Robbie Picard, from Oil Sands Strong, confronts Elizabeth May on live radio, exposing her dismissal of Indigenous economic ties to Alberta’s oil industry—289 First Nations businesses, including Miccusu Cree and Fort McKay, invested $500M in Suncor and pipelines like Transmountain. He slams her "paternalistic" climate agenda, accusing it of undermining local jobs and sovereignty, while comparing Greta Thunberg’s UN speech to exploitation by adult handlers like Trudeau and Schwarzenegger. Picard warns anti-oil policies could spark separatism, urging unity before radical shifts destroy Canada’s energy independence and Indigenous prosperity. [Automatically generated summary]
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An oil sands activist we all know and love derailed a very friendly CBC interview with Elizabeth May.
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
Bear with me, friends.
I'm going to show you about two minutes of a live stream of a CBC cross-country checkup radio interview with Green Party leader Elizabeth May.
It was an Ask Me Anything style interview, and Elizabeth May was getting some pretty friendly questions.
Robbie From Fort Mac00:06:38
There weren't very many prickly ones lobbed at her until Robbie Picard from Oil Sands Strong could take no more.
You know, I'm surprised they let him through on the phone line.
Here's what he asked Elizabeth May.
So if you're focusing on Alberta oil, it does raise the question about your stance on pipelines.
And I think that's what our next caller wants to ask you about.
Robbie Pickard is calling from Fort Mac, Alberta.
Go ahead, Robbie.
Hi.
I have a question.
This is a blunt question.
So there's over 289 members of the Northeastern Aboriginal Business Association.
And there's the Miccasoo First Nations and the Fort Mackay First Nations.
Both these First Nations have invested each $250 million into a Suncor tank farm for a total of $500 million.
Pretty much all Métis, Indigenous, and First Nations businesses and nations in our area of Fort McMurray want the Transmountain Pipeline, including Chief Alan Adams.
He's the guy that brought Jane Fond and Neil Young and all those people to Fort McMurray.
What happens to them?
I can tell you right now that we're terrified about what's happening because we believe that we have the best oil in the world with the highest environmental standards.
We have some of the lowest emissions, only 0.15%.
And this bash on our industry, bashing on our community, and this attack constantly calling us dirty oil, blood oil, tar signs, and all that type of stuff has devastated our community.
And I know you're talking about the wildfire and you're going to bring the wildfire up, but my house burnt down in the wildfire.
And frankly, the forest is all back.
It's all rejuvenating.
That's part of the cycle of the forest.
It has to burn in order to rejuvenate.
The forest burnt in 99, or sorry, in the 90s.
And so we're really worried about what's going to happen to our pipelines.
What happens to these First Nations when if you succeed in the oil sands get solved?
What happens to all their $500 million, etc.?
Robbie, thank you very much for that question.
And Elizabeth May got about a minute.
So tackle that.
The number one agenda item for this election from the Assembly of First Nations, and I was the only leader to go to their annual general meeting this summer, but the Assembly of First Nations is clear the number one issue is the climate emergency.
I know Chief Adams, I know how the Miccusu Cree and the Fort Mackay First Nations have suffered from the emissions from the oil sands and how it has concerned them about what's happening to their health.
What the reality is here is that we are in a global crisis with a fixed carbon budget.
We can't negotiate our way out of it.
We can't beg the atmosphere for a bit more time because humanity doesn't seem to be able to listen to the warnings of science.
We know that there's a sustainable future for every single worker in the oil sands.
We know that Indigenous peoples who have invested in those operations will be using oil for at least till 2030 from the oil sands, but we'll be cranking it down and we will not have a single additional pipeline built.
You know, that's a pretty paternalistic answer that May gave to Robbie, who happens to be a Métis man himself, who works with Fort McMurray First Nation businesses every single day.
May basically told Robbie that she knows his people and she knows what's good for them.
Where I come from, that's called paternalism, and I'm old enough to remember when the left was staunchly against it.
But that wasn't the only crazy thing happening in climate activism news last week in Canada.
You see, our dear country had a visit from Saint Greta Thinberg, the deeply troubled, busybody Swedish girl who has been told by her exploitative adult handlers that she knows everything there is to know about everything.
Robbie joins me tonight in an interview we recorded yesterday afternoon to discuss Elizabeth May, Justin Trudeau, Greta Thinberg, and so much more.
So joining me now from his home office in Fort McMurray is my friend Robbie Picard from Oil Sandstrung.
Hey, Robbie, thanks for coming on the show.
I wanted to have you on because Elizabeth May, the Green Party leader, she was having a lovely visit with the folks from CBC's cross-country checkup until you phoned in.
Why don't you give us a brief synopsis of exactly what happened there?
Because you sent me the link and I listened to it and I thought it was perfect.
It was a very friendly interview.
Everybody was buying what Liz May was selling until Robbie called in.
And I don't even know how you knew to call in, which is great because, yeah, you derailed that whole thing for her.
Well, she is one of my least favorite politicians for multiple reasons.
Not because she's a Green Party person.
And in fact, I quite enjoyed her debating Ezra years ago.
I think I saw them debate.
I think in a lot of ways, she's an entitled person, and I think she's kind of full of shit.
My question was simple.
What happens to us in Fort McMurray?
What happens to the 289 businesses, the Aboriginal Business Associations?
What happens to the Micassee?
What happens to the Fort McKay First Nations?
What happens to the ACFN?
What happens to the numerous Métis groups, particularly the ones down in LacklaBish?
Actually, I just had a meeting with him the other day.
I borrowed his trailer and I blew a tire actually from President Robot.
And they're concerned.
And I don't think she has a grasp on how concerned people are in Fort McMurray.
And it's not even just about the big First Nations.
It's about the contractors and the small business owners.
It's about the people taking the barge all the way to Fort Chippewan from here all summer long.
I mean, these are, there's, if she gets one bit of what her wishes are, she's going to devastate our community.
And her answers, I mean, her answer was vague.
And I really found it insulting.
And I wish I could get a second question because like my question would have been, so she, I guess she talked about the federal First Nations that she was involved with.
So does that mean the ones here don't count?
Did she try to trump them?
Did she try to trump us?
I mean, she's, she's a her philosophies are dangerous to our economy and to the future of our area.
And I mean, we only produce 0.15% of emissions.
Radical NDP Hope00:09:00
She didn't dispute anything that I said.
She just sort of went into her, I guess, her political mode.
But I was happy that I got to ask a good pointed question and they let me ask my question.
So I was grateful for that.
Yeah, I was surprised that they let you through on the line.
I'm kind of glad for that.
My concern with Elizabeth May is that if the liberals form a minority government, they need the cooperation of the Greens to prop up their government.
And I'm worried we're going to see a much more radical liberals, even more so than Justin Trudeau, if they do form a minority government, because they need to please Elizabeth May every step of the way to stay in power.
And we're seeing that whole scenario play out right now in British Columbia.
You know, my expectations, like, I'm actually sometimes even debating getting into politics.
I don't ever want to be a politician, but I know that if I was one, I would articulate my views pretty good.
And my pray, I'm praying for Transmountain.
I'm praying that it gets built.
And I'm hoping, like, I don't know if I don't know which way the election is going to go, but I hope that there's one thing that the conservatives and liberals can do together is get that built.
And I'm hoping that this whole minority parliament thing, I mean, politics are so divisive right now.
This should be, this should be easier to call than it is.
But I'm just praying that they at least get one thing done and before they go all radical, which I mean, Elizabeth May, I mean, I don't think she has what it takes to be a leader.
I mean, I think that, you know, realistically, she's had one seat the majority of the time she's been in parliament.
I believe she has two now.
That's two seats.
I mean, like, it's just if she has the balance of power, I mean, that'll, that would definitely be interesting.
But I hope, I hope that we can go to an issue-and-issue basis and maybe get a few things done between the liberals and the conservatives.
I hope they have some integrity.
Well, and I think, too, it doesn't really matter which progressive party holds the balance in power with the liberals if the liberals do form a minority government, because the NDP are just as radical on this issue as the Greens are.
The Greens say that they want us all to transition into these green jobs, which don't exist without government subsidies.
And the NDP, well, they just want to completely nuke the oil sands.
There's no, they're not, they don't have even these wistful green dreams.
They just want it all gone and they want it all gone tomorrow.
For example, Jogmeet saying he doesn't support the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline.
He says there has to be prior and informed consent from the First Nations.
Well, that's not quite how it works.
The word is consultation.
The problem that's happening right now, I would argue the vast majority of Indigenous and Aboriginal First Nations Métis people support pipelines.
They support energy.
What you do is you have these environmental organizations from the states, so-called environmental organizations, and then they pay for lawsuits to a few First Nations to deliberately stall, install, install, and stall in this never-ending fight.
And, you know, I used like I didn't agree with Tom Elcair on everything, but I respected him as a politician.
I know he supported the Energy East.
He probably was against Trans Mountain.
But the NDP, I mean, I grew up in a family where it was NDP, NDP, and I was in Saskatchewan when Roy Romano was the premier.
And, you know, you don't love everything they do, but, you know, they did decent under Roy Romano.
They had a union type mentality of jobs.
Now you have unions like Unifor, which is Suncor's union, but they protest pipelines.
We're in a weird, weird place.
I think the NDP are sort of in this weird survival mode.
I don't think Tom Melker was a leader.
He was a good opposition leader.
You liked him or not.
He asked tough questions.
You know, he rescued that girl when Justin Trudeau was stormed across and he banged her in the chest.
I mean, Tom Elcair had some, I didn't love him.
I don't see that in any of the leadership in the federal NDP right now.
It's quite sad.
And if they, I mean, the two of them have balance of power.
I mean, I don't think their current leader has the real skill set of knowledge beyond his echo chamber to understand how the world works.
And you can go on and on talking about Demi politics, but that seems to be all I've ever seen or heard of him.
And Elizabeth May, I mean, her response to my question on cross-country checkup was just so like, oh, there's going to be this and there's going to be these skilled workers.
And they're going to like, it doesn't work like that.
Like those skill sets aren't always transferable either.
Like, like there's certain jobs that people want.
There's certain people have got, it's not that simple.
I don't think she understands how the oil sands work.
I mean, I think she thinks she knows, but she truly doesn't.
Robbie, I'm going to give you a quote because I think this quote, I don't know if you're going to get it right.
I think you might because it'll show just it'll demonstrate something.
I'm trying to prove a point.
Okay, here's the quote from a political party leader.
You can't make a choice between what's good for the environment and what's good for the economy.
We can't shut down the oil sands tomorrow.
We need to phase them out.
We need to manage the transition off our dependence on fossil fuels.
That's going to take time.
And in the meantime, we have to manage that transition.
Who said that, do you think?
Oh, well, I want to say Elizabeth May.
That would make it easy or juggling, but it's probably Trudeau.
It is absolutely Trudeau.
And my sneaky little point that I was trying to prove is there's literally no daylight in between all three progressive parties on this issue.
So I guess I'm debunking my own point by saying the liberals are actually going to get more radical on the issue of being anti-fossil fuel because Trudeau said that two years ago.
So, I mean, they're pretty radical and pretty in line with Elizabeth May.
I mean, that could have been said by Elizabeth May.
It could have been said by one of the more radical NDPers, but it was actually said by our prime minister about our best resource.
So Justin Trudeau came here many times.
I know Justin.
I've hosted some events for him.
And you know that I try to stay as nonpartisan as I can.
Yeah, of course I do.
It's not easy, particularly right now.
I recently did an interview with a publication, which I can't say what it is right now because the guy made me say be quiet about it because he didn't want anyone to know he was doing a story to scoop him.
So, but it was a pretty big publication.
And I was honored that they asked me to do an interview.
And when it comes out, but I actually, for the first time, really was critical of Justin Trudeau.
And I believe everybody makes mistakes and they do things 10, 15 years ago.
And I mean, that type of stuff comes up.
I've never seen a leader in my entire life that has gotten as many passes as Justin Trudeau.
If Stephen Harper would have worn black face for five minutes, just imagine it would have been done.
And Justin did it that we know about three separate times.
I think there's a fourth one that just came out.
We're recording this on Tuesday.
And there's a fourth one of him in an Afro wig that just came out literally moments ago.
So I guess if I was Justin Trudeau, I would brag about all the resources we had.
I would never undersell it.
I wouldn't apologize for it.
I'd say the oil sounds the best thing that's happened to Canada.
And I really understand it.
I understand it in a deeper way than just showing up and giving lip service.
I would also do that for solar and I do that for wind.
I do that for wheat and canola.
I would do that for everything.
I would be the leader the country needs.
And that's someone who doesn't matter if you voted them for not or not.
You try with everything within your power, if you have integrity, to sell what they're selling.
And we don't need to apologize about the oil sounds.
And Justin knows that.
He knows how good it is for Canada.
I'm terrified that identity politics and some weird socialism agenda is slowly creeping its ways into our policies.
Greta's Privilege Problem00:06:27
Last week, when you have Greta Thunberg coming to our country, and it's very clear that her speech to the United Nations was, I mean, it was a complete and utter disaster.
It was embarrassing.
I found it so insulting that someone with such privilege, and I mean, let's talk about privilege.
Privilege is getting floated on a $20 million yacht.
Privilege is when Honor Schwarzenegger lends you his Lexus.
Privilege is when each world leader meets with you and sits down.
And somehow her childhood has been stolen from her.
That is the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard in my entire life because you actually have children in Africa and countries that are starving.
They're not eating hummus on a train with peanut butter.
And I understand that she's got problems.
But when Justin met with her, I lost a lot of respect that I had left for him.
And I'm also blown away at celebrities because let's just be candid.
Greta Thunberg right now is the biggest celebrity in the world at this moment in time.
She's got the highest social media following, the highest engagement, and celebrities that are sort of has-bins are jumping on her bandwagon to get pictures with her.
And I felt that our prime minister was a little bit of a celebrity.
He is the poster child for Canada, like it or not.
And that includes the oil sands, includes selling our oil to market.
And I'm concerned that if we're being lectured to by a child and who really, I mean, her arguments are weak at best.
And if you cross, if you cross-examine her, I mean, she'd crumble.
She's already crumbling now a little bit.
It wasn't a good defense of us.
And it kind of said, like, hey, well, she's in town.
I better have my picture taken with her.
I lost respect.
The other thing is, is that this argument that somebody who's like a grown man in their 40s cannot question her, they're trying to use that to emasculate people that are actually questioning her.
This is the part where I'm completely and utterly perplexed.
Okay, so when her argument suits your narrative, she's an expert.
Greta Thunberg, an expert.
She's a well-spoken, great person.
And if that's the case, then she should be able to be cross-examined.
And I mean, there's plenty of 16-year-olds that are brilliant.
Those brilliant 16-year-olds you can argue with.
You can, I mean, my little foster sister, when she was 16, I mean, she used to argue with me and she beat me in arguments.
But I didn't, I mean, she did something stupid.
I have no problem calling her out.
So, my concern is that we're being duped and we are scared to stand up to her because she's, you know, she's a 16-year-old girl who's, you know, got a disability or superpower, either way you look at it.
The point of the matter is, is that if you're going to play in that league and she's in the big leagues, then you need to have a rebuttal.
These grown men, a lot of them are fearful for their family's future.
They've got own 16-year-old children that they've got to put through school.
They don't have the luxury of being funded by billionaires and multi-millionaire celebrities who lend them their Lexus.
Her speech was an embarrassment.
It's an embarrassment to people across this country that are struggling across the world.
She has an amazing childhood.
No one stole anything from her.
She doesn't need to work a day the rest.
She doesn't have to go back to school.
She's a famous international celebrity now who's got connections.
She's done.
I mean, she doesn't have to go back to school at all.
She can float around, public speak, do whatever she wants.
Arnold Swarseneg will help her out.
So will Obama and so will Trudeau.
And like, I mean, and that's fine.
I mean, I'm not trying to, like, she's got to seize her opportunities.
But we as a country need to understand that Canada needs to get our oil to market.
And we don't have time for childish distractions.
You know, I watched that whole Greta Thunberg in Montreal thing.
It was very alarming to me because I've seen some of the counts of the crowd size.
50,000 of our fellow Canadians took to the street, the streets of Montreal to say, shut down Alberta.
That's what I saw when I saw that.
That's what I saw when I saw those signs holding up that our fellow Canadians want to unemploy us because a 16-year-old girl from a continent away is telling them to do it.
And really, I look at Greta Thunberg with great sympathy as a mother.
I feel like she's being abused and exploited, and people are exacerbating her vulnerabilities because it gets good TV play.
It makes for great sound bites.
And I worry about her future when she's all used up and thrown away.
And I feel like she's being used as a human shield.
The same way I would say that Hamas uses human shields.
They put the women and the vulnerable children up front in the war.
Well, they think they're on a war against fossil fuels.
And guess who's standing up front?
The women and the children.
So that the moral people, you and I, we don't fire at those people.
We don't attack those people.
And that's what I see happening here.
My very wise 13-year-old, who has been talking to me and nagging at me in a Swedish accent for over a week now since she saw Greta do it, she watched that video of Greta's speech and she said, Mom, that's not a compelling argument or whatever in her little 13-year-old language she said, but she said, That's just every other teenager talking sass-mouth to an adult and thinking that they know how to run the world.
And I thought, you know what?
That's true.
You know, we're holding Greta up as special and somehow insightful, but really, when you boil it all down, she's just a regular 16-year-old who thinks she knows everything.
Why Greta Matters00:05:42
Okay, I'll try to unravel some of that.
So, first, I believe that they had a good turnout, but I would argue that it's a false turnout.
And I'll tell you why.
They planned it a long time.
They were skipping school.
You were in a city with a population.
I mean, there's all like, we got to skip school Fridays.
It'd be interesting to see how long that happens.
I'm sure it'll happen a few more times.
Back in the rally days when we were across the country, I would argue we had pipelines as the number one issue in Canada for quite a while.
It's build that pipe, build those pipes when we want pipelines.
We want them now.
Unfortunately, we have jobs and we get caught up in our lives trying to keep things going.
I'm going to blame us.
I'm going to blame myself, Cole, Cody, our whole little activism group, because I think we, when we got pipelines as the number one issue, we kind of got complacent.
But it's hard.
Like, I mean, we all, you know, we all have lives to try to run businesses.
I can't fly the auto all the time.
And Arnold Schwarzenegger is not lending me a Lexus anytime soon.
So, but I do believe that it is our duty, all of us, to try and get this pipeline issue back in people's consciousness because it's real, like, I don't think people in Ontario realize what's happening, like borrowing copious amounts of money to prop up their economy only lasts so long.
Alberta used to prop it up.
And Alberta needs help.
We're not asking for much.
We just want a couple pipelines so you could stop importing oil from the United States or Saudi Arabia or wherever and help us be competitive in the world market.
And if Justin Trudeau wants to plant 10 billion trees, go for it.
But get me a pipeline.
Seriously, like we need a pipeline.
We desperately need a pipeline.
And I'm terrified.
And we don't, I don't think I miss politicians that are boring, non-charismatic.
I want a bean counter.
I want a politician that like is socially awkward and still uses a handkerchief and then offers it to you because they're so they're so socially but they're brilliant and cheap and they're too cheap.
She did by Kleenex.
You can wash a handkey.
But no, I'm hopeful that something good comes.
Also, I want to say something.
I think it's a shame that one of your reporters recently got kicked out of Andrew Sears Lane.
I'm still going to try to be as nonpartisan as I can.
Me too.
But that's not right.
It's not right when Rachel did it to you and it's not right any other way around.
It's not, especially that guy.
Like, you know, he's such a softy.
So we got to go back to like the Rebel serves a very big and important purpose.
And there's a lot of stories that have been broken because of you guys.
So, I mean, does everyone get it right all the time?
No, but I would argue you guys get it right pretty more times than you don't.
Well, thanks, Robbie.
Yeah, I think the moral of the story is just leave us alone.
Let us do our jobs.
Just let us do our jobs.
We're not there to make trouble.
We're there to ask questions.
You can even ignore our questions, politicians, if you're watching.
You could just ignore us and talk right over us like Justin Trudeau does to literally everybody.
But accosting us, throwing us out of places, it's just a bad look on everybody.
And I think if we are going to be outraged that the Liberals didn't allow my friend Andrew Lawton to attend their campaign events, the same must be said of us.
And we have to see past our partisanship and how desperately we all want Justin Trudeau to lose.
I'm speaking for me and not you.
We have to be able to see past that to stand on principle sometimes or all the time.
Robbie, I know that you had meetings today and we're working late in the afternoon.
I want to thank you for being generous with your time.
Please tell everybody how they can support the work you do because unlike the Greta Thinbergs of the world, you don't have anybody throwing a big stack of cash your way to do the advocacy for families like mine that you do every single day.
Please go to oilsandstrong.com and buy 10 t-shirts.
Thanks, Robbie.
Have a great day.
We'll have you back on again sometime very, very soon.
Thank you for having me.
I think for the majority of Western Canada, and I know definitely for Alberta, most people are voting because they care about one single overarching issue.
It's the same issue that swept Jason Kenney into power provincially.
That issue is jobs.
Jobs, jobs, jobs.
And regardless of Elizabeth May's grandiose dreams of the leasehand on your drilling rig suddenly becoming a green energy mogul, it's not happening, at least not anytime soon, and at least not without a lot of government intervention.
Demand for oil is rising globally and Canada should and must be the ethical supplier to the rest of the world.
Progressive parties need to stop colluding with each other to further foreign interests to block Canadian oil.
This is a Canadian sovereignty issue that's going to trigger a separatism crisis that I don't think anybody is prepared for.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
I'll see everybody back here in the same time in the very same place next week.