Power Struggle
Improving the energy dialogue in Canada (and beyond) through honest, non-partisan, and fact- based conversations.
The energy conversation is personal: it’s in our homes, in our hands, and now, it’s in our ears. Power Struggle invites you to listen in on honest, non-partisan, and fact-based conversations between host Stewart Muir and the leaders and thinkers designing modern energy.
Watch videos at https://www.youtube.com/@PowerStrugglePod
Power Struggle
Is Alberta Ready to Lead the World in Energy - Minister Of Energy and Minerals Brian Jean
Alberta’s oil, gas, and lithium resources are massive — and so are the stakes. In this exclusive Power Struggle episode, Energy Minister Brian Jean joins Stewart Muir to discuss Canada’s global energy role, the new “Grand Bargain” with Ottawa, and why a pipeline to the Pacific could change everything.
Jean argues Alberta’s energy is not just a provincial asset — it’s a national tool for prosperity, security, and reconciliation. From Trans Mountain to lithium extraction, carbon fiber innovation to base-load reliability, he lays out a high-stakes vision for energy independence and economic growth.
Recorded in January 2026, this conversation touches on U.S.–Canada trade, Asia’s growing demand for heavy crude, Indigenous equity partnerships, and how Alberta plans to power not just itself — but BC, the North, and beyond.
Watch now to hear how decisions made today will echo for decades.
The energy conversation is polarizing. But the reality is multidimensional. Get the full story with host Stewart Muir.
Reach out to us with thoughts, questions, or ideas at info@powerstruggle.ca
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Welcome to Power Struggle. I'm your host, Stuart Muir. Today's guest is Brian Jean, Alberta's Minister of Energy and Minerals. It's great to have you in the studio today, Minister. Great to be here, Stuart. Thanks for the invite. It's been a while in the making, and there's so much to talk about. Brian brings a rare perspective to the energy conversation. He served in federal politics, he led a provincial opposition party. He now sits at the cabinet table at a time when Alberta's energy sector is under intense global scrutiny. Before politics, he built a career in law and business in northern Alberta, giving him firsthand experience with the communities most directly affected by energy policy. In this conversation, we're going to talk about where Alberta fits in on the world energy stage. From OPEC and Venezuela to North American energy security, we're going to dig into what it really takes to get Canadian energy to global markets, the thinking behind recent agreements like the MOU agreement with Prime Minister Mark Carney, and how Canada and the United States fit into Alberta's long-term energy future. It's a timely conversation. Here we are at the end of January 2026. It's about realism, the choices that will shape Canada's economic future. So let's get into it. Brian Jean, I know you're most associated with Fort McMurray, but I believe you have a British Columbia story too.
SPEAKER_02:I was born in British Columbia in West West Klona, West Bank at the time. But I was born there, and most of my family, a couple generations on my mom's side, and a generation or two on my dad's side. So we actually are from BC. We moved from uh Klona, West Bank up to Fort McMurray back in 1967. But most of my family still reside in the BC, Klona, and North areas.
SPEAKER_00:1967, the centennial year, that was the year my family went from Lethbridge to Vancouver. And uh we had our own trajectory from there. Isn't it isn't it something how interlinked BC and Alberta are? It's like almost everyone you meet, they've got some linkage. But when you get to the politics, it feels like these are divided kingdoms. Do you ever sense that? The Rockies are this big divide?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I'm from uh a big family of uh of 11 kids. So I I can tell you we have lots of uh different decisions and different priorities uh from time to time. But it's no different for BC and Alberta. We're a family and and we have to work together to get things done if we have a united purpose and and to make things better for ourselves and our families and our future. And I think that's what it's all about is a partnership with family.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I really like what you expressed this week because you stood with the other uh uh energy and minerals ministers in Vancouver at the big Roundup Conference, and you've uh come up with a new agreement on how to work together collaboratively. I think that's what Canadians hope to see in leadership. So I hope that agreement. Can you tell me a little about that deal?
SPEAKER_02:I think Canadians expect us to work together for for the future, because the future is there. We just have to seize it. The MOU itself is about critical minerals and it's about how we cooperate together to make things better, to have a united front with Ottawa, who is also our partner, and making sure that we set our priorities. We have some priorities that are very important to the nation. For instance, in the North, Hay River, there's a a rail situation there that is is is desperate. And if we're gonna see our North expand and grow, we need to work with the Northwest Territories to make sure that Ottawa understands that's a critical infrastructure piece. We also have other pieces around Alberta and BC that are very, very important. And those pieces are important not just for, you know, quality of life for people, which of course it is, uh, but it's also important for jobs and making sure that this infrastructure, whether it's road or rail, provides economics so that people can have the great quality of life that we expect.
SPEAKER_00:You call that an MOU, not to be mistaken, with that other MOU that's the national one with the Prime Minister.
SPEAKER_02:So great agreement with uh the government of Canada and Alberta, great agreement.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and we're gonna come into that because I think there's a lot of questions that people have got very interesting. Very happy progresses. There's some some milestones coming up that were agreed to last fall. Um but um here here here's the number two question I've got for you, Minister. Um as Alberta's energy minister, what perception about Alberta from outside Alberta would you most like to change if you could?
SPEAKER_02:You know, Stuart, I I have to tell you, I I I don't know perceptions that people have about Albertans um, you know, that well. I I can't really tell you how we should change to feet uh meet other people's expectations, but what I can tell you is we all have priorities across this great country, depending on where we're from and and our experiences from then to now. But that doesn't mean we can't compromise and work with other people to find that ultimate purpose. And we don't have to be ideological about it. What we have to do is is be honest and have honest conversations and work towards making that agenda fit er all Canadians equally, because that's what we're all about is one big family, one big nation, tied together. We have constitutional rights to be able to get our products to market. Um, those constitutional rights need to be respected. We need to work together to make sure that they're as good for BC going through Alberta as they are for Alberta going through BC.
SPEAKER_00:Now, you're kind of a distinct voice because you're from Fort McMurray. I know that there's now an MP, Billy Morin, who is also from Northern Alberta, who's brought that perspective to Ottawa. But you've consistently over many years done that in Alberta. And I I just hope you could explain a little bit to give listeners a sense of just what it means to be from that community. I mean, the ups and downs, you've got the commodity price cycles, we had the fire years ago and the crisis there, that you were in the community leadership uh mix there. Um what what is the sense of uh place and self that that uh Fort McMurray folks have?
SPEAKER_02:Well, we have a lot of pride in what we do. Uh we do it better than anybody else on the planet. So, you know, that's important to us. We we also recognize that the outdoors are important. We are guardians of the wilderness and we respect that. We also work very closely with First Nations, and we have a lot of partnerships there, and and we're proud of that as well. So I think we're on the forefront of energy, of the energy future that's necessary in order to get our products to market, but also the rest of the world should see what we're doing, and they are. Alberta's Indigenous Opportunities Corp. lends money, uh taxpayer money, to First Nations for very good, high uh return on investment projects, and that lifts those people out of poverty. And that is an example that the federal government has emulated, and now BC has emulated, and other provinces are looking at it. Um it's something that we're very proud of because that came out of Alberta and came out of the North and the need to work with First Nations and other partners to get these projects off the ground and make sure we bring the quality of life to everybody.
SPEAKER_00:Now, it's not that hard to go and find the energy experts, the policy people, the academics, the the CEOs in Calgary who can give their side of the transformation story of Alberta energy. From a community point of view, though, how do you see Fort McMurray residents and northern Albertans in general being part of this, you know, shift towards making Canadian energy, crude oil in particular, which is our most valuable export last time I checked. By far. By far. Um, making it the thing that is, you know, Canadians' vision for the future.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think it's first of all that we have to recognize that we're a community and the communities have to be supported. So wherever those communities are across northern Alberta and Northern BC, they need to be part of the equation and they need to be true partners in the decision making, but also moving forward on and actually seeing the benefits come to those communities. Sometimes we see boom and bust with those energy communities and the resource-based communities, and we need to try to have a government move away from that so we have a more stable long-term view of these things. And that doesn't mean that we hire and fire people by the thousands every year in a small town like Fort Memory. It means we actually look at building those community jobs, the structures of those jobs, move away from the fly-in-fly-out model that's very popular. It was with side C as well.
SPEAKER_00:I hear the same exact thing in northern BC northwest, northeast. It's terrible.
SPEAKER_02:It really destroys families. And it's, you know, I was a lawyer in Fort Memory for years, and I can tell you that uh whether it's divorces or criminal law, uh, the camps kept me very busy and not good, in not in a good way. Have they improved over the years in in the practices that No. No, they have not. They uh in fact I'd say they've gone away from it. In the old days, they had a lot more freedoms to drive to and from camps from the community so they could live in Fort McMurray. And now they can't do that, unfortunately. For many of the many of the camps don't allow them to commute back and forth. Um they give you a variety of reasons, but the truth is, you know, when you fly a person into a camp and you have a bus that takes them to their house or their room and then takes them back and forth from work, you have a captured audience. Um you have barbed wire, you have the you have the jumpsuits, you have everything except for the guards. Uh but the truth is they're not allowed to leave. They're there. It's a it's a it's a you know, it's a workforce that they control and they want to be able to control it because it controls the uncontrollables, you know, sick or kids sick or things like that. Normal things that everybody else deals with. Um we have some camps right now that are like five minutes outside of Fort McMurray, 5,000 people, 5,000 people working and living. Um, five minutes out from Fort McMurray. Meanwhile, we have a ton of people that are unemployed in the housing prices. If you want to move and get a great investment in a house, you could buy your you could sell your house in Vancouver and buy about five or six in Fort McMurray.
SPEAKER_00:What what's the pitch for living in Fort McMurray if you're making that?
SPEAKER_02:Greatest place in the world to live. You've got five rivers uh flowing into the city itself. Uh if you like the outdoors, it's amazing. Great quality of life, highest uh household income in the country for years and years, and um one of the lowest cost structures. You know, the people in Fort McMurray, the difference between us and many other uh environments is we actually know that we have to work hard, but we also know we have to play hard during the wintertime because we get what is called cabin fever. And you know, when you have snow around you all the time and you're isolated inside, and you know, many people don't get out like I do with snowmobiles and and uh different things like that out in the out in the cold, skiing and snowboarding. Uh but you know, the truth is they need a vacation away. The good news is when you live and work in Fort Murmur, you can afford to own a condo in Vegas or somewhere else. It's warm, so you can go down there and enjoy that. So then the truth is the people that have been very successful there recognize that you have to you have to work within the situation we have, and and that means, you know, work and play when you can. Great community to be from, though. I I have to tell you, I've lived there all my life, and it's an incredible community.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you you've you've been up there for a long time since uh 67. 67.
SPEAKER_02:But I will tell you, Stuart, you know, I want people to know that not only have I lived in Fort Murray, I've lived in Australia for three years, I lived in Portland, Oregon for four years, I lived in Ottawa for ten years as an MP. I've seen the world, I've seen much of the world, and I don't think there's any better place.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Powell, Jr. For listeners who don't follow energy policy super closely, how would you describe Alberta's role in the Canadian economy and the energy story that's part of that?
SPEAKER_02:Well, Stuart, it's shocking, uh, to be honest. If you look at Alberta versus the rest of the world, we've got we're the fourth largest reserve of uh heavy oil on the planet, and that's at 10% capability from the from the natural resource. Like if we get to 20%, we're gonna be the largest reserve on the planet, um, as far as being able to extract it from the oil sands. We have the ninth largest reserve of natural gas in the world with BC. Um, we have the third largest lithium deposit in the world and and the lowest cost extraction method through brine. And uh, you know, the the opportunities in Alberta are amazing because we're we're actually using our oil and gas infrastructure to now get lithium out of it, and we don't have to drill the new holes. We can we can do that. So we're trying to find as many opportunities as we can for for the current infrastructure, which includes geothermal. So there's a lot of different opportunities. And when I say Alberta is a leader in energy, it truly is a leader, a world leader in energy because we have the capacity, but we also have the capability. A lot of people don't know this, but more than 50% of the mining companies in the world are Canadian companies. And most of those companies are from Alberta. The drilling expertise that we have is exported to Australia for for uh specialty uh projects on drilling. The drillers and the people that work in the oil and gas industry in Alberta are known as some of the best in the world. They go all over the world helping other companies to do what they do. The Alberta Energy Regulator, as well, is an incredible regulator. We have people from all over the world come over and say, How do you do this? You know, could you show us how to set up a regulator? And so we do that as well. So uh we we really do punch above our above our weight, and we're working right now with BC in Saskatchewan to try to get our regulations uh cohesive so that we can have a more attractive environment for all of the outside players. For instance, we share um we share gas fields in northern BC and Alberta, for instance. I mean, we should have similar regulations so the the companies can move back and forth and they don't have to worry about all that red tape that really doesn't mean anything, doesn't accomplish anything, but is quite a burden.
SPEAKER_00:Um just to zoom out, when you look at the provinces, because you're mentioning Saskatchewan and BC as well as Alberta in the story, and they are connected by geology. This thing known as the I hate to use it, it's such a mouthful, and no one really knows what it means. Well, you do, I know, but uh Western uh sedimentary basin and or Western Canadian sedimentary basin. What is that? And and more importantly, what does it mean to the future of the country that this vast deposit exists with all of these mineral and uh petroleum riches?
SPEAKER_02:Well, it means nothing if we don't do it right. You can have the best quality product on the planet, but if you don't know how to sell it and nobody's prepared to buy it because they don't like it, you're not gonna get any benefit. But if we can, we have one of the richest places in the world to provide, you know, product to the to the people of the world. And, you know, whether it be energy poverty, there's a lot of people that die as a result of not having proper energy, you know, eight million people plus a year just from burning dung and wood and other things that they could have natural gas for next to nothing uh right now. If we could just get our stuff together and make that happen. And, you know, whether it's oil, which makes over 6,000 different products, including cell phones and computers and even these mics and your eyeglasses, um, you know, people don't realize how many different products we can get from heavy oil and how important it is. Uh and then we haven't even talked about coal, and we have a huge coal deposit that we're gonna be using using to make steel, which of course is necessary. And what does this mean? Well, geopolitically, Alberta and BC and Saskatchewan could actually change the fate of the world just based on what we do with our energy. Because as you know, Japan, you know, the Second World War from Japan was started as a result of energy lack, uh, the lack of energy and the control of energy by another power. Um, you know, we're looking at Russia and and China and and other nations right now, and there's a lot of turmoil. Well, we put three three million barrels a day of crude into the Pacific, all of a sudden it changes the storyline for everybody. We put a lot of natural gas uh LNG into the Pacific, it changes the story for everybody. And that doesn't even mean we get into Africa where it's really needed, uh, or Europe where, you know, frankly, they're being manipulated by energy from a superpower. Um, those things, we can stop that from happening and change the world to be a better place.
SPEAKER_00:If you look back to the middle of 2024, that's when the Transmountain expansion was finished, and and that added, what, 600,000 barrels a day to Canadian export potential? What changed because of that? If you look back, now we've got quite a few months of statistics and that performance.
SPEAKER_02:Well, the first thing is that Canadians and the world now know that we can actually build something in Canada. We haven't built a pipeline or energy opportunity for many, many years of any significance. So I think that's a big signal to the capital markets. And in in particular, we can't build anything unless we have money. So that was something. We also saw the differential come down a bit, narrow a bit, which was very good because obviously the differential, you know, the difference between what we sell uh it for and what we get it for. It's been up in the 20s, it's been in the teens for a little while. Now we've got it down uh a little bit, and that means we get to keep more of that money, our producers get to keep more of that money. Um and we send about three million barrels a day down to the Midwest, for instance, and and we've got good partnerships there, and and you know, those those relationships have been made, those pipelines have been installed, and and we don't see that changing for a long, long time, even with Venezuela.
SPEAKER_00:Now, the energy sector didn't appear overnight. I I've I've been to Led Duke and I've actually stood under the or by the Derrick there, the very first one. It's a great picture. It it is uh iconic. Um it was quite cold, so I got a picture. I think the lens was frozen though. Um but um the the energy sector in Alberta didn't appear overnight. It's it's a long-term process. And um how did we get to where we are today? And what is the state today? Like how would you characterize Alberta? So, in particular, the oil sands, and how did that develop?
SPEAKER_02:Well, the energy sector, as you said, has been around for a long time. I mean, the the indigenous folks used to use oil, oil sands to patch their canoes back in the day, and we used it to pave, for instance, Jasper Avenue and uh in Edmonton and also in Ottawa, the Parliamentary Hill, we use that to pave that. So we've used energy or oil um and those products for a long, long time. But the truth is it's it's changed, and now we're uh seeing the opportunity to create energy from these products around the world and and to transport them there. And and what we have seen is is a restriction of our ability to get resources to market, which obviously suffocates our own ability to grow, while the rest of the world is pouring these dirty, you know, barrels of oil that have no respect for human rights or no respect for women. Meanwhile, uh, you know, our own people are suffering because we can't get uh pipelines to Tidewater. You know, right now, if we got uh a couple of million barrels to the Pacific, it would it would raise uh finances tremendously for the people of BC, especially in the North Coast. It would raise about five billion a year just for one pipeline for the people of of Canada and the people of Alberta, but there would be significant jobs rate across the country, including even in Ontario, that makes forklifts and different things. And I I was talking to a manufacturing uh organization in Ontario. They told me that more than 50% of the products come to Alberta in the small equipment that they manufacture from Ontario. And and that's not a strange story. Many, many people talk about that. And I can tell you that whether it's Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, there's a lot of people from Atlanta, Canada and and Newfoundland in in Fort McMurray. And and in fact, I would suggest most of the people that established Fort McMurray back in the 80s uh were from Atlanta, Canada. Um, you know, you it doesn't take much to hear a fiddle in the backyard in Fort Midmurray.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you've got a lot of um Canadian companies and foreign companies that are uh present in Calgary who have East Coast operations and they have global operations, but they're based based here. Do you think there's a sense that Canada has some kind of special feature in how it presents itself to the the the growth uh in other areas outside Alberta?
SPEAKER_02:You know, uh Canada as a whole needs to stop apologizing for what we're doing. You know, we we are doing it better than anybody else as far as energy production and distribution and and human rights. We need to recognize that our oil on the international marketplace is a better barrel of oil than anyone else and takes dirty oil off the off the shelves and makes people behave like Russia and China and other world powers that are frankly big bullies. And uh, you know, Canada as uh as a country can say, hey, you you can't do that anymore, or else we're not gonna sell you our oil. And I I can promise you, China wants our oil. Korea wants our oil. Both of them are getting some right now, and Korea's actually geared up their refineries to take our oil. So, I mean, a lot of countries right now are saying they've tried it, they like it. It's a taste of a great product, and they want more of that product. But do we give that product to our allies? Do we do we control that product with our enemies? Um I I I don't know. Those are bigger questions than me, but we can't do any of that until we get it to the to the to the tide water. We can't do any of it because right now we send, you know, over 90% of our product down to the United States. They dictate prices pretty much to us to a degree, and they dictate how much supply we can actually provide, and they take the profit, they take the the value add from the refining, from the upgrading, from the transportating, from making it into LNG, whether natural gas or oil. And how about we do that in Alberta and BC? We would love to see the opportunity, for instance, for an ammonia plant on the on the coast of uh British Columbia that actually could supply that to Korea, who wants to cut emissions from their coal-fired plants. Now, and and Japan does too, and they want to be able to cut emissions, but they can't do that because they have no secure supply of ammonia. We could do that. BC could do that, and that would be a very profitable venture for them, but it would also help the world. And uh I think we're in a unique position to do that if we just stop apologizing, stop blaming other people for something that doesn't exist, and and frankly, work together to compromise and get things to be better for the people of Alberta, BC, and Canada. And and we can do it. We just have to work together to do it and quit making these artificial claims about things that are not true. You know, a lot of people do that about crude oil, and it's just it's not true. Fort Montmury is probably the cleanest place I've ever been as far as a provider. 99, over 99 percent of all spills for oil happen on an oil sands site. I mean, the 1% or less than 1%, I mean, you should see the emergency crews that go deal with that. It's just it's the perception of people on oil and gas industry in Alberta is not real. We are the best at what we do on the environment, human human side, and every other side in relation to energy development.
SPEAKER_00:I had the chance to go out to Meg Energy's Christina Lake SAGD facility a few years ago. And you could eat your dinner off the floor in the Cogen plant. It's a matter of pride. You know what they had in the residence there was uh they had a map of wildlife sightings that it was just all kinds of creatures all over the place at this at this location. I didn't I didn't spot any grizzlies pins on the map. But starting to move away from the mountains coming up north. Oh, is that a fact? Yeah. Okay. Well, there's a lot in BC now because the hunt was uh ended here. So uh interesting. That's another story.
SPEAKER_02:We've had some attacks in in Alberta, and it's it's you know, it's a shame that people can't walk out in the bush without feeling threatened.
SPEAKER_00:It's getting dangerous even for season hunters uh in in BC. Just going back a little bit, um, you know, there's different kinds. There's light oil and there's medium oil, but then the biggest part. Of course, is the heavy oil. And recently I think everyone in Canada got a taste of geopolitics with Venezuela. Everyone, you know, the experts are on TV talking about heavy oil and a little more consciousness of this and the fact that Russia produces a lot. I didn't see Iraq come up in the discussion, but I know Iraq does produce a lot of that Bassra heavy crude that gets into the markets. And I think there's some from West Africa. From the global trade in heavy oil, where does Canada fit in in that important niche? And what is that niche?
SPEAKER_02:Aaron Powell Well the niche is I mean, the beautiful part about heavy oil is it makes so many different products. And I mentioned that before, but people don't recognize how many different things you can do with it. Um, and and that's what makes it so attractive to most of the refinery uh refiners around the world. You know, we are a world player now. We're a high cost producer. The truth is not as high cost as Venezuela, and people don't recognize that, but there is a high higher cost to produce Venezuela.
SPEAKER_00:It's more expensive in Venezuela than in Alberta.
SPEAKER_02:In Alberta, you don't have many people shooting at you uh when you're digging up oil. I mean, you know, we don't have that kind of situation. We have the rule of law apply, and and uh, you know, people are well paid and there's there's no freebies on there. We have we have uh good workforces that that uh follow the rules and do what they're supposed to, and that's not the same in every other country, in fact, very few other countries. So there is a higher cost to it, but there's uh a better product to it. And and I've seen over the years that the better products usually rise to the top. And we want to be in a situation where we sell our product as a premium credit and people pay more for it, not less for it. And that that's because we do it better and people care about how we do it. Uh they're starting to care more about how we do it, especially in relation to the environment. And and people outside of Canada recognize we are the best at it. Inside Canada, we criticize our lot ourselves a lot, but outside of Canada, people see us as the world leader on environmental stewardship, for instance. So I think what you'll see is over time that people will be more prepared to pay for a Canadian product if it's the same price because it's a better product. And in time, maybe we'll see a premium price for that product. And that's what I would like to see. But I mean, it's debatable. The biggest issue is though, no matter what the price is, no matter what the product is, the more we displace from countries that don't treat their people well, the more chance there is they'll pe those people will change. And the more chance there is the world will be a better, safer place. And that's what I think that we can do as Albertans, as Canadians, is really punch above our weight. You know, we have a small population of 40 million people here. Uh, it's a very small population relative to the rest of the world, and we have a great quality of life, but um, we add so many costs to it that it's very difficult for us to then absorb the cost to get it out to market. And that's what we need to look at is how to cut our costs and still make that great product, but get it to the marketplace so that people can buy it and they displace the other barrels that they're buying currently from uh Iraq, Iran, and and Venezuela and others.
SPEAKER_00:It's almost like we're talking around the thing that has been in the news for a few months now. That's the MOU with the Canadian federal government and Alberta. I'd like to delve into that. Um I'm sure everyone's got lots of questions and and wants to hear uh what you can tell us about it and and where it's going. Um first of all, uh let's just describe what it is for those who maybe haven't been following. What is the MOU? The memorandum of understanding between uh Premier Smith and Prime Minister Kearney. So, Minister Jean, it's clearly the case that First Nations in Canada have been denied opportunities for a very long time. There is a a movement, I think, embraced by business, by society in general, by governments to change that, to be the generation where where First Nations can emerge from those systemic issues of the past. And there are some places in the country that have been more successful. Northern Alberta, Alberta generally is one of those.
SPEAKER_02:Northern Alberta in particular has done a great job in partnerships with First Nations. And and people don't know that, but there's there's billionaires, multimillionaires out of those First Nations there just from partnershipping with with um with the industry. And in fact, if I can just tell you about Fort Mackay, who's, you know, I remember back in the 70s going to Fort Mackay and not them not having electricity. Um Fort Mackay is very close to Fort McMurray. It's about 60, 70 kilometers north. And in fact, one of the just about two years ago, a lady, uh First Nations member that was at an announcement with me, she told me that one of my brothers installed electricity in her home in 1972 in Fort Mackay. And I mean, he was we're we're friends. We've been I have a lot of family that are First Nations. I have about 30 nephews and nieces that 15 of them were born and raised on reserves. Um I have a large family, I'm the youngest of 11. And um, so I've seen these First Nations in those areas, and I'm they're family members. So I get to watch and I, of course, care. Um Mackay has their own oil sands lease now. They're they're working on that. They're going to have an open pit mine on oil sands and and do reclamation of that afterwards. And of course, they're stewards of the land, so they're going to do a great job. In fact, they're involved in Suncor and all the other oil sands plants and many aspects, including the environment, to make sure that that is done properly. They they have preferential treatment for jobs for purchasing. Billions of dollars in economic activity go directly to First Nations in contracts. 12% of their workforce is First Nation. I know they used to keep track of it. They don't anymore because it's just it's grown so exponentially, the First Nations component of it. First Nations, Metis, and Alberta has a special relationship with their Métis communities too. So they're in a different place than most Metis across the country and a privileged place, to be honest, in Alberta. Um, so we have done different things. In fact, there's another First Nation up north that is looking and right now negotiating for another oil sands lease. And that's two oil sands leases for two First Nations in northern Alberta, both of them seeking the opportunity to lift their people out of poverty. And in Fort Mackay, have they done a good job? Well, they told me about uh, I don't know, two years ago they had$600 million in their bank account uh in their investment fund. I um I would suggest it's over a billion now. They all their people are working full-time. They're making, as I said, the the uh highest household income in the country is Fort McParray. Fort Mackay has probably got a higher one now than they do. And they're gonna own not just the lease, but they have a number of companies. And when I say a number of companies, I mean dozens of companies that are highly successful, locally owned by Indigenous people that work right across the spectrum. You know, heavy equipment to scientists. And uh, you know, I've seen this over the last 30 years in in in Alberta because that preferential treatment uh for First Nations and making sure we can lift them out of poverty has happened there for 30 years. It's just starting in BC. I mean, but the first thing you have to do, Stuart, is you have to talk to them. It would be a novel approach for some governments, but why don't you sit down and find out what they want, what they need, what they care about, what their priority is. Yes, they don't trust you, because you lied to them before. But you're a new person. It's a new time. And we need to put it on the agenda. Well, after uh some period of time, we came to this great agreement which deals with uh a number of different things. It it talks about a pipeline of at least a million barrels to the Northwest Coast, which of course isn't in the federal jurisdiction. It's not in the province of the country.
SPEAKER_00:Why to the Northwest Coast?
SPEAKER_02:Why not another part of the BC coast? Well, it's just like everything. Um, you know, how far you build uh matters how much it costs, and uh and what you build over and how you build it matters how much it costs.
SPEAKER_00:So it's the most direct and efficient.
SPEAKER_02:$20 to$25 billion. I mean, most experts say it's somewhere in there. You want to build the Hudson Bay, that's$40 to$50 billion. You want to go down to the U.S., well, why? We already have more pipelines down there than we know what to do with. And certainly I want more e-grass to go down there, but if we're gonna build pipelines, let's build it in a place that really matters. And in Asia right now, we've identified somewhere between two and three million barrels of demand right now for our heavy crude from Korea and Japan and Malaysia and many other uh different countries in there. Uh China, especially, is looking for our oil. And, you know, we can get it to them and we can make a difference on that. It was called the grand bargain, and many people don't know why, but one of the major uh hurdles to ongoing development for the for our oil sands has been the federal government concerned about GHG emissions. And although we're under the current uh average level of heavy of oil emissions for any country, all the countries in the world, we're we're below the average. The truth is the federal government wanted our heavy oil to get even lower intensive GHG emissions. So the grand bargain that many have referred to is we get the pipeline to the Northwest Coast for a million plus, and the uh oil sands players in northern Alberta build what is called pathways, and you know, seven different companies get together and they, or six different companies get together and they build a a pipeline that will take um GHG and it and force it into the ground into carbon capture and sequestration, which many countries, including Korea and Japan and Europe and and the United States, believe that is a big part of our our future for greenhouse gas emission control. And so if we do one, we get the other. And and uh, you know, that that's pretty exciting for me. We also, there was a lot of other things in that agreement, um, including clean energy regulations that were going to devastate our economy in Alberta. We're we're private sector for energy, so it's different than every other jury's. Yeah, no, and and we got a few other things too. I mean, Stuart, the truth is we uh we sat down with the federal government, we did some arm wrestling, and and we we came up with um some good reasons why their position was not the right position for Alberta because we're different than other provinces, and I don't mean that we're different people, it's just we have a private sector electricity grid, everybody else has a public sector one. You know, there's different things like that. We have the oil sector, we don't have nuclear. So they were trying to make a one size fit everybody in Canada, and you just can't do that. Canada is too big of a country with too many differences. So them sitting down with us, the Prime Minister, uh Minister Hodgson's, and uh, you know, arm wrestling doesn't deal, oh, they got some things they wanted, we got some things we wanted. They got a tier price of a$1.30 a ton. Um, you know, we got all these other things. But we believe that all of these things are possible within the financial realities that we have to face and still be able to hit the marketplace with it. And as you said, there is no export, nothing in Canada that compares to a bitumen oil pipeline to the coast and what the value it brings back to the people of Canada is. Unbelievable. You know, the federal government got some things too, as I mentioned. They wanted to have$130 per ton tier pricing. Well, they've got that. And uh and industry, you know, it's a lot higher than what we originally anticipated. But the truth is that because of the mechanism that we put in place, we think it's going to be very successful and and and the business businesses will like it. Uh they won't love it, but they will like it. They understand the long-term needs of it.
SPEAKER_00:Now, there was a degree of skepticism that the prime minister was serious about this. What did you say to critics who were posing that conundrum?
SPEAKER_02:Well, twenty years ago, uh, I was in the federal politics and and uh the prime minister was the governor of the Bank of Canada. And you know, when he would come before the Finance Committee, I would ask him the same questions that I'm asking today from different people. And uh he always had the best answers. He talked about pipelines being the best investment we can make. And this is back in 2012, 2011, when he would come before the finance committee and I'd ask him questions about pipelines and oil, because obviously I'm from that area and it's very near and dear to me. And we've been trying for years to get a pipeline out of there so we could have some growth in the industry. And um, you know, he his position on pipelines and pipeline infrastructure has not changed. And, you know, in politics, if you find a person that doesn't change uh and it speaks truth to power, it's it's a pretty good chance they're gonna follow through with what they say. Now, you know, it's not an easy thing to do because the nature of of Canada and and where we are, and you know, the First Nations in BC, we have to make sure that that works out well, same as the First Nations in Alberta, and we have to have that partnership level with them. So it's not gonna be without its challenges. But I'm I believe the Prime Minister is sincere. I believe Tim Hodgson, the Minister Hodgson's is sincere. I believe right now they have their own internal political challenges, but they are been honest to us. And and if they come forward with this agreement and and enforcing their terms of this agreement, I think Canadians are gonna have a little bit, a lot more pride in the government of Canada and in particular the Prime Minister. We've got our own challenges in Alberta. We've got a, you know, we've got a separatist movement that's gaining some traction, and and it's primarily about pipelines. You know, that they just feel that they're, you know, Ottawa takes all our money. They don't have a problem with that in giving us l a lot less services back, which they do, about 20 billion a year. But um they won't even let us get our products to market. And that that is uh shameful. And we see a new era with this new Prime Minister, and we're very helpful.
SPEAKER_00:Well, there's a daunting amount of work. I mean, apart from the the the Pathways commitment, which will require um a huge amount of uh uh unified direction amongst the the big players. But I'm thinking the BC story. And for several years, Premier Smith and Premier EB have spent a lot of time working together, I think, behind closed doors. And when they come out, they're talking about the collaboration. I think things like hydrogen, you mentioned ammonia, which is needed to make hydrogen or or can be a way of of making uh hydrogen. And they had talks about LNG that have been very unifying. But the MOU, it's hard to see that one yet as a unifier. How do they, if they choose to, between themselves, uh turn this into a unifying uh project and concept?
SPEAKER_02:Well, first of all, it is our constitutional right to do what we want to do and wanting to do for 20 years. So let's, you know, you have constitutional rights, I have constitutional rights. How about how about respecting mine, first of all? That's the first thing. But but the truth is BC needs some things. I mean, there's a structural deficit in BC, and I'm not gonna get into internal politics in BC, but I will say this that if they want to get rid of that structural deficit, they're gonna need something besides immigration. And this gives them that opportunity. It also lifts the people of northern BC out of poverty, the First Nations out of poverty. Like that's what people don't recognize. Go over to Fort McMurray and see what's happened there. And and and you know, I will say I I understand um, you know, there's some different opinions about bitumen. But if you use a cell phone, if you use a laptop, if you consume it with driving a car or a bus or a plane, then what what is your problem with taking Canadian oil that's way better than any other oil, and we do it better than anybody else, and you know, upgrading, refining it, finishing here in Canada, and then consuming it instead of doing what right now is happening is you know, the Vancouver airport uh gets their aviation fuel from Korea, made from Alberta bitchman. Like, isn't that ironic? I think it's uh what a shame. How many jobs are we losing?
SPEAKER_00:Shopping it over there as a Robert. Yeah. You know, for jet fuel for the U.S. Well, that's a unifier, because Premier Eby in British Columbia has been talking about refinery capacity.
SPEAKER_02:I noticed that. And and I would say too that the other thing he's talking about is something a lot of British Columbians don't know is that Alberta has been selling our energy that we get from we have we have the most renewables in in Canada, like we have a lot of renewable energy. And so our wind power, our solar power, that is being sold to BC when it's almost free or free, because sometimes you know energy goes up and down, and energy prices are oftentimes free, and we'll sell it to BC for free, and then they'll sell it to California for a lot of money. And that has been actually something that a lot of people don't know is BC has been making money off our electricity, and now they're running a little bit shorter, and they need some help from the federal government, but they also need help from the province of Alberta. One of the things the agreement between the federal government and Alberta did was it specifically laid the foundation for a nuclear facility that would be able to feed into British Columbia and into the our north, uh into the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Um, and it would be built in Alberta, would be generating nuclear power in Alberta, and then would be feeding the line to BC because, of course, nuclear can't be built in BC because of their own law, because of BC's law. But we can build it in in Alberta and they can buy it, and then they can sell down to California, and that will help a lot with the structural deficit. But more than that, it'll help the people again in the north with the Northwest Transmission Line, which has been built up and built up. But it's very expensive to run those lines, and if we want to run them into the Yukon, it's again very, very expensive and not that efficient. But we have to find other ways to generate power and to get it to the people that need it in order for them to have the quality of life that Stuart, you and I take for granted. You know, warm shower and all those things, a lot of people don't have that, even in Northern Canada, and they deserve it. They have the right to it.
SPEAKER_00:And to be able to add zero emission electrons to the network is uh something you want to do more of.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but you know, uh, Stuart, I'm gonna tell you like if you look at the life cycle of all these things, including nuclear, there's nothing that does zero emissions. There's nothing. There's a lot of cement you gotta use to You know, Site C. Was that zero emissions? Is that is that a green and green project? Well, talk to the people in northern Alberta that don't have the water that they want, and you can find out what's going on there. Um, you know, are you telling me wind isn't? You know how much concrete they use then? The the same amount for I think three or four houses, and it never comes out of the ground? And you bury the windmill blades in there, and you think that's zero emissions? That's zero environmental impact? No, it's not. Uh uh, same as solar panels, you know. What do we do with the solar panels when we recycle them? Like, have people looked and actually seen what happens to batteries and the life cycle in them? So, you know, it's a balance. It's about finding all of these things and getting the best one that that serves people's and people and keeps an environment that's clean. Oil. Heavy oil is it.
SPEAKER_00:Natural gas, big part of that. It is. Um we're in the cold season right now, it's freezing down east. But two years ago in January 2024, there was an e a weather event in Western Canada, also the northwest of the United States, that's been studied to death since then because it exposed there were some weaknesses. I'm sure you get the briefings on this and you're all over this issue. But Alberta in particular had a critical vulnerability after days of 40 below. Um have you been studying this occurrence and what its lessons are? And is there anything you can tell us about?
SPEAKER_02:What's what's that all about? Well, well, the first thing is I I mentioned that we have more renewables in Alberta than anywhere else in the country by quite a bit. And we had more renewable applications because we have a very good environment for renewables as far as the regulatory part. But the truth is that renewables don't run at nighttime and when the no where there's no wind. So, you know, so as a result of that, our our alternative energy power was not running, and we couldn't make up the base load. So power is a it's not a simple thing. You add something over here, you lose it over here, you get it over here. Uh electricity and power and and and the uh the laying out and the and the strategy that has to do with electricity has a lot to do with who you connect with, how much power you have. Um, and so it has to be done carefully. And that's why we put a pause on the renewables, just to make sure that we could get our base power up to a place where we wouldn't have those rolling blackouts, because uh, three times we were very close to rolling blackouts in Alberta. And that's unheard of in our history because of the nature of our power. But, you know, the NDP when they were in power, uh, they shut down coal-fired plants, which are still shut down, and in Alberta. And so, you know, our industry had to convert very quickly from coal to natural gas. And, you know, when you're doing it that quickly, and and you have to, of course, be sensitive to prices because everybody's concerned with affordability right now, and and uh, you know, we just have to make sure we do it right. And that's why we had to pause on renewables, just to make sure we could get our base load up and and control the renewables as they don't generate when we need it. Because when it's cold, uh not a lot of wind blows and not a lot of sun shines, you know. That's the truth of it in Alberta.
SPEAKER_00:So is it is it fair to say that Saskatchewan, with its coal-fired baseload, saved Alberta's bacon during that January 2024 event? Because it had the available power.
SPEAKER_02:You know, Saskatchewan's my good friend. I'm never gonna say they saved us for anything. I love those guys. Um, you know, they uh I don't I don't know if they if their uh coal-fired plant saved us. Uh I'm not sure, but I'll tell you, whenever Saskatchewan needs us, we'll be there for them because they've been a very good uh brother to us, uh sister to us. They're they're very good friends. We have a lot in common. Just like, you know, for a long time we did with BC, and we believe that we will with BC again because, you know, there's anomalies and governments change and things happen. But people care about affordability right now. People care about the economy and the quality of life. And you want to raise people up out of poverty, get three oil pipelines, a million barrels each, through northern BC. And that will raise the people of BC, Northern BC out of poverty for sure. Like, and the people of Canada. Like it'll help us a lot. And and the last prime minister we had spent a ton of money, you know, more money than anybody spent in the history of Canada. Um, and he spent it on things that were not good investments. That's the truth. So no matter what you think of them, you can look at the history, and it was it was not a great investment opportunity for us. It was a huge spending opportunity, and and now we have a lot of people that don't have houses, for instance, in in Canada, because we allowed a lot of people in, two million people in, and and you know, we can build 100,000 houses a year. So, you know, things were done politically that weren't strategically to the people of Canada's advantage. I think this government, this Canadian government and the and the province of Alberta and Saskatchewan for sure are going to be looking at ways to make sure that we have timed processes on our investments and immigration and and make sure we respond accordingly. We have record house building in Alberta this year, more than any other um, more than any other province in Canada. We were able to, because of our private sector, we can stimulate that growth just through through uh them recognizing the need, and we were able to do that. So, but affordability is the key, and the people of BC are gonna, as their housing prices increase and as the cost of living grows. Gets worse, and as the cost of groceries gets worse, and now electricity is going to go up in BC, all of these things, along with the structural deficit, because remember, when you have a structural deficit, you pay interest on that structural deficit, and the people of BC are paying on that right now, as long with as well as the structural deficit of Canada. I mean, we're paying so much in debt right now that we could we could do so, so many schools and hospitals and roads and bridges and houses with that extra money that we're paying off on interest, because in my mind, that's nothing but bad management. And successive governments, provincial and federal, have done a bad job at managing our economy.
SPEAKER_00:Well, a lot of British Columbians are voting with their feet. They're moving to Alberta to be able to find that house for their family that they can afford. Well, come on down. We we love them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:We love people coming to Alberta. We really do. We we have a we have an incredible province with an incredible future, and we're hoping BC will join us on that.
SPEAKER_00:You know, there's something, speaking as a, you know, native-born Albertan, um there's something about problem solving and the neighborliness of Alberta that I think is is kind of special because all the engineers and geologists and the MBAs, uh they they are problem solvers. That's what they do in not just the oil and gas industry, but um all of the other industries and agriculture. It's always struck me as a as a distinct part of it. And uh I wonder if there's some problem-solving ability to to get a pipeline built that is uh as safe as people expect it to be. And the the new Transmountain line has been in service for a year and a half, uh running, you know, flawlessly.
SPEAKER_02:Tell by the technology that's on top of the pipe what's gonna happen. If there's a moose that crosses a path, if there's a leak, or if there's corrosion on the pipe, they can tell that before it actually happens. So I don't know how there's gonna be a leak. They double hull the stuff through the rivers. They I mean it's it's to such a degree now the safety that it's gone beyond even in my mind any possibility on the new stuff. I I know that from time to time people hear about these pipes that burst down in the US. Well, that's 50, 70-year-old infrastructure uh that was built at a much less uh degree of of uh safety and engineering that the current stuff is. Like we we have over-engineered and over-safied this stuff, which is not a bad thing. I don't mind that. But we're ready now, and people have to have more confidence in it. We don't have those single-hold tankers like the X-NVAL does and the other ones that, you know, in you know, 20, 30 years ago that would be single-holed and hit a rock and oil would spill over where we have double-hold tankers, we have ballast laws, we have so many new laws that were brought about by the federal government and in fact the international community, that it's just not the same risk factor that it used to be.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you you mentioned tankers. There's a place on the coast, uh pristine. There's sea otters there, whales, um, mussels.
SPEAKER_02:Are you talking about my house in uh Vancouver Island? Because that's what I got there. I have the sea otter vendor that lives right there.
SPEAKER_00:No, right there. I love it. It's a common sight. Um no, I'm I'm thinking of Prince William Sound, where Valdez is, but it's also true of the rest. And uh the people there have a real strong sense of the natural place. And yet they're shipping um oil out of Alaska.
SPEAKER_03:Because they're Americans every day.
SPEAKER_02:And they're not stupid. They don't do a tanker ban because they recognize the realities of life. And those tankers are going right up and down Canadian waters constantly, passing by exactly where we are not allowed to be. Meanwhile, the the St. Lawrence has tankers going up every single day from countries that, you know, half a million barrels a day, from countries that don't respect human rights, and frankly add no value at all to Canada. It's just costing us money. Yeah. You know, the the truth is it would be far better for the Canadian public to get the, even if we went to the West Coast, to get that, go through the Panama Canal and get it back up to St. Lawrence from Canada, they would get a value from it long-term, including the fact that most of the people in the East Coast get their revenue from Alberta because they're flying in and out every single day. And, you know, as a guy that used to be in Ottawa, I would I would be joined with direct flights every day from Toronto to Fort Memory, and those flights would be absolutely chocolate block flow of people and workers from all across Canada, mostly Atlantic Canada.
SPEAKER_00:So the implementation of the MOU on the BC side is going to be, no doubt, the topic of a lot of discussion.
SPEAKER_02:And well, it's not really the jurisdiction of BC, to be clear. I mean, I I understand it's easy to say no when it's not your decision. And and I I I understand why, you know, they're taking that position. It's politics. I don't like playing politics. I'm not a very good politician, obviously. I like to tell truth to power and truth to people. And maybe that's a little different for Alberta. But, you know, when you when it doesn't matter if you say no or not, well, it's easy to say no. But, you know, Prime Minister Kearney has a jurisdiction, and the Federal Cabinet has a jurisdiction. They're the ones that have to decide yes or no. And they've said yes under conditions. And we're satisfying those conditions, and they know we're going to satisfy those conditions because we've done such a great job in Alberta on satisfying those conditions. We're the leader in Canada on Indigenous uh relationships. We're the leader in Canada in safety, in in all of the oil and gas um issues that that actually plague the industry, they are usually solved out of Alberta. And the people, you know, the I'm the people from BC that are in the oil and gas industry are, you know, interchangeable between the Albertans. They come into Alberta and work and go back and forth. We love it. We we love that. And same as Saskatchewan. Uh, I mean, we're a big family in the oil and gas sector, and and now we've got lithium added to that, which is kind of cool. I mean, the lithium part of it is an equation people don't talk about, but it's absolutely staggering when you think about the possibilities there. But it's all from oil and gas activity.
SPEAKER_00:One thing I wanted to touch on is the Canadian relationship with the United States. Um, obviously, it's hardwired into our our economy because of infrastructure.
SPEAKER_03:Best friend forever.
SPEAKER_00:But there's still strains to it right now and some um unease. When the Prime Minister spoke recently in Davos, he made a speech that is being talked about in The Economist and the financial pages of the world's most influential press. What did what did you take away from that speech? Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_03:I was very proud of him.
SPEAKER_00:Do you think that he has found a path for Canada to deal with uncertain times?
SPEAKER_02:I think he has to. And and yes, uh, you know, he's a he's a grown-up. It's nice to have a grown-up in the that office. Um, you know, he's he's not with my party, so you know, he's a liberal, but it's well you're being pretty generous to him because you are a conservative and he's a liberal. Yeah, but I I speak truth.
SPEAKER_00:He's doing the right thing. In terms of the Alberta relationship, Canadian relationship with the U.S. and President Trump, um, what has the Alberta approach been? You've spoken about the grand bargain as a Canadian thing. Is there a grand bargain with the United States?
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know, it's uh it's pretty hard to deal with somebody that uh changes their mind every day and uh that doesn't have a clear vision on what they expect and how they want to be treated and and uh how they could treat others. And uh the, you know, on I had uh I had some some hope for Prime Minister Trump in relation to some of his files, and uh it's very disappointing. I think he's hurting a lot of people that um you know have no other choice, like the poor people. You know, if you're rich, nothing's changing on your table with President Trump. But if you're poor, you're probably thinking about what you're gonna buy for groceries. And I think that oftentimes leaders forget about that. But the good news is the politicians change. And uh I think uh, you know, this is Trump's last term, and I don't uh I don't think that uh I don't think that we will uh have those ramifications for a long, long time. He's changing things, he's creating chaos amongst many of his allies. And I think what that does is certainly in my mind is, you know, uh fool me once, you know, is the old adage. And I think that Canadians right now are thinking very seriously about other opportunities, and and that's why we have this MOU, and that's why we have the opportunity to build this pipeline to the coast, because we recognize that the Americans could shut us down tomorrow. You know, let's say Venezuelan crude gets up to four million barrels a day, which I don't think it will, but back to where it was a long time ago. Um, you think they're gonna buy our crude if they can buy it from there less? Of course not. That's why we have to find other places to sell it to, and that means the Pacific, not the Atlantic, but the Pacific, because they have more expensive uh transportation costs, and we can do it in half the amount of days uh to Asia that they can do from the other side. So there's some competitive things there, but we have to change things. And and you know, the people of the United States get to decide whether they want that president uh or those kind of things in the future, and and the truth is I don't think many of them do. Um I know that he's strong in some circles, uh, but uh, you know, there's a lot of pain yet to come, and it's still as a result of the things he's already done. So hopefully we see uh we see some grown-ups. I as I mentioned, uh Prime Minister Carney, I think, has been a grown-up, even though I'm not in the same political stripe as he is. Um I like to see a grown-up there because I think people do better, especially poor people that can't fend for themselves, sometimes, you know, have no other choice. But if you take care of them, everybody else is taken care of as well.
SPEAKER_00:Alberta has always been very focused on Washington, D.C. relationships there. The Premier's been to the U.S. since the inauguration a little over a year ago. Um has that investment in the American relationship um created any uh any advantages? I I know no one's you know celebrating that right now because of friction. But what does it mean to have that level of engagement?
SPEAKER_02:I have a great premier. She's been awesome. She's been right out in front. She contacted the Americans immediately and and talked to the administration and said, how can we be a better partner? And we've made a couple of pitches too, I think two or three pitches so far, um, in a pitch deck, saying, you know, these are some things we bring to the table and how we can work together to make things better for the Midwest refiners, for your strategic uh plan long term. Uh we talked about a number of different things that we could we could help them with, and and I think they were shocked, to be honest at first. And and then I think the administration has seen Alberta as an outlier to, for instance, Ontario and and different provinces, because we're prepared to sit at the table, discuss things, and get to what we need to do in order to keep our relationship open and keep the flow of trade going. And and I would say that our premier has truly been a leader on that and been an and it's proven out that it she took the right approach. Um and and why I say that is because we're not suffering the same way they are in Ontario and other jurisdictions. We most of our products are tariff-free. Um, some are not. You know, some of the small tool manufacturers in the oil and gas industry, for instance, that use steel from China, they're suffering and they're going through some pain right now. Um, but you know, for the most part, uh Alberta's doing pretty good, and most Albertans are doing pretty good because we took a different approach to it.
SPEAKER_00:Now, I've yet to encounter a First Nation in Canada that doesn't uh speak about its responsibility for the environment in its territories, um, no different in Northern Alberta. Um for First Nations on the North Coast, where we've seen over the years from different ones, whether they're part of one organization or another, uh they have issues about the environment. Uh what do you think they can learn from how Northern Alberta First Nations have engaged in the economy and protected the environment? Because we're hearing that from them.
SPEAKER_02:They are doing it there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh it's about trust. I mean, I you know, they've they've been lied to a few times. You know, sitting down, talking to them, understanding their perspective, showing them that it's real, that that we care about these things, and making sure they're in charge of the environmental aspects of it, especially on the coast.
SPEAKER_00:Very important. Well, you've come to the coast. I haven't seen you here at at previous uh mineral roundups. Good on you for being Alberta's envoy here.
SPEAKER_02:I think this is uh I'm from BC and I I have a place in the only thing Alberta doesn't have is an ocean with fish in it. Okay, because I'm I love fishing. I'm an outdoors man, I'm a trap, I'm a trapper and a hunter, and I love the outdoors and I love the coast of BC. And the last thing I want to see is an oil spill.
SPEAKER_00:That's something that everyone on the on the coast shares. Um you're not the only member of Premier Smith's cabinet who is doing some outreach here. There seems to be a real focused push to figure out what conversations you need to be in. Is that uh is that something that's gonna continue on?
SPEAKER_02:I think uh, you know, Canadians and Canadian politicians should be more active in all provinces, not from a political perspective, but more from a from a helpful perspective and a business perspective, promoting what we can do with other provinces and how we can work together to make things better for the people of those provinces. All of them. Not just one of them, but all of them. Because we all share things that are our strengths, and we all share things that are our weaknesses. So if we use our strengths to to bring up everybody else's weaknesses, we'll be very strong together. But we have to have trust. We have to recognize that First Nations are where they are as a result of the relationship in the past, but we have to know that that relationship can change and will change if we are committed to it. But we can't do it unless we sit down and talk to them. And you know, the last thing, as I said, anybody wants is an oil spill or any kind of spill on the coast or anywhere. Nobody wants that. That's why we need to make sure those people that are going to be directly uh affected the most have the control of that mechanism.
SPEAKER_00:Um just want to wrap this up on one note, and that's the the next generation and young people and how they're seeing the world. We've seen universities that used to teach petroleum engineering stop doing that. And I understand Calgary is now back doing that.
SPEAKER_02:Trevor Burrus, Jr.: I was just gonna say they've got uh they've got a record number of enrollees now that are looking at getting into the petroleum sector. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00:Does that I just like to end things looking to the next generation that's coming up. They're looking for careers, they're looking for a way to have a living, a good life like their parents had. And um there's a lot going on. We've also seen some social trends where for a while it wasn't cool to be in involved in the natural resource industry, but maybe there's some rays of hope. I know there's programs in Alberta like the Geo-Logics educational platform. Um what are you seeing emerge here, Minister, in terms of of that?
SPEAKER_02:Well, the first thing is uh, you know, when you have a prime minister say it's the end of uh oil and gas or the oil sands, young people would probably take that seriously. When you have a prime minister say we need to get our energy to the world, I think young people take that seriously. So I think what we've seen is an actual shift uh from our politicians and our leaders to say, you know, 10 years ago oil is a bad thing, to today saying realistically, oil is absolutely essential and necessary, and we're gonna feed the oil to the world because it's the best oil in the world to feed to the world. Um that's what Carney's message is, and as a result, we've seen the the U of C, they brought back some um some oil and gas programming, and and they've told me that they're gonna be very aggressive on that front. Uh, we've seen some amazing things happen outside of um the oil and gas industry for the oil and gas industry. For instance, carbon fiber. Now we've we've got the technology that can take that oil sands bitumen and spin to carbon fiber, about 30% less expensive than other carbon fibers, you know, which make hockey sticks, cars, even China manufacturers uh of EVs, there's two or three of them that make it out of carbon fiber. So there's tremendous potential in the oil sands for carbon fiber. There's also tremendous potential for asphaltines. So even though as we move forward, maybe oil is not seen as maybe the choice for everybody. The truth is those other products, those spin-offs, those manufacturing jobs, the Dow chemical jobs, the petrochemical jobs, the specialty heavy oils, light oils, those things are going to attract a lot of people that have the opportunity to get wealth from that, even though it's not directly related to the oil and gas industry, because there's so many opportunities with that industry. But I'll be clear with you, I think I've seen a true shift in the last number of years, just a couple of years, where young people are very excited about it because the reality is if you want a great quality of life and a great income to be able to do all those things that are the Canadian dream, you can do that with an oil and gas career. You can't do that at McDonald's. Now, I'm a lawyer, and I've told my kids trades.
SPEAKER_00:Look, this has been a fascinating conversation. We could go maybe twice as long, but oh definitely. Two times longer, Stuart. I can talk about all day. All right. We'll we'll come back in future then. Good. And maybe you could come visit me in Fort Montmurin. We can take you in a tour and show them how amazing it is. It seems like I haven't been there for a a decade, and I the the the the greatest impression that a person can get from this whole issue is is by putting the boots on the ground and walking around. I saw the bison in that reclaimed site north of town, north of the city of Fort McMurray, and you're you're realizing, wow, there's a vast amount of uh water being stored from the oil sands process, but there's also a vast amount of land that's being fully reclaimed. They bring that soil back and they restore the the original habitat, and in some ways, even uh a little bit better. Well, we take the poison out of the earth, a thing called oil.
SPEAKER_02:And we actually get to sell it. The biggest reclamation is a pretty good company in the entire world, right there in northern Alberta. Uh, you know, all jokes aside, it's it's an amazing product. It does so much for so many people, and people don't realize it. But the things that have been paying for the schools and the hospitals and the roads right across Canada, it's the oil sounds.
SPEAKER_00:It certainly is. That's a verifiable fact. So this has been Alberta's Minister of Energy and Minerals, Brian Jean, my guest on Power Struggle Today. Thank you, Minister, for being here.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you, and thanks to all your listeners. Really a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:If if there's a takeaway, one takeaway from today's conversation, it's that Alberta's energy is inseparable from global markets, from geopolitical realities and the policy choices made here at home in Canada. And whether it's market access or infrastructure or Canada's relationship with the United States, the decisions being made now will echo for decades for Canadians. And uh we've been lucky to have it all brought together here today. So if you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe to Power Struggle on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, on YouTube. You might be listening to this episode, you might be watching this episode. Wherever you are or however you're getting your podcast, please share it because it brings more serious, honest conversations about energy policy, Canada's future to a wider audience in Canada and around the world. You can find more episodes and information at powerstruggle.ca. Thanks for listening. Stay curious, stay engaged, and we'll see you next time on Power Struggle.
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