Tim Hodgson

We don't need it anymore.

And so I actually want to just play this clip from Energy Minister Tim Hodgson.

I think it was in an interview about 10 days ago.

Yeah.

And these are billion-dollar investments, multi-billion dollar investments, and again, it, it seemed like there really wasn't a lot of support for resource development.

And talk about sea change, on the Sunday, uh, after Carney came in, uh, I got a text on the Sunday morning, uh, on my, on my mobile phone from a gentleman, uh, named Tim Hodgson.

Now, I had never heard of Tim Hodgson.

He introduced himself as the new Federal Minister of Energy and Natural Resources.

So imagine the sea change, where in the previous 10 years, we couldn't get anybody to come up to a multi-billion dollar announcement of an investment in Canada and Nunavut, where, uh, with the change of government, on the Sunday morning after the change, the federal minister, uh, reaches out and s- introduces himself, somehow found my number, uh, contacted me, introduced himself, and said, "How can I help?" And, uh, Minister Hodgson has helped, uh, since he's been in power.

That is just one of a few topics where I would say Saskatchewan and Western Canada has been at the heart of the discussion.

There has been an emphasis, a different, what I'm going to suggest is more positive emphasis put on fossil fuel conventional fuel sources we heard it from about a week ago from the federal energy minister tim hodgson in calgary defending fossil fuels yes you heard me right defending fossil fuels then we are hearing about how conventional fuel sources are part of the diverse opportunities that are being showcased at this Canada Investment Summit.

We're hearing about changes through the Gazette to some of the details of Bill C-69.

All of this lends itself to a great conversation with Heather Exner-Perot, Senior Fellow and Director of Energy, Natural Resources and Environment at McDonnell Laurier Institute in Ottawa.

I want to take you back about a week ago.

It was your social media posts that got my attention.

on an answer that Tim Hodgson gave in Calgary to a reporter on fossil fuels.

And it was clear the reporter was pushing kind of from an environmental or climate activist standpoint.

Um, some of these are the projects that Canadians have been talking about for years.

Uh, maybe some of you have seen it on your social media, uh, Federal Energy Minister Tim Hodgson talking about pipelines and, uh, world energy, and you see Alberta's Energy Minister Brian Jean just standing behind him, this is four or five days ago, just nodding, kind of smiling.

Brian Jean's been saying it for a long time, right? But the question that's begging to be asked, and we'll get into this with Supriya Dwivedi in just a moment, is that if Canada has all of these advantages, then why haven't we already been attracting these kind of investments? 'Cause, uh, this isn't just about convincing, uh, a room full of billionaires that Canada's a great place to invest or that Canada's a nice place to be, right? Look at the ethical oil argument, uh, that's been made for years and years and years.

People know that Canadian business, Canadian products, Canadian exports, Canadian resources are top shelf, top tier.

The new rules also mean that some projects that had been subject to reviews under both the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act would no longer be subject to the Impact Assessment Act.

Federal Energy Minister Tim Hodgson was in Alberta with Energy Minister Brian Jean to make the announcement.

And at this point, I'd like to turn to a quote from the media to showcase the institutional friction that has been built up into Canada over the last decade plus with this announcement.

Now, a journalist by the name of Louis, who didn't state his outlet, asked Minister Hodgson about the changes.

On the other hand, you've got projects.

Just last week, it might even be yesterday actually, the Minister of Energy Tim Hodgson was talking about the way they're reducing the approvals process for these major projects.

And that's been part of the problem here.

It's a bit like the cost of capital we were discussing for refineries.