 So I think that's what those by-election results tell me, is that PPC is probably a spent force.

00:17:11.980 I'm not saying it's going to disappear, but I don't think it's going to be a factor in the next general election.

00:17:17.720 I could be completely wrong, but that's my quick take on the election results.

00:17:23.740 Well, I mean, yeah, I think it's a fair take.

00:17:27.240 and the conservatives are going to need that extra

00:17:31.040 a little bit though because they also aren't gaining ground right now. I mean it just seems

00:17:34.880 astounding with the, I mean you understand a couple were safe liberal seats

00:17:38.740 so they weren't going to switch. We were hoping maybe to see some progress or some

00:17:42.700 increases and it's not looking like anything's moving. I mean

00:17:46.840 no matter how many scandals, no matter how many cover-ups, no matter how much

00:17:50.920 ineptitude we're seeing from this federal government, the partisan lines are

00:17:54.960 drawn in the sand, I think,

00:17:55.860 and nobody seems to be ready to move.

00:17:57.540 Well, to be fair, these are low turnouts.

00:18:01.680 And that's the way-

00:18:02.840 It's hard to read too much into a by-election.

00:18:04.080 Yeah, the by-elections are never big turnouts,

00:18:07.660 but we've got 36%, 45%, 38%, you know.

00:18:12.560 It's a strong sample if you were a polling company,

00:18:15.060 but it's not really giving you the picture

00:18:18.480 for a future battle, whether it's next year

00:18:21.940 or the year after.

00:18:23.100 And I think that that helped Premier Smith here with the election here in Alberta was that she had managed to consolidate that kind of far right vote and bring it back into the fold.

00:18:35.780 And I mean, when you think about it, the margin between a majority and being turfed out of office was like, what, 2,600 votes across the province?

00:18:45.160 Yes.

00:18:45.640 So I think in that sense…

00:18:46.980 I think there were 2,600 votes here in Calvary, really.

00:18:50.040 Pretty much.

00:18:50.500 It's very tight, and that's not an unusual thing to have elections turn on a relatively

00:18:58.180 small number of seats where the voters are evenly divided.

00:19:05.740 In the 2011, the famous 2011 election, which led to Harper's strong, stable National Majority

00:19:12.560 Conservative government, I still say it after all these years, I mean, that all came down

00:19:17.860 to about 5,000 votes coast to coast.

00:19:19.860 We've won one riding up by two votes

00:19:21.580 with those kinds of, with that kind of division

00:19:25.860 in certain areas.

00:19:27.720 It's critical that if you want a conservative government,

00:19:32.560 you better vote for a conservative government,

00:19:35.500 not make a protest vote to another party.

00:19:37.840 And by the same time, if you want a liberal government,

00:19:40.300 it's important you turn out.

00:19:42.160 Well, that's the nature of our system as well.

00:19:44.920 Some stuff's almost beyond your own control,

00:19:46.500 But it seems to be whether conservative or liberal, it depends on who the peripheral parties are splitting the vote at any given time.

00:19:53.740 With a strong NDP, which we don't really have too much right now, with a strong NDP biting into the liberal support, conservatives have a much better chance of moving ahead.

00:20:03.860 But when the NDP is weak, the liberals can pull it off.

00:20:06.960 I said in Alberta, of course, we saw the extreme example of it when the Wildrose Party split with the conservatives.

00:20:12.300 And had there been even a 10% bite out of the vote last time around, we'd have another NDP government here.

00:20:19.060 Yeah, they told me you were giving money to the NDP, Corey, just for that great reason.

00:20:22.420 Yeah, that's right. I don't have enough money. Just rumors.

00:20:29.600 But it's a frustrating state. So where does Bernier go from here?

00:20:34.060 I mean, he still has the support of a significant amount of people,

00:20:38.000 I mean, enough to sustain a little party,

00:20:40.340 but it doesn't really, they've got to find themselves

00:20:43.020 and figure out what they want to do and where they're going.

00:20:46.600 Look, I actually have got a lot of time for the things that Mr. Bernier says.

00:20:52.820 He happens to, he and I are in sync on a lot of things.

00:20:57.220 However, I am prepared to vote for the person who can actually give me a fraction of that as long as I at least get that.

00:21:10.360 Because another four years of a liberal government, I think, would see all of the things that we've just been talking about in terms of the destruction of the energy industry here in Alberta come about.

00:21:25.860 I can think of a number of other things that wouldn't go very well,

00:21:28.820 but just to stay on topic,

00:21:31.680 everything we talked about in the first 20 minutes of this show

00:21:34.240 is on the line if the Liberals form another government in 2025

00:21:40.100 because that's their policy.

00:21:42.640 So if you want to stop that,

00:21:45.060 you've got to vote for the person who's most likely to do that.

00:21:48.700 But in my judgment, that's going to be the Conservative Party with Pierre Polymer.

00:21:57.640 I mean, much as I like Mr. Bernier, look, I also like the people in the Christian Heritage Party,

00:22:04.240 but there's no way that they're ever going to win a seat, never mind former government.

00:22:07.960 So what's the point of putting your vote there?

00:22:12.060 Go with somebody who can do something for you.

00:22:13.860 So, and then likewise, so the other by-election was Oxford, and the Conservatives took that seat.

00:22:20.620 But that was, the winner came in at 43% of the vote when the last election was 47%.

00:22:27.060 It said, you can't read too much into a by-election, but still, I mean, you need to see some forward momentum.

00:22:32.740 I mean, this can't be blamed on the PPC.

00:22:34.600 This can't be, you know, Mr. Polly has to grasp the interest, I think, of Canadians somehow.

00:22:40.540 and he's had a difficulty doing it, I think, so far, or at least non-conservative, you know,

00:22:44.840 the swing voters out there that are there, they don't seem to be swinging to the Conservatives yet.

00:22:50.680 They haven't heard enough. There's always room to hurt more, isn't there?

00:22:55.880 I think he's having a hard time capturing the imagination of people. He's a very good speaker.

00:23:01.700 When you see him in question period, you know, he's sharp and he's quick on his feet,

00:23:05.820 But I don't think he's managed to find an issue or a platform that really captures the imagination of not just people here out west in the prairies, but across the country.

00:23:19.080 You see, you're making the assumption that people are judging candidates by their policies.

00:23:25.180 Right.

00:23:26.200 I'm not sure that they do.

00:23:27.600 Certainly, Paul has been talking about things that people care about a lot, which is affording a house, buying a home.

00:23:39.260 This is especially strong among young people fresh out of college, in their first, second jobs, and looking to build what their parents had.

00:23:48.380 And so when he talks about gatekeepers and the things

00:23:52.520 that make it difficult for younger people to get started

00:23:55.900 on this very basic aspiration of owning the place

00:23:58.620 that you live in, he is talking to an eager audience.

00:24:03.000 So then, well, all right, well, what's not working then?

00:24:06.060 And what I get back is that, well, women don't like him

00:24:10.420 because he's too strong, he's too sharp, you know.

00:24:14.380 That poor Mr. Trudeau gets savaged every day and it's not fair.

00:24:19.660 And some of these kind of non-political considerations can really affect how people perceive a politician.

00:24:28.500 Take Stephen Harper.

00:24:30.640 Easily, without question, the most competent and able prime minister that this country has had since the Second World War.

00:24:39.100 if you're just going by pure efficiency in governing.

00:24:43.660 That's all that Harper was interested in before he went in.

00:24:47.240 Good governance.

00:24:48.240 That's what he delivered.

00:24:49.920 What was the knock on Harper?

00:24:52.220 Oh, he's a cold fish.

00:24:53.580 Look at those blue eyes.

00:24:54.760 They just go right through you.

00:24:56.420 Like, what's that got to do with anything?

00:24:58.140 You know, it's like saying,

00:24:59.340 well, I don't want that guy to be my surgeon. 0.99

00:25:01.280 He seems like a miserable soul, 0.95

00:25:03.320 when in actual fact, 0.91

00:25:04.220 he's the most competent surgeon in the hospital

00:25:06.520 and the guy who has the wonderful bedside manner

00:25:09.060 has been known to make mistakes i'm going with the i'm going with the surgeon who can fix my

00:25:13.780 brain and i'm going to go with the pilot in the airline who's going to put it down on the numbers

00:25:17.700 not the fellow with the big mustache who talks a good game so you know we judge politicians by

00:25:23.580 the wrong standards they really do and that's what's working against i remember when uh preston

00:25:28.940 manning got laser eye surgery yeah you know and started uh fix his hair up a bit yeah and started

00:25:34.660 appealing to kind of to young people talking you know that kind of language and you know it was a

00:25:39.780 real shift for him because you know preston was you know kind of like dr nerd i think it kind of

00:25:45.540 helped so too i mean as you said you know that presentation i mean mr manning's policies were

00:25:50.660 solid for what they were with the reform and that was like he was always a policy focused man

00:25:55.060 and uh but yeah often the critique was oh that old-fashioned hair and those glasses and that

00:25:59.860 voice. And when he did start swinging that a little bit anyways, it did expand. And it was

00:26:06.160 just frustrating because it should be a matter of making a better sale of your policies rather than

00:26:10.400 having better hair. But it's a reality that has to be faced. You know, Corey, I didn't live in

00:26:16.500 Alberta back in the 1950s and the 1960s. But people who did tell me this province was never

00:26:23.660 governed better than it was in the hands of a bunch of old men in dry suits. 1.00

00:26:29.360 You know, boring old guys, but he had ethics, and they did the right thing, and they did their best.

00:26:36.080 Wouldn't mind a bit of that.

00:26:37.420 No, you think of the old ones, it's, you know, people, liberal-leaning ones, like Grant McEwen,

00:26:42.760 and there was a different type of honor, I think, is the term that you don't see.

00:26:48.240 I think you're right.

00:26:49.540 Who resigns on a point of principle these days or resigns after they've made a royal screw-up?

00:26:56.120 And the screw-ups are building up.

00:26:59.720 Well, let's talk about our screw-upper-in-chief, Justin Trudeau.

00:27:04.860 And the latest, which is kind of a bizarre story that broke this week or didn't break or happened or didn't happen,

00:27:12.940 word got out that the RCMP are investigating Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the SNC-Lavalin matter.

00:27:21.120 And then they correct said, no, they aren't.

00:27:23.440 Like, what the hell is going on?

00:27:25.180 Well, let me just be Dave Naylor for a moment, because normally speaking, when we do this,

00:27:29.360 Derek's there, and Naylor is there, and Dave just sort of says, well, what is the actual news here?

00:27:34.200 So this is our story.

00:27:37.520 Reviewing the readout issued by the government of Alberta after...

00:27:41.460 Oh, I'm sorry, that's the one.

00:27:42.340 You're reading the wrong line.

00:27:44.280 Good story, obviously.

00:27:45.700 Yeah, it's a great story.

00:27:47.800 I think you've got it on the bottom.

00:27:49.100 Ah, there it goes.

00:27:50.340 The RCMP denied it was investigating SNC-Lavalin.

00:27:54.500 just hours after the publication of an access to information request where the police force

00:28:01.120 said the exact opposite. The claim was made in a RCMP tweet and they said this just two days ago

00:28:09.040 in response to numerous media reports the RCMP can confirm it is not investigating allegations

00:28:17.540 of political interference in the trial of SNC-Lavalin.

00:28:22.560 So, look, that, I guess, is their position.

00:28:26.060 That's the fact.

00:28:27.080 They're not investigating.

00:28:28.260 But why did we think they might be?

00:28:30.200 Well, the tweet runs contrary to a May 25th letter,

00:28:34.300 and that's not even a month ago,

00:28:36.300 that the RCMP sent to Duff Conacher,

00:28:40.040 the co-founder of Democracy Watch.

00:28:42.640 And that was published in conjunction

00:28:44.620 with a media release on Monday morning.

00:28:47.540 And the only thing I can say is that they were actually responding to an old inquiry 10 months ago.

00:28:55.380 So perhaps there was a, Conacher is the person to speak on this,

00:29:02.480 but he put in his original FOIP back in last July.

00:29:09.040 Freedom of information for people who don't get into the journalistic jargon.

00:29:15.800 And it's taken all this time to come back to them, which is pretty typical, unfortunately.

00:29:21.700 And so in the meantime, evidently, the RCMP have changed their minds.

00:29:25.980 So that's what I make of it.

00:29:27.860 Do you see more?

00:29:29.460 I don't see more, but it certainly stirred a lot of things up.

00:29:33.240 There are some people who feel that, you know, if indeed there was interference, that there should be charges.

00:29:37.820 I've seen others turning it around, fair enough, that a similar parallel, not quite as, I think, as extreme.

00:29:42.840 They're saying, well, Daniel Smith, Premier Smith, was found by the ethics commissioner to have been inappropriately lobbying on behalf of somebody in there, and that the charges should follow there.

00:29:53.780 I guess some of the questions people start asking, even if this has been resolved with the RCP, should we be pursuing politicians with criminal-type charges in these situations or not?

00:30:04.960 Well, you know, if it's criminal, it's criminal.

00:30:07.580 but let's be honest about it the nexus between government agencies and the government itself

00:30:14.860 whether we're talking about the energy regulator or whether we're talking about the

00:30:23.580 regulators that look after the airline industry or in this case the rcmp

00:30:30.060 statistics calendar the list goes on and on the people who are at the top of these agencies

00:30:38.460 are not stupid they know what the government wants and what it doesn't want and they don't

00:30:48.380 always need to be told what is a what to do sometimes they just recognize that something 0.97

00:30:54.780 is politically hot.

00:30:57.140 Maybe it's not a good idea to go after it.

00:30:59.800 Now, this sounds pretty like,

00:31:01.340 this sounds like tin hat stuff

00:31:03.860 as if it was one vast conspiracy,

00:31:06.000 but, you know,

00:31:07.380 look at the courts.

00:31:11.480 We have got a court system

00:31:13.000 which is very responsive

00:31:15.240 to what it believes

00:31:18.800 is going on in government.

00:31:21.400 You think, well, how can you even

00:31:22.640 begin to say that?

00:31:23.900 the law is the law, and the answer is that the law is not the law when a government, when a court

00:31:30.620 thinks otherwise. We have a thing called a living tree interpretation of the Canadian Constitution.

00:31:37.460 In fact, it is explicit that the court system is supposed to be responsive to the public mood.

00:31:45.040 And so if everybody thought this in the 1950s, well, fair enough, but these days we think this,

00:31:50.500 therefore we interpret the law that way so right there at the highest levels we have a perfect

00:31:57.540 illustration of the responsiveness of government agencies to public opinion and government

00:32:05.140 sensitivities i have no evidence that the rcmp were unduly influenced in this this may well

00:32:13.220 have come as a consequence of a thorough and exhaustive investigation and they found no

00:32:18.740 evidence worth pursuing but it doesn't surprise me yeah well and i mean some of it is when it

00:32:25.220 comes to at least following through on a prosecution that you got to think of the whole picture i mean

00:32:29.380 is it the pursuit of this warfare the looking into the public interest the disruption of actually

00:32:36.260 criminally charging a sitting prime minister would be massive and you you know even if

00:32:42.420 unconsciously have to be thinking about the consequences of what will come about if you

00:32:46.420 decided to try to do something like that well and there's a certain amount of fatigue i think that

00:32:50.100 set in as well um given you know some of the past um i guess they aren't even allegations

00:32:56.820 they're actually findings of fact that you know conflicts of interest against prime minister and

00:33:01.300 and the things that he's done and they range from potentially quite serious to you know banal you

00:33:08.820 You know, the blackface and, you know, drinking too much beer at a music fest in Kelowna. 1.00

00:33:15.160 And so after a while, it seems to be you just don't really know what to believe anymore

00:33:22.540 or how serious these things really are.

00:33:25.700 And it's like you said, you know, I would hope that if the RCMP found something

00:33:29.480 that was serious enough, you know, to warrant following up with criminal charges

00:33:33.620 that they would actually do it.

00:33:36.060 You know, I have a hard time believing that they wouldn't.

00:33:38.820 But I don't know.

00:33:40.100 Yeah, well, listen, I just said, everything we've seen, there's no indication that there's been any political pressure or anything in this particular case.

00:33:45.880 No evidence at all.

00:33:47.100 But the RCMP has come under question in the last few years over a number of things.

00:33:52.000 So Brenda Luckey, we never really did hear resolution on that so much with, for example, with the Nova Scotia massacre, the shooting that happened out there.

00:34:02.920 and the prime minister's office hadn't pressuring the RCMP

00:34:05.600 and the head of the primary RCMP was pressuring

00:34:09.480 investigating officers to release information prematurely

00:34:12.040 on that.

00:34:12.960 That's distressing stuff.

00:34:15.420 And then to have seen, at least from what I can tell,

00:34:17.980 never really signed a resolution over what happened there.

00:34:21.860 There's some mistrust in at least the leadership

00:34:24.140 of the RCMP and that's not a good place to be.

00:34:27.180 Yeah.

00:34:28.240 I think there's always been a certain amount of mistrust

00:34:30.080 in the leadership of the RCMP.

00:34:31.600 It seems to me it goes way back into the Trudeau days, you know, that there's always been,

00:34:36.620 and it's usually up at the top, and it's in Ottawa, because where the politically based

00:34:42.700 things are happening, I'd have a harder time seeing it happen out in any of the provinces

00:34:47.580 where they would be investigating, you know, the Premier of Saskatchewan or something like that,

00:34:55.000 except for maybe Colin Thatcher.

00:34:56.580 well i guess we'll see who comes calling when the federal government tells the government of

00:35:04.060 alberta exactly what to do and they don't do it when they break the criminal code for violating

00:35:09.040 the environmental statute i don't think that would be in the criminal code would it i don't

00:35:13.620 know jibble seems to think it is he threatened uh scott moll yeah yeah there's some bizarre

00:35:22.400 posturing between those two that's for sure and uh yeah it's just it's it's our our main uh law

00:35:28.800 enforcement and and i think part of the rcmp they've always been a very tight organization

00:35:34.960 with information like sometimes they don't do themselves any favors when you you do have to

00:35:39.040 fight and i mean we understand ongoing investigations they can't just leave it to the

00:35:42.640 public and everything but they they also aren't very you know communicative when when something

00:35:48.000 happens or things like that and that fosters mistrust or at least animosity between the rcmp

00:35:52.720 and media quite often yeah i mean that is so typical though of any government agency we happen

00:35:58.640 to be talking about the rcmp and they certainly supply us with examples but you know the the

00:36:06.160 agencies that try and get information out of public health canada you know they will give it

00:36:11.440 to you eventually when it's no longer relevant try and get a call back from statistics canada

00:36:16.880 you know it's it it's difficult and i think the reason is that whenever whenever an agency

00:36:24.720 has a reporter asking they think what are they going to do with this like what's the story going

00:36:30.240 to be is this going to be a pr problem for us so there is a an incentive to be minimal with

00:36:37.440 information what the public doesn't know the public can't ask questions about so when we get

00:36:43.440 into the high level or sensitive areas of law enforcement or things of misdeeds. Who is the

00:36:53.040 body though that has to take care of this or how can I'm thinking more with the allegations of

00:36:59.840 Chinese Communist Party interference on a number of levels or even intimidation of members of

00:37:04.560 parliament, you know, inserting themselves into nominations by election. Some of them may

00:37:11.920 potentially have a criminal element. I mean, if you're threatening or intimidating a member

00:37:15.840 of parliament, that that could have criminal sanction. But at what point does a law enforcement

00:37:23.120 agency get involved in that or, you know, it seems CSIS is being sidelined. So who does?

00:37:31.760 Well, certainly not a retired governor general with close ties to the, you know,

00:37:38.160 it's a very good question that you ask such is the distrust for institutions in canada at the moment

00:37:47.680 that it is very hard to identify a person or an office an institution you say well look

00:37:55.600 put it in their hands and we know it'll be done right

00:38:00.800 you might say well why don't we take a retired supreme court judge again you have to know 0.66

00:38:06.240 So what are their ties? What are their backgrounds? The short house, of course, is I really don't know where you would go to find a person who everybody would trust.

00:38:21.200 Well, and trust is sort of essential if we're going to try and dig into something as entrenched

00:38:28.200 as possible, electoral interference or intimidation of our elected officials.

00:38:34.200 But we're kind of hitting the end of the road with this.

00:38:36.200 I mean, where are we going anyways?

00:38:38.200 Are we going to get another special rapporteur, whatever the heck that is, anyways?

00:38:42.200 Even if we do, would that person be able to do anything?

00:38:45.200 Well, a special rapporteur as conceived by the Prime Minister, no.

00:38:50.200 But what Johnson could not do and what Johnson needed to be able to do if he was ever going to succeed in that task was to subpoena witnesses and require testimony under oath.

00:39:03.220 So I have to hope that in 40 million Canadians,

00:39:07.200 there is one person, maybe a few to choose from,

00:39:11.020 who, if put in the position of saying get to the bottom of this,

00:39:14.360 you have the powers you need, go to it,

00:39:18.360 that would actually get that done.

00:39:20.960 I said just now I don't know who that would be.

00:39:24.380 I don't have a list in my pocket.

00:39:26.800 But surely to goodness there must be maybe a former CSIS director

00:39:31.680 are now living in comfortable retirement

00:39:33.800 like George Smiley, who can go and be grabbed

00:39:36.400 and brought to center stage again?

00:39:39.720 Well, there should be a large amount of, you know,

00:39:41.120 retired justices or people.

00:39:42.760 I mean, it doesn't even have to be at a top-level individual.

00:39:45.220 They've had some well-qualified history.

00:39:48.360 And, I mean, it...

00:39:50.820 Somebody who's not too worried about their reputation.

00:39:54.920 Someone who could stand up there and take a beating

00:39:56.960 and not really care.

00:39:58.960 They'll take the beating, I guess, of it in the way in.

00:40:04.080 But, I mean, it's still nothing compared to, say, if you want to sit for an American Supreme Court spot.

00:40:08.600 Why is his name eluding me?

00:40:09.720 The man who they just crucified a couple of years ago.

00:40:13.940 Robert Bork.

00:40:15.180 Kavanaugh.

00:40:16.380 Kavanaugh.

00:40:16.820 There's another one.

00:40:17.840 Actually, there's a list, isn't there?

00:40:18.960 And, boy, I mean, who would want to apply for that job when you have to run that horrific conflict?

00:40:24.400 And, you know, somebody investigating this shouldn't, but now that the precedent's been set with the last one,

00:40:30.740 it's just so compromised in appearance anyways.

00:40:34.960 Well, his problem was he was appointed by the prime minister.

00:40:37.640 I mean, there would be some hope if you get parliament itself to report, to appoint the person and have that person reporting to parliament.

00:40:48.900 Well, let's say if you had an all party committee, I mean, it's not the first, all party committees exist, they've been around.

00:40:54.140 And if they do, you know, with a lot of fighting and burning the midnight oil and putting names forward and back, forward and back, if they do settle on somebody, I mean, it reduces the chances that any of those parties are going to suddenly come against this person because they voted yay when the time came to bring them in.

00:41:11.020 Well, they get the opportunity to pick that.

00:41:13.660 No indication at the moment.

00:41:16.740 And we still have Mr. Johnston in that role for another nine days, I think, though what he's doing.

00:41:24.140 don't know at this point to strange state of affairs we are in so yes I mean

00:41:39.200 it's it's I guess it's bringing back to just the main question people ask is

00:41:44.660 Canada broken you know a big wide open question but we've got some very very

00:41:50.360 serious things that keep happening and we just can't seem to get resolution we we can't clear

00:41:57.480 these up we can't stop them it's is the system flawed inherently you don't i don't think the

00:42:06.600 system is inherently flawed but i do think that the system was designed when there were higher

00:42:16.440 expectations not merely of people in office but of people generally

00:42:25.160 uh we referred earlier to how you never hear of anybody residing on a point of principle

00:42:33.320 anymore or when caught in some flagrant misdeed saying all right well that's i i can no longer

00:42:41.320 continue in my office and we criticize the politicians for that but then look at the society

00:42:49.560 in from whom we are drawing from from which we are drawing our elected representatives how ethical

00:42:59.080 are canadians generally do people cheat on their taxes do people lie on their resumes do people

00:43:10.200 People keep their word in simple transactions.

00:43:15.040 Is a handshake deal still a deal in Calgary and the oil patch?

00:43:20.380 I'd like to think it is. I don't know.

00:43:23.560 But I think there's been a general decline in the moral standards.

00:43:29.620 What people think is the right thing to do.

00:43:32.860 And so you are going to have politicians working the system with those ideas in mind, and it's not always going to look good.

00:43:43.840 That's even more depressing than thinking that the system is broken because the system can be fixed with legislative tinkering or even rewriting.

00:43:51.580 But if you've got an ingrained cynicism among the populace that ensures that you don't bring people with an honorable mindset into the profession of politics or senior bureaucratic roles, that's a lot harder to fix than that.

00:44:07.780 Well, it is.

00:44:09.740 But it doesn't mean that it can't be fixed.

00:44:12.160 No.

00:44:12.320 Can't give up.

00:44:12.900 We could go back into the schools and start teaching young people a sense of honor

00:44:19.560 rather than a sense of entitlement.

00:44:22.620 We could talk about success instead of victimization.

00:44:28.100 We could get rid of the participation trophy and reward merit.

00:44:34.260 We could build a culture based on a different set of values.

00:44:39.700 The place to start is in the schools.

00:44:42.200 Yeah, and boy, that's a topic for an entirely different show and a huge one.

00:44:46.320 But that's absolutely right.

00:44:47.680 Like I said, I want to end on a note anyways of hopelessness because that's how I kind of felt at the end there.

00:44:51.800 No, actually, it could be done, but you would have to want to do it.

00:44:55.140 Yes.

00:44:55.700 And political forces don't always want those things to happen.

00:44:58.920 If we work hard enough, we can make them do things they don't want to do, whether they like it or not.

00:45:03.500 Sometimes.

00:45:04.380 All right, we'll stay on their case.

00:45:06.380 That's our job.

00:45:07.760 And try to keep them as honest as we can, I guess.

00:45:10.120 Well, that's about as much as we can do in this role.

00:45:14.520 All right. Well, that's all the time we have for today, guys.

00:45:18.120 So thank you very much for joining today, Sean.

00:45:22.440 And as always, Nigel.

00:45:24.400 And to all the rest of you out there, I appreciate the viewership.

00:45:28.940 We've almost solved a couple of the world's problems today,

00:45:31.980 and we'll be back again next week to solve the rest of them.

00:45:35.500 Here's an update on commodity prices in Lethbridge for today.

00:45:41.320 Cash barley is up $3 at $4.23, feed wheat increased $2 at $4.21, and corn moved higher

00:45:48.060 $5 at $4.24 per metric ton.

00:45:51.260 In the milling wheat markets, July Minneapolis futures jumped 19.75 cents to $8.68.75, with

00:45:57.660 local hard red spring bid for July movement at $10.75 per bushel.

00:46:02.300 Looking at canola, nearby futures are lower a dollar at $7.44.50 per tonne, with delivered

00:46:07.620 values for June movement at $17.10 per bushel.

00:46:11.540 And in the pulse markets, nearby red lentil prices are holding at $0.33.5 per pound, and

00:46:15.820 yellow peas are trading at $1.125 per bushel.

00:46:19.320 In the cattle markets, August live cattle slip $0.12.5 to $1.77 per hundredweight.

00:46:25.540 For more information on pricing, give me a call at 403-394-1711.

00:46:31.400 I'm Matt Musicum at Marketplace Commodities, accurate real-time marketing information and pricing options.

00:46:37.300 Canadian Shooting Sports Association, without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken long, long ago.

00:46:43.640 These guys are on the front lines, helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and legislation in Canada.

00:46:51.620 And more importantly, educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people.

00:46:56.820 To become a member, it's absolutely worth every penny.

00:47:01.400 You can become a Western Standard member for just $10 a month or $99 a month.

Western Standard - June 22, 2023

The Pipeline： Smith, Trudeau clash on Just Transition

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