Q & A: Pierre Poilievre on BC’s energy options
“Every time the NDP and Liberals block a pipeline, Donald Trump does a dance of joy.” — Pierre Poilievre
Northern Beat caught up with federal Conservative Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre in Powell River last week for a quick chat on B.C. energy policies and what changes he’ll make if his party forms the next government.
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 I’m 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 CoastalGasLink 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.
Note: This transcript was edited for clarity.
Questions, comments, other feedback, Fran@NorthernBeat.ca
Poilievre is one shameless grifter. No one who got over a C in high school science class could possibly fall for his science denying ignorance. Why do big oil demand so many billions in tax payer handouts if they're so capable? Poilievre has no answers, pathetic grifter that he is.
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’.