Shaun Newman Podcast - #735 - Tim McMillan

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

He was a Saskatchewan MLA from 2007-2014, former President/CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and co-founded Garrison Strategy. We discuss the Oil & Gas industry in Canada, whether there is a case for Canadian oil worldwide, how a change in government will impact the energy sector and energy corridors. Cornerstone Forum ‘25 https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone25/ Clothing Link: ⁠⁠⁠https://snp-8.creator-spring.com/listing/the-mashup-collection⁠⁠ Text Shaun 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast E-transfer here: [e-mail] Silver Gold Bull Links: Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/ Email: [e-mail] Text Grahame: [phone]

This is Chris Sims. This is Tom Romago. This is Chuck Prodnick. This is Alex Kraner. This is Daniel Smith. And welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Tuesday.

How's everybody doing today? Before we get on to a few items in regards to, well, I don't know, everything, SMP. How about we start here? Precious metals can be thought of as the ultimate insurance policy against economic uncertainty and government incompetence with deficit spending and fiscal irresponsibly. You're responsible. Man, welcome to Tuesday, folks. Unlikely to end anytime soon.

Now is the time to protect a portion of your hard-earned savings with a form of money that has been recognized for thousands of years. This is going to be the worst ad read ever. Oh, my goodness. Silver Gold Bowl. Yes, of course I'm talking silver and gold. They are my go-to for precious metals with their complete in-house solutions, whether buying, selling, storing, or adding precious metals to your retirement accounts.

They have a new feature exclusively for you, the SMP listener. That's the Royal Canadian Mint Silver Coins. that for the same price as a generic silver round, dear me, am I going to screw this entire thing up? It feels like it. Text her email, Graham, for all the details. Down in the show notes, Sean's tongue ain't working worth a hoot today,

so I'm already apologizing to Chris McGowan, who is running for Division 7, Northwest School Division trustee position. She says she's running because she believes in the potential of every child and the power of education to shape their future. She's committed to ensuring that our schools provide the best possible, and opportunities for all students while also promoting fiscal responsibility and collaboration

among educators, parents, and the community. The three key issues she wants to see addressed in the election, parental rights and inclusive education policies, funding and resource allocation and curriculum changes and monitoring of new testing policies adopted. So best of luck to Christa McGowan. If you're in the Northwest School Division, make sure to throw her some consideration. That's Chris McGowan of McGowan Chartered Accountants. RecTech Power Products for over 20 plus years they've been committed to excellence in the power sports industry. They have Alberta built aluminum trailers from Lethbridge, utility trailers, dump trailers, goose necks. The aluminum gives you the lighter pull with all the ability to haul large payloads.

They're strong. That's right. And there are Alberta built sitting at the west side of Lloyd here. If you haven't been to the west side of Lloyd to stop into RecTech, you really should go see their showroom. room. You got a few good days left, I hope, before the snow starts to fly. And you could stop in, maybe test something out, go see Ryan, talk about demoing a couple of the things. I've got to hop on a couple different things. A Riker, that was a lot of fun. And then the ego, uh, ego dirt bike. They got lawnmores and golf carts and side by sides. They got everything. Their boats and

C-DU, like it just goes on and on and on. RectPower Products.com. They're open Monday through Saturday. In Nike distribution at a way in Wright, Alberta. They can supply industrial safety welding and automotive parts. They got on-site inventory management. So when you're, you know, tour around on the Riker or whatever your purchase from Rectec is, you can

ensure, be assured that Shane Stafford and team will make sure you don't run out of what it is that makes your business hum-along. Give them a call. 780842-34-33. Substack. It's free to subscribe to this every Sunday right now we've got the week

in review that's free to everybody there is a paid portion at the end which gives you a preview of what's coming up this week but you know with rattling off five a week I get it I get it I get it but if you want to hear the late break and news that's where to go

we announced Kaelin Ford's the newest speaker for the Cornerstone Forum that's where you heard it first so if you're wanting to be up to date on everything SNP substack it's free to subscribe to folks If you want to become a paid subscriber, appreciate it. And there's going to be some things that we do.

We did our first guest edition. We had Matt Erritt, right. We got another one coming up this Wednesday. Lisa Myron, the lawyer, Lisa Myron is going to be writing one in for us. And so that's going to be partially for paid subscribers. So if you're interested in things like that, there's a few things we're doing value ad that we hope you'll like. And certainly there. Friday, November 29th, S&P Christmas Party bringing in the dueling pianos to the

to the Cornerstone, to the Gold Horse Casino here in Lloyd Minster. I got four tables left, and only about a week, maybe 10 days left to squeak in if there's a business out there that wants to have a table for the dueling pianos. And after that, we're going to have to cut off ticket sales. So if that is you, make sure to shoot me a text down the show notes. Would love to have you there. Cornerstone Forum, 2025 heading to Calgary at the Winsport, May. 10th. We've got an excellent lineup. We're continuing to announce. We just announced this week. Kalyn Ford's going to be there. We got Tom Luongo, Alex Kraner, Chuck Pradnik. We got guest host,

Chris Sims, and Tom Bodrovics. So that is going to be an exciting day, May 10th in Calgary. You can get your early bird tickets. Down in the show notes, there's a link, but you can get your early bird tickets right now. They're not going to get any cheaper. And this is all made possible by two companies stepping up to take it to Calgary. That's Silver Gold Bull and Bow Valley Credit Union. And so my hats off to both those companies for Twisting My Arm a little bit, to take it to Calgary. So that's going to be a lot of fun, May 10th, 2025, and expect more updates and pay attention to Substack.

That's where we're going to announce first. That's where you can find out everything and get caught up on everything, S&P. All right, let's get on to that tale of the tape. He spent seven years as a Saskatchewan MLA. He's the former president in C.E. of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, and he's co-founded Garrison Strategy. I'm talking about Tim McMillan, so buckle up.

Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Tim McMillan. So Tim, thank you, sir, for hopping on. No, glad to. You know, if people want to go back, it is a long freaking time ago, but I did an archive interview,

so the city of Lloyd Minster did, hired me to do a series of archive interviews for the Lloyd Minster Archive. And you were one of them. So if people want to go back and hear your life story and a bit to the ins and outs, we did that. I think I did that recording off the back of my deck because it was at the very start of COVID when nobody was allowed to go anywhere.

So that would be, I don't even know if I want to go back and listen to it myself. That's such a strange time to go back to. But you can. For the person who doesn't know who Tim is, maybe briefly just give us a little quick history of who we are. Sure. I grew up on a farm just north of Lashburn. Family is still there. I got elected to the Saskatchewan legislature in 2007,

was part of Brad Walls government, served as the Minister of Energy, served in a couple other portfolios, then went to Calgary and worked for the oil and gas industry for about eight years as the president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum producers. And now I'm consulting, doing mainly oil and gas, and resource development work and maybe a specialty on government relations and advocacy

and engaging with Canadians. Well, this will be weird because we're recording this just before the Saskatchewan live election coverage where Brad Wall is supposed to be joining us. So I was going to say you could say something, but it will actually air about 12 hours after. So that's backwards. What was serving under Brad Wall Lake? It was awesome.

It was a time where I think Saskatchew, had been kind of getting a lot of confidence that for a long time, we were told that Saskatchewan can't be prosperous, that our young people are always going to leave. And Brad came along and said, that's not true. We have everything here to be one of the strongest provinces in Confederation. And when we formed government in 07, the energy sector was looking to invest in Saskatchewan, uranium, potash. It was a time where I think Saskatchewan really changed the way it sought self. And the constituents of Lloyd Minster were extremely supportive of this type of Saskatchewan, which was very entrepreneurial and confident. And it was a great experience to be part of that.

Well, you talk about seeing Saskatchewan, seeing themselves differently. You know, when you have, I want to start here because it was Trudeau's words, right? that there's no, what did he say? There's no case for Canadian natural gas, Canadian oil, right? Like that. And when you hear that, right, there's going to be how many millions of Canadians that go, oh, yeah, he's right, right? And then there's how many millions that are going, what is this idiot doing?

And I say, you know, I can say some choice words about it. But folks, I mean, I think there's a lot of us sitting in Western Canada. What is this guy doing? You got to see a Saskatchewan, I'm assuming, that maybe, undervalued what it had to offer. And then under that time started to expand into so many different things. Even, you know, where I sit, seeing the oil and gas industry around Lloyd Minster, like boom on the Saskatchewan side was something. When you hear a premier, a prime prime minister, I should say, prime minister Trudeau for a few more years, for a few more months, when you hear him say that,

you know, sitting where you sit, what, uh, what is the case to be made for Canadian oil and gas? You know, it's tough to hear him say that. Having worked on behalf of the oil and gas industry for eight years, where it seemed like at every turn, he and his government went out of their way to make it more difficult to invest in Canadian oil and gas. They canceled Northern Gateway. They canceled Energy East. They did no favors to the LNG industry. We saw, I think, 16 major LNG facilities that were trying to get through the regulatory process to throw their hands up.

there and quit. Then we have Russia invade Ukraine. We have the German chancellor over here begging for Canada to be a good partner and friend and get LNG over there so that they can keep the lights on. And our prime minister says, no, there's no business case for it. Well, there most certainly is a business case for it as hard as he has tried over the last several years to make it too difficult to get through the regulatory process. I think that our customers are asking for it. We have the resources to be a good partner and friend to democracies around the world. And what it'll take is some infrastructure, building the pipelines, building the LNG facilities. But we've got hundreds and hundreds of years of natural gas to supply the world.

When would you say then it is a problem with just leadership so do you think it's just Trudeau that is the issue or do you think there's a portion of the population right because like climate change and shutting down fossil fuels and all these different terms that are used to surround oil and gas what is the biggest you know roadblock between because like I mean if you just go from you know it's almost I can't do the dance in that Germany's a NATO country. They're supposed to be dealing with it. This isn't some country.

This isn't, I don't know, take your pick, folks. Is somebody on the other side? This isn't China. We could say, you know, we could get into while China is, is an enemy or whatever you want to call it. But like Germany is a NATO country. They come asking and instead of us being, oh yeah, absolutely, we're going to do it. We don't do that. So is that just an issue with leadership?

Or is that a problem around the, maybe a larger problem, if you would, around the population and trying to like, you know, unravel this, I don't know, this mess we have. I think it's bull. And I should say it wasn't just Germany. South Korea's prime minister came over asking, we need Canadian gas. We had Japan's president come over and say, Canada, would you build infrastructure? We need Canadian gas. So there has been calls from many of our allies around the world for this.

So where does it come from? You know, we saw back in the 90s, the forestry sector was under attack and there were global environmental activists and the Pew Foundation and US Foundation's funding anti-Canadian development in our forests. We then saw them shift to oil and gas in the mid early 2000s,

the Tar Sands campaign maybe being the most well funded. But there are these international groups extremely well-funded, that are, I would argue, anti-capitalist more than they are anti-oil and gas, but oil and gas is the root of modern society. And they've been very effective at pushing politicians to limit the infrastructure to enable the way we live. And as damaging as it has been, and Germany is a great example. They are a country where their activists pushed their politicians to depend on wind and solar to such an extent that the reality was. that they were shutting down their fossil fuel system, relying on Russia to be their main supply.

And then they told their citizens, look, we're building windmills and solar panels that don't work at, don't work 72% of the time. And that's where they got into trouble. Canada, fortunately, has such a great resource base that we aren't in that sort of vulnerability. But it's the same activists that are pushing the current government, who I would say was looking to get pushed. If you look at the current environment minister, he had a career as the leader of Equater, a environmental activist group. He got arrested for some of the stunts he was doing. The prime minister's principal secretary, Jerry Butz, was the president of World Wildlife Fund.

So the activists were very integrated into the liberal party, and it really has driven a lot of what they've done over the last decade. So how much, you know, like I think about this, I'm like, huh. Okay, we're in this really interesting time right now. I'm going to start. I'm going to start with a little, yeah, I'm going to go, I'm going to go, I'm going to go a little further out, and then I'm going to come back in. How important is Trump versus Kamala then for Canadian oil, specifically?

If you look at Donald Trump gets in or Kamala Harris gets in, does either one, you know, you go, well, this could be good or bad. So actually, can I go back just for one second and in terms of your question? I think over the last decade and maybe even a little bit earlier, we saw the activist groups that were pushing to get off of oil and gas be very successful globally. In Germany, they made a bunch of really dumb decisions that made them vulnerable. It drove up costs. We saw that around the world. Canada maybe was uniquely enamored by this activist class.

And we made some pretty dumb decisions for sure. But in the last five years, the pushback by everyday Canadians, the ones that actually are paying double and triple for electricity or for gasoline, or are seeing blackouts because they shut down the gas coming out of Russia, the average citizens are pushing back. And we are seeing pro-energy right-of-center governments being elected through Europe, where you never would have expected them. You see farmers that are the same.

Activists are pushing against agriculture or shutting down the economy, shutting down roads, saying you will not take away our tools like nitrogen fertilizer. So I see that happening in Canada, that people are no longer willing to accept this, this glorious future that's cost free and risk free because they are currently paying the costs and seeing the risks. And now to into the Kamala Trump phenomenon, I think the same thing that's happening in Europe, the same thing that we see in the polling in Canada is happening in the U.S. that U.S. citizens are no longer willing to accept this hope and change. We don't need to worry about something as simple as energy or electricity because this brave future is going to rescue us all from ourselves. I think that is pushing both of them, that Kamala was very anti-energy for most of her career.

And in the last six months, she has found a new love for hydraulic, rapturing and at least she says she is because the public is is making that a priority. So we have seen, you know, on their face, Donald Trump was very pro-energy. He approved Keystone. He wanted to get it done. Kamala as VP and her president Biden canceled Keystone on their first day. So there's two camps and one is very much off of the current energy paradigm to something that's risky and expensive and and Donald Trump, which has traditionally been very, you know,

it grassrootsy on these issues. I think coming out of the election, those two trends probably continue regardless of what's been said on on the campaign trail that the base that is behind the Democratic Party is very much the same base that pushed the Liberal Party in Canada to to really try and throttle back the energy sector. I don't see that changing under Biden and Harris's VP. They put moratoriums on drilling on federal lands. You know, there's a long list of things they did. I don't see that getting reversed.

There's an argument to be said that, you know, if Trump gets in, he would make it more efficient for investment in the U.S. energy sector, which may pull some of the capital out of Canada. I think, and that may be true. I think net net, though, Canada has great resources. They're very economic. Even if the U.S. has a more efficient system, they are our largest customer.

It's where the bulk of our gas, the bulk of our oil goes to, that having a pro-energy government in the U.S. is always going to be good for us. And it may look like some Canadian gas being exported through U.S. LNG terminals because we can't build ours fast enough. enough, but having a good relationship with a pro-energy government is going to serve our interests. Yeah, if Trump gets in, one of the interesting things we were talking about this the other day is he's very pro-United States. So although he might say nice things about Canada, he's not Canadian, right? So like you might like Canadian oil and gas, but he is pro-United States. So would you see, you know, if you're sitting in the oil world, if he gets elected, is there any chance, you know, Keystone, is there any way that gets brought back up? Or do you see maybe something different where if they're going to, you know, because he's huge on bringing everything back to the United States.

Is there a way that there actually could be some hurt if Donald Trump? I hate to even say that, but like, is there any way some hurt could come to Canadian oil producers if Donald Trump gets in? Because he's going to be so pro oil and gas. but his oil and gas. Yeah. Yeah. No, and I think that that is an important thing to think through. In general, though, I think big picture, something like Keystone enables U.S. refineries to have redundancy

and probably the most efficient feedstock for most U.S. refineries is Canadian bitumen. They were built to do heavy oil, either out of Mexico's heavy. basin or out of Venezuela's heavy basin or out of Canada's heavy basin. Mexico and Venezuela are basket cases. So having Keystone serves the U.S. interests. And that's why they want it. They don't want to do it to do Canada a favor. They want to do it because it's good for the U.S.

The U.S. is growing their production dramatically, but it's all light oil. Now, they could push that through their heavy-based refineries, but the more efficient model would be to strengthen the pipeline ties to Canada. and ship the U.S. increased light oil somewhere else or into different refineries. So we shouldn't be thinking if the U.S. is going to do us any favors under Trump or Harris. I don't think either of them are going to do us any favors. If it serves their interests, then they will do it. And the value proposition of Canada of high quality, reliable, environmentally responsibly produced

and competitively priced, I think that. that we can very easily be a supplier of choice for the US. And we shouldn't worry about that. But we also need to make decisions like how do we get pipelines to our own coasts? So we aren't 100% reliant on the US playing fair. And having a Northern Gateway would give us another access point out. So if the US doesn't want our oil or doesn't want to want to do something that would be punitive, we have an alternative. So then how important is the next Canadian election?

Because, you know, like have somebody that's, I don't know, Canada first, although it enjoys having a big friendly neighbor to the south of us, would do things in our best interest. How important is the next prime minister of Canada? I think incredibly important that, you know, you can run through a through a few scenarios. If we look back 10 years, the Harper government was using terms like Canada as an energy superpower. How does Canada position itself to be relevant, to be a good partner to our allies, to be economically prosperous? An intrudeau gets elected and kind of his narrative, his tone is Canada's back. We are going to be global citizens.

He would go to Davos or to the global climate conference. conference and say, you know, we are now going to be climate leaders. We're going to be known for our resourcefulness, not our resources, and put us on a very different track. And that track was the canceling of pipelines, the, the legislation like Bill C-69, putting an emissions cap on oil and gas, clean electricity regs. So we've done that for a decade. We've kind of muddled through. We have managed to maintain and in some places increase our ability. ability to supply a world that is using more oil and gas, but nothing near our potential. And you can only miss your potential for so long before people start looking other places.

I think the next election, which will happen within the next 12 months, is going to be a huge one for Canada and a huge one for the energy sector. Yeah, you hope, like actually, over the course, of 10 years. How much damage to the oil and, you know, like all these different regulations, right? Like this different track we're on. Okay. The polls here in Canada say Pierre Poliab is going to get in. I'm not a big poll guy. I don't love it. But we're going to go off of it anyways. And you go, okay. So Pierre gets in day one and is pro oil and gas. He goes, Germany, calls him up. Ding. We want to supply you. But all these regulations and everything are put into play that are going to hinder us. How quickly can that be changed? Yeah, it will take time. Something like Bill C69,

the Impact Assessment Act. How you approve an LNG facility or a pipeline is you have to go through this federal act. It will take a new government to change that legislation to enable a more efficient system. Today, nobody is going to start a pipeline project because the last several that have spent over a billion dollars each to get these projects to a point where the federal government says no, you're not going to do it. No one's going to spend a billion dollars under the current legislation to get told no. Regardless of how good it is or how engaged the communities along the pipeline are, nobody's going to do it. So it'll take six months to a year to change the legislation. hopefully in that same time period investors are looking at Canada no guarantee that's the case

so and at the same time all those environmental activists are going to be hammering on the on the new government on the changes they're making well then the first thing they should do day one is defund the CBC and then they wouldn't have a voice and all of a sudden nobody cares and you just carry on with life. I don't know, because you're not going to get bad. I mean, don't get me wrong. We're pretty open on this side. But when we see what we've been doing for the last 10 years,

I don't think the SMP is having an activist on day one to hammer on a government for trying to make Canada strong and better and open up the open up to global markets like we've been trying to do. It just makes complete sense to me. I just don't get it. So like if you're a smart government, get rid of the CBC day one. and then I don't know where the activist going? The activists are extremely effective on social media and through other channels,

but I completely agree. The CBC is maybe the one agency that has done more damage to the energy sector than any other government agency. And I think the conservatives have been very clear about their plans to get rid of it. Yeah, well, they have been. And you wonder, okay, so, okay, so there is a way, to get back to where Canadians can do business, essentially, right? And when it comes to oil and gas, getting pipelines in the ground and connecting people to that resource,

well, which seems pretty, you know, you mentioned Northern Gateway, you mentioned Energy East. You know, the Trans Mountain Pipeline, although it did get done, took billions more dollars. You got Keystone that got shut down. You look at all the things that have been shut down. It would be interesting to see if things started getting fired back up and started. started to move that way. It's like, I wonder if that's possible. I wonder if we'll see a day in the next five, six years where the Keystone gets talked about

because you have Trump and Pierre. Is that something that you like, how close was that to be in like, who it's done and away we go? Like are we still five years away from that or are we closer than I think? You know, when I think about what would be the greatest thing ever, that Donald Trump approved Keystone XL and pushed for it to get done, but Biden gets elected day one, one of his very first announcements on the day that he was sworn in his president of the United States

was to cancel Keystone. And that was a bit of a nod to the activists that had donated incredible amounts of money to him. I would love to see if Donald Trump were elected a week, a little over a week from now, that on day one, he says, this is now a nationally important project. The U.S. built the Alaskan pipeline in 10 months from conception to first oil. I don't know if it was exactly 10 months, but it was incredibly fast. But is it conceivable that a new president that is ticked off and wants to make a political statement makes it that level of priority? That would be great if they did.

you know um i don't know how much you know here of uh Shane getson but you know Shane getson's been on the the show multiple times he's been talking actually I forgive me shame I was literally talking to him before we started this because I wanted to get kind of the the latest update and I'm sitting here going has he been talking globally about it for sure north american wide about an energy corridor um going up into you know the the the territories and and kind of fast tracking having a chunk of land that's fast track for different projects. So it doesn't have to go through all this, I don't know, all this shenanigans to get that done. The energy corridor idea, right? Because that he's heading to Alaska to talk to him

about it there. He's been down in the southern states talking about it there because like, it's like this idea of like, wow, we could have this chunk of land that where it starts connecting us all. Wouldn't that be something? When you hear that idea, what, what do you think of, of an energy corridor going through Alberta and, you know, and the fact that, I think it's, I think it's all the Western provinces have signed off on. I think there's one territory that's signed off on it now as well. Yeah. No, I'd be fully supportive of anything that makes it more efficient to move energy from where we produce it to where it's consumed. Sometimes a corridor can be challenging if there is a corridor, but that's not the right route.

because we want to go to the West Coast instead of south. But the activists can spin a good tail that this is now longer allowed because it's not on the corridor. But the corridor doesn't line up with where we found a whole bunch of gas or a whole bunch of oil somewhere outside of it. So I don't think it's a silver bullet. But yeah, if we can get something that makes it more efficient, let's do it. How important, you know, we were talking elections. How important is Saskatchewan election? right now the polls show and then once again I hate polls because by tomorrow I could be just laughing as you you could all be laughing as I say this but regardless this is what the polls say this morning as we're leading up the Saskatchewan election is the NDP are slightly ahead slightly ahead I don't even know what that means but regardless and I know what it means folks what I mean is I don't know if I trust the the you know it's a Saskatchewitt book I'm like who the heck is doing a poll in Saskatchewan nobody they're out working if if if

If that were to pass, NDP become the next provincial government in Saskatchewan. Good thing, bad thing, oil and gas. Or just Saskatchewan general. I think it would be very challenging. And we have seen this repeatedly that in Alberta, they have had a long track record of stable pro-energy governments. The NDP was elected for a four-year term and we saw capital pull out fairly substantially. in BC that, again, had the liberal government under Christie Clark that was pushing LNG and a lot of resource development there.

They've now had an NDP for several years and we've seen capital pull back. In Saskatchewan, you go back 16 years. It was a very different feeling and investment levels from pre-NDP to or from NDP to the SaaS party. And maybe to tie it to how quickly can things happen federally, when we formed government in 07, there was an excitement from businesses in the mining sector in oil and gas that realized that this was going to be a pro-investment jurisdiction. And I think that there was a quick uplift of people that were looking to, maybe they'd seen properties in Saskatchewan for years and never wanted to pull a trigger under the NDP. When things changed in 07, there was some wind in our sales.

fairly quickly and that was very helpful. I would hate to see that go the other way in any province and it may work to our advantage federally. Yeah, you've said it multiple times and one of the things I've been wrestling with is speed of government or time, you know, like, because there's multiple timelines, you know, you think of parenting and like at times it feels like it takes a long time, but like things happen relatively fast, right, week by week essentially. I coach a little U7 right now, Tim. And, you know, I think all the world's problems would probably be solved if people just showed up to some U7 hockey and seen those kids working their butts off

and having to worry about pee breaks and crying and it's hard and my legs don't work and on and on, right? It's very like motivating. But that's like that timeline is very fast. How much kids improve in a month is insane. But when you look at the time it takes to move projects along, you know, you're talking different things in the oil and gas sector, you know, billion dollar projects. There's time and investment there. And the changing of the guard of a government, I think you just said like when it's when it's

pro energy, they can smell that and it happened real fast. That's 07. And where we sit today on the, not on the verge, I shouldn't say that, but on the thought that the NDP could get in is the opposite would be true then as well. If they come in, you know, as you pointed out in Alberta, people will pull out almost immediately when they see that. Yeah, I, you know, I think the first thing is people will start looking very closely at their capital budgets. And maybe they have 20% in Saskatchewan and 60% in Alberta and 20% in BC. If material changes happen politically or risk-wise, they will very quickly move the capital dollars around.

Then as you go out over the next few years, it's okay, as we're building our capital budget, there's more room for change. And over time, you start to see things like labor legislation changing. It gets more expensive to do work in any given jurisdiction, regulatory changes. In Alberta, the NDP came out within an emissions cap or a production cap. That, again, another signal that this is not a place for growth. this is a place to maintain and shrink in industry. And over time, it just gets heavier and heavier and heavier. So in the short term, there's a few things you'll see.

But over time, it gets tougher. That's, you know, the signals. The signals is really interesting because, you know, you think about that. That's what we're all kind of pay attention to is all these different signals and where are we heading as a country. You know, like I go back through COVID. I go back to different things with some very serious problems socially or in the culturally. Like, where are we heading as a culture? And then you talk about, you know, you look at the bigger world.

And you see some of the governments being elected and some of the voices being heard now. And certainly there's some positive signs. There are some negative ones mixed in there as well. But certainly there's some things going on and people are staring at these signals trying to to figure out where we're heading. One of the reasons I reached out was a guy had asked about Enbridge 5, right? Goes through the states. It's been tied up in giant legal battles. What could that mean for that, you know, like we're talking about different pipelines. We've talked about a lot that have been shut down. This has been an active pipeline for quite some time.

And it is in, I don't know, it's been like five years tied up in courts, well, possibly shutting it down. What could that mean for, I don't know, maybe just the oil and gas sector as a whole, if that were to come to pass? It would be very problematic. And I think it's one of those classic cases where after a while, you know, we'll use agriculture as an example. You're not, your family no longer has a relationship to a farm. And after a while, you start to think that milk and meat and cheese comes from the grocery store. And you forget, no, no, it comes from a. farmer and somebody that's worked very hard to produce it. Energy is the same. We have been so wealthy

for so long. Energy has been seamless. It's been reliable. And you get gas from the gas pump. You heat your home from the thermostat. This is a classic case where if you were to shut down line five, it's fueling refineries in Michigan. And when the people in Michigan either start not being able to refuel their their trucks and cars, or it starts to cost substantially more, they then have to reassess why did we shut down this pipeline in the first place? There's always a, why don't we turn off the pipeline and see how long it takes until they beg us to turn it back on.

We're never actually going to do that, but that seems like the game of chicken we're playing right now. Why would you never actually do that? Like is it people will say oh because you don't want to be, you know, don't want to treat other human beings like that. But there's way more to running a pipeline and just flicking a switch off and on and expecting you can just, you know, carry on with daily operations like it's honestly like it's a light switch. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the reason I think that it never actually happens is it's the complexity of who's responsible, whose oil it is. if this was China where the central government could just decide we're going to turn this off for a while, that could happen. But in Canada, there's so many contracts of people feeding into the pipeline and contracts of people pulling out of it that no one has the authority to offend all those rights holders,

where the opponents that are trying to shut it down don't care. And in some situations, they get so far that it does put the cost, back on themselves. It's like a snake fighting its own tail. And that doesn't even get into the complexities of running a pipeline, right? Of like shipping oil down, you know, like, and keeping it at a temperature that it can flow and not having any issues with the pipeline. You shut that sucker down. Like, I remember reading stories about Russia. This is probably three years ago. And they'd shut down a pipeline. And then they had issues with like the buildup of, I don't know,

thing called oil because it's not exactly water, you know, and that's to say the, you know, like there's just, I think of the complexities that way. I'm glad you're pointing out the different people who own and, and the complexities, you know, because that, there's a lot there when it comes to it. Do you think there's ever a possibility? I mean, obviously there is. When you stare at that Embridge five, do you go, man, we're, this is crazy. Why are we even here? Like, because if they shut that down, you know, or have the issues of like everything becomes more expensive. It's not like you flick a light switch and it comes right back on. All this stuff takes time.

It's taking time to get it shut down right now. And if it gets shut down, you best believe it's going to take time to get it fired back up too when everybody's hurting and going, why did we ever do that? Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. And it's a classic case of activists that don't, don't care to be quite honest, that I think, the activist, zeitgeist, is, yeah, this may be very tough. We may need to break things to get the change we want, but it's never going to happen unless we do some extreme measures.

So they're comfortable with that. Your average everyday citizen isn't engaged in this discussion, and it's only after the costs land on them that they really pay attention and say, how the hell did we get to this point? I think the great, maybe one of the challenges is pipelines are these big, thoughtful organizations that think six, seven steps ahead that they are always, you know, well in advance where an activist is tomorrow. We're going to show up and we're going to shut this down tomorrow. And on this particular pipeline, it is a pipeline put in place in the 1950s.

It runs through Canada across the Mackinac Straits into Michigan, back underground from there, but it runs along the bottom of the ocean, of the Great Lakes there. So the governor felt that wasn't safe after 60, 70 years. Enbridge said, why don't we build a tunnel then? We don't need one. This can be done safely, but if this is going to meet your needs, we will build a tunnel. No sooner did that plan get put in place, then the activist turned against the tunnel. Tunnels aren't safe.

So as soon as you meet the expectation of the opponent, they raise the expectation because they had no interest in actually this succeeding. And if you meet that expectation, they raise it again. So we're in the situation where a tunnel will be built, but that will not make the activist change their opinion. So maybe before I let you out of here, the question that I'm thinking of is like, okay, how do you get people? Because the activist, there's no, you know, it's the big thing that comes back to conservative governments. They keep trying to appeal to some voters who are never going to vote for them ever so stop it be conservatives and all of a sudden you'll get this landslide you probably get a landslide victory at this point because people just want things to make sense stop going out and

appealing things that don't make sense to any of us and that person still ain't going to vote for you so when you come to this and you talk about this you know you're like okay you don't want us on the bottom of the the great lakes okay because i get it but i mean we've been doing it for 70 years i mean geez like you might take that into effect but maybe not you want us to build a this thing okay but you know already they're not going to be happy with that how do you get people to understand two things one where all their stuff comes from because as you pointed out with agricultural um you know quick dick mcdick does a great job of explaining you know like this is the farm and this is what you're doing he also does this with energy quite well yeah how do we get

you know the the common person to understand that And then maybe even one step further to just support oil and gas industry in doing things that are going to make all of our lives better, not worse, when it comes to, you know, all the things we have to. I mean, this bloody conversation right now is possible because of the oil and gas industry. Yep. You know, I maybe am an eternal optimist, but I feel like the societal, society goes in waves and I feel like the wave is coming back. in our direction that for the last 15 years it was that we're in an energy transition and you know the fact is we've used more oil and gas each and every year almost every year for the last hundred years COVID was a bit of a blip but we then had record growth after it so we're on

an energy transition in reality to more oil and gas that's that's the transition wrong but we had companies committing to net zero that you know on the face of it you're like like that's ridiculous you're never you're not achieving 10 zero but that was very popular and we had governments that were unwilling to push back against the activists activists would say that you know going to more wind and solar on our electricity grid was actually lower cost more reliable all of that is a lie but no one actually saw the costs until now so globally we're seeing this pushback we're seeing it on energy consumption. We're seeing it in elections, that pro-reliable energy governments are getting elected. And I think here in Canada we're seeing it, that Pierre Paulyev, for two elections,

the conservative leader, could never have an acceptable climate plan. No matter what it was, no one understood what it was. It may have looked very similar to the liberals climate plan, but it was inadequate and foolish, according to CBC and others. In this election, Pierre-Poliev's climate plan is, I'm going to axe the tax. And they're like, but what's the plan? And he says, again, what don't you understand? I'm going to ax the tax. And just very plain spoken, people know what he means. He means that the carbon tax is foolish. And anything that puts costs on Canadians or risks on Canadians, when we have these substantial resources that can be produced safely and responsibly, that's not going to fly under a different government. So I feel like society is

now has a shorter fuse for BS. They have higher expectations for energy, for jobs. And I think that we have governments that are willing to no longer dance around issues, but it's actually politically to their advantage to be quite blunt about the type of policy change they're going to make. I would argue we saw that play out in British Columbia a couple weeks ago. A party that had two or three percent of the vote two years ago is today in recounts to see a if they could possibly form that government. And it was a campaign that was very grassrootsy. I would say blunt.

It wasn't flashy, but it was just focused on the kitchen table of your average everyday Canadian. Yeah. Yeah, we could get into some BC election talk because I just keep staring at that. And the fact, you know, it just amazes me to this point.

They can't get an election done in one night. Done. Boom. Here's the winner. uh we don't have to go down too many rabbit holes to realize that can open up things for fraud and et cetera because it just becomes it just becomes very attainable you can see what everything is where how many votes were won and whatever and i'm not against recounts i'm just saying now there's 66 000 mail-in ballots okay there's problems there very big problems but your

point is exactly correct in the fact that the conservatives came from nowhere and within it was I didn't even know, was it six months, folks? It was a short timeline. On the mashup, we talked about it. It was just watching this wave of people all of a sudden coming out and voting blue. Like, it was wild. And sure. I have a call to action here for Canadians, too, that this is happening organically,

that this wave is coming out to vote for conservatives. But for this to be effective, it has to not just be at the ballot. box once every four years. And I'm a bit of a, like, we leave dinner parties. My wife tells me that I'm way too political and you got to stop getting into it. But if you're at Tim Hortons and somebody's spouting off about how great this wind and solar project is, it's just like Canadians have to stop being so polite and we have to say, no, it's not.

We're all paying too much for this electricity. It isn't going to be there when we need it. We had brownouts in. Alberta. I mean, you know what I love about Alberta right now? This is this is what I've been trying to figure out the difference between Alberta and Saskatchewan and you've lived in both. Heck, you've represented Saskatchewan. So maybe I'll let you in and you can have your say. I look at it and I go, Alberta is really interesting to watch because they don't take no shit. I mean that just straight up. At times, you wish they would take just a little healthy because you're

like, why are we arguing about this? But their politics is as clear. as close as we got in Canada to the United States. And the United States is like it's the world wrestling federation from literally the 90s. It is like we're coming out. It's big stars, it's big everything. In Alberta, it has this like, they kind of treat it like wrestling. Like there's just infighting and there's, and some people don't like that. And I'm here to say, although I wish there was a little less fighting, I'm like, look at all

the attention it brings to Alberta. The UCPA GM later this week, 6,000 people going to it. that's wild so when you when you go you got to be a little less political I'm like I'm pretty sure I'm that dinner you like I have fallen into this trap Tim that I am now that dinner guest that I'm just trying to bite my tongue just trying to bite it you know you you talk about the windmills and it's like well what are the windmills made out of folks you know like I am I is it fairy dust it just we got we got wind or is there something a little more to that and is that like are we going to do the full cost of what these. things are and then realize it ain't what it's built to be not saying you can't have win just saying as a a supply chain that's probably not the best thing not to mention it's subsidized by the government it's like just free money of course they're going to build them heck if i had the money i'd probably build them too yep yeah no it's time for canadians to start calling bullshit and i'm seeing it more all the time which gives me heart but we can't think that this is a problem for our politicians

we need to win this discussion at dinner parties and coffee shops to enable the politicians to say no we're not putting that cost on our citizens. Tim, I appreciate you hopping on and doing this and well, I guess we'll wait and see what the next 24 hours brings. Obviously for folks listening to us, apologize because there's no way I was going to stay up till midnight and then you know you get the point. So this is right before the SAS collection, which is going to be really interesting. And then while we got the U.S. election coming real fast,

so some of this is going to happen real fast. But then, you know, as we know with government, time, the pace of government. It's going to be a conversation I probably have for the next 20 years because certain things, you can see the signals. It's going to take some time. But appreciate you, hop on, Tim, and giving us some of your thoughts today. That was lots of fun. Really appreciate your time, too.