Robbie Picard, Métis activist and founder of OilSandsStrong, challenges the narrative that Indigenous communities uniformly oppose pipelines like Trans Mountain and Gaslink, citing democratic approvals from bands such as Wet Suetan. He highlights how oil, gas, and mining provide high-paying jobs—critical for First Nations escaping generational poverty—and criticizes foreign-funded opposition (e.g., Leonardo DiCaprio) and Justin Trudeau’s policies as undermining Indigenous prosperity. Picard’s self-funded "Boots on the Ground" series and upcoming multicultural rally aim to amplify voices of workers, like an Indian geologist and a female oil rigger, while advocating for fair economic opportunities over government interference, stressing that bad policies harm all Canadians regardless of ethnicity. [Automatically generated summary]
Pro-Oil Aboriginal Groups Voice Their Concern00:15:02
Hello, Rebels.
You're listening to a free audio-only recording of my show, The Gun Show.
Today, my guest is my friend and Métis Fort McMurray oil sands activist Robbie Picard.
He's the founder of Oil Sands Strong.
We're discussing how Western Canada's First Nations are speaking up to change the narrative around oil and gas development.
These pro-oil and gas Indigenous groups have been part of the silent majority for far too long, while the radicals and the cranks opposing resource development claim to speak for everyone and get all the airtime.
I think it's about time these pro-oil and gas voices were heard.
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What's being called Canada's first Aboriginal-led oil and gas rally happened in Lacklabish, Alberta over the weekend.
I'm very glad it happened and it's about time, but my Métis guest tonight has been leading oil and gas rallies for the better part of a decade.
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
Did you know that oil and gas and mining are the largest employers of First Nations people in the entire country?
These high-paying jobs are giving Canada's Indigenous peoples opportunities to pull themselves and their communities out of the generational poverty that has plagued so many of them.
And there's also a burgeoning business class amongst Canada's First Nations, particularly here in Western Canada and especially in Fort McMurray, thanks in no small part to oil and gas development and partnerships with major oil and gas companies.
But you wouldn't know it if you got all your news from the mainstream media, would you?
These Indigenous success stories are very seldom told.
Instead, the mainstream media favors the handful of radicals and kooks who block prosperity not only for Indigenous communities, but for the rest of the entire country.
We saw it in the favorable coverage the anti-Trans Mountain Camp Cloud protesters received.
They were treated as spokespeople for all the Indigenous groups along the Trans Mountain Pipeline route by sympathetic media outlets when that absolutely couldn't be further from the truth.
They were indeed the outliers.
And we see it right now in the sycophantic coverage that the Gaslink protesters are receiving in northern British Columbia.
The democratically elected band council of the Wet Suetan people have approved that gas pipeline, but the handful of self-appointed hereditary chiefs, heavy on the quotation marks, have decided that they speak for all the people.
My colleague Kian Becksey did an incredible expose on the protesters of that pipeline and how they are actually an astroturf creation of the anti-oil movement.
But I think the tide is finally turning.
An Aboriginal-led pro-oil and gas rally, complete with a truck convoy, was held in Lacklabish, Alberta over the weekend.
Not only did the rally celebrate Aboriginal culture, but it showcased just how important oil and gas development is to the health and welfare of our Aboriginal communities.
But long before this Aboriginal-led rally, my guest was speaking out on behalf of these Aboriginal success stories that are growing in our oil and gas sector.
And he's Métis himself.
He's from Fort McMurray.
We all know him.
Joining me tonight is Robbie Picard, founder of OilSandStrong.
Joining me now from Fort McMurray is my friend, OilSands activist Robbie Picard.
Hey, Robbie, thanks for joining me.
Thank you for having me.
It's always a pleasure.
Now, Robbie, you've been a pretty busy guy lately, actually.
You're always a pretty busy guy.
The reason I wanted to have you on today, or just one of the reasons, I have a ton of things that I want to talk to you about, but I wanted to talk to you about this Aboriginal-led pro-pipeline rally that was in Lac Labishe over the weekend.
I wasn't able to be there, although I was like at so many of these rallies there in spirit.
How was it attended?
How was it received?
What was the response from the community?
Mostly it was a positive response.
I thought it'd be a little bit more attended, but it's the first one of its kind in a place I don't think has had a rally before.
There was a good media presence.
They had a truck convoy.
It was nice to see that finally people are saying, like, hey, wait a minute, not having market access affects all First Nations people from all parts of Canada, particularly in Alberta, Saskatchewan, where you have small, medium, and large businesses that are just trying to survive.
And I really enjoyed it.
They had great food and great dancing, but there needs to be a lot more.
And it was good.
It was good.
Yeah, I was really heartened to see First Nations groups come together to do something so loud and so proud.
I think these pro-oil and gas Aboriginal groups are often lost in the shuffle when these small, few, loud activist groups really get all the attention.
And that brings me to the next thing I wanted to talk to you about.
And that is the Aboriginal presence blocking a liquefied natural gas pipeline in northern British Columbia.
They're doing it against the will of the democratically elected band in the area.
And I think for me, it speaks to this total disregard for the democratic will of the people in that band to have these really a half a dozen activists hold up this multi-billion dollar project for the whole country, but not just for the whole country, for these Aboriginal bands that are trying to lift themselves out of poverty.
And then we see people like Hollywood actors, Leonardo DiCaprio, for example, taking the side of these Aboriginal bands against the people who elected their band council who brought forward an agreement to build the pipeline.
It's real simple.
Our energy industry is under attack by foreign-funded entities.
Leonardo DiCaprio's opinion doesn't count because he's the biggest hypocrite in the history of hypocrites in the world.
And what they do is they pay off a few people who, for whatever reason, they don't care about the democratically elected process through their bans.
They don't care that they're actually hurting other Aboriginals.
It's simply they get they're getting they're getting paid or they get some kind of joy that they're being backed by these so-called celebrity environmentalists.
And I mean, like, it's it's uh it's beginning to resonate amongst everybody that something needs to be done.
And it's a colossal mistake the way they have not responded to anything and the way they've let this go on for so long.
So, I mean, as much attention as these small, very tiny numbers of people are getting, they're also a lot of people saying, Hey, wait a minute, you're taking kids, you're taking food out of my child's mouth, you're hurting my family, you're hurting your own people, you're hurting your elders.
So, I'm glad to see that more people are speaking up, but it's, I'm not surprised.
And I mean, Leonardo DiCaprio's opinion, I mean, does not matter to me at all.
I cannot, I cannot believe that people are still even listening to him.
It just blows my mind.
A guy who can get the biggest yacht in the world and flies around on private jets is somehow credible in telling regular people, regular Canadians, regular Aboriginal Canadians, how to live their lives.
You know, it's funny because these celebrity enablers, they'll say stuff like, oh, we're standing up for Aboriginal rights.
But while they're doing that, they're stomping on the actual Aboriginal right to pull themselves out of generational poverty through these multi-billion dollar projects.
You're in Fort McMurray, you know, some of the most wealthy Aboriginal bands in the country are right where you are, isn't that right?
Yes, we have, I mean, pretty much it's all 100% support behind pipelines.
I mean, tech just inked a very, very strong, powerful deal that had 100% unanimous Aboriginal support.
There's issues that come up from time to time, but I prefer that we, I like what I like, is for the most part, we deal with those internally, unless there's some sort of celebrity who's trying to, you know, get more famous by acting as if Fort McMurray is a toxic wasteland that's actually very beautiful.
But I think after Jane Fonda's visit here, we haven't seen one of those celebrities in a long time.
But I mean, the McCasu and the Fort Mackay First Nations collectively have a $500 million deal on a tank farm.
Tech has, from what I'm told, is it has billion-dollar deals with all of the Aboriginals in our region.
Aboriginals in our region are now becoming oil producers themselves.
I mean, it's the game has changed.
So when we don't have access to market access because of lack of pipelines, and you have these celebrities and these so-called environmentalists that are severely damaging it, it hurts everybody here.
But I don't think we're going to take it anymore.
I've had several meetings recently with a lot of people and they're fed up.
I mean, they just, we have the highest environmental standards in the world and we know how to reclaim land.
We know how to work together with industry.
And we don't need American celebrities telling us how to live.
Well, and I really think you're right about the tide changing.
There's no longer this silent Aboriginal majority who supports oil and gas development or I think the us versus them issues are completely over.
I actually saw that pretty evident when I was at one of these rallies against the the Bighorn Park development.
The people who are really driving home that they are the protectors of the land and they will not be told by the government how to use the land is the Sun Child First Nation.
They've really been at all of these rallies saying we will fight for this land and everybody's land use, our friends and our neighbors and non-Aboriginal communities.
Don't worry, we've got your back.
We'll invoke our treaty rights.
We'll do whatever it takes because we are all in this together.
And as an L Burton, it's really heartening to see that we really are on the same side of so many issues, despite the division that seems to be fostered by these activist groups.
Well, I think like, so if you just look at basic education, okay, in Fort McMurray, more Aboriginals are graduating than ever before.
They're completing degrees.
And once with that knowledge and education, the game's changing and people here don't want to be victims.
They don't want to be on like a poster.
What they want is to live a successful life.
I was just at the RAW RA Awards and I very seldom get emotional, but I really like love, I like love covering stuff for NABA.
And I just posted a video and I mean, these people are genius, intelligence, and excellent contributors to the community.
And I tend to focus on business.
I'm like, well, this person does this and this, but these are one person went back to school and then one person had a bit of struggles and now they've almost finished their nursing degree.
I mean, I think celebrities would prefer that the people that they're trying to claim are victim state victims instead of digging themselves out of poverty and then becoming successful and becoming wealthy and then and you know and contributing to society on a whole multitude of levels.
Generational poverty could be stopped in minutes if we all work together, utilize the oil sands and the industry and natural gas in a smart, intelligent, environmentally responsible way, which we do.
It weakens their argument, like Leonardo Caprio's argument, because he's like, there's no real victims here.
We work together.
Yes, there's problems, but we have enough intelligence and sophistication to solve our own problems.
So I think we all get it.
And I think we're all united on that one thing.
And I'm trying to keep us united on that one message for all I can do.
Now, being united is sort of is a good segue to my next question that I wanted to ask you about.
Wanted: A Deeper Dive Into Ottawa00:10:52
I wanted to ask you about the convoy to Ottawa.
The convoy to Ottawa was organized by the Yellow Vest movement or loosely organized by them.
They've sort of split into two.
But I wanted to ask you what your opinion is of the Yellow Vest convoy to Ottawa.
I know that some pro-oil sands activists have reasons why they don't approve of the Yellow Vestors getting involved in pro-resource rallies.
I think anybody who wants to support Alberta's oil sands are welcome to show up and voice their concern.
But I wanted to ask you, because you really are like the OG of oil sands activism.
And so because you're sort of this godfather of the movement, I wanted to ask you what you thought about that.
Because for me, your opinion might be the definitive one.
Okay.
And I've thought about this a lot, actually, because I found myself very torn in a lot of ways.
On one hand, working with Canada Action and Rally for Resources and et cetera, I'm going to give you the goods here.
They, you know, we became, and it's not like everyone had their part.
Like I would argue that my attack on Saudi Arabia four years ago is partially why that Justin Trudeau gets questioned often now on why are we going to all from a country that has such a heinous human rights record.
I tend to be a little bit of that.
These rallies started small, et cetera, et cetera.
But when we did ours, I don't agree with how we handled it.
Now, we had a plan to do a convoy before they did theirs, but they launched theirs first and there's had a lot of success.
So here's the problem.
When you're sitting comfortably, like I'm, I mean, I'm comfortable.
Okay.
I've been doing this quite a while.
I can, I've done a lot of media.
I'm seasoned at it.
I know how to, I know how to conduct myself.
These guys don't necessarily do.
So that doesn't take away the fact that a good chunk of the yellow vests are completely broke.
They've lost everything.
They've lost their jobs.
Industry has disappeared from their communities.
And as a good friend told me, who am I to tell them what to do when all they have left in them is to hold up a sign and say something sort of nasty and stand on the side of the road because they don't know what their future holds and all their dignity has been taken from them.
Here's the butt.
We made major progress advocating for pipelines to the point where, you know, we had events where you had the NDP and the liberals and across the country were united.
For instance, Quebec, 66% of people in Quebec support the NRG's pipeline.
So here comes the problem.
When they post something a little bit racist or they get too much on the UN and all that, it does, it can affect the argument of build the pipeline.
So my argument has been very strict to one thing, prosperity for all.
These problems become minute if everybody can work and have a good life no matter what they do.
So I've tried to stay on message.
It is not my place to judge or tell other people how to act or how to protest or how to be angry.
And I refuse to do it.
And I also refuse to paint all the yellow vests with this brush that they're all racist because I don't believe that.
I know quite a few of them.
They might lean a little bit more right than I do, but I'm not going to explain that.
But the bigger kicker is though, they've had their own breakup internally amongst them.
And Glenn is doing his own convoy, which is sort of separate from Yellow Vest now.
And I like Glenn.
You can't get more Alberta than Glenn.
He's a paramedic, a firefighter, a good guy.
So I have given him 100% of my support.
I just did a video encouraging people to support him.
And I believe in doing the right thing.
And I frankly don't care what anyone else tells me to say because I've, like you said, I've been doing this quite a while.
And I think that it's important to do the right thing.
It doesn't matter who's right.
It matters what's right.
So I think he's going to have a good time.
I was going to go on the convoy.
I was going to take my camper van and my two dogs, but I have to work.
My marketing company is finally doing well and taking a week to go there and a week back.
I can't do that.
But I am flying to Ottawa and I'm going to speak at his event and I'm going to support him as much as I can.
So Canada's like broken and we need to fix it.
Everybody's voice matters, including the yellow vest.
So, instead of like, I believe we need to understand what is bothering them and why, and try to find common ground.
And that's what I'm trying to do.
You know, I love that answer.
And I feel the same way about Glenn that you do.
I think that he is just a salt of the earth guy.
He, like you, to organize this.
I mean, he's a business owner in central Alberta, and he's not making money to organize this massive convoy, which sounds a lot like herding cats across the entire country.
And somehow he's doing it.
He's got, you know, a budget and he's got a timeline and he's got permits and organizing a bus so that other people who maybe don't want to drive can go on the convoy.
I mean, he's bitten off a lot to bring the message of what's happening here in Alberta in our oil patch to Ottawa.
And he's doing his best to keep this sort of one message going forward.
And I don't think it's fair for people to attack him as though he's a wing nut.
I mean, there's really absolutely nothing in this except a lot of headache for him, but he's willing to do it anyway.
So I agree with you.
And I do agree with you that we shouldn't be telling people who have nothing left what they can and can't be mad about.
And I don't think we should be looking down our noses at the yellow vestors when some of their concerns are pretty darn valid when a lot of their critics have really never been as down and out as some of them are.
And I just, I won't judge them for it.
Now, I wanted to ask you about your next project.
I think it is fascinating.
I'm full of ideas about it that I want to tell you about.
And I want you to steal them.
But maybe we'll do that off air because I don't want to give people a sneak peek at all.
I'm giving them.
You cannot steal something I'm giving you.
Tell us about boots on the ground.
So I have a video series called Visit Fort McMurray, which is sort of kind of like Fort McMurray's got nice rivers.
It's got this and that.
And it's really nice.
It's gotten almost a million views total between all of them.
And I'm proud of that because I haven't put a lot of like money boosting and I'm still growing it.
But hang on.
I just want to stop you.
I love your video series, Visit Fort McMurray.
And you thought of it on your own.
And basically, you just go around to these sort of local gems, hidden gems in your community that are beautiful that the rest of the world don't know about.
And you're busting this narrative about Fort McMurray that it's ugly and toxic, one video at a time.
And you're just one guy out there making videos, driving around with your dogs, and they're beautiful and they're well done.
I'm from the internet.
I know these things.
And I really like what you're doing.
So sorry to interrupt.
Continue.
Well, thank you.
So, like, I have a media company and there's three employees, myself, Richard, and I don't think she wants me to say her name, so I won't, but I got to give credit to my team.
And we work together and we do a lot of videos actually for different businesses.
And oil sounds strong sometimes.
Like, I like it, but I can be edgy.
I like taking on Fonda, Trudeau, and et cetera.
So we started Visit Fort McMurray, and it's nice, it's positive.
And I don't really go too gritty.
After doing that, I realized, like, and actually, it was a Yellow Vester that kind of motivated me to do this.
I want to go a little deeper into the ups and downs of these decisions that other people make in Ottawa and how they affect regular Albertans and regular Canadians.
And I want to tell a very honest story about these lies.
So now some will be business owners, but some might be a guy who's new to Canada and they came here to work.
And for whatever reason, the system has failed them because the cutbacks and they, let's just say, a cleaner at camp and for whatever reason, the rig got shut down and now this person is has to, has no choice but to get government assistance, assistance.
I want to tell those stories, but I want to do it in a hopeful way that the rest of Canada can look into a different perspective.
It's, a lot of people in the city don't understand that what happens in the West actually provides their beautiful city lifestyle.
I've always wanted to bring that together, so I'm gonna go and I'm gonna try and go and spend 20 minutes like it'll be more than 20 minutes, but I'll do a 20 minute video once a week on telling the untold stories of regular people that work in oil and gas.
And that's sort of the premise behind this, behind the series.
You know.
I think that's a really uh beautiful and powerful thing to do, to tell the human side of these policy failures.
Um, people really forget that every time that they pull up to the gas pump and they count on the fact that there's gas coming out of that pump to go into their car so that they can get their kids off to hockey or soccer one of the million places I drive my kids to on any given day that there's a drilling rig full of guys working in the cold, far from their family missing birthdays, that made that happen.
There's a refinery full of guys working to make sure that you know the gas is exactly the right gas that needs to end up in that pump.
There's truckers and pipeliners all these hardworking men and women from Canada, from other places in the world, and they really are being let down by these policy failures.
So I think it is that might be the best way to change hearts and minds.
We can talk about abstract numbers, about aboriginal employment all day long, but when we're hearing the story of the aboriginal pipeliner who's losing his truck, I think that might be the kicker.
Yeah, like um.
Struggles of Pipeliner Women00:03:23
When I was in Lloydminster, I actually met a woman.
I spoke at a rally and I oh my god, like I got there within seconds before they were closing because the roads were so icy and I just rolled and I always roll the perfect like fashion be ladies, my thing, but this was actually like I wasn't sure I was going to make it anyway, so we went out to eat after.
I don't even remember what I said in my speech, because I drove like I ended up driving for eight hours and I and I was up all night working.
So um, I just got in there, I had my I couldn't even watch my dog, so my dogs were everywhere.
It was just a whole thing going on minus 40.
so um i sat down with her after and they wanted to talk to me and they're like you know what should we do different about the rally and the rally was you know it was it was decently attended but it wasn't what they thought and i said well don't be discouraged because like you got to start somewhere anyway i started talking to her and she tells me that she left an abusive husband and um Went on, worked on the rigs, and she's like kind of an engineer and has people under her, and she supports her child.
And it was a whole interesting story.
So, you have a female oil rigger, and she's like struggling to keep her kid because her deadbeat husband was useless.
And she's not, she's like, I don't want anyone to give me any handouts.
I just want to be able to provide for my child and have a decent life.
And I'm like, wow, people need to hear that story because, like, this is this is not a typical story.
And one of the things I'm struggling with more than anything, and I'm not scared to say it, is when Justin Trudeau made those comments about camp workers, I'm not over that yet.
And his pathetic answers to when he's doing these town halls just drives me insane.
But, like, what about her?
She lived in camp along one of these roads.
And like, she's a bad person too, because Justin Trudeau claims that he's the feminist of the generation with his gender politics.
There's way more to this story than coming.
I think the biggest mistake with these politicians is they come in and they speak like, I'm going to save everything.
And they don't have the capacity to, but at least if they could understand the big picture, I think they, you know, if they walked a mile in her shoes, which Justin probably would like, they would, that was horrible.
They would, they would understand more about what she's going through.
And that was that's sort of my point.
Well, and you know, a woman like her, it doesn't sound like she wants to be saved.
She doesn't need to be saved.
She's empowered.
She's strong.
She just wants to work like everybody else.
It's one of those universal things.
Now, are you able to give us a sneak peek hint at the next thing that you're working on?
That one?
Are you ready to let the okay?
Go ahead.
The biggest rally in Fort McMurray that I've ever done is coming up in the next couple of weeks.
It is huge.
It's going to be substantial.
I am going to be inviting the prime minister, so I'm trying to bite my tongue right now.
But he's the only one that I need to bite my tongue with.
I've been very respectful of Rachel Notley.
I've been very respectful of Jason Kenney.
I like, I really admire when we've done these rallies, how everyone has come together and we put all partisan politics aside.
And I stand by that.
I have been very nonpartisan and very fair.
And I, for the most part, I have been.
Fort McMurray's Rally00:06:31
I like Jason Kenny's blue truck.
It's perfect the way it is.
And I am going to invite everybody to come and speak.
We're going to be doing, I kind of want to wait.
We're going to be doing, I'll say it, we're going to be doing Fort McMurray's first multicultural rally.
So I recently covered an event for visit Fort McMurray at the Multicultural Association, and I really enjoyed it.
You had this Russian lady, she was crazy.
She had this like tin of all these like sweets.
And I think these sweets were like illegal.
They were like condensed milk and layers, right?
And she kept giving them to me and she's like hiding them in the bag, right?
And I got like this biggest sugar high ever, but it was really good.
And I found that really funny because there was a Russian-Ukrainian community.
There was a group from Egypt and they had the greatest desserts.
There was every country in the world, there was some First Nations dancing.
And I realized that our community is very, very diverse.
And you have people from everywhere coming here and they want a better life.
And if we get market access, the good that our community could do for the world for the oil sands is it's amazing what it could do.
And I'm very, I'm very proud to be doing this rally.
I'm not going to quite say who it's with yet because I have to be a bit careful.
But It's kind of emotional for me because I really am proud that we are all coming together.
And I want to encourage more people who have been a bit quiet about their support for the oil sands to come together and show their support because it's very important, I feel.
Yeah, you know, I was at, I think it was Brooks, and it was just after I started working at the Rebel, and there was like an anti-NDP rally, anti-carbon tax rally that was happening at a trucking yard in Brooks, Alberta.
And I'll never forget this man pulls in and he's got a microscope to, and it's like fastened to the roof of his car.
And he walks up to me and he's walking quite fast.
And I'm thinking, oh, holy hell, I'm about to get a blast because of where I work or whatever.
Yeah.
And he said, I want to talk to you.
And he, and I felt bad for immediately judging how he walked up to me because he told me the most incredibly heartfelt story of how he was from India.
He's a geologist.
He had been out of work for about six months.
And he said that all he wanted to do was come to Canada and work.
And he said he never wanted a penny from anybody.
He refuses to take a penny from anybody.
His kids are getting ready to go to university.
He said he's the hardest worker, but he just wanted to work.
And I think there are so many other stories just like his in the oil patch, people who've come to Alberta because it is the land of milk and honey and promise.
And government policy has really robbed them of their opportunities, just like everybody else who's in Alberta.
And I'm happy that you're doing a rally that sort of shows that we're all together in this.
Well, I find like, you know, a lot of the rest of Canada, like, I don't think they understand that Albertans aren't really about entitlement.
They just want a fair shot to earn a fair wage.
And that's what Alberta was for so many people that people, they're not satisfied.
They don't want government handouts.
They don't want to be kept.
They just want, hey, I want a chance to do the right thing.
Now, I am hopeful as of late.
I truly pray that Justin Trudeau has a plan with that pipeline.
I'm not sure if he does, but I'm praying.
Optimistic gentlemen, but I think your optimism is misplaced.
Well, if he doesn't have that pipeline built and he blew $4.5 billion of our money, not his trust fund, then we're in a really bad place.
And it's sad because the potential that we had as a province, as a region, as a country was infinity if we would have just got behind it 10 years ago.
You know, if more Aboriginal people would have said, hey, we need this.
I truly hope that it's good right now.
Everybody's on side and we're working together.
And I like that.
It's easier now than it was four years ago.
But I just hope it's not too little, too late.
And, you know, when it comes to the prime ministers, like, you know, like I didn't, I'll even say that.
I didn't even agree with everything that his father did, but I respected him.
I had a lot of respect for Jean-Crant, Paul Martin, Stephen Harper, even Malt Rooney.
I've always met, but I can find common ground with Rachel Molly.
When it comes to Justin, I'm terrified.
I'm terrified that this strange combination of circumstance has led us to a leader that just wasn't ready.
And because of his lack of experience and knowledge and a little bit of narcissism, there might be unintended consequences that will last for generations.
So that I'm scared of.
And I'm trying, I'm trying to bite my tongue right now because I have a rally where he might be speaking at.
And if he chooses, I will be respectful and I'll make sure everybody's respectful.
But it's hard.
I mean, it's been four years of just talk.
And I don't know.
I don't know like how I don't know a prime minister who's had more scandals.
I truly don't.
I really don't.
Yeah, I think you are a lot nicer than I would be when you say it's inexperienced because I don't think he would ever be ready.
I don't think he has the mental capacity to run a monopoly board, let alone run, you know, the Canadian economy.
Plug Your Business00:02:41
But you are trying to be nonpartisan because you want him to speak at your rally.
Robbie, yeah, he might.
Who knows?
As long as there's nobody there asking tough questions, he might show up.
Now, I wanted to give you a chance to tell everybody where they can find you.
Tell everybody where they can get these great oil sand strong t-shirts like the one I'm wearing, because unlike other oil sands activists, you don't really have any deep pocketed sponsors.
You do a lot of, well, almost all of your work out of your own pocket.
You travel on your own dime.
You go to all these rallies.
You drive late.
You're taking time off work.
And it's all out of your own pocket, or the majority of it is out of your own pocket.
So plug your business, plug your t-shirts, do what you got to do.
Okay, so go to oilsandstrong.com to buy t-shirts and share our posts.
I really like to grow our page.
And I am toying with the idea of setting up some sort of, if you want to sponsor our show, visit Fort McMurray or Boots on the Ground, I'm going to might open the doors to that.
But I really want to get our clothing line going.
We've had some success with it.
I'm about to upgrade it.
If you're in Fort McMurray, you can go to Napa Auto Arts and our t-shirts are for sale there as well.
And just kind of stay tuned.
But my goal, I probably will be selling some sponsorships to the new TV video, sorry, to the new web series, because, you know, there's only so much I can take as a small business person.
But it is my labor of love.
I do enjoy doing it.
And for the most part, you're right.
I have been 100% self-funded.
There has been occasions where I've sold shirts.
But I definitely want to grow and I want to do my best to try and keep my employees going so we can all keep doing this work that we do, but at the same time, have fun and grow at the same time.
Well, Robbie, I want to thank you so much for being generous with your time.
I told you 20 minutes and we're at well past 30.
And I want to thank you so much for doing what you do and fighting so hard for families like mine and trying to keep these important conversations about the ethical nature of Canadian oil and gas going every day.
Thank you.
It's always a pleasure being on your show and it's always a blast.
Thank you for having me.
Thanks, Robbie.
You're the best.
Thank you.
Bad Economies Know No Ethnicity00:00:31
Bad economies don't play favorites and unemployment, it doesn't really care about your ethnicity.
The consequences of damaging government policies that chase away investment and kill our jobs are absolutely colorblind.
And the best thing for all of us, no matter where we come from, is for the government to quit trying to help us and just get out of our way.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thanks so much for tuning in.
I'll see everybody back here in the same time in the very same place next week.