Latest / The Environment in Canada Podcast / Carney Wants U.S. AI Data Centres with No Binding Regulation, Privatization, PLUS The Better Ideas Show from The Energy Mix

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Carney Wants U.S. AI Data Centres with No Binding Regulation, Privatization, PLUS The Better Ideas Show from The Energy Mix · The Environment in Canada Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of the Environment in Canada podcast, a podcast about the Environment in Canada by Sierra Club Canada.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Conor Curtis, Director of Communications at Sierra Club Canada.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: And today our episode is actually going to be excerpts from the Better Ideas show of the Energy Mix.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're not familiar with the Energy Mix, they're an independent news publication that covers a lot of energy and climate issues in Canada.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: We have a joint community energy showcase with them where you can read their articles and take action through our action items.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because let's face it, reading the news, if we don't have a way to take action, that makes it all the more difficult to read the news.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in our last episode of our podcast, the Environment in Canada podcast, we covered how the Prime Minister wants to sell off public assets to the 1%, including the US 1%, at his Canada Investment Summit, currently happening in Toronto.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we covered how you can take action against that sell-off.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: This week we're bringing you some new content from our friends, as I said, at the Energy Mix in two installments, which again they're calling the Better Ideas Show.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Here is their description of the show.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: What if you organized a high-powered, high-stakes summit to try and bring new investment to your country and build a brighter future?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: But some of your top prospective partners with the best, most durable, nation-building ideas never showed up.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Not because they didn't want to, but because you never invited them.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's the risk Prime Minister Mark Carney is running with the Canada Investment Summit he's hosting, with a guest list that includes a reported 100 to 150 of the largest world investors.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: With Canada's economic future under threat, he's tapping into the World's Financial League to put their business clout behind his pledge to build Canada strong, quote unquote.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: But what's he missing?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: What opportunities, storylines, and future benefits does the summit leave behind when it attaches a minimum$200 million value to the projects Connie will be pitching?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: With the Better Ideas show, we're going to find out.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be a few blocks away hosting a live stream with news interviews featuring investors, entrepreneurs, policy and decision makers, and advocates who are working to build Canada's clean climate economy from the ground up.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And what we have for you today, and we'll have for you tomorrow, hopefully, is an excerpt from that live stream.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: But before we get to that content from the energy mix, I want to take a second to read to you our most recent newsletter because it covers this summit and some of the privatization and deregulation that we are seeing by the federal government.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: So here's that newsletter.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: The only coherent plan the federal government has presented so far is one to deregulate and privatize.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Worse as the breach reports, they would know that privatization will create natural private monopolies that will drive up costs for Canadians, all this to the benefit of the wealthiest 1%, increasingly tied to the US administration.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: The sale of airports, etc., is still very much on the table, if only hidden in the fine print, again as the breach reports.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: The federal government announced a series of non-binding guidelines for AI data centers to be built in Canada by US corporations, which are so weak as to be practically meaningless.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Raising the question of why, if the federal goal was to build a sovereign data system, it's not, would they let any US corporation build a data center in Canada at all?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Again, we're already publicly financing the building of a gas plant for Meta's data center.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: The NARA reports that Albertans could be on the hook for hundreds of millions or billions to help support power for AI data centers.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: When I say this approach of deregulation and privatization is a serious threat to Canadian sovereignty and democracy, I mean it.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: We are not far off from a situation where US AI tech could literally monitor our streets, as a CBC report notes.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yet our government thinks Palantir is a Canadian company.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, US AI companies are already, to quote, common dreams, building a predictive pre-crime surveillance system aimed at tracking activists who are opposed to advanced AI development.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's no room for relaxed, non-binding regulation of US big tech nor US big oil and gas.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Our regulations must be comprehensive and binding, but the federal government just quietly exempted oil, sands, and gas power plants from environmental impact assessments.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the companies representing 80% of Canadian oil sands production are 60% American-owned.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the same situation with a lot of gas plant interests, they are American-owned.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: This also comes after the federal government buried its recent report warning of worsening climate impacts, and comes as a new report by the Canadian Climate Institute shows that, quote, policy rollbacks by the federal government have put Canada more than 20 years behind schedule on reducing emissions.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: The hold these US oil and gas and tech interests hold over our governments is so strong, as we covered last week, our government won't strike back at the US with oil and gas export taxes, even though Albertans will only support such export taxes.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: See Ipsos and Nanos for that data.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: The argument is, of course, that we must maintain our reputation as a reliable trading partner with the US.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: But within that argument that we must not even threaten an export tax is the surrender of our sovereignty.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: If we cannot even be unreliable, quote unquote, in response to outright aggression, then we have surrendered our sovereignty in advance.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's also a nation-level reflection of a lie neoliberal economists have told workers for decades.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Make yourself useful, and your rights will be respected, quote unquote.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's utter nonsense.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: The US does not have an easy replacement for Canadian oil.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Venezuela's production, if it happens, would take years to ramp up.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Renewable energy is replacing oil and gas anyway, even in the United States, which is why Canada must also move away from relying on oil and gas exports in general, but we should be willing to use our leverage while we have it.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: As former Prime Minister Jean Cretin pointed out recently, energy is the US weak spot.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: The US has, quote, excluded oil, gas, electricity potash.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because they need it very badly.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: So perhaps one day we will have to impose an export tax.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: The whole US oil and gas interests have is so strong that our government also will not enact an excess profits tax on oil and gas corporations, also something supported by a majority of Albertans, to help Canadians out with the cost of living.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: A gas tax holiday pours, by contrast, simply allows oil and gas corporations to raise prices by the difference and take the benefit from the consumer, while our government gives up vital revenue.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: As the Center for Future Work details in their new report, extending gas tax holiday won't fix fossil fuel inflation.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Quote, Canadian gasoline and diesel prices are higher now than they were before the tax holiday came into effect, and have been higher throughout most of the 18 weeks since it began.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: The full value of the tax holiday to fuel consumers has thus been more than offset by continued increases in the cost of petroleum products.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Then again, perhaps all this is unsurprising, since in a former role as the breach notes, Prime Minister Mark Carney, quote, oversaw the sale of the last public stake in Petro Canada, the Crown Corporation that had once helped break the dominance of US oil corporations in Canada.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Prime Minister Mark Carney also says he still thinks a fair deal with the US is possible without the threat of export taxes, when it's not.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Wasting billions on new pipelines is pointless today.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: The world is going renewable too fast.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: The oil and gas industry counts in Canada for only 7.8% of our GDP, including both direct and indirect economic impact, as the Energy Mix notes.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: The direct contribution is actually only around 3.4%.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Canada, in short, can go fully renewable, and an excess profits tax would help.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot win against the US by letting US oligarchy in via the back door and selling off infrastructure like airports to the 1%.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: But we can pick a different way forward.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Regulation saves money and lives, as Ol Hendrickson of Zero Club Canada has written.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: We are being pitched a series of false compromises.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I also want to take a moment to address claims the federal government plans to learn from past quote-unquote mistakes when it comes to respecting Indigenous rights.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: If that were the case, a publicly funded marketless oil pipeline would not be pushed through BC despite the objection of First Nations.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's not to mention how federal cuts to services will disproportionately impact Indigenous communities.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Again, none of this is surprising.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: It follows the appointment of a principal advisor, Scott Gilmore, to the Prime Minister, who has said, and I quote Scott's own words here, if we really want to help end the violence and deprivation that plagues Canada's remote Aboriginal communities, we need to help them leave these communities forever, unquote.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: That, understandably, does not sit well with First Nations advocates, and government actions reflect that no lessons have been learned about past harms.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: As CBC reports, the Kearney government, quote, continues to fight First Nations in court to deny Canada has a legal duty to ensure they have safe drinking water, unquote.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: The few things the federal government has done that do make our economy more local lack a consistent plan because there is no coherent plan for Canada.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, these few positive actions act merely as PR cover while bad actions get quietly hidden.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you're trying to prevent courts from holding you to climate promises, then you're lying about trying to build out clean energy at a pace never seen before.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the only plan is to deregulate and privatize, and it is a plan driven not by a pragmatic assessment of what Canada needs most right now, but by nostalgia for previous periods of Canada's history, nostalgia for US neoliberalism of the 1980s, and nostalgia for oil and gas.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: It is as such ignorant of the harm done to Indigenous peoples in those periods and now, ignorant of the pointless harms of privatization that led to this point, and ignorant to the current technological changes that are making oil and gas obsolete.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Our federal government is living in a fantasy world of the great men of history, quote unquote.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Not addressing the complex world as it is and was.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Great men do not save democracies.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, faith in great men, purposefully or not, tends to destroy democracy and cause great harm by removing from consideration better ways forward.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Democracy is about the limits of power from a leader, not faith in them.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is many people working together who historically save and improve democracies.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if I can leave you with nothing else, it would be that.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can visit our take action page again for ways to make a difference.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's at SierraClub.ca.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: We did have some recent news coverage of Sierra Club Canada as well.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to note, Gretchen Fitzgerald, our executive director, was on Global News National to talk about the recent UN climate report and the need for rapid action to address emissions.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Shauna Kelly, our offshore wind coordinator, spoke with CBC News recently about risking resiliency in Newfoundland Labrador via streamlined quote-unquote project assessments.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Fancer Scott spoke with VOCM News about Sierra Club Canada's concerns around the Bay de Nord project.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we were on CBC Radio's Maritime Connection this past weekend.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: We also have some upcoming events.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's a rain garden party in St.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: John's September 19th.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's an Auto Agatineau Climate March on September 19th as well.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's a World Cleanup Day event in downtown Montreal on September 19th, too.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's the Belcher's Park cleanup on Halifax on September 19th.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a River Run 2026 Walk with Grassy Narrows for Mercury Justice in Toronto on September 23rd.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: There is also a trivia night at the Co-op Bar Milton Park in Montreal, focus on the themes of nature, justice, and democracy, and we'll have an interesting announcement at that night on September 28th.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a two-day introductory solo training happening in Channel Porto Basque on October 3rd through 4th partners Auto Mixcoast Collective and Iron and Earth.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And partners, by the way, just to mention, on that rain garden party include Mixcoast Collective, CMFI, Youth Climate Corp, Mercy Center.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for tuning in.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And now, without further ado, here is that excerpt from the Energy Mixes, The Better Ideas Show.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can find the full live streams at the link underneath this podcast, and you can listen to the excerpt here.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: I do want to point out, you know, the views expressed in these live streams don't necessarily reflect those of Sierra Club Canada.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: For instance, at Sierra Club Canada, our view of nuclear energy is that it's incredibly costly, incredibly risky, and just not worth investing in relative to wind and solar with battery storage, which gets around the need for baseload power.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got a bunch of resources in the description of this podcast that talk about that issue in depth.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure also to send us your questions at communications at CRClub.ca.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: We are always happy to answer them.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to Lee Siegel, Senior Manager of Climate Finance at Environmental Defense Canada and a visiting fellow at the UK's Grantham Institute.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for joining us.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_04: Hi, Mitchell.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_04: Great to be with you.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_04: And great initiative already.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: We're so glad you're a part of it.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_03: Getting real about sustainable finance has been a years-long effort in Canada.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I've heard you say so many times that we undercut our own trading relationships if we don't align our financial reporting and our transparency with the dozens of other countries that are already ahead of us.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_03: And we were hearing some of that from Ralph Torrey just now.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_03: How does that line of thought connect with the trade and sovereignty objectives behind the Prime Minister's Canada Investment Summit?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_04: It's fascinating to see this government prioritize building relationships with non-US trade partners in a way that's very logical right now, while ignoring a lot of the infrastructure on our financial system that differs so thoroughly from these other jurisdictions like Europe, like Asia, and that I'll get into the details in a moment, but that for years we have been holding back on climate-related financial policy based on the excuse that the US is so far behind and we can't get too ahead of them.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_04: So that that rationale is quite moody right now.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yet it hasn't led to any acceleration of the climate-related financial policies.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_04: To back up what I'm what we're talking about with climate-related financial policies, there's a couple of different ways to align finance and private finance in particular with climate.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_04: There's the real economy projects, and if we're thinking about this investment summit, the deals that are being put forward for money to move into.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_04: And then there's this whole corporate governance financial regulation side of things where we're considering what are the rules that decide how finance flows.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, my my perspective is that finance shouldn't be dictating what happens in our in our society and in our economy.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_04: Um and that there's different rules that guide how our financial system works because we just want money to move from one place to another based on things that are supposed to be good for our society, to really summarize things.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_04: There's been a number of climate-related financial policies proposed in Canada from really basic things like for financial institutions, your bank, your pension fund, to report on their emissions or to develop plans to reduce the emissions of what they're financing, all the way to policies like the Climate Aligned Finance Act introduced in the Senate, which many partners here are familiar with that's had some more stringent rules on how the financial sector works.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_04: Um getting back to the trade relationships with that foundation set, Europe, the UK, Australia, and Asia are so far ahead of Canada and moving towards these climate-related financial policies.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_04: I published research last year and I myself was shocked as I was going through the data at how much Canada is lagging these other jurisdictions.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_04: Mark Kearney himself lamented that quite often before he became prime minister.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_04: He testified to the Senate about the Climate Aligned Finance Act in 2024, so quite recently, saying that Canada was falling short of international standards on climate-related financial policies.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_04: One of the main excuses for not moving forward with even that basic foundation of reporting, which is referred to as disclosure in climate finance, um has been the excuse that our capital markets are so integrated with the US that we would create a disadvantage for Canadian companies if we set any kind of rules saying you've got to report on how much you're polluting, you've got to report on your plan to reduce your climate pollution.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_04: Now that seems even sillier in a way that I don't mean as I told you so, but many people have been saying for years that that's silly because there's so many other jurisdictions outside of the EU, or pardon me, outside of the US, including the EU, which Canada's developing such strong trade relationships with Asia, UK, Australia, that have moved way further ahead on this.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_04: And so it doesn't really make sense.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_04: It never made sense, and it explicitly doesn't now make sense for Canada to be tying itself to the dead weight of the one jurisdiction that's not moving forward on this.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_03: And just a quick mention that after you pointed us to um Mark Carnegie's testimony to the Senate committee in 2024, we did ask the Prime Minister's office, media office for comment, and we're still waiting for a reply.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_03: We're not holding our breath.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um the summit is bringing together many of the biggest investors from around the world, and we know that at least some of them, as you were saying, have been quite serious about factoring uh sustainability and decarbonization into their policies and practices.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um, why is it that we're you've said why we're still struggling with these issues?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_03: Do you see any potential for that to shift?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, maybe as a result of some of the um side conversations at the summit.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_04: Let me answer that in three ways.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_04: First of all, there's the foundational pieces for climate-related finance, like moving forward with disclosure reporting requirements and saying, what are you polluting?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_04: Let us know.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_04: Um it's really quite shocking that Canada is not moving ahead on that because it's not it couldn't be a less activist proposal.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_04: This is something that is mostly being put forward by investors because they want more information.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_04: So that's something that is bizarre that Canada has not moved forward with.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_04: Um, does that lead us to a climate-aligned or even climate-related financial system?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_04: So we might get progress on that, but that doesn't mean that the problem's being solved, which takes us to the next two points.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um you're right, Mitchell, that a lot of the investors who uh are coming globally from global uh locations do prioritize climate and sustainability a bit more.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_04: Some of that is their own theses.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_04: Some of that is because they themselves are subject to regulation in their home jurisdiction saying you've got a report on your climate impacts.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_04: So they want that information because they need it to be in accord with their regulation and legislation at home.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and the reason I'm saying that is that even a lot of these big investors who have some sustainability mandates, when push comes to shove capital at this scale that's coming to the investment summit, you know, the black rocks, the vanguards, the huge trillion dollar asset managers and owners are not motivated by sustainability.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_04: They're prop they're profit-oriented organizations.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_04: Their goal, their purpose, their foundational business purpose is to take money, keep money, and turn it into more money.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_04: And when sustainability is attractive or legally required, they'll consider that.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_04: But that's not quite their mandate.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_04: So that kind of puts the onus back on Canada, which is that if we want a climate-aligned economy, if we want to reduce emissions and take ourselves back on the right track instead of being 20 plus years behind on reducing our emissions towards net zero, um, if we want to get ourselves back on the right track to avoid none of it warming to 10 degrees in winters in 2100, um, then it's up to us to consider the projects that we're putting forward.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_04: And I say this, you know, not to reduce the hope of the of the spirit of the global sustainable investors coming forward, but just to be a bit more realistic that those that are sustainable are doing it either because they have to.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but that's not really what the financial system's designed to do.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_04: No, it's not.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_04: So Canada needs to put forward those projects.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_04: And if we are worried about our pollution, then we shouldn't be offering or giving regulatory clearance to projects that expand our oil and gas production and therefore our carbon pollution.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_04: We should be prioritizing this.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_04: And that takes back to the question of sovereignty that that you've you know introduced before, Mitchell.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_04: It really on the one hand, it's so exciting to see this proposal of all these things that can be built in Canada.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_04: And there's a lot of reasons to be proud about the jobs that that can create, the economy that that can stimulate in good ways.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yet, if it's in deference to global capital, I think that's something that you'll be talking about over the next two days quite a bit.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um and then the third point, if I can tie that in quickly, um, would be that there are some investors still that are prioritizing sustainability.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_04: We've got to be real about the fact that that's not the purpose of global private capital.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_04: However, there are some that are considering that.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_04: And this relates to an initiative that's been going on in Canada called the sustainable finance taxonomy, which is basically a big labeling system for what gets us to net zero.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_04: And there was recently a consultation on that with a core question about what if what Oil and gas emission reduction should be included in that sustainability label.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_04: And it was incredible to see the public response was over 50% no to that, saying that if we're creating a sustainability label, over 50% of respondents said no, there should not be inclusion of oil and gas in that, which kind of wraps everything together there, saying that no, you know, we we shouldn't wait for global capital to push us towards sustainability.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_04: Um there might be some that are pushing in that direction, but the most important thing is to be honest about what is and isn't being labeled that way.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, thank you.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um this is an imagined future, not a prediction.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_03: But what if you woke up in, we all woke up in 2030 or 35 and realized that much of the new foreign investment coming into Canada was speeding up the arrival of the clean economy.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I realize you've just said that broadly speaking won't happen.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but what would it take to get from here to there and to have Canadian financial institutions increasingly following that lead?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks, Mitchell.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_04: And uh I like the what if questions to, and I I think it's really helpful that you're framing these as what do we need by 2030, 2035?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_04: Because that's quite imminent, and these things take a good amount of time, which we're already off track for.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_04: There's two things that come to mind in terms of how is this not happening already?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_04: Um, first of all, as we're trying to attract, as the government is trying to bring more investment into Canada, it's shocking that the climate-related risks are being ignored.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um, this is both a physical risk in Canada, which is is horrifying and already occurring, um, the risk of oil and gas assets becoming less valuable as the energy transition does move forward, albeit in a you know, up and down roller coaster kind of way.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um But the fact that there have been between three to eight billion dollars in insurance in climate-related damages covered by insurance every year for the past for the past five is quite jarring.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, the fact that just two weeks ago the government put out a scientific report confirming that we're on track, Canada's on track to warm at twice the global average, you know, by by 2040 to be to be two to three degrees warmer, by 2100 to be five degrees warmer with part of the country raising up to 10 degrees.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_04: So, Mitchell, I know you asked a positive what-if question, and I'm just giving you the current state of affairs that's horrifying, but it's it's a really important foundation to just raise the questions if we can speculate on on what if will get us there.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_04: But there's such clear data that should already be pushing us in that direction, and it's not.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um, the again in this report two weeks ago, the government was saying that some of the warming associated that, you know, that's being projected is already irreversible in Canada and then will lead to tipping points, which is happening in Canada and globally, such as Arctic currents not being what we anticipate them to be.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_04: And to consider that investors are trying to make long-term decisions on things like port infrastructure, uh, very significant pieces of physical infrastructure that are affected by physical climate damages without considering this is um uh fascinating and and you know shocking.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_04: Um I think that's one really important piece.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_04: And then the second piece is about the stranded assets, which hasn't gotten discussed very much as you know, there's been booms in the prices of oil and gas and in the profits of oil and gas due to other types of volatility.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_04: Um but there's more than a decade of research on oil and gas assets becoming losing their value as we move towards other types of energy.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_04: Um so I think that's still worth considering.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_04: The piece about what if to try and give you a dose of positively, even though I'm um sometimes a bit too data, always optimistic, but always a bit too data-driven, I guess, um, is that you know, renewable power has met 100% of new electricity demand in 2025.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, Canada's electricity grid is primarily clean.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_04: And that's a huge opportunity if we build that out in a direction that's more clean and electrify more things.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_04: The problem is that we're not on track to build that out in a way that is continuing to be clean.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_04: There's a ton of what's being referred to as conventional energy, particularly gas projects that are being proposed this week, which are really, really damaging and polluting.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_04: So my focus is on the financial sector, the policy that kind of right sizes that and maintains it moving in the direction that will, I just I should say reorient it into a direction that's working in the public good.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yet if we're looking at that full chain of things, I think the focus for this week is really what type of energy and electricity systems are we building and not just relying on these global investors to say, hey, Canada, get your act together and move towards green, but rather really holding our own government accountable to be saying these are the types of projects that get Canada to a sustainable future.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_04: These are the types of projects that keep us more resilient and ideally keep us away from that five degree Canadian future.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_04: Um and trying to move up the clean energy projects rather than the polluting ones.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so glad that you doubled up on the what if question, Julie, because in this work, as as we both know, it's so important to balance both sides of that of that story.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I really appreciate the way you did that.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um the only other point is that we're writers around here and editors.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: We really need quotation marks around conventional um for conventional energy.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_03: Julie Siegel, thank you.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_03: Senior Manager of Climate Finance at Environmental Defense Canada.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we'll be back in just a couple of minutes with Justina Ray, president and senior scientist at Wildlife Conservation Society Canada.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks, Mitchell.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks, Julie.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_03: And we're back at the news desk at the downtown YMCA in Toronto with Adam Scott, the Executive Director of Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health, and a longtime friend of the Energy Mix.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, Adam, welcome to the Better Ideas Show.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's exciting.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_03: So glad you're here.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, two of Canada's leading pension funds are co-hes co-hosting this week's Canada Investment Summit along with Prime Minister Kearney.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: You've pointed out that the pension sector has a unique responsibility to look out for long-term climate risk and is uniquely vulnerable if it doesn't factor that risk into investment decisions.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um how's the sector doing with that?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: Not very well.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, the two co-hosts are yeah, so the co-hosts of the summit with the federal government are public sector pension uh PSP and the Canada Pension Plan uh Investment Board.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: And those are two of the worst pensions in our ranking on uh managing climate risk, um, right near the bottom of our report card the last bunch of years.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: They do not have net zero climate-aligned um Paris Agreement commitments, and they do not have credible uh published climate plans.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a huge problem because they're um really not showing us at all how they're managing the very substantial climate-related financial risks they face.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'll quickly review a couple of those risks just so folks have a sense of what I'm talking about.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, please.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um so pension funds are they're invested um with our money for the very long haul.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: They have you know generational obligations to pay out uh pensions.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so they invest on a 10-year, 15-year, 20-year horizon at times.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: They, those investments are facing the physical risks that we think about when we think about a climate crisis, so storms and floods and droughts and fires and all of that.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: But they also, those assets also face tremendous transition risks.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: So as we're going through a rapid energy transition, which is well underway right now, um, there's a real potential that they have invested in the wrong side of that transition.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: And we're seeing quite a few investments from both of those funds, particularly the Canada Pension Plan, in the literally betting on the losing side of the energy transition, investing in companies that can only be profitable if we fail to solve the climate crisis.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_03: And they're doing that with our retirement.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: They're doing that with our money.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a category that neither of them have paid any attention to, and it really makes us think that they don't fundamentally understand the core challenge is that if we fail to address the climate crisis long term, the systemic risks of climate change will impact the global economy, in which we all are accountable to.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the thing that they haven't understood.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: So they keep betting against the transition.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but their the macro picture is very negative.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: So when they you know continue to invest in new fossil fuel production, fossil fuel infrastructure, um, pipelines, and there's a lot of talk, we haven't seen a lot of action yet, but some talk from on LNG, on data centers, particularly.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: We're seeing a ton of investments from Canada Pension Plan on the energy side, basically gas power for data centers for AI.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they're really betting against transition and they're putting all of us and our future and our retirement savings at risk from all of those risks I mentioned.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: So it's been quite uh challenging.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_03: So you're involved in a lawsuit on some of these issues um involving um applicants who are concerned that their retirement savings won't be there for them because of the exists that the CPPIB in particular is taking on and not acknowledging.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there have been four young people from across Canada that have actually taken Canada Pension Plan to court uh for failure to live up to their fiduciary responsibilities, um, essentially saying you haven't actually managed the risks that I just mentioned adequately.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: You have a legal obligation to do so, um, and that's before the courts right now.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um so that's that's a very real risk, and it's something that's widely understood across the pension sector globally, that there's this obligation to uh to manage climate risk, but hasn't been tested in court.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a very interesting uh case that's progressing through the courts right now.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, thanks.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um you've been following the two courts two co-hosts closely through your um um through your report card and through the releases and announcements and updates that we are happy to keep receiving from you through the year.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and again, you've been particularly vocal about CPPIB's passionate interest in new fossil fuel investments, I have to say it.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_03: How do you think the old that overall approach has influenced the mix of projects in the deal book for the investment summit?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: And what would it have taken for the summit to put more emphasis on pre-climate economy?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think the biggest issue, honestly, is that they can envision a different world.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_02: We're seeing anything differently.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: We can't see anything differently.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: They don't understand some of the risks I talked about.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: They don't understand the climate crisis, they don't understand the scale of the opportunity fully.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: We do see some evidence that they are investing in the opportunity in some other places, but uh on the whole, they don't understand the big picture.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so what we're seeing a lot of from the finance sector in general and from the government is hey, let's just carry on like we've been going.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's the only way we can picture economic growth.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's a very outdated model.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't align with the realities of today's markets.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the energy transition is, as I said, well underway, and the clean solutions are actually cheaper, more affordable, more profitable than uh the alternatives already.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: And there's tremendous downside risk for getting this wrong.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: But what we're seeing is huge pressure for specific uh projects, which just might have made sense 20 years ago, but don't make sense at all.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we're part of like it's 2000.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly, exactly.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: And um, it's a lack of imagination, and it's it's frankly, a lot of it is politically driven.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I think what we're seeing overall in the summit and in the deal book that we that was circulated was a lot of projects that don't really exist for market reasons.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_03: Well, they don't, and they don't some of them don't seem to exist, right?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: No, a lot of projects just simply don't exist, and a substantial amount of them are essentially put on there by provincial premiers.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: There it's a long list of political asks.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, thank you.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: And um the really good opportunities tend to be not mega projects.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: We don't need necessarily mega projects to invest in the economy.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: We can still very large projects, but we need tiny compared to some of the numbers we're seeing here.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um and they need uh intelligent people who understand the challenge in front of them to actually create.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: And this is where I think the biggest issue we see is we don't see the term in investment world is origination.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_02: We don't see these major investors starting or investing in companies that create the projects often.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: So a good example would be we have incredibly inefficient building stock all over Canada, right?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: We have we waste a tremendous amount of energy and have very high climate pollution as a result of our old buildings.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: We need to retrofit them.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's cost effective to do it.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we're gonna make tremendous amounts of money in doing that by saving a huge amount of energy and having more affordable housing and maybe the side band to keep people alive in the next keto, right?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's right, exactly.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's just a better outcome for everybody, but it's also quite profitable to do this.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: But it takes somebody understanding that challenge and packaging together all of those retrofits and investing in them as a in a block.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: And that's something we haven't seen any of these large institutional investors step up to do, and it's something we haven't seen the government step up to do, but they haven't grabbed the scale of the challenge and built it.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: Instead, they're saying, well, nobody wants to build this gigantic oil pipeline to the West Coast.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: No proponents have come forward and building it.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we'll do it.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_02: We'll create a crown corporation, we'll use tax money to build the project, we will get rid of all of the environmental laws in the country to make that possible.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: We'll steamroll indigenous rights.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and in the end, we'll try to sell that to international investors.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's so much harder what they're trying to do there, than the actual profitable solutions that are on the table.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's a really good example of the sort of problem we're we're facing here with a lack of imagination and understanding.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_03: The lack of imagination and the lack of imagination and understanding.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, this came up just a couple of interviews ago with Seth Klein, who was saying that in an emergency um institutions, decision makers tend to go to what they know.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_03: And as you're pointing out, in this case is something they knew 20 years ago that maybe, maybe not, but or you know, it's 2026.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um situate yourself in 2030 or 32.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um and look around yourself and just realize with a shock that there's actually been a bit of a pretty good change in the way the um the institutional investors are responding to the opportunity, as you're saying, as well as to the crisis.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_03: How do we get from here to there?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's you know, it's one thing to say you need the first step is to say you need to do this.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: How does it actually happen in an institution like that?
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's amazing how this comes down to leadership sometimes.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_02: If uh you see an institution come out and say, like Lacasse, Canada's second largest uh pension fund in Quebec, has come out and said, we we don't want to invest in oil anymore, we think it's part of the problem, that makes no sense anymore.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_02: They they just direct to their staff, go find me projects that don't expand oil.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that leadership level has to come on down, and everybody in the institutions will follow the rules.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: They'll figure out a way to do their job with those constraints or with those opportunities.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: But what we don't when we don't have leadership, when we have leadership that is actually conflicted, um directors of pension funds sitting on the boards of fossil fuel companies.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_02: I was just gonna say yeah, at the same time as sitting on the board of a public sector pension fund, um, wildly inappropriate.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that leadership just sort of doesn't exist.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so we we have this vacuum problem.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I think honestly, the distance between here and there isn't that far.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: It takes a couple of sort of key leadership moves in just saying we're gonna invest for a safe climate, there's a huge amount of opportunity.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna invest in figuring out how to create those opportunities, not just passively find them.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and we can get there.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I will say there's quite a bit of progress already.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_02: There are lots of good investments being made by the Canadian pension sector, including by those two pensions I mentioned.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we just need to see a scale and an approach that's much more systemic.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_03: And it's shifting the overall balance.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: This isn't about creating a little, oh, we're gonna have a little side pocket of our portfolio that's gonna be green and everything else.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: This all of the above approach that we're seeing from the current government as well as from these institutions.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: What we need is a systemic approach that says everything in our portfolio has to be aligned with safety and prosperity in the long run.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that has to mean aligning with climate science.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: There's no other way out of this.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_02: If you understand what we're facing right now with this climate crisis, um, the economy will cease to grow.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: These portfolios will cease to grow if we don't address this.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that's very doable.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_02: And we have seen leadership from some of these investors.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: We need it to become the norm across the sector, and we're gonna need to see some leadership in a few places.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what we're we're pushing for, and that's what we're looking for.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's very frustrating to watch an investment summit like this from the outside and see a small group of people who clearly don't understand the depths of the problem uh discovering.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: The opportunity or the opportunity goes in the deal, particularly the opportunity behind closed doors without anybody with the expertise in the room.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the continual problem we face is where are the people who understand what needs to happen and why are they not in there?
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I will tell you from experience in my work that the leaders, and this is not universal, but it's generally true, of these financial institutions are not climate experts.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: They do not understand the risk or the opportunity particularly well.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: That is an elite small group that is a little bit behind on this issue.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so they need some fresh leadership, frankly, and they need some uh external experts driving them.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why I'm really glad we're having this conversation and not just allowing that conversation behind closed doors to go on.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: I think this needs to involve a lot more people, a lot more transparency to the public and our interests.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I'm really glad that we're sort of teasing all the edges of that right now.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_03: At least you're not the edges of it, and that's that's where that's where we started.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_03: Adam Scott, executive director of shift action for um planet health.
• 41:15
  unknown: Thank you.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_03: We have to have a conversation.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um thank you so much for joining us.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, great.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_03: We'll be back uh in just a few minutes with Richard Brooks from Stan.earth.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_03: We're back at the news desk with Richard Brooks, Climate Finance Program Director at Stand.earth.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the Better Ideas Show.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for having me.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for joining us.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um we've seen the full deal book for the Canada Investment Summit.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's on our website, by the way, if you haven't duly memorized it yet.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I know you're expecting at least one or two major announcements this week on fossil fuel infrastructure projects.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_03: We've also seen two science reports in the last couple of weeks that show climate change spiraling out of control and the Canadian Climate Institute concluding that we are 20 years behind on our 2030 emission reduction target.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know how you even do that.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, there's got to be an award for it, but I don't think it'd be wrong with it, right?
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, what are the nation-building investments that we could have seen this week that would help build a clean climate economy?
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_03: And why don't why do you think more of them are not in the uh deal book?
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll start by saying I think the the fact that the deal book was secretive for so long was is obviously a real big problem.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh all of these projects, whether they're conventional energy projects, clean energy projects, uh data center projects, you name them, should have been transparent from the beginning.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: None of this should be done in a in a back room at a fancy hotel.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: This should be out in the public uh for discussion and debate.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and um, and that's where we should be starting from.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in terms of the uh conventional oil uh and gas projects that are in this field book, they're catastrophic for our climate.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we did a quick calculation.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's a hundred billion dollars worth of projects that are being proposed, uh put up for sale, um, and uh that would lead to about 180 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent pollution, which outpaces all of the emissions from all cars and trucks in Canada on a yearly basis.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: So a huge uh uh contributor to more climate pollution from those oil and gas projects.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: The clean energy projects in the book, uh, some of them are uh not really clean energy.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_03: Clean projects got a really wacky definition of clean energy, wouldn't you say?
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: They do.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's hydrogen, there's yeah, there's hydrogen projects, there's uh carbon carbon capture and storage and use projects, uh, there's biofuel projects.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um what we aren't seeing is the scale of projects that we need to see to really drive the clean energy transition in Canada.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: What I've Would have liked to have seen is more uh wind projects uh of all sizes, uh solar projects.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we have a real need to transform our heating uh heating and cooling systems in Canada.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is a great opportunity to create a Canadian-based heat pump manufacturing industry.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_03: We were talking to Sana Sylvester about a heat pump pilot that would uh go to 5,000 um uh low-rise buildings, that alone would be$4.2 billion.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_03: And the minimum size to get it to the Dill Book was$200 million.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_03: I think something along those lines of that project would pass.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and I and it's not only about rolling out a program like that and getting it in place, but actually building those heat pumps in Canada.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: We have the opportunity here to reindustrialize sectors of our economy that can be really beneficial.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we're we're you know always bemoaning the fact that we're losing jobs in the auto sector.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there are jobs to be created as well.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh domestic heat pump industry is one that could be easily created in Canada that could net some some incredible jobs that would be there for the long term.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think small-scale solar is something, yeah, including small-scale solar manufacturing facilities, something that can be done in Canada.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: We have had solar companies exist here in the past.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um many of these projects have the opportunity to be indigenous-led as well.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: So there's the dual benefits that already are of creating real good jobs and also supporting reconciliation efforts.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I would have liked to see more of those in the deal book.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and unfortunately, they're missing the reason why they're not in the deal book is because the investors that have been invested uh invited to come to Canada to um to take over our resources to a large degree are ones that want to make quick profits.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and their uh their history is based on legacy projects, and that's investing in big oil and gas projects.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we have you know the worst of the worst private equity firms coming in from Wall Street or very close to the Trump administration.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: We have sovereign wealth funds um that are controlled by princes.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: We have uh big public pension funds that have big exposure to fossil fuels already.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: Those all want to profit off of short-term interest.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and many of those are oil and gas projects currently, which don't do uh anything good for Canadian communities and certainly don't do something good for our climate.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_03: You've been working very closely with indigenous communities in British Columbia that oppose this policy and LNG project, which the deal book describes as fully permitted and shovel ready, although the disclaimer says none of this has been vetted by the government, it's just what the opponent said about them, but we'll go with fully permitted and shovel ready.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um we've talked recently about how global demand for LNG is going to shrink fast enough to eliminate any need for new infrastructure.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_03: Our investors at this summit in for a series of surprises if they get involved with squeezing a project like it.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's not only investors that will be surprised if they get it if they take a chunk or an equity stake will make an investment in C.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: Lessons LG, which is a project uh based in uh in BC.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I think Canadian taxpayers will be quite surprised as well.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's already taxpayer money that's going into uh project development uh and associated infrastructure.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh right now the Canada uh infrastructure bank is reviewing this project for a potential big investment of taxpayer dollars, our dollars, into this project.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: And they're doing so at a time when the markets for the market for LNG and gas doesn't make any sense.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't make sense from a financial standpoint, um, it doesn't make sense from a fiduciary standpoint.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um and because of the you know the atrocious war in the Middle East and the past war uh or the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, uh many, many countries who would be buying these this gas that C.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: Lism's LNG is supposed to produce are turning to clean energy solutions, clean energy solutions that are domestically based, that they can control themselves.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: So they're not the whim of oil and gas markets globally.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: We just saw uh last week Thailand made a big announcement saying that they were going to be moving uh away from LNG imports and advancing their renewable energy goals.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: Thailand's one of the countries that's been named repeatedly as like that's where Sea Lism's LNG will be selling um their gas.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Asian countries are doing the same.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I think investors are in for a big surprise, particularly ones who would invest for the long term.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: That would be um some of our public pension funds, for example.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: Taxpayers are going to be surprised.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: There's a reason why this project has taken so long to actually even make it into a deal book, is because it doesn't make sense financially.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_01: It is certainly not shovel ready.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there is a lot more permitting that needs to be done.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's a 800-kilometer pipeline that needs to get built and permitted as well.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: You can't build an export terminal if you can't get gas to it.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: That is uh a highly contested pipeline.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we've seen what's happened with highly contested pipelines in the past with coastal gas, like supplies, LNG.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: That led to a shutdown of Canada uh as people came out to support the Westotan and other indigenous nations who were fighting that project.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: We forget that.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_03: That was happening right before the pandemic lockdowns, and then suddenly it wasn't because nothing was, but yes.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: We could see that again with sea leadens, which could be huge uh cost overruns, uh, big delays, and that's doesn't look good for investors.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_03: And by the time all of that plays out, um contrast that with another country that is the one that you didn't mention, in Pakistan, uh about 20% of its fossil powered grid was replaced by rooftop solar in about four years.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_03: And we heard that the utility didn't even see it coming because it wasn't a program, it wasn't a plan.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_03: People just got on with it.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um and every time we you know sort of go through our weekly scan of news headlines to try to pull together lineups, we see another country where this is happening.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: The case for LNG is weakening by the day.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: By the day.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: And these projects, you know, cannot be turned on tomorrow.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: They don't get built in a in a year.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: They take many years to get built, regardless of the amount of fast tracking that's happening or the deregulation that the Carney government's already advanced or is promising to advance even further.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: They are big infrastructure projects.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know,$30 billion is the cost for C lists right now.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was much less a year ago when they were first talking uh uh more about it.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so the price keeps going up, and every day as a result, uh the market demand for LNG is decreasing and weakening.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really bad timing to be investing in uh dirty LNG and oil projects.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really good time to be investing in clean energy.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_03: So the International Energy Agency, as you know, says the fossil fuel infrastructure is still taking in a trillion dollars per year in new investment.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, the IEA's research also shows clean energy taking is about twice as much.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_03: Are there participants at this week's summit, as far as you know, who expected to invest in a clean economy in Canada?
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_03: And if they're in the room, what's in this deal book for them, or are they going to be leaving disappointed?
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_03: And granted that you said many of the people in this room are the worst investors anywhere, is there another tier, or is that all that you've seen in what's been published of the participant list?
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this is the hard part to figure out about um about this summit is what exactly is going on.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: The deal book really only came out a few days ago because it was leaked and then circulated quite widely.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: So going into this, I think a lot of um organizations like my own didn't actually know what was on the table.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: We have predictions of what it would be in uh featuring a lot of oil and gas projects.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there's also um, you know, uh certainly a lack of transparency of what's already been built in Canada that could be sold during the summit.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_01: So the deal book is about things that are yet to be built, um, that are seeking investment.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of stuff in Canada that's already been built that has also been rumored to be on the table for sale.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: So uh airports are a great example.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: Highways already built, but could be sold to private investors who are showing up um today in Toronto to discuss this.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: Those are not in the public sphere either.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think those are going to be discussed, are being discussed in uh fancy hotel rooms and boardrooms right now as we're speaking.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I I I have to I I I think it's it would probably be accurate to say that it's there there's not a lot of focus on clean energy in there in those discussions.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really carbon capture and storage, right?
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_03: I mean what what else could we ask for?
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think the greenwashing in the oil and gas industry might be part of it.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um but what we what we I think what we really need to see is you know is a reset of uh of approach here when it comes to seeking investment.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: We have great opportunities in Canada to build out a uh uh a secure, uh, sustainable uh economy.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: This is a moment where there's a lot of excitement to revamp that because of uh the change in the in the uh world order uh globally and the relationship with the United States.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um and this approach of this approach of inviting uh the old school investors in the Wall Street uh private equity firms, the the big banks, the government wealth funds to do more business in Canada and take ownership of our critical infrastructure, our critical minerals, our resources, um, in what I call a liquidation sale, a fire sale, liquidation sale, doesn't make sense.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: We need to take a different approach, a more thoughtful approach that's inclusive of Canadians of all sorts, um, that puts at the front forefront uh our indigenous communities and their rights, and um be looking to them for leadership uh on the on the on the projects that we should be moving forward to reenvision the Canadian economy.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um Richard Brooks, Climate Finance Program Director from Stan Dutter.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for joining us.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_03: And up next, we'll be talking with Naeem Merchant, Executive Director of Carbon Removal Canada.
• 55:02
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• 55:07
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• 55:20
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