Brett Wilson and Ezra Levant debate Alberta’s separatist tensions, with Levant criticizing Ottawa’s MOU delays—$600M lost by Enbridge on Northern Gateway, TransCanada’s $1.2B Keystone setback—and warning of rising separatism (30% support in polls). Wilson counters that 110/120 First Nations back pipelines under NAMA-AST and dismisses separatism as impractical, citing regulatory hurdles and BC/Tides Foundation opposition. Alberta’s coal mine and power plant projects defy green lawsuits, but Wilson insists political clarity is key to unlocking its potential—like doubling oil production—proving economic strength can outlast federal friction if structured deals replace gridlock. [Automatically generated summary]
That's why we're going to talk to Brett Wilson, an Alberta enthusiast.
It's December 23rd, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you sensorism bug.
You know, sometimes it feels a little bit desperate out there.
I despair when I see, for example, we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the last federal election.
Oh, it was so close.
And for so long, Pierre Polyev was ahead in the polls, but Mark Carney and the liberal media managed to undo it.
And I think that Donald Trump, for reasons I do not understand, helped throw the election too.
I don't know why.
Maybe he prefers to devour a liberal prime minister than a concerted one.
I don't know.
But it's bad news for Canada in every measure, from mass immigration that continues unabated to our ridiculous and laughable criminal justice system to, of course, not dealing with the problem that Carney promised he'd succeed at, namely being the Trump whisperer, the man who could handle Trump.
In fact, Canada is one of the few countries that has not been able to get along with Donald Trump.
And I find it very troubling that Mark Carney and Doug Ford seem to relish that failure.
I'm also very worried about my home province of Alberta, because it used to be the engine and still is in many ways the engine of Confederation economically.
It could do so much more, though.
It could literally double the amount of oil and gas it produces, but other provinces simply won't allow it.
There's a kind of tall poppy syndrome, if you know what I mean.
Alberta could provide more oil to the United States than any OPEC nation could.
It could actually displace all that conflict oil.
I'm worried now that U.S. operations in Venezuela might topple Nicholas Maduro.
I'm not worried about that.
That would be wonderful.
But that American oil companies would come back on stream in Venezuela, the ones that were kicked out and nationalized, and they would now send oil to those same Texas refineries to which Alberta oil should have been flowing.
I'm worried about the fake MOU, Memorandum of Understanding, that Ottawa signed with Alberta.
An MOU is not an agreement.
It is not a contract.
It's sort of an agreement to maybe later agree.
And I don't really think that's going to happen.
We see British Columbia being an obstinate blockage for any pipeline.
Saskatchewan simply decided to go around BC and export its potash through Washington.
Maybe Alberta should do the same with its oil.
Anyhow, there's a lot of reasons to feel down in the dumps.
I personally find the cultural battles very depressing.
I'm talking about the wave of anti-Semitism, not just from the woke left, but mainly from Islamist immigration and now, unfortunately, some in the very, very online right.
So how can we feel better about things, especially about Alberta, which in so many ways represents the hope?
Well, Brett Wilson has been, I call him an Alberta enthusiast.
I wouldn't call him an Ottawa chauvinist because he's too positive-spirited to be anything chauvinist implies that he's hostile to others.
He's not.
He's just an Alberta booster and he knows its key industries.
Of course, he ran a merchant bank that financed oil companies for decades.
That's the source of his wealth.
But he's paid it back many times over into the community.
I'd say he's a kind of public intellectual.
He's definitely a philanthropist.
And he's someone who actually knows the kind of customers that might be interested in supporting a pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast.
I enjoyed my talk with him a few days ago.
Here's my one-on-one heart-to-heart with Alberta enthusiast Brett Wilson.
Well, Alberta has been at the center of so much news this year.
It always is.
I like to say Alberta is the ideas laboratory for all of Canada.
Sometimes what starts in Alberta spreads.
That could be for good or for ill.
Remember, the NDP got a lot of it started in Alberta, but so did the common sense fiscal revolution that started in Alberta under Ralph Klein and then went to Ontario.
Right now, there's a lot of debates on everything from transgenderism to provincial sovereignty.
And of course, what is the future of Canada's oil patch?
Well, we thought we'd take a bit of a different tack after talking to so many politicians.
I thought we would check in with Brett Wilson, who's an oilman, an investor, a philanthropist.
And if I had to sum him up in a phrase, it would be Alberta enthusiast.
And he joins us now via Zoom from his office in Calgary.
Brett, thanks very much for joining our show.
I appreciate that.
Proud to be an Alberta enthusiast and always a treat to work with you, Ezra.
Thank you very much.
Now, I'm an Alberta enthusiast, even though I'm in exile out here in Toronto.
But my heart hurts for Alberta because for 10 years, the oil and gas industry, which has supported so much of the entire country, it's been beaten down.
I mean, countries have left for greener pastures, like foreign investors.
They've shut down and moved elsewhere.
Is there a positive future for Alberta's oil patch?
Does it involve a pipeline?
Is Mark Carney friendlier to Alberta than Justin Trudeau was?
Give me your read on things.
Well, let's start first of all with the federal liberals.
I happen to be appreciative of where Carney's trying to go.
And again, we often say talk is good, action is better.
And the MOU was the first step towards true action.
There was setting up the major projects office with an incredibly capable business leader in the form of Don Farrell.
But the idea of moving forward on the MOU, I've also had the privilege.
I worked 20 years ago selling an oil company, and I worked with a guy named Tim Hodgson.
He was a treat to work with.
And again, that was 20 years ago.
I had the privilege of being on stage with a guy named Mark Carney at Canada House during the London Olympics.
So there's been a degree of modest mutual respect for a long time.
And in fact, I met with Carney before he was leader of the Liberal Party when he was in Calgary.
And his goal was obviously to just make sure that people who clearly were right of his thinking were on side with where he was trying to go in terms of leading the Liberal Party.
And we had quite a good chat at that time about pipelines.
He was adamant.
This is in January of this year that he could get a pipeline approved.
And again, pipeline approval processes.
We'll talk about the MOU in a minute.
But going back, so I'm a fan of what Carney and Hodgson in particular are trying to do.
And by the way, the fact that Guibot resigned while they were working on it was probably one of the most powerful messages in support of what Alberta is trying to do with federal intervention.
That's with Guibot leaving.
You know, I thought that was a good sign, too.
And I see some squawking from the more left-field liberal MPs who I think liked Trudeau's hard line.
But there's so many requirements and burdens and asterisks in the MOU, and they're front-end loaded.
I put that question to the Premier.
I said, look, you know, carbon capture, carbon tax, those things in this MOU happen soon, and the construction happens later.
I just, I know that in a bargain, in a grand compromise, both sides have to put a little water in their wine.
I'm just worried that, you know, if you're an oil investor, you're still looking at possible legal delays.
You're looking at indigenous questions.
You're looking at a BC premier who's sort of hostile.
And then you look around the world, other places you could put your money.
I mean, you're a global oil and gas financier.
You know, who knows?
Maybe Venezuela will be open for business again.
And you know that that won't have a 10-year schedule like an Alberta pipeline would.
I'm just worried that there's so many asterisks and caveats in this MOU that it might never even happen.
Without the MOU, we wouldn't even be having a conversation about what's happening.
Yeah.
Without the MOU.
And so that's, I emphasize, there is a positive.
And the fact that Guibot resigned speaks to the negatives that were embedded in the way Trudeau was trying to run our country.
I'm not a panic on carbon emissions.
I just don't see the science in support.
But let's ignore that.
We're going to try and do the Pathways Alliance.
We'll do the carbon capture.
The idea is that there will be a carbon tax.
Well, there's been an industrial carbon tax in Alberta for more than 20 years.
So some of these things are not that dramatically changing of where we are.
What is radical is the fact that a federal government and a provincial government have agreed that we're going to try and build a pipeline.
EB to say that he wasn't part of the negotiations.
Well, these aren't negotiations.
These are planning steps.
And this is moving forward, hopefully with a conversation with EB.
I'm even more disappointed at the range of outcomes that we're hearing from our First Nation friends.
I'm very close to several First Nations.
In fact, I'm invested in a group who are looking at expanding.
This is a First Nation group, expanding into Prince Rupert.
And at the same time, we've got local First Nations saying, no, we're not going to ever allow anything in Prince Rupert.
And yet I'm invested with First Nations who are planning to grow in Prince Rupert.
So there's confusion, especially within the First Nations, and in particular with EB and what he's been trying to do.
I'm a huge fan, and you probably know the name Dallas Brody.
I'm a huge fan of what she's trying to do to amplify thought and logical conversation.
But sorry, going back to the MOU, it's not a signed deal.
It's simply an agreement to accelerate in so many ways.
And I've loved the words that Carney keeps using.
He's going to adjust the tanker ban.
And you get someone, and why the press gives Elizabeth May or I am giving her any credence whatsoever.
She's ranting and rambling.
But as Carney keeps saying, I'm going to adjust the tanker ban.
I'll still keep it in place, but we're going to allow tankers to go two times a week, three times a week when it's not storming.
I mean, there'll be some rules around how it goes.
But so the tanker ban gets relaxed, however that word is defined.
And we do get an opportunity to build a pipeline.
We need an oil sands pipeline.
We also need LNG.
And all of the above is real.
The economics are compelling.
To say that there's no business that's behind the pipelines is nonsense.
There's no reason for a business to step up to try and run a pipeline until the politicians agree to get out of the way.
Right.
Now, I haven't read the MOU since it was released a couple weeks ago, but if I'm remembering correctly, there needs to be a proponent or a proposal pretty much in the next six months.
And you correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm sure you're more fluent with the details than me.
And at least my recall of the wording is they want a private sector proponent.
They wouldn't want like the government of Alberta.
Although I think back historically in a lot of the historical infrastructure in this country, the government was part of it.
Like the CP Rail itself was a government project that was later privatized.
Do you think that's a good question?
Yeah, right.
And by the way, I like to remind myself that the oil sands were really encouraged by Jean-Cretchin of all people.
He put in place some of the regulatory and he defended it against some of the more radical environmentalists like Sheila Copps.
It's hard to believe that 20 years ago there was a pro-oil sands liberal.
It makes me nostalgic.
But let me come back to your bailiwick.
You know oil investing.
That was really, you ran an oil investment bank, if I'm describing it correctly, for decades.
So you know all the big shots, not just in Canada, but around the world.
Do you think that in the next six months, which I think is the timeline contemplated by this MOU, do you think that a group, a coalition, a partnership might come forward and say, yeah, we'll take a crack at it.
We'll gamble some money on drafting a proposal.
And we'll take that risk and put some money up front because these things take a lot.
I think Northern Gateway spent a billion dollars and never put a shovel in the ground.
Do you think there's a group of people out there willing to risk some money to be a proponent?
Let's speak quickly to the money that was spent.
Keystone, $1.2 billion.
Trans-Canada, TransCanada.
Enbridge on the Northern Pipeline Gateway.
That was $600 million that they wrote off.
Quebec Separatism Boils Over00:08:16
The reason that we needed an MOU that indicated that the federal and provincial, at least Alberta governments were aligned, was that these folks had spent unbelievable amounts of money and then got jerked around by process.
What we seem to be moving forward on now is a better process.
And that goes to my confidence is high that there will be, I've spoken with several people in the industry.
Every participant in building pipelines is at the table.
Why?
That's their business.
And now that there's a thoughtful outcome, potential outcome, and it's probable, I mean, the First Nations are objecting, but again, I've got First Nations who are 100% on side.
And I believe that I've seen numbers that say 110 of 120 First Nations who've been NAMA-AST have said were either neutral or on side.
That's not negative.
That's positive.
And so we get the First Nations organized.
And EB, as you can tell, has already started to backpedal dramatically relative to the sheer stupidity that he was emphasizing.
Even a month ago, he has softened because I think he realizes that he needs to be part of this, not the Antichrist of the pipeline world.
Well, I sure hope you're right.
I mean, and that's another thing is on Indigenous matters, there's many bands, and then there's a lot of people who just have a press conference, maybe with a Hollywood star there.
And frankly, I know historically a lot of the opposition from some Indian bands has been funded by the Tides Foundation.
I know 100%.
So some of it's artificial.
I don't know.
I hope it happens because actually that's the number one employer of Indigenous people in Canada are oil sands and other mines.
And I spoke yesterday with a First Nation leader who was so upset with that woman who's pretending to be the coastal First Nations.
Yeah.
He said, Brett, they don't exist.
They're a pay-to-play.
So the fact that legacy media is giving pay-to-play amplified headlines undermines our country.
Period.
Well, let me ask you about that because Alberta separatism for about a decade now has been hotter, according to pollsters, than Quebec separatism.
And with the surprise defeat of Pierre Polly, like the polls for a year showed he was going to win.
I think Western Canadians were feeling pretty positive about that.
I think there's sort of a despondency now, if I may, and Western separatist sentiment is higher.
Some polls say it's mid-30s without even an official campaign.
I'm worried that if this pipeline is just turns into a tease or a taunt, that separatism is going to boil over because people are going to say, look, we tried our best.
We did this grand bargain.
We agreed to a carbon tax.
We agreed to all these things.
And the Liberals never pushed it through.
I think that, let me put it this way.
Preston Manning, about a year ago, wrote in the Globe and Mail, he said that Mark Carney could be the last prime minister of a United Canada because he would drive Alberta away.
What do you think the likelihood of that is?
Because I think Preston's right.
If this pipeline doesn't get built, I think a lot of Albertans are going to say, we've seen this movie before.
We know how it ends.
We're out of here.
No, there's a lot of frustration.
I've been pushed a number of times to play a more amplified role in separation.
And I was on stage at an event earlier this year and I shared with, again, it was a separatist room.
That was why I was brought there.
And I asked the question, as separatists, do you want a fence like a farmer would have, a chain-link fence between Alberta and Saskatchewan?
Or do you want a wall like Trump is building?
And they're looking at me like I'm an idiot.
And I smiled and said, okay, well, maybe we'll just build a moat.
We'll just build a 20-foot-wide, 10-foot-deep moat.
Because we have to separate, don't we?
We have to separate.
And their response was, this is stupid.
And I said, you're right.
The idea that we're going to physically separate in any way, shape, or form doesn't exist.
So all we're doing is trying to create better paperwork.
We need the same deal that Quebec has.
Let's be clear.
We just need a better and fairer deal, which means it's paperwork.
And those who are pushing separation on Alberta, the paperwork will be laborious and probably undermine our province in a way that we don't even fathom.
And we're pretending that we're, we, the separatists, and that's not me.
We, the separatists in Alberta, believe that they've got ultimate control over the whole process.
I've listened to Rath rant, and I've lost a lot of respect for the idea that there's any single movement.
There's a lot of people who are upset, and it's easy to be upset.
I mean, look what's been happening to Alberta.
And that's where I'm cynical on separation, but I'm very pro a brand new deal.
Well, I mean, in Quebec, they had very charismatic leaders, René Levesque, Lucien Bouchard.
These are people who resonated culturally, ethnically, historically, linguistically.
They had a romance to them.
And I put it to you, Brett, that I mean, I know Jeffrey Rath, and he can be a little bit of a bull in a China shop, but I don't think he is that Renee Levesque character.
If someone were to present, charismatic, young, and say, look, Brett Wilson, I hear what you're saying, but the math just isn't there.
When elections are decided in Ontario and Quebec before the West even stops voting, there's no way to fix this.
It's down to the numbers.
And we've seen this replayed time and again.
I think that if the independence movement gets a charismatic leader, and maybe I don't know who that person would be, maybe it doesn't exist, but I got to think it does.
I don't know.
Give me your final thoughts on Alberta in 2026.
Are you bullish?
Do you think it's going to go well?
What do you think of the opposition?
Nahid Nenshi, used to be a classmate of mine.
He's pretty left-wing.
He can be charming.
I disagree with him on everything, but he has, you know, he was mayor of Calgary.
What do you think 2026 and onwards is going to look like in Alberta?
What's getting interesting?
I'm actually a key proponent of a brand new underground metallurgical coal mine.
Two green groups have chosen to sue my company and the government over approving an underground metallurgical coal mine that will produce about a million tons a year, maybe two.
Right now, BC ships 29 million tons of metallurgical coal to the world right now.
But the green groups are upset that we're going to go underground and build a mine.
So we've got a big pivot still in front of us relative to how the green groups are trying to undermine logical, thoughtful, respectful, environmentally respectful, and responsible pipeline or a coal mine.
I'm also advancing on building another power plant.
And our issue right now is getting our hands on an engine.
We have a site, we have a balance sheet, but we can't get our hands, and we're working on it.
Don't trust me if I'm wrong, we're working on getting an engine because once we have an engine, a turbine, a generator, everything rolls.
So, and that's just one little power company, one little coal mine.
And we're amplifying what we're doing.
And so, imagine when you add on what TransCanada is doing, TransAlta is doing, Capital Power, Kineticor, on and on.
The power business in Alberta is on the edge of exploding in a positive way.
So, there's a lot of good things happening there.
But again, we've got to get past some of the negative noise.
And the negative noise is confusion with our friends, the First Nations, and confusion with the green groups who just don't seem to care.
We've got to get those handled.
Brett, it's great to see you.
I was right when I called you an Alberta enthusiast.
I want to believe.
Believe me, I want to believe.
But I have a lot of skepticism in me too.
It's great to catch up with you.
Maybe we can check in in the new year and see how things are looking.
Hopefully, we've moved a step forward.
Right on.
There he is.
Brett Wilson, a great Albertan who believes very much in that province.