Thank you for listening to Depictures Media Radio. Welcome to Policy and Rights,
the show about the government policy and human rights. Welcome back everybody. You
know, I get up in the morning and you know, I just want
to have the best day ever in my life. I just want each day
to be a little bit better than the next, than than the day before.
Just keep you know, the rhythm going that I keep building on better
and better days. And I like to see really cool stuff happen in my
lifetime and see see people really coming together and doing things well. One of
the things is I believe in customer experience and customer service, where your customer
service has to enhance that customer experience, make that customer feel like, hey,
I really got weighted on, and that they feel comfortable with your business
and how your business actually operates well they're well. In the next serve,
we're gonna be talking about Krispy Kreme, and one day is actually kind of
local to where my office is. And there's probably some controversy around actually Krispy
Kreme because hey, they took a small shop, that small donut shop that
was in developed in Georgia and it eventually becomes this huge corporate conglomerate sort of
thing, and you know how we talk about corporate greed and things like that.
But I don't want you to focus on who they are, on Christopy
Cremes a corporation. I want you to focus on Kurtspy Kreme as this local
donut shop and what happened. So here goes the story. This morning,
I I got up and I had an appointment to go get the family vehicle
service and it and drove it up there, had conversations and talked to my
niece about what's going on in her life and how hey, maybe her uncle
can help her out with a couple of things. The truck was was done
within a half hour, jumped in the paid the bill, jumped in the
truck and had a craving four apple fritters, and I clicked the bluetooth on
the truck and call call my wife and I say, hey, would you
like some Chrispy Kreames today? Were I can like loop back around again and
I can go over to Krispy Kremes and get some apple fritters? Would you
like some? And she says yes, she would loved the has no apple
fritters because it was still early enough in the morning that we hadn't actually had
breakfast yet. So loop around go over to the Christmy Kreme and they because
at the time of the day, they place is pretty much so empty.
I'm the only customer in there. So I go in and I order six
apple fritters. And at first the the young lady behind the counter, she
didn't hear me right, and she thought that I needed to put still pick
out my donuts. I said no, no. I leaned in a little
closer and I said no, I wanted six apple fritters, please, And
she went went to work on it. And I noticed right off that she
was a new employee, and I said to the girl who was standing at
the register, I said, she's she's new. It's like her one of
her first days. And she said, yes, I see. This is
cool because we all get to be new sometime and it's a new experience.
You know, Hey, I'm helping helping a customer. And she was so
eager and happy to do so, which a lot of times that my wife
and I we talked about how new newcomers to the to their workplace aren't always
so happy to serve serve people they think that there is some kind of entitlement
that they should have and they don't always just kind of jump in there and
want to help people, so choose this. This young lady was really eager
to be able to help people and to jump in there and actually, you
know, grab these six apple fritters. I mean it's small, but it's
big at the same time. So I paid the bill and I'm waiting for
the apple figures to come and I noticed it. By this time, the
manager of the shop, or the shift manager, had showed up and was
helping out the other young lady who was ringing me out with the whole transaction
to make sure they was done right, because hey, she appeared to be
kind of new on register. And the other the other young lady putting the
the apple fritters into the box. She was having a little struggle with the
box and everything, and the manager reached over and started helping her. She
didn't get pushy about it, she just offered some guidance, and I know
that the box changed that she wouldn't the manager wouldn't grabbed a new box and
she tossed the other box away. Okay, so climate change and all that
kind of stuff, we can't just throw away paper, right, but hey,
let's just go with it with the idea that she's making sure that as
she's training her employees or the employees that are directly underneath her, that they
do quality work and that they put their best foot forward. So I get
the box of donuts and the six apple fritters and I say to the manager,
Hey, that was really cool what you actually just did. It's like
you helped her learn how to put the best donuts forward. And she's and
and with that, the manager said to me that the box wasn't was it
was was a little crumpled, and she said, hey, and there's not.
It's not like we're in a rush or anything like that, and which
is true. I wasn't in a rush. It's like, hey, I
was just grabbing something on the head on back to my home office and enjoy
a little breakfast with my wife. Right, So, no real rush.
Had lots of time before her appointments and start recording. Hey, great stories,
right, okay, So we I said to her, I said,
it's really cool to see people actually teaching people to take their time to put
their best out there, and that you didn't get pushy about it. You
actually offer guidance, and you still allowed her to actually put the apple fitters
or donuts themselves in the box herself, and you just walked her through the
process so that she could close the box up. And the box look it's
like a Krispy Green box. It didn't look crumpled or anything like. It
was the perfect Chrispykreen box that everybody would know and see whenever you walk out
of their shop. So it's really cool to see people actually not get pushy
about things but make sure that they're guiding people to do their best, guiding
people so that they will always shine. And that's the whole point of the
story is how do we help people shine? How do we help them put
their best food forward? How do we help them feel dignified in everything that
they do. It's something that we all need to work for and work towards
so that we can always help people put their best food forward. So,
depending on where you're actually finding this story, if you're finding it as part
of a podcast on policy and rights or on inspiring stories that, depending on
how you find it, find a way to make a comment and leave a
comment. If you're finding it as a blog post or as a LinkedIn post
or something like that. Hey, it's pretty obvious. Just click below and
please do put a comment what you think is a great customer service and how
you can help others people shine just because you're serving. Hey, thanks a
lot for listening, and hey, let's let's get back to whatever the regular
programming would be. So our next segment where we're going to hear Daniel Smith,
the premiere of Alberta as she is disgusting what the fossil fuel energy is
trying to do to help climate change. She's going to talk to you about
different ways that the carbon that is produced through fossil fuels, One that it
can be captured and once it is captured, especially the CEO two, once
it's captured, it can be used to strengthen things like rebar, it can
be used to strengthen concrete, and there's a lot of uses for it,
and she wants to discuss those uses as well as the capture of the of
that carbon and inform of COEO two, she's also going to talk about things
like fuel cells, hydrogen fuel cells, and she's talking about building cars with
hydrogen fuel cells, which maybe maybe a little more viable than some of the
things that we are hearing about. Well, well, how in the Congo
the where they are actually mining a lot of lithium, and how the uprisings
in Central Africa are affecting that mining and what is actually going on that is
causing these uprisings. What are the mining companies doing or not doing for the
people in those areas that are causing uprisings and people that want to or speaking
not only speaking out, but they are shooting out against what these mining companies
are doing. A lot of people aren't talking about it's that people are trying
to rebel against the mining companies. They're just saying that they're rebelling against the
government. But in a lot of respects, maybe the government is taking the
money from the mining companies and not giving back to the people. So why
don't we listen to what Daniel Smith has to say and some of her rebuttals
against the environmental minister that who was also at this particular conference and had an
opportunity to speak. So why don't we move on and let's listen to what
Daniel Smith had to say and this conference. I'll just be very brief.
Thanks for that. Sam I'm just so delighted to be part of the delegation
welcoming the world to Alberta. I think this is a really exciting conference,
an exciting theme about how to achieve carbon neutrality by twenty fifty. I found
already with many of the speakers, although not all, that we are very
much in sync with the pathway and with some of the new innovations that are
going to happen to get there. Had a fantastic opportunity to toward the Saudi
Arabian pavilion and look at all of the amazing new developments that they have on
how to capture and sequestrac too and turn it into useful products. So I
think you're going to see a race between Alberta and some of these other jurisdictions
to make sure we can adopt the same technologies. And as I mentioned in
my speech last night, and I think this bears repeating over and over again,
that this whole enterprise you started on is a pathway to reduce emissions.
We are transitioning away from emissions, We're not transitioning away from oil and natural
gas. So with that, I'd be happy to take any questions. Yeah,
kind of person down. We can also raise hands. I'll go with
you shuffles the Western standard. I don't know if you set in on mister
Master's presentation this morning. I did, and he was talking about potentially dangerous
energy transition, and I'm wondering what on some of your thoughts were, and
maybe Holler applies here. Well. I think that what I liked about what
he had to say was talking about how we have to make sure that as
we're transitioning, we're also keeping an eye on affordability and reliability. I mean,
we have a lot of disruption that happens in the world when people feel
economically insecure, and so I think he was just commenting on some of the
things that we've seen in the past, and that you have to build out
the new energy system at the same time as maintaining the existing energy system so
that you have that continuity. And I think he's very pragmatic. I think
it's very much along a line to what we would like to see having an
aggressive target of getting to twenty fifty. That is aggressive, and it doesn't
mean that you can't have milestones along the way. But I think his caution
was to make sure that we put people first, and that we care about
people and that we're very mindful of energy poverty and the kind of turmoil that
can cause if we're not mindful of them. And I agree with him and
with respect to your marks at the opening ceremony yesterday about we don't want to
be like Germany can It was just someone just shared with me another story today
about how Germany is turning a wind farm, decommissioning a wind farm so that
they can recommission a coal plant. And that's what happens when you end up
making a decision to move faster than the technology is able to keep up energy
security and affordable. Is the imperative of governments to make sure that they can
maintain. And what we don't want to see is that because we're looking for
a perfect solution, that we're not looking at what the transition needs to be.
And the transition has to involve LG, has to involve natural gas.
We can continue to work towards better and better carbon capture technology. But when
I talk to those who are looking forward for that transition and looking for Canada
to play a role in exporting LENG, they're very clear with me that if
we don't do our part, and they can't get that secure supply of natural
gas, they're going to recommission coal plants, and if that happens, that
increases global emissions, and I think that that moves us backwards. So we
don't want to be in the position that Germany is where they have to take
a U turn because they didn't end up with the reliability and affordability being front
and center. So I don't want to jump from the is the only emissions
cat Obviously that's something that's very much front of the stander here. What is
that going to want to see at that? You know Willminson saying we'll probably
have something more money end of the year. What are those negotiations look like,
spart You, Well, we have an eight to twelve month time frame
and I don't want to pre judge what the outcome would be. I mean,
keep in mind, we already do have an emissions cap and albert On
Oil sends it's one hundred mega tons and it was a generous cap because I
think there was a recognition that the industry was going to keep on working on
reducing emissions. I mean, if we're all working towards carbon neutrality by twenty
fifty. My view is we don't actually need an emissions cap. My view
is that we should be working towards carbon neutrality by twenty fifty and figuring out
what those batement curves look like for each industry. Some industries are going to
get there faster than others. And putting arbitrary in targets in place before talking
to industry and doing that modeling, that seems to be a bit premature.
So I'm hopeful that we don't see and I've sent this to our federal counterparts,
is they keep on threatening things like the clean electricity reggs making having those
implemented, the oil and natural gas emissions cap, a methane target that is
aggressive. Those are all things that have to be negotiated, and if they
were to come through with those policies while we're at the table, we would
look at that as a negotiating and bad faith. We don't want that.
And just that one of my colleagues send me a question on equal Idea,
whether or not you'll commit to a public inquiry and why do you think person
Manning is the a perfect vest that I would see any kind of review of
the Public Health activing name starts background with my public health experience, well,
a couple of things. Yes, I have committed to do a review.
I'm not quite sure what form that will take just yet. I want to
make sure that we've gotten through the worst of the crisis. I'm a very
relieved to see that the number of hospitalizations have gone down from twelve to nine,
and the number of kids on dialysis is going down from four to three,
and the cases appear to be stabilizing. I believe we're at three hundred
and forty eight today, so we're at a point very soon or we'll be
able to shift into looking at that review. So, yes, I have
committed to that and we will do one. I had asked Preston Manning to
look at the full range of legal changes that might be necessary in looking at
what the next pandemic response should be, and so Public Health Act is one
part of it, but there's a think about submarying other pieces of legislation that
he is looking at. Good good morning, good afternoon, Premier. You
often talk about how you know albert is advancing its position on oil and gas,
and you know things are going not that badly, but oftentimes Albertons and
Canadians see that there's a lot of evidence perhaps to the contrary that keeps arising,
whether it's comments made by the Minister for Climate Change or in the case
of the Minister of Natural Resources comments a day last night, which you definitely
is very strong you took objection to. So where are we really at when
on the one hand you are saying you're bargaining good faith, appreciating your faith
and everything's you know, we're going to try to get things ironed out,
and incessantly we keep on getting these disagreements along the way as to what's actually
happening and where it's all go an end up. Where I think we agree
is carbon neutrality by twenty fifty. Where we disagree is what the milestone should
be along the way. And you know, I appreciate that there does need
to be some demonstration that we're moving in the right direction. I think we
have demonstrated that the conversion from cold and natural gas resulted in I think it
was twenty two makeing tons of emissions reduction. The aggressive targets that we set
to reduce methane emissions, we've we've achieved that target of forty five percent emissions
reduction. So we've also been the first too to put carbon pricing on industrial
emissions. That was done back in twenty seven. We also have at scale
projects for carbon captualization and storage that are working. We've got the carbon trunkline,
We've got major industrial players that are talking about their pathway to get to
NANT zero. So I feel like we are demonstrating that we are taking those
steps, and it's a matter I think of getting the federal government to acknowledge
that that that's progress. And there's there's just certain things we have to work
with the federal government on. I know that the Prime Minister is very keen
on the issue of small module or nuclear, and I'm keen to work with
him on that too. But we've never had nuclear in this province, so
that requires broad based consultation, it requires figuring out the regulatory pathway for that.
Most of the existing sites were approved with an environmental pervent decades ago and
the world has changed quite a bit, so we can move as fast as
they can move, as long as we have some if as long as we're
in sync on wanting to get the regulation streamline. But we recognize we have
to make progress. I think if We're focused on twenty fifty and then if
we can get the regulations in sync, I think we'll be able to carve
out those abatement curves and come to an agreement. If if you can't get
those regulations and sake and that's hypothetical, but given the evidence, it's it
could be a stronger than weaker hypothetical is your government. We've made comments in
the past, including I remember at the after the meeting with the Prime Minister,
True got to Stampede is are you going to stand firm in Alberta's position
on the twenty thirty five and on the emissions cap? And secondarily, do
you think it's helpful the comments that are coming out of federal cabinet Minister Sir
I was then I don't know if anyone was in the room last night,
but led balloon might describe the way the energy ministers on the Natural resources ministers
comments went over to come to a major energy conference and international energy conference with
people from all different backgrounds, many of them facing energy poverty in their own
countries, and talking to producers about the ludicrous i EA projections that were only
going to have twenty five million barrels of oil per day produced in twenty fifty.
I mean it was a bit of a slap in the face, let's
be frank about that. And that's why I had to indicate that I don't
I don't believe that those projections are accurate. I was pleased to see,
actually, but they had a Saudi Saudi Ramco also said the same thing that
the company are the IDA has turned from being an entity that does predictions to
being one that engages in political advocacy, and that isn't I don't think that
that's very helpful to the discussion. So my view is that we have an
obligation to address issues of energy poverty, and that includes in our own province.
When I hear and see what happens to our seniors and are vulnerable and
are fixed income individuals in January February March, when you have not only spike
in heating home heating prices, but a spike in power or prices, we
can't allow that to continue. We've looked at this, at the numbers,
and if we were to just allow for the natural capital turnover would be ninety
two billion dollars by twenty fifty. If we were trying to compress that.
Not only would it cost that ninety two billion, it would it cost an
additional fifty two billion to be able to achieve that goal within the next thirteen
years, and that could be anywhere from two to five times increasing the cost
of electricity. That's just not affordable, not attainable, and we should be
mindful that when you end up with that kind of hardship that you're putting on
our most vulnerable citizens, there's going to be a backlash. So if we
can avoid then have a longer time frame allow for the technology to develop,
that seems to me to be the right pathway. So, yes, we're
going to stand firm we cannot do net zero power grid by twenty thirty five.
We think we can buy twenty fifty. Some of our producers say it
can be done by twenty forty five, So there might be some room for
negotiation and discussion there, but we have to have every one of our decisions
based in reality and the emissions cap Again, as I mentioned, we already
have an emissions cath on the oil sands, and the oil sands have responded
to that they have a pathway to be net zero by twenty fifty as well.
Now chemical is going to a petrochemical plant when they get to final investment
decision. That's net zero air products, is net zero hydrogen. The Heidelberg
is going to have the first net zero cement plant in the world as well.
And when you hear with the cement being the second most used commodity behind
water in the world, that's significant to be able to have that kind of
engineering and pioneering innovation happening at Alberta. That's what we should be celebrating.
Okay, we're going to go to christ next and always asking his questions,
Can I just get a hands up for those questions as well? Prettier the
mensined here that you obviously have a disagree to Minister wilkinson speech. Well,
what specifically did you disagree with? What? Why did you say or why
are you describing there's a slab in the face. Well, I can tell
you the number of people who walked up to me after he had spoken to
see if I had steam coming out of my ears. That was a one
indication I can tell you. My cabinet was very unhappy with the comments that
were made and members of council were unhappy with the comments that were made as
well, because I think what he was toned off too is the amount of
work that's been done by our industry to align with the carbon neutral target and
to essentially act as if the industry was winding down, and that is not
the case. That's why I had to counter his message. This is not
an industry that's winding down. It's an industry that's transitioning away from emissions.
And the fact that we saw other speakers talking about in the same in the
same terms suggested me that it was Minister Wilkinson who was offside on it.
Just to follow up in this is a bit of a two part we're gonna
s Can you tell me is this really the appropriate place on an international state
for the federal government of the provincial government speaks to us an energy policy.
That's definitely question. The second one is I saw or I heard that you
had a conversation with this AUDI energy noise or can I ask you what you
discussed them to the common ground is with Discovery. Well, I don't like
to fight with the FED my federal counterparts, but I'm not going to allow
them to take swipes at our industry and have a go unanswered and talking about
this industry winding down, being on its last legs, only having twenty five
million barrels a day of production by twenty fifty at a time when everybody's here
to celebrate production and investment and we're trying to make Canada an investment magnet I
would say that was the wrong place for him to make that speech, and
I had to give people some optimism and enthusiasm that we are going to be
able to work together to get to to common targets. So I think I
had to counter his comments because I think he left a pretty I think I
think the room was pretty gloomy respoke, and I don't think there's anything to
be gloomy about it at all with this industry. I did speak to the
Saudi Energy Minister. I had a chance to meet him this morning when he
flew in, and we've had One of the things that I noticed about the
pavilion is they're being very progressive on what they can do with captured CO two
to turn it into useful products. They have a product if I encourage all
of you to go over there, because they're using a CO two to create
a product that can be a replacement for rebar. They have a number of
different plastic pipes that they can use. They're doing a cootwo embedded in cement
to be able to make stronger concrete, and they're also got a combustion engine
hydrogen vehicle that they're working on as well. So I feel like we're going
to be in a bit of a technological and innovation race with Saudi Arabia.
And I think we heard that from the Energy this Minister this morning. He
intends to lead the world in this and he is challenging the rest of us
to keep up, and Alberta wants to keep up. So I think that
there's going to be a lot of information sharing as we moved towards a carbon
neutral target. That's our front left here for yes, Yeah, I know
this kind of relates to the industry and federal government, but there's like a
lot of negotiation right now going on, and we'regarding the degree of tax credit
subsidies for carbon capture. But we're hearing that, you know, by that
that they've got to get this thing going by the beginning of the year where
they're not even going to beat their own targets. I'm wondering if the province
doing anything, is it? What are you doing to try to part as
a loner? Well, I have mentioned that we're working on our own credit
for carbon capture, utilization and storage, similar but structure perhaps a little bit
differently than our Alberta petrochemical incentive program, and I want to be able to
announce what the details of that are when I go to divining for COP twenty
eight. So we're we accept that that timeline is accelerated, and we're hoping
that the federal government will be to match us so that we can make a
joint announcement together in Dubai. Nope this year. Yeah, sorry, that's
going to be I'll be traveling there in November thirtieth, so it's the first
week in December. I'll be there or bringier. There are plenty of other
forecasters in the IA who are calling pegyl demand in the next five to ten
years. What if you're wrong there? Al me, Well, I guess
the way I look at it is, I like what the energy minister had
to say. This is the Saudi energy minister had to say this morning.
You've got to you've got to live in the real world, not on computer
models. And he actually challenged the group to find a single time that the
idea has had a single projection that has been correct. So I think it
takes a leap of faith to think that if they've never been correct, that
they will be correct by twenty fifty. We've got to respond to the world
as it is. And I think he also was being quite responsible in saying
that's part of the reason why they already did production cut is that there were
predictions last year about how China was just going to raise ahead onto the COVID
restriction were lifted. Well turned out not to be the case, and his
advice was you take a measure of prudence so that you don't end up creating
disruption and instability in the markets, and then you can always increase. And
so I think that that kind of approach actually is a lot more practical than
trying to rely on predictions from what has become increasingly unfortunately a political activist organization
and Yeah, sign Effect just the other day called for eat gasoline demand in
China at the end of this year. E eaesel demand at the end of
twenty twenty five. We've got Bloomberg and the app calling for road transport demand
by twenty twenty six, and it's global, I is not just the IA.
And you've got the Chamber of Conference here and Calgary saying that the energy
transition is an existential crisis for the Alberta oil and gas. Are you listening
to other voices? I would say one of the things I'm encouraged by is
the same thing that the Saudi Energy Minister is encouraged by. All the ways
in which you can use the product for different ants. I mean, they're
talking about right now having two million barrels a day being used for alternative product
products including lubricants, competro chemicals, and construction materials, and they're anticipating that's
a double So they're anticipating that as the amount of gasoline and diesel demand declines,
those replace that with non combustion uses of their product. And we should
be taking the same attitude as well. If we can use natural gas and
oil to be able to create construction materials, harder cement replacement for rebar why
why wouldn't we do that? That That's how I'm looking at it, is
that we're not going to phase out production of oil and natural gas. We're
just going to change the way in which you can use it in our in
our province, hydrogen is very likely going to be an increasingly important fuel that
comes from natural gas as its base carbon capture, utilization, and storage.
We'll be able to assist in that development. That's where I think we're going
to end up going here. Hydrogen is also possible to be used for now
for for power plants. I think that's going to be a positive use also.
And when you look at the supply for asphalt, I mean I've seen
some projections that we have the potential to increase our bitumen for use as asphalt
up to five million barrels per day. So whether you're driving a combustion engine
vehicle or a hydrogen combustion engine vehicle, or a fuel cell vehicle, or
maybe you're going to need roads to drive on. So those are the things
that I am looking at. Is I don't think that the need for our
products is going to diminish. I just think it's going to change. We'll
go to the collective factor collect north taking press. Just back to the Equal
I break. We now have about seven other facilities that have been either closed
or personally closed due to this outbreak. What do you know about that so
far in terms of how they relate to these other cases. And I'll just
ask my second question as well, how does the provincial program to give a
one time rain raise and apply to those parents. There's a couple of things.
I'd say. The the secondary closures are related to having children interacting with
each other. So all of them, as I understand it, have had
some close contact with the child who was impact or affected, or it was
a child who was at one of the original facilities who got moved into one
of the new facilities. So that's why we're telling parents is just make sure
that you keep your kids at home if they're sick, and make sure that
you go through the process of getting the clearance before having a return. I
think we're now at six hundred and forty two kids who are cleared to return,
and so we'll go through that process. We'll have a lot more who
were cleared to return in the coming weeks. The one time payment was designed
to be for those first eleven schools daycarees because the trauma for those parents,
the disruption for those parents, the financial hardship for those parents, and the
lack of confidence some of those parents have in returning their kids to school.
We wanted to make sure that all of that had a payment so that they
could make the choices that is right for their family. At the moment,
we haven't extended it to the partial closures on the other facilities. We are
hopeful that those will be reopened very quickly and so I understand the Health Minister
will have more to say on that on Wednesday. Thanks next yep, right,
Nea Williams from Rights You said that if the federal government introduced the teenagersty
standards due negotiation, that would be seen as a bad faith at tactic.
So how would the province respond? Would the idea of the CCUS tax credits
go out the window? What will the next step be. I'm going to
be hopeful that they have heard my message, love and clear, not to
bring any permanent change through until we get to the end of the negotiations.
We have a really good relationship with many of the ministers, and I think
everybody is coming to the conclusion that having this negotiation and public is not serving
the interests of either of our governments, and it's not serving the interests of
industry. So I'm hoping we can bring the temperature down. I don't want
to escalate it any further. I'm looking for the federal government to be measured
in the comments that they make and optimistic in the comments that they make,
and then we'll see where it goes from there. But you know, we've
got a lot of mechanisms that we can use in order to be able to
defend our constitutional right to develop our resources in our own way, not have
the federal government put in production caps. Electricity is also an area that is
provincial jurisdiction exclusive provincial jurisdiction, and we intend to vigorously defend our constitutional rights.
There are often with Global News. I just wanted to ask that we
have a hearing underway right now else wearing Calgary TMX hearing as they look at
a potentially additional costs, additional delays to this project. It was under five
billion dollars when the federal government first purchased it, now looking at over thirty
billion. What kind of precedent does this set for other oil companies or other
investors that are looking at putting pipelines to our profits. Well, the reason
Tmax ended up with a federal owners because it needed to be de risked it
was not going to go ahead without a federal partner, and I'll I suppose
once this is complete, we'll all learn from why it isn't escalated so much.
I'm just hopeful that it gets to the finish line within before the end
of next year, because it's still a viable product project. It is still
going to be a profitable project for all levels of government, and there's a
really great opportunity for indigenous partners to have an ownership stake and a new revenue
stream. So I'm really hopeful that they managed to figure out the rooting issue.
I know that it's complicated. Could add I think I read up to
nine months more to the process. So from what I've seen, the federal
government is very keen to get it finished. They are now invested so much
in this they want to have a complete so that they can move it back
into the private sector as quickly as possible. And we'll be prepared to assist
on that. We already have our Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation on standby waiting to
see if there's some way that we can assist in helping indigenous communities take an
ownership stake so that work is already beginning, but once it gets into operation,
we'll be able to kick in and provide some support to get that transition.
Another big story, of course, in the headlines that Calgary City Council
has approved as housing strategy over the weekend, several recommendations involved the province on
things like rent control, tax breaks for a nonprofit affordable housing providers. What
can Calgarians expand to front the province now that the strategy has approved, and
how open is the province is some of the ideas in this plan. Well,
I can say we're not going to do rent control. We know that
that is the exact opposite of what we need to do. If you're trying
to convince more developers to invest more money into building more rental housing and then
saying your reward for that will be the government will step in at any point
and limit the amounts you can charge, it's going to have the exact opposite
effects. So I know that it seemed to be a nice quick solution,
but it actually creates more long term problems. What we need is to increase
supply. We are prepared to give more rent supplement programs, So we did
add an additional fifteen hundred Alberta households to our rent supplement programs, so there's
a total of twelve thousand, five hundred. Happy to work with Jason Nixon,
our minister, to see if more needs to be done there. Last
week we announce sixteen million to bring back affordable housing units for use across the
province, and that's on top of ninety four million we announced in budget twenty
three. We also have nine billion dollars with their partners over the next ten
years to build twenty five through thousand new units by twenty thirty one. But
what I'm really most interested so that I think on the affordable side, I
think that's there's lots that we can do to work with our municipal counterparts.
What I am interested though, is that the strategy also includes eighty recommendations to
reduce barriers to home building, and so attainable housing is just as important as
affordable housing. You need to have young people know that aspirationally they're going to
be able to buy a house. And so if that involves identifying provincial lands
or provincial buildings that can be repurposed in the same way that municipal government is
doing that, I think they've asked us to give a property tax reprieve for
a period of time on new construction. I'm open minded and looking at that.
We also need to streamline the permitting process though too. I mean there
are some there are some jurisdictions that are doing a great job on this.
Saint Albert. They proudly talk about how they can do same day business license,
three dame development permits, and three week building permits. That's setting the
kind of pace that I think we need to see from all municipalities about how
urgent this is that they clear away the barriers to construction. We also have
an obligation to make sure that there are enough workers in this field as well.
So I've met with the building trades to see what we can do to
collaborate on introducing young people to the building trade sooner and so if we can
come to some agreement on how we might be able to accelerate that, I
think that's going to address it too. And we just have time for one
last question. We're just going to go back readers your points yesterday or your
speech. You talked about prioritizing and the work of the ethical production. I'm
just wondering given the ribbon cutting, well, just to plaze that with your
Sunny counterparts, their human rights violations are often well documented. In question just
how you justify that relationship. One of the things that I think is important
is to focus on the things that we agree on, and as the Energy
Minister said, we agree on eighty five percent of the direction that we need
to go. There. We're welcoming people from all around the world, from
a bunch of different backgrounds, but we're all here with the same purpose.
We know that we have to deal with emissions in an urgent basis, but
we also have to make sure that we're dealing with reliability and affordability and energy
security, and so if we can work together on those I know that the
federal government is working on trying to re establish a relationship with our Saudi counterparts
after five years of distance, and so we want to be supportive of trying
to move in that direction. So we tend to try to focus on the
areas where we can agree. Okay, thanks everyone, Thank you everybody trying
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