Mill workers and contractors gathered on that cold clear
morning under the shed-roof of the mill’s greenchain to hear from Pierre about
getting BC back to work. Of note were
his views on energy policy as published by Northern Beat’s, Fran Yanor. She wrote:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-155124686
Reliables versus renewables
Q: Premier David Eby announced his government will expand
electricity generation to increase investment.
A: “I’m fine with that, as long as it pays for itself. The reason why electrical generation is so
expensive in Canada is that it takes so long to get permitted. We need to speed up permits for hydroelectric,
for natural gas generation and for nuclear, quite frankly. There’s a lot of talk about renewables. I’m focused on reliable base load, affordable
electricity to power our economy. So, if
that’s what he wants to do, I agree with him on that.
Speed up permitting
Q: There’s a couple of pipelines stalled in B.C., as you
probably know, Northern Gateway and Prince Rupert [gas transmission pipeline]. If your party formed government, would you
clear the way for those?
A: I will repeal the anti-pipeline law C-69, and I will give
rapid permits for pipelines so that we can get our energy to market. Every time the NDP and Liberals block a
pipeline, Donald Trump does a dance of joy, because it means that we have to
sell him all of our oil at a discount.
The Americans are getting our oil for a discount of between
$10 and $15 a barrel, and that’s times 3 million barrels a day. That’s $30 million in subsidies that the
Canadian energy sector is giving to the American economy because we have almost
no other customers than America.
Pipelines would allow us to get our product to the Pacific,
which means we can get it to Asia without going through America.
Why do the Americans have us by the throat? Because we don’t get our products to other
markets. And I don’t know why the NDP is
so determined to help Donald Trump. They
seem to be his biggest ally in giving him our energy at a huge discount.
Ramp up LNG to feed global demand
Q: You said we need four, five or six LNG Canada plants.
A: The more the better.
Q: If you become Prime Minister, what do you want from B.C.,
in terms of what they are bringing to the table for trade talks, for instance?
A: The thing is, with energy, we don’t actually need new
trade agreements. We already have free
trade with 800 million Asians now with the Trans Pacific Partnership. We have a free trade agreement with Europe. We could use India. I would like us to have
unbridled access to the Indian market.
But really that’s not the issue. The issue is getting our energy over the
Pacific. And that means we need two
things: one, pipelines, and two, LNG plants.
We have one [Canada] LNG plant that’s about to come on
[stream] over in Kitimat. There’s the
Cedar [LNG] project. There’s the
Squamish [Woodfibre LNG] – who’ve got a beautiful project they’re just about to
start – but none of them are operational yet.
The Americans have built seven of these plants in the last
decade. The Qataris have doubled their
production. The Greeks, Germans,
Japanese and French have all asked for Canadian LNG.
We don’t need a deal. We don’t need paperwork. We don’t need politicians to go across to hold
meetings. What we need is LNG plants to
liquefy it and put it on boats.
That’s what we are going to rapidly approve.
Incent nations to support pipelines
Q: One challenge with pipelines, as you know, is getting
them across First Nation territories.
A: Well, look, first of all, I’m going to give a powerful
incentive for First Nations communities to say yes.
I will allow the companies that transit through traditional
First Nations lands to pay some of their federal tax to the first nation and I
will vacate federal tax room so the companies will then pay these local first
nations communities a tax that the federal government will neutralize through a
federal tax cut.
Then these communities will have a very powerful incentive
to say yes, and they can use some of that money to defeat poverty, build
schools and hospitals and clean water and other essentials for their people.
The tax break will be for the natural resource companies. Instead of paying all their taxes to the
federal government, [the company] will pay some of it to the local first
nation. Then they sign an agreement and
away you go.
It will be a standard. I hope what they’ll do is develop standardized
agreements that are very easy to replicate. Then you don’t have to spend seven years
negotiating, it’s already done. You have
a clear, simple template that you can use anywhere you have a negotiation
between first nations and companies, save a hell of a lot of time.
‘You can’t please everybody’
Q: What about those nations that still hold out?
A: Well, you can’t please everybody, at the end of the day.
There were hereditary chiefs that opposed the Coastal
Gaslink and we went ahead anyway. We
have to. You’re never going to get
unanimity in anything.
You can’t get 100 per cent of Canadians to agree that Elvis
is dead.
At the end of the day, if you wait for 100 per cent of
people to agree on something, nothing will ever get done. So, you’ve got to go ahead.
Subscribe to Northern Beat News www.northernbeat.ca
In addition, my friend R. Whittaker did a live interview
which is worth watching for policy substance.
In conclusion, Poilievre has talked about substantive policy
for quite some time across the country. However,
voters know him for adeptly revealing the disasters of the Trudeau administration. Pierre Poilievre has been diligent and
successful at his job. It is his
parliamentary role as ‘His Majesties Loyal Opposition.’ Nevertheless, the cynical legacy media talk
about Poilievre being all “critic” without substance for “governance”. They have not been listening. Maybe they don’t want voters to know?
This post reveals the Trudeau contrast. Trudeau is ‘image over substance’ and
Poilievre is ‘substance over image’.
1 comment:
No more accurate statement has ever been made about NDP-Liberals. They are the world's best complainers and critics, but actually, they are empty suits.
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