Robbie Picard of Oil Sands Strong details how Oyen, Alberta’s economy surged with 1,000 new jobs under Trump’s Keystone XL pipeline, contrasting stagnation during Notley’s NDP-led opposition. Biden’s potential cancellation could cripple Alberta’s oil sector, risking 2,000 Suncor layoffs and Newfoundland’s Come by Chance refinery shutdown—5% of its economy lost. Picard slams Trudeau for ignoring industry realities while praising Indigenous leaders like Chief Crystal Smith for supporting pipelines amid protests, urging action to reduce Canada’s U.S. energy dependence. His advocacy revives after summer, pushing back against environmentalist policies like the Leap Manifesto and Green New Deal, which he calls economically unsustainable. [Automatically generated summary]
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Donald Trump's Alberta Boom00:14:26
Donald Trump is creating an Alberta boomtown and the media and the fancy conservatives seem to be the hardest hit.
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gunn Show.
Oyen, Alberta sits somewhere between Medicine Hat, Alberta and the Saskatchewan border.
And it might be the only boomtown in the entire country right now.
Oyan's population normally hovers around 900 souls on a good day, but there are approximately 1,000 extra people in town working on the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
And we sent Kian Bexty there to check it out.
He found that folks are worried about what could happen to their charming little town if anti-pipeline Democrat Joe Biden wins the presidency next month.
Then, on the other side of the country, the oil refinery in Come by Chance Newfoundland is laying off 500 people and possibly closing for good.
And in Fort McMurray, Suncor has announced they're laying off 15% of its global staff.
It's boom because of Trump and bust because of Trudeau, all at the same time.
Joining me tonight in an interview we recorded earlier in the week to talk about these stories and so much more is my friend Robbie Picard from Oil Sands Strong.
Joining me now from, I guess, one of his marketing clients locations from Fort McMurray is my friend Robbie Picard from Oil Sandstrom.
Hey, Robbie, thanks for joining me.
I wanted to have you on the show because I wanted to talk to you about something that's truly phenomenal happening in Oyan, Alberta.
Oyen is experiencing an they call it a mini boom, but if you lived in Oyan, it wouldn't seem so mini.
There are approximately a thousand extra jobs in that teeny tiny little town, all because of the Keystone XL expansion.
And I wanted to talk to you about this because for probably four years under Rachel Notley, this pipeline just languished.
Notley refused to support it.
She said she was on the same side as Hillary Clinton on the pipeline, which truly meant that she was against it because we know the Democrats are against it.
What do you think about that?
Well, first of all, I'm super happy for the people that live in that small community.
I mean, the fact that they have a mini boom or any boom right now, that's very good for our province, very good for them.
And I think during this pandemic and how we realized everything that is affected by different things going on, that any type of boom that helps people get money into their bank account is amazing.
And I also think that it goes to show you that this pie in the sky fantasy about all this green energy, it's not happening.
It's not actually getting cash into people's bank accounts like they need.
So it's good news.
And I hope that it's a bit of a wake-up call for people from all political stripes to embrace the natural resources to the best of their abilities.
Now, I also wanted to talk to you a little bit about the American election and the impact that that is going to have on us as Canadians, because Biden has said that he will cancel the Keystone XL pipeline.
It's already under construction.
A lot of it is built already.
But he said he will cancel it and that the United States doesn't need any of our dirty tar sands oil.
What are your fears, if you have any, about the American election?
Fears and predictions.
Give me those.
If Biden wins, it's incredibly bad for Alberta in terms of getting our oil to market.
He will cancel Keystone XL.
And I imagine that he'll take a really good look at the train that is going to go from basically Fort McMurray to Alaska and is another route.
I also think that we really, really, really, really need to build our own resources, make our own alliances with other countries so we're not as dependent.
You know, if the United States sneezes, we catch a cold.
And we have very strong resources between natural gas, uranium, potash, everything else, and oil and gas, of course, that in this entire time, we've never really left.
I mean, the United States is our biggest customer for everything.
And I really wish that our, you know, like all you're going to hear about for the next month is the U.S. election.
Yeah.
We are so dependent on America for everything that they do that it's terrifying that at this stage in the game, that if one pipeline can determine the future of Alberta's bank accounts, I mean, look at that tiny little town.
That Keystone is changing the lives.
It's giving them Christmas and Thanksgiving.
It's providing for their families.
Can you imagine if we took it more seriously, how that could help the entire country?
We don't take our energy seriously.
And I mean, we can't determine who the president is going to be.
But if you're just talking about money in my personal bank account, I mean, I think Trump is better for Alberta.
In fact, Trump has, in a lot of ways, has been better for oil and gas than our prime minister.
Yeah, and you know, it's interesting for you to say that because not only has he been better for oil and gas in his own country than our prime minister has been for ours, he's created a mini boom in Oyan, but also there are a lot of Canadians out of work in the Canadian oil patch who are finding work in some of the boom towns in America.
They're finding work in North Dakota, Pennsylvania, West Texas.
There's a lot of Canadians down there.
And it's a shame because that's a real drain on the experience that our oil patch will need to recover, but they'll be if we ever do recover.
But those Canadians have found good employment somewhere else and they take their experience and expertise with them.
So, you know, I always am a big believer in watch what people do, not what they say.
So that oil boom in the States actually was started under Obama.
Under Obama, the United States became the biggest producer of oil in the world and they even beat Saudi Arabia.
My point with Trump actually is that Trump has done more for Canadian oil and gas than our prime minister.
That's what's scary.
We need, we have done, we're weird right now.
You have this, I watched, I actually was on, I was on the CBC, like just online watching and they, my reporter that I know from Fort McMurray, David Thornton, was interviewing all of the green candidates, right?
And bluntly, they are clueless.
I mean, it's not even funny.
They're reaction, they have, they keep saying this, making the statement that when it comes to the oil and gas, that there's going to be this like green transition and there's going to be all these green jobs and they're going to have this new economy.
And all the oil workers that are put, they're going to be put out of work in Fort McMurray or wherever are going to have all these magical jobs.
At no point do they understand that it's far more complex than that.
The fact that the First Nations have $250 million invested in two different Sun Core tank farms, the fact that there's all contractors and all of these things going from different everything, they're all interconnected.
It's not just the workers that they need, it's businesses, it's systems, it's all of that.
And my point going back to the Green Party, I know that they don't really have any seeds, but that is our country's bizarre distraction.
And I mean, it's such an, I mean, even in the Biden debate there, he actually quoted the Green New Deal as if it was his own policy, and then he retracted and said, well, no, he didn't mean that, right?
This illusion that there's some sort of green energy savior has become a big distraction, which has prevented us from actually getting down to the basics of getting people to work on things that actually make sense.
And that is what's scaring me right now.
It's scary how we don't talk about how to get people to work.
It's just this fantasy that it's going to be like universal income and all of this imaginary stuff.
So I find that at least the Americans are at least talking about things that kind of matter.
We have this weird fantasy.
We don't know what's going on up here.
We really don't.
And so I'm very worried about our future because we're not taking this seriously enough.
Now, I wanted to ask you about some bad news.
Since you are in Fort McMurray, maybe you can give us sort of an on-the-ground sense of what those Sun Corps layoffs mean.
It was announced a couple of days ago that Sun Corps is going to be laying off 15% of its staff during what they call challenging conditions.
What's the word on the street in Fort McMurray?
How are people feeling about this?
So in Fort McMurray right now, we are in a very, very weird space.
There's not an economy like Fort McMurray's.
And I would argue that there's three economies.
You have your Suncor Syncrude, which is your steady economy, which keeps everybody working.
You have your boom and bust, which is expansion, shutdowns, and programs, which hasn't happened in a long time.
you actually have this other economy of renters that people rent rooms off of right um i'm when it comes to sun core um and and cnrl that's the basically the two big players Suncor essentially owns Syncrude and CNRL, bought Jackpine and MRM, and that's the formerly shell.
I don't think it's going to be instantaneously super devastating.
I think they're going to retire a lot of people, package a lot of people off.
It works out to be roughly 2,000 jobs across the entire country.
Now, that being said, I think that we have taken big companies like Suncor and CNRL for granted.
And when it comes to Suncor and CNRL, that's it.
They're the ones that are loyal to our region.
They're the Canadian companies.
I know that there's different shares or whatever, but at the end of the day, those are the two that hold our community together.
And the fact that some people are critical of Suncor, but what I would say is during from the last five years, they have held on and provided, you know, I believe they have 13,000 employees, provided them job security and all that.
And we need to really, really, the government needs to really take Suncor seriously and work with them to ensure that they are continuously successful.
It is sad news, but I also feel that Suncor has not done any severe layoffs at all during this time.
And let's go back, you know, when like in even when 2014, when this drama kind of started.
So, I mean, it is sad news, but it also goes to show you we need to really take this seriously.
So, but I think that Suncor and CNRL are amazing companies and they hold our province together.
And I don't believe they get enough respect for what they actually give.
Do I feel that all the advocacy end, yeah, we all need to step up, including them.
And we've, we really need to, like, this isn't the game anymore.
It's real simple.
If you like your way of life and you want to support your families and you want to continue to grow our resources, then you need to fight for it.
You cannot act like Tides, Greenpeace, Sappho, Berman.
They're not an actual threat.
They're a huge threat.
They have, you know, they have managed to like, trust me, I've known where I fought the good fight, but you get tired after a while.
So my point is, is that when a company like Suncor is sending this message, then Justin Trudeau needs to be on the phone with Mark Little the next day.
What can we do?
If this was Bombardier making this announcement or SNC Lavali or anything on the East Coast, the prime minister would be speaking about it.
Well, sorry, go ahead.
Please go ahead.
No, I was just going to say, well, not everything on the East Coast.
And I'll tell you why, because we haven't heard much from Justin Trudeau after the North Atlantic oil refinery and come by chance.
It's closing permanently.
They couldn't reach a deal with Irving Oil.
They're laying off 500 people right before Thanksgiving.
It's a devastation that will knock about 5% off the province's economy out there.
And we heard from Aaron O'Toole.
We haven't heard anything from Justin Trudeau.
And again, you rightly point out, if this were Bombardier and this happened in Quebec, Justin Trudeau would care.
But because this is the oil industry, we have heard nothing from the Liberals at all.
So I think what we need to realize is that if you live in Alberta and you live in Saskatchewan or you live, I guess, in Newfoundland or any of the Maritime provinces and you make your economy a big chunk of this from oil and gas, when you have a political leader, even though she only has two seats and she makes this bold statement, oil is dead.
And then you have a prime minister basically saying we need to phase out the oil sands.
These have long, long effects.
And it's one of these Trump gets criticized for when a president speaks, it can move these types of things.
The same thing that applies in Canada.
Michael Moore's Canadian Critique00:13:22
And for far too long, we've been too nice and we have some sort of bizarre Stockholm syndrome.
And we've allowed Elizabeth May can say, Elizabeth May is the biggest hypocrite in Canadian politics.
I mean, I was told she was ran out of the room because she didn't want the other Green Party guy winning.
She's a control freak.
And she makes a statement, oil is dead.
And then she's bragging about being on Andrew Scheer's private plane on a plane hopping because they needed to go to Ottawa.
I've never seen that type of narcissism in my entire life.
But she gets a lot of play.
And I would argue, like, she's extreme, and then Justin's here.
We need a prime minister that says, you know what?
Hey, I'm really sorry about this news with Suncourt.
I'm going to have an immediate phone call with Mark Little and I'm going to see what we can do.
No guarantees, but we'll try.
That to me is what you need.
And we don't have that.
He's willing to get rid of one of his cabinet ministers over jobs from SNC Lavale, but he's not willing to make, it can't just be like, hey, we bought a pipeline or whatever.
It needs to be secrets.
I'm going to support you.
His talking point.
I mean, when Rachel Notley was premier, at least she took our talking points.
She basically started repeating the positive stuff about oil and gas saying it's the highest environmental standards, or carbon emissions.
Like she did.
True.
Yeah, she didn't believe it, but she said it.
Yeah.
He's never done that.
And I think I've been really reflecting deeply about what needs.
You have both sides squawking all the time.
We're like, build that pipe, build that pipe.
I mean, it's a mess.
But I'm really trying to get at the heart of what happens in politics.
And one of the things I've come to the conclusion is that at the end of the day, what decisions Dustin Tudor makes really don't matter to him.
It doesn't change his personal bank.
Every decision I make for my business affects me one way or another, good or bad, or for my employees.
It doesn't affect him.
And there's a lot of people in government that make a lot of money and like, I mean, on all levels of government, but they're never really held accountable for their decisions.
And I think that we, the public, really need to say that your decisions affect us.
Like when a company like that makes that announcement, there should be, I mean, Jason Kenny made it immediately spoke about it.
Why is our prime minister so disconnected to Alberta?
And he's been here a lot.
I mean, you can make the argument he's been to Fort McMurray more times than Harper.
In fact, he has.
But from those visits, there's nothing ever been solidified that actually, like, I feel like they care.
I'm sick of virtue politics.
I'm sick of it.
I'm sick of this bizarre thing that's happening.
Like, virtue signaling, I mean, I just want to know what are you doing to make better decisions so we have a better life.
And we live in a society where we depend so much on government to make decisions that determine our future that I would rather him just be honest and say, like, look, I don't care about oil and gas at all.
And then we know what we're dealing with.
At least Elizabeth May is that.
I mean, you know, she's, I mean, if she gets elected, you're done.
I mean, there's no, I mean, I'll give Elizabeth, every Green Party member was the same thing.
What I find with the liberals right now is like, it's like there's, I've never seen more distrust in my life than I do in politics right now.
And that needs to change.
Now, I wanted to ask you about Saskatchewan because they're in election mode.
You're originally from Saskatchewan.
Correct.
Yes.
Yes.
And they have an NDP candidate.
Her name is Mira Conway.
She's the NDP candidate.
for Regina Elphinston Center.
And she said in a 2018 Facebook post, she called the oil sands, which you and I both love, an effing nightmare period.
And she also supports the Leap Manifesto.
She said, they're an effing nightmare period.
Any political agenda that takes climate change seriously doesn't have space for the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion.
And most regular people understand this intuitively.
How do you think that's going to go over in Saskatchewan?
Well, I mean, I'll have to unpack that a little bit.
Here's what I will say.
There's a lot of people that particularly like have these high, I suppose they think that they're some sort of environmentalist saviors that are simply clueless how life works.
So I would simply challenge her.
I'd say, watch Michael Moore's documentary.
And you can make the argument that it's a bit dated, sure.
Because I mean, that's what that sort of response when I asked about it.
I said, did you watch Michael Moore's documentary?
And the new Green Party leader, she made a statement saying, well, no, I didn't watch it because, you know, with green technology, you got to be like every three months.
I'm like, great.
I'll accept your argument.
Then I'll make the same argument.
With oil sands technology, you realize it's constantly evolving as well.
So I would simply say that she's clueless and doesn't really have an idea about anything to do with Fort McMurray or how oil and gas is produced or how she personally benefits from it.
And I guarantee you living in a cold city like Regina, which Regina is incredibly cold, like Winnipeg, they are very flat, so they get a lot of wind, especially in winter.
I think that she should really educate herself.
And I think that's the biggest problem I have when watching the Green Party leader debates.
I was blown away.
The only one that I actually kind of liked was Winnipeg's former mayor.
I forgot his name.
When I was working at the gay bar in Saskatoon as a bartender, I used to serve him because he came in all the time when he was in town and it was quite fun.
That was years ago.
And I quite like him, actually.
And he was one of the candidates running for the Green Party, but at least he had a sense.
And he called Elizabeth May out and said, like, you can't make those broad statements.
So I think even though I disagree with him, I think you could find some way to talk.
Sure.
The vast majority of the Green Party candidates are clueless when it comes to oil and gas.
And their response is idiotic.
It's an idiotic response.
It's simply, okay, well, you know, we'll get all you these imaginary jobs.
Like, how about if you're going to try to rip apart?
So someone comes to Fort McMurray and they spent $600,000 on a house and then the market crashes.
So their house is only worth $400,000, so they're $200,000 in the hole in their house.
And all they have before they claim bankruptcy is their job, which now they don't get overtime for.
And you somehow, we're going to pension people off.
How about you just understand how basic economics work first before you make these statements?
You cannot get rid of oil and gas.
Let's just say you're going to have universal income.
Okay, great.
How are you going to pay for that long term besides borrowing copious amounts of money?
You can't unless you have an economy that somehow supports it.
So if they have this vast dream, the best way to get to, not that I can't believe I'm saying this, but to get to this sort of guaranteed income is a strong energy sector.
And they want to rip that apart and then they want to go into a ton of debt.
So I would argue that they're simply clueless.
And for as many university degrees as they have, I don't think that they possess that much intelligence.
You know, it's funny.
They always point, sorry to cut you off, Robbie, they always point to Norway and say, see, see, socialism works, but they sort of leave out the fact that Norway loves their oil and gas sector and is developing their oil and gas sector and cherishes their oil and gas sector and recognizes their oil and gas sector pays for all that socialism much.
So, well, that's just it.
And I always love the Norway argument because if Alberta was, Alberta and Norway are very similar.
Alberta, I think Norway can fit an Alberta a few times.
But when it comes to population, so we're just shy of 5 million.
Like, you know, I've four and a half, I think.
So with that, that population similar, if we didn't have to send money to Quebec and Ontario and the rest of the country, we would probably have as much money as Norway in our trust fund.
Yeah.
If we were a country where you didn't have a bunch of people that live here and send all of their money to Newfoundland and Halifax or wherever they're from, or ultimately leave, we'd have that too.
So you have a country, our country is what, 30, 34 million?
38.
38.
38 million.
Thank you, Surrey.
So our country is 38 million.
So my point is, is that why have we not taken our energy so seriously?
We'd be in a far better position if we didn't have the rest of the country.
So it's a very good argument, but they want to rip it apart, but they don't have a solution.
And the worst part I cannot stand about the Green Party is they don't even acknowledge their flaws or mistakes.
Like, I mean, I could tell you about Taylor's funds.
I can tell you about the things we've done wrong.
I can tell you how we're constantly trying to improve.
So why is it that they can't look at themselves, watch Michael Moore's documentary?
Maybe they don't agree with it, but they don't take any shots at themselves because somehow they have this false narrative that they have some sort of importance that is more, more than they have.
It's very close-minded.
And they'd be the first people advocating for Michael Moore's documentary to be censored because it says something about their movement that they just don't want to hear.
I wanted to ask you because in recent days, a new protest camp has popped up against the Trans Mountain pipeline.
It's not Camp Cloud that I visited that one time.
No, this one is in Kamloops.
And basically, they say that they're going to be there to stop the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and they're not going anywhere.
Do you think we're going to see more of this as the pipeline construction works its way towards the lower mainland?
I think we're in for a hell of the next two years dealing with these people.
Yes and no.
And I can't believe I'm about to say this, but when is Horgan's election right away?
So one thing I don't agree with Horgan on multiple things, but one thing I do like about Horgan is once he played all his cards and he lost the ultimate fight, he backed down.
And I do believe that there is this big need right now to just to support law and order.
And I could see even in BC, a lot of residents are getting tired of these protests, tired of these weird cans, tired of this nonsense.
And you might see a far stronger, like, we need this pipeline.
And I would even say because the damage to the economy with anyone with common sense understands that during this time right now, that we need to have money.
And that's going to pay for this nonsense guaranteed income crab serve and everything else.
And I think if, you know, if it's articulated properly, I think you might see that there, that they will be far more Push to have this pipeline built than we had before.
You're going to have your typical Kiwanis manuals and all of those, you know, endless people.
And I'm sure they'll drag a few people up, former Camp Clown residents, to come and be part of it.
But at the end of the day, and Kam Loops, I don't know.
That's a tough one because Kam Loops people want pipelines.
Yeah, they're like, this isn't Victoria or Vancouver.
This is like where they so and BC.
Like, I mean, I was recently there doing some natural gas stuff.
And I'll admit, like, there's some fire.
They want this.
And the indigenous people there, like, I filmed the chief Crystal Smith.
And one of the things I really like, I loved it.
It was my favorite videos.
And I'll tell you why.
Because it wasn't about millionaires and billionaires.
This guy was just super happy.
He's like, yeah, man, you know, I'm in my 50s and I got a job.
Now I might be able to retire with a little bit of money.
Simple, clean.
He just wanted a better life for himself.
And that natural gas helped him with that.
So, you know, Kiwanis Manual and those toxic people, I think, like, you know, never mind the big companies.
Never mind the executives.
These projects provide simple, tangible jobs that anybody can get with their training and have a better life.
Want to work hard, have a vision, and you can attain it.
And they're trying to take that from them.
And I think there's going to be a zero tolerance for that going through.
Gosh, gosh, I hope so.
Yeah, it's going to be a tough play in Kamloops given that, you know, you can drive past a tank farm in Kamloops whenever you want, and people seem pretty fine with it.
Robbie, I wanted to give you a chance to let people know where they can find some of the advocacy work that you do, because most of the advocacy work that you do on behalf of the oil and gas sector is completely out of pocket.
So if people want to support you and help you spread the message, how do they do that?
Okay, so you can go to oilsandstrong.com or you can check out my personal website, which is RobbiePicard.com.
Step Up My Game00:01:25
And yeah, and we got shirts again.
Like I've struggled with our shirt business.
Like, we're all caught up in our orders now.
So if you want to order a shirt or we'll send you a sticker.
And we are launching a few new video series in the next couple of months.
So things are definitely, we're going to be, I'm going to be stepping up my game.
I enjoyed a little bit of a summer.
I got a ginormous Turkish Kangal dog.
So I've been a little bit preoccupied.
But I'm kind of getting back into it now.
Yeah, you seem a little fired up and renewed and reinvigorated.
And maybe the break was exactly what you needed.
Robbie, thank you for taking time out of your workday because I know you're currently working in your day job doing marketing right now.
And I want to thank you for that.
And I won't take up any more of your time.
We'll have you back on the show again very, very soon.
Awesome.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thanks.
You know, Robbie is right.
Donald Trump has done more for the Canadian oil patch than Justin Trudeau ever has.
However, it would be nice for the fancy Canadian conservatives to set aside their tone policing and personal feelings about the style of Donald Trump to admit that for once.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next week.