Criticality, collaboration and coal: Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Heather Exner-Pirot | Ep 18

The world changed for sure.

And recently, you have been picking up on some of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's language where he talks about a rupture.

Do you want to maybe expand on that for our audience?

Yeah, I do.

And to start with, why do I care about mining? Why do I care about commodities so much? I always like to say, you know, I grew up in Saskatchewan and at a time when the last commodity cycle, the last commodities downswing, it was a have-not province.

People left, they went to greener pastures as soon as they were done school or ready to start a family and it was a little bit depressing.

And then the commodities upswing came and we had a provincial government that put in place measures to take advantage of it.

And since 2007, Saskatchewan has been a half province.

And that was obviously on the strength of its food, fuel, fertilizers, et cetera.

So I've always been, since then, that very kind of defining perception that they have on me.

I've been very attuned to commodity cycles.

And I've been waiting for this upswing since the bus into

You

know, in Canada, in Alberta, Saskatchewan, you can't wait for the upswing.

And now it's here.

And I think Carney is identifying something.

I agree with him that there is a rupture.

And my joke is we haven't just had a black swan.

Black swan is an unanticipated, very consequential event.

We've had a flock of black swans.

The COVID pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Trump coming in and imposing tariffs on the entire world.

And now, of course, the Strait of Hormuz closure.

And those individually were very important, impactful.

Collectively, they are transformative.

And you are seeing a rupturing of previous trade flows of the way energy used to be treated of the liberal world order into something different.