Western Standard - WS EXCLUSIVE： Cory Morgan sits down with Alberta Environment Minister Nixon

00:00:00.000 Federal Environment Minister Stephen Gilboll is doing a cross-country tour right now.

00:00:05.700 He's doing his due diligence. He's consulting with apparently Indigenous leaders,

00:00:11.280 mayors of major cities. He sat down with Jody Gondek today in Calgary,

00:00:16.560 and he's speaking with environment ministers in different provinces.

00:00:20.040 So this afternoon, Gilboll sat down with Alberta Environment Minister Jason Nixon.

00:00:25.920 You know, it's good to see Gilboll doing the groundwork, getting out there,

00:00:29.980 talking to people about his environmental policy, which now has been deferred by three more months.

00:00:33.800 So it's going to come out at the end of March. But it does make one worry a little bit.

00:00:37.780 How big and intrusive is Gilboll's policy going to be?

00:00:41.940 I mean, he didn't consult anybody when he tried to push ahead with C-10,

00:00:46.060 which was going to basically choke free speech on the Internet.

00:00:49.800 And the Liberals aren't done with that yet either.

00:00:51.280 So when he's going to this much trouble, laying groundwork for a policy that's coming,

00:00:55.520 I think we all have to be nervous.

00:00:57.540 I had an exclusive one-on-one conversation with Environment Minister Jason Nixon

00:01:02.520 about his discussion with his federal counterpart in environment

00:01:07.340 and how Minister Nixon plans to try and at least stand up for responsible development

00:01:12.860 of Alberta resources while still protecting our environment

00:01:16.500 in the face of a hostile federal government that's always saying we aren't doing enough.

00:01:22.060 Good to see you again, Minister Nixon.

00:01:23.960 Thank you very much for sitting down with us today.

00:01:27.080 We're going into, I think you're going to be more prominent than ever, I suspect,

00:01:31.800 going into 2022 with such grand climate plans coming in.

00:01:36.120 So I'm looking forward to the opportunity to talk a little bit about that.

00:01:39.700 Well, thanks, first of all, for having me on, Corey.

00:01:41.240 It's good to see you again as well.

00:01:42.900 And I want to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday season,

00:01:46.960 now that we're here in that season.

00:01:49.120 It's very festive here today.

00:01:50.220 Yes, but you're correct.

00:01:51.540 I think there's a lot taking place on the climate side of politics, I guess,

00:01:57.560 that's going to have a real impact on our province and our country in the months to come.

00:02:01.560 And unfortunately, I think some of it is very troubling for our province.

00:02:07.660 But I also think we're going to see some opportunities where Alberta is going to be able to thrive in some of the circumstances that we find ourselves in,

00:02:15.340 particularly if we can continue to push towards what we actually see work when it comes to meet our environmental obligations in our province,

00:02:23.780 which is focusing on innovation, technology, empowering our great industries,

00:02:29.040 including the energy industry, which has accomplished so much by using those tools.

00:02:32.640 I mean, if you look at what's taken place over the last several decades, go back to when Ralph Klein was Environment Minister in our province.

00:02:40.560 And he did some amazing things actually to protect the environment that he doesn't get a lot of credit for,

00:02:45.340 because, of course, he would go on to be the premier and accomplish so much financially.

00:02:49.720 But that is the way that he took to manage the environmental obligations that he knew was coming,

00:02:55.720 and that was to focus on working with our industries and recognize that Albertans are the best at figuring out their ways out of technical problems.

00:03:02.820 And our focus is on doing that, not what the federal government is doing,

00:03:07.740 which is essentially trying to shut down the largest industry, not only in this province, Corey, but in this country.

00:03:12.920 And we're not going to allow that to happen here in Alberta.

00:03:15.520 Well, and getting to that.

00:03:16.680 So you met with Minister Gilboa today, and he's touring the country.

00:03:21.160 Perhaps it's a good sign that he's meeting with ministers.

00:03:23.340 He's doing his diligence.

00:03:24.480 They've put off their environmental plan until the end of March now,

00:03:28.000 but it gives me a feeling that they're really looking to go big.

00:03:31.440 I mean, something is coming down the pipes, and unfortunately, you know, we all do want to protect the environment,

00:03:37.980 but the liberal vision of it federally may be quite different than our provincial vision.

00:03:42.960 How did your meeting go, and how do you feel about where we might be going forward?

00:03:47.220 First of all, I'll give the federal minister credit for being here.

00:03:49.960 One of the things that we've seen the last couple of months is the federal government

00:03:53.260 focusing on spending their time in Europe and talking to European elites, which I found very disappointing.

00:04:00.120 You know, coming here is where they should be, and we can give them an opportunity to actually see the great things that are taking place in Alberta,

00:04:06.260 but also understand the positive impact of the oil and gas industry and our other industries.

00:04:11.260 You know, I was clear with the federal minister when I met with him by phone a couple of weeks ago

00:04:15.840 and invited him to come to Alberta that we will accept no plan that does not have a future for our largest industry.

00:04:22.440 We're clear with him again on that today.

00:04:24.800 You know, we are clear that the consultation has been inadequate to date,

00:04:28.600 and I am happy to see the commitment to extend that to give us some more opportunity to have conversations.

00:04:34.220 But today we made clear to him that the only way forward is where there's a way forward for the oil and gas industry,

00:04:39.880 and he needs to understand that.

00:04:41.600 And he needs to take some time to understand the impact on the Canadian economy of some of the policies that they're looking at.

00:04:49.280 So, you know, hopefully he gets an opportunity to learn some of that while he's here.

00:04:52.760 We'll continue to deliver the message.

00:04:54.400 My other message to him, though, was that we're concerned that they continue to only focus on one environmental issue.

00:05:00.400 In Alberta, we're proud of the beautiful landscapes that we call home.

00:05:03.280 We have some of the most amazing wildlife on the planet, our waterways, things that matter to us as Albertans.

00:05:09.360 And it's sad to see that we've continued to have federal environment ministers that only want to talk about one issue,

00:05:14.400 emissions management, and have no interest in even meeting their own environmental obligations.

00:05:18.460 And so I called the federal minister out on several issues that I think the feds have been messing up on the environment side,

00:05:25.060 on species management, the mismanagement of things inside their national park,

00:05:29.040 and made clear to them that if they want to go around and try to tell everybody how to manage the environment,

00:05:34.740 they better make sure they're managing their environment appropriately.

00:05:37.020 So it was an interesting conversation, but I think we have a long way to go between the province and the federal government.

00:05:43.280 Yeah, well, and you're caught in a position in the middle between two levels of government.

00:05:46.760 We have the newly elected mayor, Jody Gondek, who has made the climate emergency a top priority in coming in as mayor.

00:05:53.040 Though what that means is a municipal government is still to be determined, I guess you could say, but that's a high priority.

00:05:58.780 Have you been in communication with Mayor Gondek and trying to figure out where governments could work together on things

00:06:04.760 and find a level rather than chilling investment in the city?

00:06:07.780 So I haven't had a chance to speak to the mayor myself yet, though we are working on hopefully arranging a meeting soon.

00:06:12.940 My staff have been in contact with the mayor's staff.

00:06:16.360 You know, what I really would tell the city of Calgary and all Albertans and the federal government

00:06:21.160 is what we've already done here as a province over the last several decades when it comes to emission management following our process.

00:06:28.060 We are the only jurisdiction in the country that's ever met a target when it comes to emissions management.

00:06:32.240 The federal government sets a new target every week when they haven't even met the last one.

00:06:35.380 And the reason that we're the only jurisdiction that's done that is because we focused on innovation, technology,

00:06:40.780 empowering our industry players, some of the smartest engineers and people on the planet

00:06:44.620 to be able to find positive ways forward that create jobs, not cost jobs, and that meet environmental obligations.

00:06:51.820 So it's a win-win.

00:06:53.120 And I really hope for any politician that they'll take the time to understand that

00:06:57.320 because that's the model that we should be following if we want to have success.

00:07:00.940 And directly to the mayor, I will say this when I meet with her,

00:07:04.120 I hope she takes some time to actually go and understand what the largest industry in our province,

00:07:09.020 which is the largest industry inside the city she's responsible for, 0.97

00:07:12.000 is doing when it comes to managing the environment because it's pretty impressive.

00:07:16.980 And we should always remember that that's the industry that's paying the bills for this province.

00:07:21.060 And hopefully she takes the time to do that. 0.81

00:07:22.620 But we'll have some dialogue with Calgary to try to educate them on some of the good things that's happening in Alberta.

00:07:27.400 Yeah, well, that keeps coming to that theme.

00:07:29.380 I mean, and I know from being in the petrochemical industry,

00:07:31.940 I mean, the advancements in hydrocarbon companies with carbon capture

00:07:37.160 or even turning carbon into products.

00:07:39.840 I was speaking with Colin Craig the other day, and they've made a vodka out of captured carbon.

00:07:44.460 I mean, the industry's doing the work, but the problem is the government keeps moving the goalposts.

00:07:49.160 I mean, we reached the targets, and then the target moves.

00:07:52.900 How can we, I mean, what can we do to push back if Ottawa moves the targets on us again?

00:07:57.800 That's the hard part.

00:07:58.600 We can talk, like we won't accept it, but what will we do then if it happens?

00:08:02.700 There are a few things that we can do.

00:08:04.360 I mean, it's challenging because we lost the carbon tax case to the Supreme Court.

00:08:09.280 With that said, we're currently going through the court process when it comes to Bill C-69,

00:08:13.940 which we've called the No More Pipelines Bill, which is essentially the assessment process

00:08:18.940 that the federal government has tried to put on projects inside our province.

00:08:22.760 We think we have an excellent chance of actually being successful in that litigation.

00:08:27.120 Our assessments always showed that we had better chances, frankly, on that,

00:08:30.780 than we did on the carbon tax, so we need to fight both.

00:08:33.500 If we can get the federal government out of the assessment process on our projects,

00:08:36.880 that will create some space, so that's very, very important.

00:08:39.940 Second, we need to continue to do the investment that we have put into our own regulatory system.

00:08:46.880 Right now, the federal government does not regulate our largest industry inside the province.

00:08:51.200 We do the large emitter side of things, and we do that because it's protecting our trade-exposed industry,

00:08:56.540 and it's making a path forward to actually have better environmental results

00:09:00.020 while creating tens of thousands of jobs compared to the federal system,

00:09:03.840 which basically costs us tens of thousands of jobs.

00:09:06.020 And so we need to continue to be focused on basically doing everything we can to keep the feds out of our regulatory process.

00:09:11.080 We will. That's my job as the minister in charge of that.

00:09:14.400 And then at the end of the day, I think that what exactly the province will do if it comes to it,

00:09:21.620 I can't speak to. I mean, we need all of government and, of course, the premier to speak to.

00:09:25.400 But what I can tell you, and we've been clear with this on the federal government,

00:09:28.040 if they do not stop and make sure whatever they're doing has a path forward for all of our industries,

00:09:34.420 including oil and gas, there will be consequences for that.

00:09:37.680 But at this point, we're happy to see that they've extended consultation,

00:09:41.220 and we're going to see if we can get in there and get a path forward through the regulatory process,

00:09:46.140 and we'll go from there.

00:09:47.420 Okay. Maybe just to review back, it looks like we're still going to be a lot of people vacationing at home.

00:09:52.020 It's going to be another – the pandemic drags on, and there's not much to be done for it.

00:09:55.800 But it put a lot – that was an area that really landed in your lap, put a lot of pressure in the parks.

00:09:59.540 I mean, it was great that Albertans were rediscovering, you know, how many fantastic areas we have to go out and use,

00:10:04.980 but it turned into having to put a tax or a fee on access to Kananaskis and things like that,

00:10:10.880 and it's been a difficult area to juggle.

00:10:13.320 With parks management going into this year, what plans are there coming in ahead,

00:10:18.140 and how have the past plans with the new management of parks been going?

00:10:21.260 Well, there's some exciting stuff happening on the recreation of the park side.

00:10:24.480 We've been able to stabilize the financial situation with the Kananaskis Conservation Pass.

00:10:28.700 We had no choice. I mean, you've got 5.4 million people going to Kananaskis,

00:10:32.480 a million more than Banff, which, of course, had the fees since the beginning.

00:10:36.580 And you're seeing now, and you will see more investment in the coming months

00:10:40.900 to be able to make sure we can stabilize our largest provincial park.

00:10:44.120 But we're making investments all across the park system.

00:10:47.180 More investment than B.C., Saskatchewan, and Manitoba combined, I believe,

00:10:52.160 here inside the province of Alberta on the recreation side.

00:10:55.820 We've also just, right now inside the legislature, finishing up the Trails Act,

00:10:59.620 which was a way to be able to help work with our nonprofit organizations

00:11:03.320 who are out building trails for everything from off-highway vehicles,

00:11:07.600 cross-country skiing, hiking inside our public areas inside the province.

00:11:12.780 That's a sharp contrast to what the NDP tried to do.

00:11:15.280 Their approach is actually just to shut access to all those trails.

00:11:18.160 We, instead of creating legislation where we can support the conservation organizations

00:11:21.800 who are building them.

00:11:23.680 So we've got a bunch of stuff like that coming primarily on the investment side.

00:11:27.560 20 new conservation officers, I should say.

00:11:29.440 One of the biggest things that we've seen in years was a shortage of enforcement

00:11:32.800 inside those special areas.

00:11:34.740 So that's the first investment in probably decades inside conservation officers

00:11:39.160 inside our special areas.

00:11:40.800 So I think you'll continue to see a lot of positive investment,

00:11:44.260 and you're certainly going to continue to see a lot of people use our backyard.

00:11:48.120 Alberta's got one of the most beautiful backyards in the world.

00:11:50.620 Yeah, well, we've got a lot of interesting things to look forward to going into 2022.

00:11:54.440 So thank you very much for joining me today.

00:11:56.080 Is there anything else you'd like to add before I let you get on with your afternoon?

00:11:59.040 No, other than thank you for having me on.

00:12:00.580 Again, wish you the best this holiday season.

00:12:02.760 Great. Thanks, Chase.

00:12:03.540 Thanks, Corey.

00:12:10.800 Talkando.

00:12:11.620 Bye.

00:12:14.500 Bye.

00:12:16.240 Bye.

00:12:17.120 Bye.

00:12:17.540 Bye.

00:12:18.120 Bye.

00:12:18.640 Bye.

Western Standard - December 04, 2021

WS EXCLUSIVE： Cory Morgan sits down with Alberta Environment Minister Nixon

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