Sheila Gunn-Reed and William Macbeth warn Calgary’s $21B Teck Mine project—delayed 10 years despite meeting all approvals—could collapse due to Liberal cabinet infighting, reigniting Alberta separatism. Meanwhile, Calgary councillors’ lavish FCM spending, including Maglioca’s $500+ hospitality costs and a bike lane party, risks draining city funds, with the Green Line LRT ballooning to $5B for half its original route. The CPC leadership race lacks bold vision, risking irrelevance as progressive policies dominate, leaving Calgarians to watch local governments set dangerous precedents for fiscal mismanagement and climate-aligned projects. [Automatically generated summary]
Hello Rebels, I'm Sheila Gunread and you're listening to a free audio-only recording of my Wednesday night show, The Gun Show.
My guest tonight is William Macbeth and we are talking about, well, just about everything from the tech resources protests to the Conservative Party leadership race to Calgary City Council expenses and how the NDP have suddenly gotten themselves involved in all of that.
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What happens if Tech's Frontier Oil Sands Mine doesn't get approval from Justin Trudeau's Liberal Cabinet?
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
Tech's Frontier Oil Sands Mine is a $21 billion project that has been wandering through the regulatory process hell in Canada for 10 years.
Tech meets every single requirement to be approved currently under the Liberals legislation, and yet Justin Trudeau's federal cabinet is unsure if they're going to approve the project at all.
The Liberals seem to be having an internal civil war about what's going to happen to tech.
The more radical environmentalist wing of the Liberal Party says nuke it.
The more pragmatic side of the party wants to build it.
The fight for tech just isn't a fight for Alberta jobs, thousands of them.
It's actually a fight for the future of the Liberal Party.
And the Liberals are having it right now in Battleground, Alberta.
Isn't that ironic?
My guest on the show tonight is William Macbeth from Save Calgary.
We are going to be talking about Tech's Frontier Oil Sands Mine, the Conservative Party leadership race, and some more local issues in Calgary, the Green Line LRT boondoggle, and out-of-control council travel expenses coming from a somewhat unlikely place, a conservative city councilor.
Here's the interview we recorded yesterday afternoon.
Joining me now is my friend William Macbeth from Safe Calgary.
We have so many things to discuss today, but first let's talk about tech resources.
Tech's frontier oil sands mine has been in regulatory hell for 10 years.
They've really done everything that they can do.
They've met every obligation that they can meet.
And now it seems like the liberals are injecting more into the process that aren't actually there.
And this is a $21 billion project.
It's got signed agreements with every First Nation that it even comes close to.
And yet, the environment minister, the new environment minister, says that he's not going to rule out deferring a decision on the tech oil sands mine.
I think this has less to do with all these new excuses the liberals are coming up with about climate change and getting to net zero by 2050 and more to do with hanging on to power.
I think if they approve tech, they're going to lose the NDP support and their minority government is going to fall.
That's what I think is going on here.
I think it is, as much as the liberals like to beat the climate change drum, I think this is just petty politics and they're holding Alberta's future at stake.
But what do you think?
Because you've been around for a while.
You've been examining this too, much like I have.
What do you think?
I think you're right, Sheila, that this was a project that played by the many, many, many rules that groups put on it.
It went out of its way to work with First Nations groups to develop a real partnership between industry and First Nations so that both groups would profit.
I actually think it's an example of a project, the exact kind of project we want built right here in Canada that adds, you know, will add so much to our economy and create so many jobs.
But you're absolutely right.
What you're seeing now, and I think there's a bunch of different things at play, but politics is definitely at the heart of it.
The Liberal cabinet ultimately will decide whether or not this project gets to go through.
I'm told that cabinet is divided.
And on one side, you've got, say, Christia Freeland, who has been spending most of her time, it seems, out in this end of the country, trying to repair some of the damage done by her boss over the past four years.
And then on the other side, you've got a lot of Quebec and Ontario MPs who frankly think this is a terrible thing.
They don't want it to go ahead at all.
So why, you know, where's an actual debate is happening?
Is it not wanting to lose the NDP support for their minority government?
Is it two nascent liberal leadership campaigns, one for Christia Freeland and one for some more left-wing liberal candidate that's actually dividing the liberal cabinet?
We don't know.
I think an important question, though, is: where is the prime minister?
This is a national project, national in scope, that will have a Canada-wide impact.
And our prime minister is nowhere to be seen.
I think he might be in Africa cozying up to dictators to try and get Canada a seat on the UN Security Council, but he's certainly not here at home making the case for Alberta and Canadian industry.
Yeah, I think if this project doesn't get approved, there is going to be no extinguishing or containing the separatist sentiment because, you know, as Shannon Stubbs, Conservative MP Shannon Stubbs rightly put stated, and I'm paraphrasing here, that this is Canada leaving Alberta behind.
And I think the Liberals are also, I mean, they're experiencing their own version of the Northern Gateway pipeline protests that we experienced.
You know, I suppose it was in the last decade when the left rallied against the Northern Gateway pipeline and that pipeline was approved.
However, the Liberals canceled it.
I don't think the Liberals want to draw attention to the fact that there are these protests.
I guess I suppose it's by lefties against the Liberals all across the country.
Because I think the Liberals took great pleasure in the fact that that happened to Stephen Harper.
No, and it's, you know, I, of course, would prefer every single project to get swift and overwhelming approval and support so we can get shovels in the ground and Albertans and Canadians back to work.
But it is funny to watch the liberal talking point change because it used to be all Stephen Harper's fault.
That's why we didn't get pipelines.
He didn't consult.
He didn't address concerns from environmentalists or First Nations groups.
All of that would be different under this new shiny, sunny ways liberal government.
And then, of course, they've just discovered that there's no pleasing the zealots and extremists whose business every day is to try and shut down Canada's oil and gas sector and Canadian industry in general.
So now you've got the liberals in a rock and a hard place between they're pleasing nobody.
They're not pleasing the far left who think they should just leave every drop of oil and gas in the ground.
And they're certainly not pleasing those of us in the middle and on the right who think that actually Canadian oil is produced to the very highest environmental and ethical standards and the world could deeply benefit from having more Canadian energy powering countries right across the planet.
So I guess we're going to find out how strong-willed these liberals are about actually getting some of these projects finished.
But I would say, because I think Shannon made a very good point, if they allow the Tech Frontier Mine project to fail, if they allow vocal special interests within the Liberal Party and without to stop a project that went through 10 years of rigorous regulatory,
nonpartisan approvals with consultations with environmental groups and First Nations, if they allow that project to fail, they are taking a litmatch and holding it up to the fuse of an Alberta independent bomb that will detonate and possibly blow this country apart.
Well, and that might be the only thing that ever saves Alberta is to separate itself, unfortunately, from the rest of the country in that look at what tech has done in the last 10 years.
If tech can go through all that and still not meet these peculiar social justice demands being put forward by the liberals, no company would ever opt to invest in Alberta again.
None.
I mean, how do you ever get anything built ever again?
You won't.
There will never be another large-scale energy project built in this country.
No, at least not by the private sector.
We'll enter a new era of government pipelines being built to transport oil, possibly, if they decide they want to do that at all.
But there won't be a private sector case to be made because a company that played by the rules and did everything right.
So let's say the exact opposite of SNC Levin, so a company that played by the rules and did everything right, can't get a project clearly in the national interest built, then there is no hope for a private sector energy infrastructure construction in this country.
Well, and just a quick side note, I was thinking, I really haven't seen much from the NDP in support of this.
In fact, I've actually seen some former, thankfully unelected NDP MLAs expressing opposition to tech going forward.
It was four years of Rachel Notley pretending to be pro-oil and gas.
And right now, when she could lend her voice to the conversation to say that this is a bipartisan issue here in Alberta, I'm not hearing much from them.
Have you?
No, no, you're absolutely right.
Now, the federal NDP have never made any phones about it.
They do not like our oil and gas sector.
They do not like pipelines.
And in their mind, we should not be in the oil and gas business as a province or as a country.
But Rachel Notley and her former government, they tried to tell us that they were both environmentally conscious and pro-Alberta responsible resource development.
However, they aren't being particularly vocally supportive of the Tech Frontier Mind Project right now.
And some of them are lending maybe not overt support, but certainly sending friendly ways to the people who are opposed to this project.
Why is it Rachel Notley standing shoulder to shoulder with Premier Kenny, jointly demanding that Ottawa approve this project for all Albertans?
That's, I think, what she said she would do when she was Premier, always stand up for our energy sector.
She has an opportunity to do it right now.
And so far, you're right.
It's been just silence from her.
Yep.
Now, that's a great way for us to segue into this next story.
I read it and I couldn't believe what I was reading.
I had to read it a couple times.
The NDP's Joe Cece, the NDP's Joe Cece, Canada's worst finance minister, Alberta's definitely worst finance minister ever.
Joe Cece wants the province to look into City Councilor Joe Magliaka's Quebec expenses.
Please explain to me why Joe Cece is pretending to be a fiscal conservative all of a sudden.
And why is the NDP weighing in?
Well, he was certainly never bothered about fiscal conservatism when he was a city councillor or a finance minister.
I can tell you that.
This is just plain politics.
I think most people know they say Joe Maglioca is a small city conservative.
He did, I think, really disappoint us when he went on that trip to Quebec for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities meeting and spent really quite a large amount of money on hospitality.
It turns out that the people he said he was eating and drinking with, well, they weren't there.
They've issued statements saying they weren't there.
But why this is now the cause calebra of the provincial NDP?
Well, I think it's because they're just trying to hurt conservatives in general and help their lefty friends trying to get elected to city council next year.
Now, Jeremy Farkas, great counselor, has a motion today that would try and fix some of these issues, limit how many people go to the Schmooze Fesc that is the Federation of Canadian Municipalities meeting, which are always held in the very nicest high-end hotels.
Cause Celebre Counselor Expense Reports00:06:34
They don't spare any expense when they travel on our tax dollars.
But, Calgary, you know, we sent 10 of our 15 counselors to that meeting.
What did we get out of it?
Well, nobody knows.
We got a big bill, that's for sure.
I don't see why we send any more than one or even none, because I frankly think the Federation of Canadian Municipalities doesn't actually achieve very much for cities because cities have so many different and competing values.
I do think, actually, though, the issue of counselor expenses extends well beyond just going to FCM meetings.
I talked about a little bit on the radio earlier today about if you look through council expense reports, which is always a fun way to spend your time, I can tell you there are counselors expensing meals, expensing goodbye gifts to their staff that are worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
You know, when I give a gift, I use my own money to give a gift to someone because I want to show my personal appreciation.
Calgary City Councilors are the highest paid in the entire country.
I assure you, they can afford to pay for their own gifts.
And one counselor even threw a party celebrating the opening of Calgary bike lane.
So to me, there's lots of opportunity to find cost savings.
And I think we need to take, we really need to clip council's wings when it comes to what they can and cannot expense and how much they can expense.
Yeah, you know, I was thinking about, I think this is the same meeting that the city of Medicine Hat boycotted.
They didn't send anybody to this Council of Municipalities meeting, in particular because it was held in Quebec and they felt that Quebec was opposing basically everything that Medicine Hat is about with oil and gas.
And Medicine Hat has its own oil and gas company, so they weren't about to send their counselors there.
They thought it was a bad idea.
It didn't show fiscal prudence in a time when they're calling for, I suppose the right word is austerity across the board.
And so they didn't send in anybody.
Now, Calgary is not known for taking strong stances in that manner.
So yeah, like you, I'm shocked to see that Councilor Meg Lioka went there and blew a bunch of money because, yeah, he is known as one of the fiscal conservatives on council.
And I thought maybe he would be somebody who we might consider to be the next mayor.
You know, someone who would throw his hat into the ring.
And I just don't see that now.
This one trip might have nuked any future aspirations for him.
I can tell you, on behalf of Safe Calgary, who we are a fiscal watchdog, we spent a lot of time fighting on behalf of taxpayers to keep more money in their pocket.
We were disappointed in Joe because we've considered him to be one of the very few who actually have a voting record that is mostly fiscally conservative and responsible.
I'm hoping that it's a one-time aberration.
He, of course, was council's designate to the FCM sitting on their board.
So he probably should have been the only counselor going to that FCM meeting and not he didn't need nine of his colleagues, including Mayor Nancy there.
But we hope that this is a one-time thing and that he once again gets back to his fiscally conservative roots in the future.
Yeah, here's hoping.
Now let's stay in Calgary and talk about the never-ending debacle that is the green line.
Now, I saw you tweet earlier today that you want to flatline the green line.
This is never-ending just money pit that nobody can seem to sort out.
Am I right?
Yeah, you know, usually you have to build a train before there's a train wreck.
But in this case, this train wreck started before a single PC track was ever laid in it.
It's been 10 years since we first started looking at this green line plan.
When it was first proposed, it was going to be this massive 46-kilometer north cell through the downtown core route.
It was going to have this underground tunnel through the downtown core.
It was going to go under the river.
And then year by year, it has just been plagued with problem after problem.
Senior managers have walked off the project team.
They're now only proposing a line half the size of the original, but for the same, in fact, even more money than what was originally promised.
So half the route for more money.
And even as of today, past council's deadline to administration to come up with a concrete, achievable plan, there is still no green line plan that is technically feasible.
So I don't understand why city council has put all of its eggs in this green line basket.
It could bankrupt our city.
It could cripple our ability to have city services.
for years and years to come.
But council is unwilling to look at any other alternative other than this full LRT line right through the heart of downtown Corr and across the Bow River.
What is the cost that it's at?
Where did it start and what is it getting to, I guess is the right question.
So the original plan was $4.5 billion to run from the southest of South communities in Calgary right to the northern edge of the city, a length of 46 kilometers.
When they cut the project in half, it's now going from kind of south to really just on the other side of the Bow River.
That is now going to cost $5 billion.
And as I said, only go half the distance for what they propose.
So I don't understand how you can get half the track for the same money or even more money in this case.
And to us, it's just yet another example of why this is the wrong approach for transit in Calgary.
Well, and when government builds something, you can routinely see 70% cost overruns like the Transmountain Pipeline.
It's, you know, approaching $12 billion to build the thing, 70% more than what was estimated by Kinder Morgan when it was their project.
Because taxpayers are just that never-ending money pit that the government can reach into when they don't feel like making the hard decisions.
Why Conservatives Need a Disruptor00:07:48
I wanted to ask you before we wrap up the interview, you've been a conservative activist for a long, long time.
You've run campaigns and you really sort of have your finger on the issues.
I want to ask you about the Conservative Party of Canada race before I let you go.
We've got Peter McKay, who I thought would blow my hair back, but he's having the opposite effect.
Like, I appreciate how bad his campaign is because it's providing a lot of comedic material for me on Twitter.
On the flip side, O'Toole didn't impress me in the last leadership race.
I thought he would, and he didn't, but he's impressing me now, and he's saying all the right conservative things, and he's leading on all the issues.
He's not waiting for a CBC reaction to find out where he needs to stand on the issues.
And we also have John Baird, who is musing about coming into the race, and he hasn't said anything yet, but it seems to be that he's being pushed in or invited in by Jason Kenney.
I wanted to get your opinion on what's unfolding in the conservative leadership right now.
No, I think your assessment is spot on.
It's so interesting.
Peter McKay, of course, ran to be leader of the PC party quite a long time ago back in 2003.
And I think he's always held leadership ambitions for the new Conservative Party.
So since he's had more than 15 years to get a potential run ready, you'd think it'd be going a little bit better than it has been.
And I honestly can't tell really what he stands for on most things because all we're getting are platitudes and Sort of slugs, campaign gaps, which certainly aren't inspiring me to put an X next to his name on the ballot.
I really hope John Baird decides to get in.
I think we could use some excitement, a good and exciting leadership race.
I don't know Aaron O'Toole that well, but so far, you know, he does has been putting out some decent policy.
I do think what's missing, though, from the race so far are big ideas.
You know, like what does a 21st century conservative party, what do we stand for?
And how do we really shake up people's perceptions of what we are?
And if you look, and I'm certainly not suggesting that we need a Donald Trump type character in our race.
I am.
Well, oh, yes, you're very entitled to your opinion.
I say this.
What Donald Trump brought to his party, to the Republicans, was shaking off the status quo and building an entirely new, bigger coalition of voters who voted Republican and hence helped them win elections.
If you look in England, you've seen Boris Johnson win conservative seats in ridings that have never, ever voted conservative by talking about issues that matter to working people, to middle income, lower middle income workers who felt abandoned by the left when they became obsessed with climate change and identity politics.
So I'd love to see someone who really turns people's opinions around and makes people say, well, I share those values.
I share values of standing up for hard work, of paying less tax, of having a government that actually understands the issues I'm facing.
Certainly as an Albertan, I want someone unapologetically pro our oil and gas sector who will see the jobs and employment crisis in our province as a crisis and do things to try and help them.
And beyond that, I think we just need to make the Conservative Party a party that appeals to enough Canadians with great policy so that we just don't eat out a majority government once in a while.
We routinely win conservative majority governments and start changing the nature of our country.
Yeah, I agree with you.
I think we need someone who appeals to the Dan McTeagues of the world.
You know, the former liberals who are fed up with Justin Trudeau.
They're pro-oil and gas.
They care about making sure that families have more money in their pockets.
They've been left behind by the liberals, and why don't we start rounding them up?
And we really don't have to move the party in any direction to convince people that the values they hold are conservative values.
We're just not all that great at communicating them or we haven't been.
In the past, Trump did this with what I would call the Reagan Democrats in some of those purple states.
And like you say, it helped build this broad pro-free enterprise coalition that is really changing the face of the United States.
And I think it's great.
It's bold.
It appeals to the young and the old, which I think is really great.
William, I wanted to give you a chance to tell everybody where they can find and support the great work that you do at Save Calgary.
Well, thank you.
We always appreciate you giving us a chance to talk about how people can find us and get in touch.
So you can find us online at savecalgary.com.
Certainly, if you feel soboo, we'd love any donation you'd like to give us.
We are entirely funded by grassroots donors.
Later today, we'll be releasing a video about the Green Line, talking in more detail about some of the things you and I talked about today and laying out the risks that have come with it.
Again, our campaign to flatline the Green Line.
And you can check us out on social media, on Twitter, and on Facebook, both Save Calgary.
And certainly, we urge you to please sign up to our mailing list and to share those newsletters with your friends and family and get them to sign up too.
Because City Council's biggest weapon is people not paying attention to the issues and letting them get away with their big government, big tech, every decision made behind closed doors agenda.
And they can't do it if Calgarians are aware of it and pushing back.
So, we really want people to focus not just once every four years for a couple weeks in the lead up to an election, but what council's doing right now that could cost you and your family thousands of dollars.
You know, that's a really great point, William.
We know that our city councils are the farm team for progressive politics.
That's how Joe Cece became the finance minister.
He started off at Calgary City Council, he didn't have accountability there, and he just failed upwards.
So, it's really important for conservatives in particular to hold their city councils to account because these politicians need to know that we are always watching how they're spending our money.
William, thank you so much for coming on the show.
We'll have you back on real soon.
And thank you so much for being so generous with your time today.
Thanks, Sheila.
Happy to be here.
Thanks.
You know, I think William is so right when he says the Conservative Party needs a disruption and it needs a disruptor as its leader.
It needs to reset, reevaluate, and define itself because just not being Justin Trudeau, it's not enough.
Conservatives Need a Disruptor00:00:23
It's disaffecting long-term conservatives, and it's not giving young people a reason to get involved in the party.
And that's got to change, or the conservatives will never ever even get close to power again.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thank you so much, as always, for tuning in.
I'll see everybody back here in the same time in the same place next week.