Robbie Picard of Oil Sandstrong is pushing back against Ottawa’s anti-Alberta hypocrisy—targeting NDP leader Jagmeet Singh (BMW, large home) and Green Party’s Elizabeth May (private jet selfies)—while debunking false "white supremacist" claims by Liberal Carlton. He argues Alberta’s 0.15% global emissions share is vital for Canada’s economy, criticizes the "green reset" excluding pipelines from recovery plans, and demands equal Western representation, even suggesting relocating the capital to Winnipeg. With merch sales (six shirts/hoodies at oilsandstrong.com) fueling activism, Picard plans to confront U.S. politicians like Biden and Harris, influenced by Naomi Klein’s narratives, exposing their privilege-driven opposition to Alberta’s responsible industry. [Automatically generated summary]
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Tonight, my guest is one of my favorite people on the face of the earth, Robbie Picard from Oil Sandstrong.
And we're discussing his plan to take oil and gas advocacy right to the doorstep of the federal government.
He's going to Ottawa.
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Anti-oil politicians driving gas-guzzling cars and taking oil patch advocacy all the way to Ottawa.
That's what we're talking about tonight.
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
A little while since I checked in with my friend Robbie Picard from Oil Sand Strong.
And I was poking around on his social media the other day, and I saw that he's doing some collaborative work with someone that I'm a very big fan of, no relation, Aaron Gunn.
Now, Aaron Gunn's been a longtime advocate of Canadian natural resources, and he's also someone who is considering a run for politics, a run for the leadership of the BC Liberal Party.
And before you get all excited, it's not at all like the federal Liberal Party, but the BC Liberal Party is more like a hybrid of right of center politicians.
Robbie tells me that he's ready to take the fight for Canadian oil and gas all the way to Ottawa, but this time in a more permanent way, something more than just a one-time rally.
Now here's Robbie in an interview we recorded Monday morning to talk about his future plans for the fight for Alberta.
Joining me now is my friend Robbie Picard from Oil Stand Strong and he's giving us an update on his latest activism in the Canadian oil and gas sector.
Hey, Robbie, long time, no talk, both in our personal lives and on the show, and I'm sorry about that.
But I saw over the weekend that you were out and about with Oil Sandstrong sweatshirts, and you were doing some filming with some prominent, I guess, former politicians and then some prominent prospective politicians and oil and gas activists.
Yeah, so Aaron Gunn and I have been, you know, friends and kind of, I guess, colleagues for quite a few years.
And we've spoken at some of the same events.
A Bit More Central00:15:06
And he called me and said he was coming to Fort McMurray.
And it kind of reminded me of when Ezra was here when I very first started.
And I gave Ezra the full tour.
And not to toot my own horn, but I'm when I'm motivated enough, I believe in the cause.
I'm one of the most connected people in Fort McMurray.
So I decided I would, you know, help plan his show.
And it was turned out to be a lot of fun.
And to be candid, he kind of inspired me a little bit.
So we went out and looked at some of the plants.
We found some Indigenous leaders like Bill Luke from the Métis.
I showed him some restaurants that were trying to reinvent themselves during COVID.
Brian Gene took us on a jet boat.
And then Brian Gene got a little bit cocky on the jet boat and decided to show off so we could see a beaver.
And then all of our camera gear got doused in water.
It was a blast, an absolute blast.
And I do some work with Brian for his businesses.
And it was nice to see, you know, Brian just talk about how much he loves Fort McMurray.
I mean, he grew up in Fort McMurray.
This is his home.
And everybody that we did interviews with, one of my friends, Jonathan Glossky, I mean, a young Métis entrepreneur owns multiple little businesses and big businesses.
And everyone was just so inspired to get back on the message of getting our oil to market and stop this absolute insane hypocrisy that the so-called environmentalists are trying to make us, you know, the medicine they're trying to make us drink or eat or whatever, force down our throats.
I mean, so I got inspired and then I remembered.
See, one of the things that I am trying to be nonpartisan, I'm very hesitant to be going after like liberals or any party unless it's something as blatantly hypocrisy as I don't give a crap if the NDP leader wore his mask or not.
I'm so over this mask bullshit.
But I do care that he drove a BMW.
And I find that the people that support the NDP federally, I'm going to be very clear when I say federally, and that support the Green Party federally are really being sold a bunch of falsehoods when their leader is driving a beamer.
And I have nothing against someone owning a beamer, but it's the hypocrisy.
Go get yourself, you know, like a firefly, Jagmeet.
Drive a firefly.
If you're going to have to drive a gas car because you can't get an electric car right now, or, you know, or Tesla's not reliable in Ottawa or whatever, go get like a firefly or a Ford Focus, even.
Not a BMW.
You're the leader of the party that's supposedly broke that doesn't want to call an election right away because he can't afford it.
And he's driving a BMW.
I mean, I'm just blown away by this.
And Elizabeth May taking selfies with her daughter on a private jet.
The insanity of this.
They do not practice what they preach.
This climate emergency, climate crisis, the stuff they're trying to force down our throats.
It's bullshit.
They simply are trying to keep their privileged lifestyles.
And I got a bit kicked into it because even before he's saying, well, you know, we need big companies to give more to the people.
Humble yourself, Jagmean.
You have a big house.
I mean, that was a big house.
I don't know whose house it is.
I think they should at least get 10 homeless people to move in with them.
Find some homeless people.
Say, give them some room.
There's plenty of room in Jagne's house, right?
And honestly, I mean, he could, if he has to drive the BMW, I mean, I don't know, like, so be it.
But I mean, practice what you preach.
And so that's just on a side note.
But the real reason that I wanted to talk to you today was I've decided that as soon as this COVID stuff is over, which I'm guessing will be a couple more months, I am going to Ottawa and I'm going to be starting a mini documentary.
And I'm going to be setting up a shop in Ottawa where we sell our Oil Sandstrong merch.
And I'm going to try and find out who made that tweet where they called our organization white supremacists.
And I'd like to interview that person because I think they're a lot like Jagmeet Zing, where they are out of touch, incredibly rich and privileged.
And they are.
They need to have a little bit more of a common sense education on the rest of the country.
And I mean, this country is not fair.
I just made a post on Oil Sand Strong today calling that out.
And one of the things that I think that we need to look at here is that Ontario and Quebec, because they have bigger populations, they determine our entire future for the country.
That's not fair.
Even New Zealand now is balancing the power to regions to give some equality.
This country needs equality.
We can't get the same upper class, privileged people over and over again.
And they come and they're like, oh, we care about the people.
I think we need to have some serious discussion if we're going to still stay as a country on making Canada more equal.
And Alberta is the heart, the economic driving force of this country that pumps the economic blood through all the veins of this country.
And we get very little respect.
And I think that needs to change.
So what are your intentions then?
I guess, is it because the politicians won't come to Fort McMurray to see firsthand what Fort McMurray is all about?
You're bringing Fort McMurray to them permanently?
We've got it like, yeah, I think so.
We've had a few politicians here and give us lip service periodically.
But this is more for the bureaucrats in Ottawa.
This is more for the people in Ottawa who benefit from fossil fuels every single day, but they don't quite understand it.
I think, you know, we're going to give stickers out.
We're going to do like we did back in the day.
Maybe I'll do a protest outside of an Ottawa Tim Hortons.
I mean, I'm going to go back to my roots.
But I think it's very important that they understand that what happens in Fort McMurray with our oil and gas industry powers the entire country.
And they're not above it.
And they're consuming just as much carbon as the rest of us, even if they drive electric cars.
Everything comes from oil.
And while we sit here in infight and act like immature children, we are holding back billions upon billions upon billions of dollars to make our country better, make their lives better too.
And what they do is they benefit from our oil and gas and they live the lives of upper class or let's say like, you know, middle, upper class, upper middle class, like Jagnee with his beautiful BMW with the dual exhaust.
I think they need to wake up calling where that money really comes from.
And they need to understand this country's bigger than Quebec in Ontario and the Ottawa bubble needs to be burst a little bit.
I'd be happier if Winnipeg was our capital.
I think that would be geographically a better place than Ottawa.
It's a little bit more central to the country.
I think it would provide some balance too, because it's got that sort of a little bit of East meets West and it's on the prairie and it's not that far removed from its agricultural roots.
Excuse me.
But I wanted to ask you, do you think that it is some of the misconceptions about the oil and gas sector?
And I'm glad that you touched on the fact that the liberal association for Carlton called Oil Sands Strong white supremacist.
Do you think that it is willful ignorance?
Like, do they know better, but they just don't care?
Or are they truly ignorant about the social and societal impacts that the oil and gas sector has on Indigenous communities?
Because that's one of the things that you're such a strong advocate for is telling the stories of Indigenous communities that are benefiting from oil and gas.
I would argue the people at the very top, they know what's going on.
And to this day, I still don't understand their political motives because it just doesn't make sense.
So there clearly is more going on.
If I was, you know, in a position where I was the prime minister, I'd say, okay, like my job is to make this entire country hum like it's a motor and I need to make it run its best possible.
And I would work on each and every one of those coast to coast.
And I would try to build bridges and understand each region.
So, but I would argue the people that are under the leadership, I don't think they know per se, because I know that when we've gone out there before and we've given out flyers and stuff and explained to them, like, we only produce 0.15 of global emissions and you guys are importing oil from Saudi Arabia anyway.
You're still using oil every single day.
They sometimes are a little naive to that.
So I think that they need a little bit of an education.
And I mean, you can only do so much on Facebook and graphics and websites.
Sometimes I think you need to be in there in the flesh.
Now, I've seen some pressure right now, sort of towards Justin Trudeau.
Now that we're coming out of the fog of COVID and restrictions are lifting, there's still this pressure for the federal government to use COVID to rewrite the economy in this green way that sort of leaves oil and gas out of the equation.
This is, for lack of a better term, their great reset on oil and gas that they don't, they can sort of leave it in the dust and use COVID as a way to do that.
I guess how do we change that?
Because there are a lot of well-meaning people who are saying, yeah, that's a great idea.
Now's our moment in time.
How do you as an activist sort of flip the script there?
See, you know, I have a theory on this.
And I think that as hard as they try with this green reset nonsense, it's just impossible to have happen.
They're just not going to be able to do it.
So you're going to go back to oil and gas by default.
Oil prices are already happening.
Our mission is to try to educate the average people so that at least they come on board and support us, finish the Transmountain pipeline and try to get energy ease built.
And that's what's truly slowing us.
It's not the fact that, like, I mean, we're going to need oil for at least the next 50 to 75 years.
I get a big kick out of this notion that we're somehow going to get rid of it.
Like, it's not happening.
So we just need to get the average person like we had before.
We were on a roll.
We were doing all these rallies and the entire country was supporting pipelines, pipelines, pipelines.
And then our group and then that other group, they got into that rival convoy and we lost our oomph.
And we need to get our oomph back.
And our oomph is the fact is, hey, as long as the world needs oil, as long as you use gasoline, as long as you're living your lives, brushing your teeth or anything, you know, the oil, if you're going to need it, should come from Canada.
And we are losing out as a country.
I mean, for all the nonsense of Biden and Kamala Harris and all that, the United States is still the largest producer of oil.
We have the second largest, or sorry, the third largest proven reserve.
But I would argue that we have way more that we haven't even found yet.
So we're sitting really good here.
And if we develop our resources in a responsible way, we can make this country better for generations to come.
We just have to stop the insanity of all these people who think that they're somehow environmentalists and they're green when they're really not.
And that's, we need to get like, listen, like, let's push this country forward.
I've never been against solar or wind.
I'm against just the insanity.
Like, if you have a solar power plant that is backed up by a natural gas, it's not really solar.
And let's just be honest, you can't make a solar panel without fossil fuels.
And here's the other thing, too.
I was thinking about this.
Maybe the way we're doing it isn't that bad, but maybe if we start mining all these rare earth minerals and like they're doing in other countries and making all these giant strip mines and open-pit mines that they're not doing reclamation on, maybe you're going to end the world a lot quicker than if you just say, okay, look, we've got good things going here with our natural resources right now.
Let's develop them.
Let's plant more trees.
Let's do carbon capture.
I mean, I kind of got motivated on my tour with Erin because even myself, I mean, with everything going on, I haven't done a reclamation tour in a while.
I mean, the reclamation that the sites have done is stunning.
I mean, it's stunning.
You don't see that in other countries.
We are doing the right thing.
And we are, and every time we get better at it.
So, I mean, the rest of this country needs to wake up.
And recession-proof Ottawa needs to have a little bit of an awakening.
And I really like I find myself just almost angry at the amount of the bureaucrats that just get paychecks no matter what happens in the world.
And then they make decisions that affect the rest of us.
And I think that that's something that people on the, you know, in the West need to start being more vocal about.
We, we, just because our population is not as big as Ontario and Quebec's doesn't mean that we shouldn't have equal representation.
We should.
We should be able to be treated with fairness and respect.
And we're not.
We get a lot of lip service.
I mean, Alberta is arguably the, you know, has given this country the most.
And what say do we have?
Ontario and Quebec can insult us.
The, you know, the Premier of Quebec can say, you know, our oil is dirty.
And I mean, it's, it's ridiculous.
And I just think that we really need to, as Albertans and people from Western Canada, I think here, including BC, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, we need a stronger voice.
It's not right.
I mean, the representation of the maritimes for like they have way more seats than their population.
It's just not, it's just that that side of the country determines the entire future.
And I don't believe that that is fair or ethical.
And we need to have better representation.
Now, while you are thinking about addressing the problem with Ottawa, I guess my next question is for you.
Yes, I agree.
There's definitely a problem with Ottawa.
Problem with Ottawa00:05:36
I'm the first one to point to it.
But I think there's also a problem with American politicians misunderstanding what we do here in Alberta.
For example, Gretchen Whitmer, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris.
Are you willing, I guess, to take the fight to them to their doorstep?
Well, 100%.
I mean, I almost did when they were fighting the tech mine in Washington and Jane Fonda was there.
And you know that I have a black belt in defending myself against Jane Fonda.
And I almost went to Washington.
100%.
I'll meet with them.
I have some contacts there that I have been wanting to reach out to.
The problem, though, is that the truth of the matter is, the reason that they're so anti-oil and gas has a lot to do with Naomi Klein when she wrote the Green New Deal, which is a different version of the League Manifesto.
And she got with AOC and they pushed that agenda forward.
And then I think the Democrats leaned on it.
I don't, yeah, we need to spend a lot of time in the States.
We need to spend a ton of time trying to find common ground.
We have a ton of common ground in the States already.
Like one of the things that surprised me is I had like make your profile pick like this, and 250,000 people made their profile pick the same as ours, and most of them were American.
So I found that quite interesting.
So there is a lot of support down there.
And to build a better world and, you know, instead of supporting crazy dictators, Canada, the United States should work better to get our oil to market.
And I think that the Americans could benefit greatly with energy security.
The problem is that, you know, it's just, we need to be assertive.
And like, and the fights, they come up all the time.
I mean, look at Michigan right now.
What's going to come of that?
It may never happen, but why do we have to go through just the sheer stress of everything we have to go through all the time of fighting this and fighting that's a lot?
And I think that that's something we need to address.
Well, I think the fact that so many Americans changed their profile picture to oil sandstrong speaks to the deficit of oil and gas activists like you in the United States.
They had it pretty good for a while down there with Trump.
So they didn't have to really fight for their oil and gas sector.
And now really, they're in the same boat as we are up against a federal government that wants to phase out their industry altogether.
Now, Robbie, you and I both have to go very quickly, but please tell us how people can support the work that you're doing, particularly to bring the fight to Ottawa.
Okay, so just buy at least six shirts per person.
That's simple.
Or hoods.
And go to oilsandstrong.com and order them.
And if you're in Fort McMurray, go to McMurray TV or 4G Motorsports.
And we have stores in Red Deer now.
I don't have the names yet, but I'll be posting that very soon that'll be selling it.
We're going to try to have one store in every city to get our gear.
The gear's been moving like crazy since Pierre Polyev put it on.
So we want to keep going.
And yeah, like we, the difference between us and the other groups is that we try to be nonpartisan, but we also are not scared of a fight.
We take on celebrities and we call it hypocrisy.
So, you know, and that's essentially it.
So hopefully this COVID is over soon and we can get back to living.
We're going to be doing rallies.
I'm going to be speaking across the country at different events and stuff.
But the main focus is to like, like before we, before we go insane and try to somehow pretend oil is dead and it's not, we need to just say, like, look, let's build our country.
And by putting pipelines and building our resources, you're building a stronger country, protecting the environment and the economy simultaneously.
And that's the reality of what needs to be done.
And yeah, and then just don't, you know, if you're going to drive a BMW, I mean, that's fine.
Maybe we should get, you know, I, okay, you know what I'm going to do in Ottawa?
I'm going to get an orange oil sandstrong sticker in a circle.
I'm going to find that beamer and I'll put it on there.
Well, Robbie, thank you so much for being on the show.
I know you are.
Robbie, thanks so much for being on the show.
We'll have you back on again really soon to check in on the progress of your new project.
Awesome.
Kate, thank you very much.
always a pleasure.
I normally do my best to attribute ignorance as opposed to malice.
But I think when it comes to the battle against oil and gas development, which truly does mean the battle against Albertans best interests.
I think malice is rightly attributed.
I think by and large, most anti-oil activists and politicians at this point know exactly how reliant they are on oil and gas.
They just don't want to get it from us.
These people are colonial exploiters.
You see, they don't want the dirty work of getting oil and gas done in their own backyards.
They'd rather offset that to someplace that they don't have to look at, even though we in Alberta do oil and gas better and cleaner than anybody else on the entire planet.
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.