Alberta Oil CEOs Flip Flop on Carbon Pricing

Añadido: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]As to the you know, people like Brett Wilson, I think part of it is just part of it is laziness.

[00:00:05]Um they've thought this way. It has It has kept them in good stead. You know, Brett Wilson has a very large house, so do most of these guys. Why would they think any differently?

[00:00:14]Um and part of it is that epistemic bubble. They all talk to each other.

[00:00:18]They all go to the same parties. They all read broadly the same sources of information.

[00:00:23]They don't actually get exposed to the world as it is and certainly as it will be and and on the off off occasion when they do, I kind of think they recoil from it like they've, you know, touched a hot stove. Um I don't think there's a lot of courage among that leadership class to step outside their comfort zone um and really engage with with the facts. And and look, I saw this all the way back during TMX and the conversation around that, which feels like a thousand years ago, because, you know, they would do events in Calgary. They would do events in Alberta. They would talk up the benefits of pipelines in their own backyard. They wouldn't go into BC and Vancouver and do it. I had to do it. I was the one who went there and did public appearances defending pipelines. So, like, these are not particularly courageous, brave people and this is a moment that calls for courage and bravery.

[00:01:14]Well, and speaking of of of that, I want to call out Murray Edwards, the billionaire still chairman of the board at CNRL. And back in 2014-2015, uh he was one of the leaders of oil sands CEOs, oil sands executives, uh who convened a group of CEOs to talk with environmental group executive directors.

[00:01:43]And the idea was they wanted peace in the valley. This was the time of the tar sands campaign. The oil sands was being beaten up internationally. He was a leader in that. And that out of that came a handshake agreement, which then was I wouldn't say codified, but it was it it reinforced Rachel Notley's uh climate leadership plan, which it was introduced in November of 2015.

[00:02:06]>> [snorts] >> And now that same Murray Edwards, who led the charge for carbon pricing in the oil sands, is now speaking publicly about how the industry is burdened with this uncompetitive industrial emitters carbon price, and oh what victims they are. And that is the major hypocrisy, and he should be embarrassed by it.

[00:02:28]He's not, I promise you. Um and and you know, I think one of the things that we have to take stock of and internalize is there's no penalty for hypocrisy in our time. Um there just isn't. Like we've seen over and over again elected officials, public officials take one position and then take the other position and there's no cost to them.

[00:02:46]You know, I think of uh there was an op-ed recently in the Globe and Mail by Martha Hall Findlay uh who worked at Suncor, was very senior there and and basically disavowing all the work that Pathways had done and said, "You know what? Actually, this project isn't right now. We shouldn't do it. Um maybe we'll do it later." Um there is just no penalty attached to that.

[00:03:06]What I will say about Murray Edwards, two two things I'll say. Number one, he is the most skilled operator in the patch. Always has been, probably always will be. Um you know, there's there's a joke or there's a lot sort of an old joke in the patch that, you know, when all is said when all is said and done, he'll end up owning everything. See, you know, Canadian Natural will own the entire patch because they are so good at timing acquisitions, at using their power, using their strength to to grow and expand.

[00:03:33]Um the other part is that he's he's incredibly skilled political operator.

[00:03:38]Um so back in 2014, he felt the shift, right? He felt like, you know, the Harper government was getting old in the tooth, the Obama administration was down there, the discourse was turning against his industry. They had to be inside the tent, right? Even if it cost them uh things they would rather not have to do.

[00:03:56]I would never say that he was a he was leading the charge for carbon pricing, but he made sure that he was in the charge, right? So that he could control and modify it to his needs as he saw fit. And if you look at the industrial carbon pricing that first came down under the NDP, um it was kind of advantageous to see on our own compared to their peers. Funny that.

[00:04:19]Um so you know, he he is always going to play the hand he has, which is usually a good hand, as well as possible. Um yeah, it's it's hypocritical.

[00:04:32]Um yeah, we should call But um don't hate the player, hate the game.

[00:04:39]Well, fair enough. Let's talk about Martha Hall Findlay because I wrote an essay about her her op-ed. And what it looks to me is exactly what the Alberta strategy. So Danielle Smith and Mark Carney sat down, they negotiated this MO memorandum of understanding between the province and the and the federal government back announced back in November. It had number of features to it. So it was basically emissions reduction in return for a pipeline. And and now Alberta wants to get the pipeline, is demanding the pipeline. At the same time, it's welched on every commitment it made.

[00:05:13]It's undercut the industrial carbon price. Now, you know, Martha Hall Findlay is not the only person arguing that there should be no carbon capture and storage.

[00:05:23]And it's it's welched on it's the environmental impact assessment severity or stringency, we'll call it.

[00:05:32]And this seems to be this seems to be the pattern here. We want everything that we negotiated, but we're going to we're going to back out of negate somehow everything that we committed to. I don't know how you run a country like that.

[00:05:48]Uh you can't and and to his credit it sounds like the Prime Minister has a deal with the premier that they're going to announce on Friday that will have industrial carbon pricing. The price will increase. Uh the effective price will I think double or triple.

[00:06:01]Um so they didn't get everything they wanted. I agree if they had if they had you know if it had been pipeline but no industrial carbon pricing, uh that would have been shameful. Um and you know something you know some part of all this recent talk from the industry about how they can't bear uh to have industrial carbon pricing cuz it hurts their competitiveness was just them negotiating in public.

[00:06:22]Yeah, and that and and I guess fairish ball to that, you know, I I think when you're a CEO of a large company and you say things to your investors like the CEO of Suncor did, um you know, about Canada being the only country burdened with a carbon tax, not true.

[00:06:38]Uh that doesn't look good on you. Um and I do think you know some folks have kind of um embarrassed themselves a little bit.

[00:06:47]Certainly he you know the CEO of Suncor.

[00:06:49]I'm sure he doesn't care that I think that he embarrassed himself but some of his institutional investors might. And then Martha Hall Findlay, right? Like there's no need for her to debase herself the way she did in that column to basically say well I used to believe all these things but now none of them are true and and also you know the feds should be paying for another pipeline.

[00:07:09]Like that is not happening. That was always very clear from the Prime Minister that we're not paying for this.

[00:07:14]We're certainly not paying for it when these companies are rolling in cash when they're going to be making if not record profits near record profits. Like kindly please go uh find a new argument um because that's just not working. And I just don't understand I do understand. I but it I was going to say I don't understand why they don't have people around them who would caution against this but that goes back to that epistemic bubble. They don't have people around them who would say, "Hey, maybe this isn't the column for you to write.

[00:07:44]Hey, maybe this isn't the argument for you to be making in public."

[00:07:47]Um and we end up with things like that.

[00:07:50]Let's talk about that for a little bit because I mean, you've been in the news industry your your entire career and uh used to edit the uh Alberta Oil Magazine.

[00:07:59]And what do we make of the fact that the uh national media is absolutely chock-a-block with op-eds and commentary from the pro-pipeline, the the pro-oil sands expansion, pro-LNG expansion forces. And like I I read Martha Hall Findlay's op-ed and and if I was the editor at The Globe and Mail, I wouldn't have published the damn thing.

[00:08:25]It It had no substance to it. It was you know, where's the beef? There was nothing to it. It didn't deserve to be published on the face of it. You're making the mistake of believing that op-eds in in most papers are published on the basis of merit.

[00:08:42]Your job especially in this environment right now and this is, you know, big part of the problem with the media or one of the problems, but um your job as an as an opinion editor is to publish pieces that get page views, right? So, if you have someone who comes to you with a well-written, correct argument that no one's going to read, um you know, it's that thing, if a tree falls in the forest and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound? No, it doesn't. Um and so, they knew that Martha Hall Findlay's piece would get traction, would get, you know, people like me getting pissed off about it, writing pieces, linking to it, engaging, driving more page views. It's That's, you know, that's sort of That's again, don't hate the player, hate the game, but um but yeah, I understand why the why The Globe published it. I just don't understand why Ms. Hall Findlay did. Um to disavow your own work like that, um for what? Uh you know, like the idea that Pathways made sense 2 3 years ago, but doesn't make sense now.

[00:09:41]Um, there's just no justification for that.

[00:09:44]Like, you know, I think she sort of tried to say, oh, you know, we're we're we have to make hard decisions now. We're in a moment where we have to steward our taxpayer dollars more carefully. Where was that concern 2 years ago?

[00:09:55]Uh, when when these companies were basically begging, demanding the federal government pay as much of the cost of these projects as possible. It's very convenient that all of a sudden we're concerned about where taxpayer dollars go that would go to Pathways.