The Ben Mulroney Show - Alberta Premier Danielle Smith / Also, gambling addiction issues

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

GUEST:  Alberta Premier Danielle Smith  GUEST:  YONAH BUDD — addiction counsellor Guest: Dr. Eric Kam, Economics Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. It's always a good day on the Ben Mulroney show when we are able to talk to the people who make the decisions that affect our lives. And one of those people who's been so kind to give us of her time is the Premier of Alberta, Ms. Danielle Smith, and she joins us today. How are you, Premier? I'm great. Nice to see you again, Ben. Nice to see you as well. All right. Let's jump right in because we got a lot to get to the budget this year and the budget deficit specifically, I think, surprised a lot of people, given the fact that last year there was a surplus. What is the reason for that massive swing in the dollars in the budget?

Well, the principal reason is oil prices. We balance our budget on about $74 WTI, and we had to budget. for 6150 because that is what it was looking like in the long range. I don't think anybody anticipated that that would change so quickly in the space of a few days after our budget was released. But again, depending on how things go with that conflict in Iran, it could settle out very quickly, in which case we would be right back to those same prices. And so we've been trying to let people know for some time that we had a structural

deficit that was being masked by high oil prices. So that's one thing that is now clear, that if we end up with $60 being the long-term price for oil. We have a structural deficit that's a real problem. The second part of it is just the suppression and investment that has happened in our province in the last 10 years. If we'd had the three major oil pipeline projects go ahead, Northern Gateway, Keystone Energy East, that would also have brought in new revenue. That didn't happen. So we're looking at new revenue sources by attracting new industry. So that's sort of a midterm type of approach. And then we also have a lot of pressure because of 600,000 people moving to Alberta in the last five years. Many of them guessed

workers or temporary workers, but creating a disproportionate demand on our social programs than what they're providing in tax revenues. And so we have a number of referendum questions coming forward in the fall to talk about how we might be able to address that and rebalance it. And we're going to talk about that referendum as well in just a little bit. But what is Alberta's position? And you who's, as they say in Quebec, de d'anjou, you're in the middle of it. What is Alberta's position on what is looking like it could represent a global realignment of sort of the politics of oil with Venezuela, looking like it's going to fall in line with the West and Iran possibly becoming a friend

rather than a foe. I mean, that changes a lot in terms of the politics of the power of oil. How do you see it from your exceptionally specific position? We have a large quantity of heavy oil. So we compete directly with Venezuela and Iran on those heavier products. And the world is going to need more of them because with the heavier products, you can do more things with them. You can create carbon nanofimer. You can create asphalt.

You can create some of the new modern building materials. And so they're going to be in higher demand. The same thing I would say is the demand is only increasing. I think we're now beginning to finally get credible forecasts. OPEC says that by 2050, we're likely to need 125 million barrels a day up from 104 million barrels per day. And so we think there's room for everyone. We think that there's room, especially for Alberta to be a growing share of that growing market. And with the disruption that we've seen in the Middle East, if it isn't going to be a permanent piece,

we've got a lot of Asian buyers who are saying, boy, we sure wish we could get more from you so that we have a more reliable trading partner. I just think it increases the need for us to have a new million barrel bitumen pipeline going to the coast as well. Have the talks with the federal government as well as your colleague, the Premier of British Columbia, David Eby, have those talks on a potential pipeline moved at all? They have. I mean, we signed the MOU in November, and we've been working away at five agreements that came out of that that needed a little bit more work. We have an April 1st target for getting all of those signed. I think we'll probably get most of those determined by April 1st.

Maybe there's one that might take a little bit longer, but we're feeling really confident that the federal government and Alberta finally see eye to eye on this issue. I think the prime minister here is it. everywhere he goes and he's been going to the same places I have, as well as a few new ones. He's gone to China. He's gone to India. And they're saying the same thing, that they want energy security.

And so we've been hearing that as we've gone on our travels as well. And so I think that there is maybe a global realignment happening about the role that oil and gas will play in the future economy. I think more of what I'm hearing is that new types of energy are going to be an addition to what we have right now, as opposed to a transition away from what we're already using. And that's positive. I think we're seeing we're going to need more energy from more sources. If we're going to have everybody in the world uplifted the same quality of life and standard of living that we enjoy. If there was ever a story that embodied the expression Canada needs to get out of its own way, it was the story I read last week, rather, of Canada buying LNG from Australia and having it shipped 25,750 kilometers around South America up the coast to Atlantic Canada.

this is the absurdity of the world we've been living in in one story. Yes. And if you look at some of the stories that we've seen, I think we know that Nova Scotia is sitting on an ocean of gas, but so is New Brunswick. I know that Quebec has a 200-year supply of natural gas as well. And if only they would develop it, they would be able to be not only self-sufficient,

but then also be a supplier to the world, to the thirsty markets in Europe as well. And I'm pleased to see that Tim Houston, the Nova Scotia Premier has taken a pretty bold move of ending the fracking ban, and he's working actively on developing natural gas in his region. Now, I need to do a little bit more work, of course, on Quebec, but I promised Francois Lago every time I saw him, I said, I'm going to lobby you to develop your own natural gas resources.

There's going to be a change of leadership there, and the new leader is going to hear the same thing from me. But it is absurd. We have the ability to not only be self-sufficient, but also to be net exporters to help in the West, are my neighbors in Asia and to help in the east our neighbors in Europe. Let's go back to the economy of Alberta. And you talked about trying to diversify.

We spent a little time in Calgary where we talked to a lot of business and a business and city leaders who say that they don't want Calgary to just be known as an oil and gas town anymore. And there's a high tech, so burgeoning high tech industry there as well. Is diversification happening fast enough in your province? It's happening faster than I ever could have hoped. One of the things I remember in 2024, when we started seeing a resurgence in the oil and gas industry, we got up to about 154,000 direct workers in that industry. And at the same time, we had 190,000 in the tech business, and we had 194,000 in the tourism business.

And so those are two brand new areas that really have boomed in the last five years. And I expect more as we develop AI data centers. I expect more as well in our agri-food processing. We brought through a new tax credit that has resulted in $5 billion of additional investment. We have a film and television industry that continues to attract major productions. We also, I think, are going to see a lot more new materials. So we've got growing not just renewables in solar and wind, but we're looking at geothermal and lithium. So I've never been more optimistic about the ability for us to diversify our economy.

I should also mention, we're finally catching up with BC with our resort strategy. And so we'll be developing out three new ski resort areas so that we can take advantage of some of the tourism dollars that are coming our way. Our tourism industry recovered faster, I think, than any other province. Are you building a train from downtown Calgary to Banff? Because I heard that was the dream. We do have a passenger rail strategy coming out soon. I probably won't surprise you that that's one element to it. I know that there's a private sector consortium that is very keen to get rolling on it.

And so once we've rolled out that strategy, we hope we'll find some private sector partners to help us build that. But that one makes an awful lot of sense if we can get some agreement with CP. And I wanted to ask you about the AI Data Center strategy as well, because I remember one the biggest most publicized and ambitious projects was being led by Kevin O'Leary. And I haven't heard about it in a very long time. Is that one still going ahead? Yeah, it was just corresponding with Kevin O'Leary last week to see if there were any issues that were getting in the way. But also there's a large group of business leaders who are behind that one as well. But it's not the only one.

I mean, there's a $10 billion project being proposed in the central Alberta area and several others of significant size. Some of our big power companies like Transelta and Capital Power, who would be providing the natural gas-related power, are saying that they're feeling very optimistic of being able to get some, some deals to attract more of that investment. And that goes back to the MOU that I had with the prime minister is that before under the old rules, the net zero power regs, our business leaders would have been facing jail time in 2035 if they weren't 95% evaded on their natural gas power plants. So no one wanted to build them. And now that we have a longer time horizon, and they're able to get full value for their investment, it's actually stimulating a lot of that discussion. So we're already

seeing the benefit of working together with the federal government on clearing away some of those bad laws. All right, well, I'm very glad to say that the Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith, is going to stick around for a few minutes after the break. I got some questions from our text audience as well as I want to talk about the referendum of it all. So don't go away. The Ben Mulroney show continues. Very happy to continue my conversation with the Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith. Thank you so much for being here. We're going to open up the phone lines in just a few minutes after we say goodbye to the Premier. But I hear that you're mulling, ditching daylight saving time. Well, the nice part is if we went

to daylight savings time year round, we'd only be an hour apart from those of you in Ontario. It would make it easier for me to travel out to Ottawa and see you more often and go to Toronto more. But I can tell you, it's a bit of a different conversation when you've got Yukon, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan all saying that they're moving or either have or saying that they're going to. And then Northwest Territories, they was in touch with RJ Simpson. And he said 90% of their people supported as well. So I think the world changed a little bit in the time that we had our referendum, which was very, very close. And so we were, we're doing some consultation right now to see if we should be making that move to.

Well, you know, you just brought up the the referendum and, you know, it's, it's absolutely part of our, part of our process, not used as often as one might think. Why now on this series of questions? And why, why a referendum? Some would argue, so would argue, look, you're elected, you're a leader. You get to make these decisions. Why wouldn't you? Well, it's a reversal from where I was when I first got elected. When I first got elected, I mean, we were facing 4.9% unemployment. We were worried with some big projects that we weren't going to be able to attract workers. So my predecessor started advertising in high unemployment areas to try to bring more welders

and electricians and carpenters here. What we didn't know is at the same time, the federal government was taking all restrictions off all of their various streams. And so about a year and a half in, we just said, wait a minute, this is way more people than we were anticipating. We got 600,000 people in the last five years. put a ton of pressure on our social services. It's not generating the kind of revenue that it used to.

Growth used to generate revenue when we concentrated on economic migrants. Instead, the cost in our programs is actually higher than the revenue that that stream is generating. And so we want to see if there needs to be a rethink on immigration. If we need to take more control over it, the way Quebec has, and also put some limitations on who can access our social programs and whether they should pay to do so. But that's a big reversal and a big change in direct. where in the mid, I still have two years left in my mandate before I go to the general election, but if we're going to be making a shift midstream, that seems to me exactly what a referendum is

for. So are you going to view the results of the referendum as binding? I look at it as these are things that I think we should do, but I might be wrong. And I want to be able to get that gut check from Albertsons. If they support this direction, then we will be implementing it. And then you have to remember as well, we did this process of doing town halls across the province after the result of the last federal election, which disappointed many, many people. We saw a separatist intent go up to 42% after the liberals won again. And that had me very gravely concerned.

So I wanted to hear from Alberts. One of the kind of things that we can do that would give you confidence that Canada can work. And so I have a number of different referendum proposals as well about how we'd change the balance with Confederation. Getting rid of the Senate, which doesn't work for anybody in any region, is unfair, in effect. unelected, having us be able to appoint our own judges or certainly have more say in it. And then also having provincial laws take precedence in areas of provincial jurisdiction. So this reverse precedence or reverse paramountcy is what we're looking at, as well as maybe

going down the pathway that Quebec, Quebec ops out of programs all the time. And yet they get an equivalent amount of money. We think maybe we should too. So that's why we're putting it to the people to see if that would be enough to satisfy their concerns if we can get an agreement with Ottawa that we can make the country work again. I think the judiciary is making your argument of having a little more control over judges. They're making the case for you. As far as getting rid of the Senate, as somebody who had a front row to trying to reopen the Constitution a couple of times,

once you open that up, you're going to have everybody else come in a cap and hand. Well, if you're going to do it for that, you got to do it for this. You got to do it for that. You got to do it for that. I think Pierre Trudeau designed this thing not to change. You might be right. I mean, I think everybody was scarred by. the Meach Lake process, scarred again by the Charlottetown process. But it's been, I mean,

if you look at that, help me with my math. Are we getting it coming up on 30 years? Yeah, yeah. Maybe more. Yeah. I don't know. I just think the man's ego was that he never wanted to change, even though it's supposed to be a living, breathing document that's reflective of a country that has evidently changed. We're going to try to do something different. I mean, I, the reason we chose those four things is we think that we can get the majority of not all the provinces to agree with us. We've been talking with other provincial leaders about whether they want to have more control over appointing judges. And they're all saying yes. When I've talked about the Senate, my frustration with it, there are some premiers who don't even pay attention to the Senate.

Because they're so far removed from representing regional interests, which is what they were supposed to do in the first place, that I don't know if it's an effective governing body anymore. And it's certainly not going to be reformed. So if it can't be reformed, then maybe it should be abolished. Those are, again, I'm putting forward ideas that I think we should act on, but I'm not sure if else. Burton's agree. And if they do, I'll make them my priority, but if not, I'll have to be focusing on some of those other areas. I've got a question from the listeners of the show came in via text. Can you ask Premier Smith what she thinks the industrial carbon tax should be since Italy has now asked the EU to eliminate it there. The feds are trying to pull a fast one on Canadians

with the industrial tax as they put out new regulation guidelines in December after the MOU terms were agreed to. And for context, Italy is ready to hike taxes on companies that take undue benefits from the rising gas prices triggered by the Middle East crisis? Well, maybe your listeners should know that we had an industrial carbon price that goes back to 2007. I think it came in at about $30, and it was designed on the largest emitters so that if they become more and more efficient, they get credits. And if they fall below their peers, then they pay into the fund that then gets used to fund emissions reduction technology.

And this worked well for us. We actually have some widespread support on that approach. But we froze it at 95 because that's what we heard from the industry. We heard from most of the industry. Don't eliminate it altogether, but it can't keep on rising to $170. So in our MOU, we agreed to 130, but we are still talking about how quickly we increase that price. I think that we have to be mindful not to get too far ahead of our American counterparts. But I would say that other big oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE,

they are also going down the pathway of carbon capture utilization and storage, nature-based solutions, building mangroves, doing direct air capture, finding ways to add renewable to their grid. So what we're seeing is in the large energy producers, they're doing the same things we are. So we don't want to be too out of step with that either. So we're trying to find the sweet spot so that we're not uncompetitive compared to the U.S., but we're also keeping up with some of the other jurisdictions that produce this product around the world. Premier, are you bullish that, that, that, the team Canada, we all got a row in the same direction, we can catch that fire again.

The last time you were here and you sat over here that, you know, we sort of expressed a little bit of regret with a smirk because I think we probably would have been able to predict a little bit of it, that the belief that we were all in this together, that was going to fall by the wayside once provinces want to protect their own little fiefdoms and their own little interests at the expense of the greater good. Can we get back there?

I hope so. I mean, I have been more encouraged now than I have been in the entire time that I've been in this job. And part of that is we have a very constructive premiers table. It's always surprised me that you can get so many different previews from so many different perspectives at a table together, even with different political parties, and we still manage to come up with a consensus communicate. There's some tensions, there's no question. But I feel like we resolve a lot by talking. And it certainly helps that we have a federal government that understands its role that is trying to be constructive.

that is trying to tear down barriers and find new markets. And when you look at the travel agenda of this prime minister, I mean, he's been repairing relationships in the Middle East, China, India. Our relationship with the U.S. is obviously very complicated, but even still, I think it's a measure-step improvement from where we were before. And I think he's continuing to go down the pathway of finding ways to open up new markets. And that's what we need. So a federal government focused on its job of getting more of our product to market

and then working on removing the trade barriers between provinces, I think we're in a better position than we've been in a long time. So I'm very encouraged. Well, we're going to end on that high note. And I'm going to thank you because I kept you far longer than you probably expected. But Premier Danielle Smith, thank you very much. I look forward to talk to you again soon. Yeah, talk to you again. Thanks, Ben.

Now, sadly, we're not going to have time for the calls. But if I get a chance to talk to a Premier on your behalf, the listeners of the show, I'm going to take it. and if they're not looking to run away, I'm going to talk to them as long as I possibly can. But a great conversation with a very strong leader in this country. So thank you very much to the Premier. What was your big takeaway from that? This is a woman who doesn't suffer fools, and she's honest with what she says.

And if she tells me that she's optimistic, then I'm going to take that to the bank. And the number of texts we got supporting her are ridiculous. When we come back, another great voice on this show that we rely on whenever we talk about, addiction is Yonabud, and we're talking about youth gambling in this country. Don't go anywhere. The Ben Mulrucho continues. We are living in a completely different world than we were just a few years ago as it relates to legal gambling.

Like I remember growing up that if you wanted to gamble, you had to go to Vegas or Atlantic City, right? And then governments in Canada started getting into the business and opening up casinos, and they tried to make you feel like you were in Vegas, but you knew you weren't in Vegas. But it was what it was. And now legal sports gambling is everywhere. And when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere.

I mean, if you look at the sports betting as it relates to the television, the broadcast of a hockey game, you will see that a recent study of five NHL and two NBA games saw that 21% of all ads were gambling related, and that doesn't even consider the commercials for betting companies on-screen odds, sponsored segments, visible sportsbook logos during play. The study counted more than 4,100 gambling messages across just seven games. And the results are that we have almost 19.3 million active online gamblers

in this country of 40 million people. So to discuss this and how he sees the state of play, we're joined and now by Yona Budd, an addiction counselor, and he knows more about this than me. So I'm just going to say hi and thank you for being here. A pleasure. Nice to be here with you.

Like 19.3 active gamblers in a country of 40 million. That's, I mean, we're addicted to addiction. So I think you hit it straight on like it's everywhere, right? So, you know, we live in a world right now where, you know, certainly in Canada where things are very difficult financially and, you know, people are having a hard time getting ahead in the workplace and, you know, trying to move forward in their lives. And, you know, if you're having a crummy day and, you know, you got an extra 20 bucks in your pocket or 100 bucks in your pocket, you think that might be the day that you can hit a home run. All you've got to do is open your phone and start to play. And obviously, if you win a little bit, then you're sucked in even more. You get tied into it.

It's the buzz, if you will, and you get into it. And the more you get into it. And eventually you're into the play more than the win or the loss. And I actually have patients in the past that have told me that the real high comes from the loss part. The risk of losing it all. Wait a second. Versus the risk of winning. Yeah.

Wait, there are people who get, like, they get that shot of whatever hormone it is. they got an excitement, almost a positive charge from losing? Yeah, it's like it's tied to not thinking you deserve certain things in life, right? I see. So it's kind of almost like a self-harm thing. But it's, it get caught up in the whole process of it. We've now done enough research to know that even when people are winning, you know, why aren't they taking their winnings at a good state, picking them up and leaving?

What keeps them in the game to win even more? So it's the rush of the play more than it's the rush of the winner of the loss. But, you know, there's people on both sides of it that get their charge either way. Yona, I want to be very clear as we have this discussion. This is legal. And I've never read a story that would suggest that these companies are doing anything that is running a foul of the law. But I think we might have over-indexed in terms of how much exposure a certain type of person is getting to these companies. This new study shows that amongst young men 15 to 24,

there's been a 300% surge in gambling in Ontario. This is, that's a huge, huge number. And if that's, if, and it's 15 years old, where are they getting the money? They're too young for a credit card. How are they gambling? Yeah, Bitcoin, baby. Oh. So Bitcoin is how underage kids get everything.

But, you know, at the end of the day, here's the deal. I think you hit it straight on. You know, like back in the day, alcohol is everywhere too. But it took us decades and decades to hold the alcohol and cigarette folks to, you know, to be accountable, reduce the amount of advertising and so on. Right now for the gaming folks, it's a free-for-all. I imagine in the next number of years after a whole bunch of damage is done, there'll be some kind of restriction around the type of advertising and promotion.

But I'll tell you, I'm not, you know, I'm not. not a gambler and it doesn't really interest me, but watching some of these commercials, they're pretty enticing. Yeah, yeah. Well, talk to me. Listen, you deal, you're on the front line of this sort of thing. And there are people out there who are still living in a world where they don't think gambling addiction is a real thing. Give me some of the stories that you've heard from people who have crossed your path, who have hit rock bottom as gambling addicts. So let's, they're all anonymous. So let's just give the guy a name. His name is Bill. It's not an active story.

It's not a real patient. So, you know, Bill is an average guy in his early, early to mid-30s, does fairly well at work. His wife's got a job. They got a couple of kids at home. They got two cars, a mortgage, a couple of car payments, you know, saving to try to get themselves a cottage. See, Bill just can't seem to get ahead of it. So his buddy says to him, you know what, man, just why don't you come with me? We'll go up to the casino at Rama.

We'll play some cards. We'll do something. We'll see if you can change your luck. You limit your losses. his buddy's teaching him how to play. And then we fast forward six and a half months and Bill's now got his house mortgage to the hilt. His wife just found out that he's been spending all that money, you know, that they didn't

have. It's part of their kids' savings, part of their education funds. And Bill's so trapped up in it. And his wife, all she thinks is going on is, you know, he's working late at night. Because Bill does this from his den or from his living room or, you know, from his cell phone, from his laptop. And there are more bills out there than we know of who have unlimited credit because these types of organizations do a very good job. These gambling organizations do a very good job of extending probably more credit than you can really deserve. And the next thing you know,

you're upside down, you know, and you're $100,000, he was about $185,000 upside down over the course of four and a half weeks. And even at that part, the point at which I met him, his biggest concern was is that he got caught, not that he lost everything. It's so easy to get caught up in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, drama of it. But I think for a lot of folks that I've talked to over the years, the stories lead to, I didn't think I was going to get in that deep. And the next thing I knew I was really, uh, on the other side of it, upside down. I just kept trying to play my way out of it. And frankly, and then there's those that tell me the only way they feel good at the end of the day is to be able to place a bet and, and, and, and, and, and, and,

They feel they have most control over that than anything else in their lives. So everybody's coming at it from a different place. But it's like crack cocaine. Once you get it in your system, it doesn't take but long before you start doing it all the time. Well, so I'm glad you brought up the analog of drugs. And I'm going to ask you a question,

which we may not get to the end of in this segment. So if I interrupt you, it's just so we can continue after the break. But the fact that we're seeing these, the fact that we're seeing these numbers. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I wish we had more time with you. So I'll be very quick.

The fact that at 15, kids are starting at 15, and we know that the human brain doesn't stop developing, like it's still forming up until like mid-20s. What is the impact of this activity that you just compared to drugs on a developing mind? The same activity as drugs or alcohol would be in terms of the at-risk charge and behavior. that comes with it. You know, you've got to treat, you know, gambling and eating disorders and sexting and texting and online gaming, all that stuff.

You've got to treat it like heroin because it affects people almost essentially the same way. Yeah, I just, the fact that we're failing these people, and I would have assumed that all the revenue generated by this, because that's found money, right? This is an industry. It didn't exist before. I would have thought that it would have been put directly from right into mental health resources. And I don't know if that's happened.

No, clearly not. But that's a failure of the bargain, isn't it? If we're going to allow the government. I think so. I think so. I think that, you know, the gamblers anonymous is a, is one organization that's all, you know, they're, they're always looking to grow, but it's an anonymous organization so they don't really work with funding.

But they, you know, there are very few rehab centers actually in Ontario, if not in Canada, that actually have a real gambling, uh, discus gambling program. that actually works well beyond, you know, the 12-stepers. But, you know, it requires real work and real money to get there. Yona, this is such a big topic.

I'd love to, you know what, one day on this show, I want to take an hour. And I'd like for you to be my guest for an hour. And I want to bring on guests and stakeholders. And I want you to help me manage that conversation. Because I think this is a really big one. And I think we have an opportunity to get it right. We've gotten it wrong, but that doesn't mean we can't get it right in the future.

So I hope you'll do that with me one day. I'd love to. It costs you lunch, but I'm glad to do it. Yonabut, everyone. Thank you very much. All right, when we come back, another great friend of the show. Eric Cam is here, and we're going to talk about the butterfly effect, the impact of the Middle East and the war, and why it automatically means you're paying more at the pump. Let me this. How can a country that is supposedly an energy superpower be so at the mercy of a conflict that's happening on the other side of the world? In other words, Iran is a major oil producer, but because of what's going on over there,

we've seen an automatic and precipitous rise in the cost of gasoline at the pump here in Toronto. So to break this down and have other fun conversations, because, you know, that's fun. We're joined by Eric Cam economics professor at TMU, Toronto Metropolitan University. Eric, welcome to the show. Nothing more fun than talking tax, eh, Ben? So tell me why this is. surely we shouldn't feel every single

the butterfly effect should not apply to an energy superpower like Canada, right? Well, that's right. It should not but a lot of things should not that do. I mean, you and I have dug in a lot about how Canada should not

require fuel, natural gas, minerals, many things that are stuck under the ground from other countries. Yet here we are because some Sometimes we turn away the obvious, the comparative advantages that the country has. Plus, we put out the story, we're not open for business sign. And I don't know why we do that.

So if you want to think about what's going on in Iran right now, not to minimize it to an economic contribution, but think of it as kind of what they're calling now a geopolitical tax, which basically means when conflict threatens the global oil supply, market simply push the prices higher. and the drivers of that, that means that everywhere you go, you're going to pay the difference. And why is that, to your point, oil is priced globally, not locally. So even though we produce a lot of crude, that price is still going to follow international benchmarks. So to make a short story long, how much say does a country like Canada,

when we are an oil producer, have in helping set that price? Very little. Very little. Unfortunately, it is set by boards. It is set by units that, while they may consult with Canada, unfortunately, we could be, by the way. This is just another commercial for it. We could be a major player in that rule. But technically right now, we are not. We are just not, we don't have a seat at that table, as they say.

So, long story short, when shipping routes in the Middle Easter risk, right, traders have already added what we call a risk premium, right? The boats are still flowing. The fuel is still flowing, Ben. So what you see right now is a risk premium that investors have factored into the market just in case there's a stopping of the oil. And that premium, as we have seen, if you've driven by a gas station, shows up basically immediately at our gas station. So a conflict thousands of kilometers away, yeah, it's still going to determine what people in Toronto and red deer and Regina pay on a Thursday morning for gas. Okay, but with everything, you take the good with the bad. And could you argue that there is a positive to the rising?

Because if the cost of gas is going up, that means the price of a barrel of oil is going up. And I keep hearing these stories that, you know, there's no market case for investing in the Canadian oil sands until the price of oil gets to a certain. point. Once it becomes, once it hits a certain benchmark, then all of a sudden that unlocks the value for investors. Yeah. Of course, the question is, is how fast does that happen and what is that dollar amount? Some people say $100 a barrel. Listen, you know, there is good in everything, sadly. And so in the case of a war, some people do benefit. So number one, as the price of oil goes up and up and up. The people who do produce it and distribute it, especially in Alberta, do start to become more profitable, and that's not a terrible thing. In fact, it's a good thing. And number two,

as the price of oil goes up and up and up, we are a producer. People demand our oil to demand our oil. They have to first demand our dollar. And so it may strengthen the Canadian dollar. So there are silver linings in this, but don't kid yourself, if we should shut off oil that we get from the Middle East and it starts to exceed $110, $120 a barrel, you can rest assured that those it benefits are very small and those at costs are very large, Ben. All right. Let's move on to another conversation that we are all having as a nation and it's competing title claims on property.

You know, we talked about before how Pierre Trudeau issued the idea of enshrining property rights in the charter. I thought that was a terrible decision. but it is what it is. And then we saw the court ruling that gave title rights to the Muscoim First Nation in British Columbia. Oh, no, the Cowichin tribe. And now the Muscoim tribe that is made up of, I think, just under 1,700 members, First Nation or Aboriginal title over essentially land pretty much every major metropolitan area in British Columbia.

depending on your perspective, this is either a crisis in the making or this is nothing, there's nothing to see here. I can't imagine that it's nothing, Eric, because, you know, when you go and you want a mortgage, you go to the bank and they do a title search to see if there are any liens on the property, to see if you're buying it outright. I can't imagine that having an Aboriginal title over my property right isn't going to cause some sort of complication. Let me give you what I consider to be fact and then consider to give you what is a commercial

from the Eric Cam Corporation. Okay. First of all, right, we know that overlapping claims will complicate approvals for infrastructure, housing, resource projects. And yes, that can potentially slow some investment until agreements are clarified. And so governments and private corporations, they may need to negotiate with now multiple indigenous groups simultaneously. And yes, Ben, that may raise the transaction, sorry, transaction cost and extend some deadlines. Now, here comes the political portion. This country, as we know,

has done nothing more really than lip service to protect our First Nations people. We do lots of land acknowledgments. We don't send one bottle of water. And so while I don't think this is a nothing burger, as they say, money talks. And I have a funny feeling that both federal and provincial governments, yeah, okay, they may face higher compensation or settlement costs, but you can rest assured that investors and the government will combine to make sure they don't lose these land deals. And so if it means, and I hate to use the term, paying off some indigenous members, I think that's exactly what you will see. I cannot imagine this is going to stand in the way of anything. Well, but meanwhile, this is not a fait accompli, as they say,

because the Muscoan First Nation signed this deal, but the Squamish Nation has come in and said they're ready to legally challenge any federal agreement with First Nations if that agreement extends into Squamish territory. So they say that most of this territory is also their ancestral land. And there's a part of me that's kind of chuckling because if you're going to acknowledge somebody, there's a chance that there was someone else who was there before that group.

And so this is just, I mean, this is just leaning in to the absurdity of where we've gone as a culture. And I said yesterday with a different group, my friend, that, you know, the problem with something like this is true reconciliation only happens when there's transparency. And the fact that the federal government dropped this deal on a Friday afternoon at a time where they hope no one would see it, speaks to, you know, you're trying to keep one of the key components of reconciliation in the dark, and that is a recipe for disaster. It's a huge recipe for disaster, and it's why I take offense to all of these ridiculous, weak-hearted attempts to help our First Nations people. So that's why I kind of said, right, agreements like this,

they may push the government to refine frameworks for indigenous rights and dispute resolution, and you may hear some positive things, but so far what I've seen is that money talks and reconciliation walks. And I'm not saying that that's good. I'm saying that that's where we are. And I have a funny feeling that the money will speak louder than the indigenous issues.

Projects will go on. And whether people are paid off in dollars or something non-monetary, I'm afraid that the First Nations people will get pushed to the side again. Yeah, but look, you know, if we could just be a lot more pragmatic about this and come up with, structures that allow these first nations to participate as genuine stakeholders in all of these

projects the the first nations of canada would and should be the richest indigenous groups in the world that's that could be a possibility but all it seems all we want to do in this country is um uh do these performative land claims sign these deals hand over massive checks and keep our oil in the ground and i you do that and uh and at some point you're going to run out of money and nobody's going to be happy. But I want to thank you very much for joining me, my friend. I hope to talk to you again soon. Stay healthy, Ben.

My name is Mickey Fox. Friday, February 27th on a global. I'm sheriff of Edgewater. For her, keeping the peace. Cartel's moving in. Means every investigation. People are getting threats. It's close to home.

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