This is an outstanding podcast with our favorite Canadian oil and gas expert commentators! We had the privilege of interviewing Heidi McKillop, movie producer, and Terry Etam a year ago on another podcast series. We had a great time then, and even more fun this time! Both Heidi and Terry are passionate about Canada and what is best for all of the citizens of Alberta. I can not wait to get our newly regular Canadian Podcast update!
The Energy News Beat Canadian Edition.
Heidi McKillop’s Movie “A Stranded Nation” is a must-see for anyone that is a human.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_ZPFJ2eAUw[/embedyt]
Terry Etam’s book “The End of Fossil Fuel Insanity” is a great book and available on Amazon. I enjoyed reading it and am looking forward to going to Calgary and have Terry sign my copy.
The Automated Transcript is Below. There will be some grammatical errors as our system does not understand Stu from Texas very well.
Stu Turley [00:00:05] Well, today, guys, on the Energy News, the podcast, we have a special treat today we have Heidi McCulloh and she is a film mogul. Heidi, I’m not sure if we call you a film actress or producer and actress, but, Heidi, your film, A Stranded Nation on YouTube has had over fifty-five thousand views, and it is a phenomenal, phenomenal film. So, Heidi, welcome today. Thank you very much.
Heidi McKillop [00:00:35] Thank you for having me. It’s so good to see you.
Stu Turley [00:00:38] And we have Terry Edam. Terry, you have got a great book out there. You’ve been an editor or article guy and author, not an author is as Heidi would be, but an author. And over there at the Blix report and your book, The End of Fossil Fuel Insanity, is out on the Amazon store. And I read it’s a pretty good book, too. So thank you very much to welcome Terry. The three that we actually had. Michael, Mr. Producer, who is producing today. But Terry, I have followed you and Heidi over the last several years, and it is so fun to see you guys. We want to talk about the insanity of pipelines and the relationship between Canada and us. We have a great relationship, but I’m not so sure if those in power have a great relationship. So let me start out with Terry. Terry, and you just wrote an article here just recently on I think it was May 11th. You can’t make this stuff up. What were you thinking when you can’t make this stuff up?
Terry Etam [00:01:48] It’s to it’s almost impossible to believe the part that gets me the most. So just some background. So there’s a pipeline that runs there that was actually mutually beneficial to both countries when it was made the runs from Western Canada and it goes to southern Ontario. And if you follow the geography, it just makes the most sense to cut through the United States, and then it crosses through the Great Lakes at the narrowest point and then shows up in southern Ontario. That’s a big pipeline that carries over five hundred thousand barrels a day and it makes a lot of stops along the way. Drops off a lot of propane to northern Michigan, I think. Sixty-five percent of their fuel needs or something is met up there. And then it just carries on and delivers jet fuel and everything else to southern Ontario. So very, very important pipelines. And Michigan’s governor and politicians just seem to run on these they run on these promises to do something crazy, to save the environment. And so she pledged to shut this pipeline down. And everybody, everybody that pays attention said, like, you can’t be serious. Like you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face. You’re going to cut off your budget, your residents of winter fuel. And she’s standing their ground because that’s what she promised the voters, I guess. And I think a lot of people didn’t believe was actually going to happen. And as it got closer to the date, I think the drop-dead date was May 11th or 12th or something. And Enbridge, who operates the pipeline, just said we’re going to keep it going. And to their credit, thank heavens. Yeah. What makes it ironic that the part that is just icing on this cake of craziness is that back in February when there was cold weather coming in and everybody saw what was happening in Texas, the governor of Michigan, the same governor trying to shut this pipeline down, declared a state of emergency because they were running short of propane for heating fuel, which is brought in by the pipeline that she’s trying to get shut down. So in a few months ago, she’s saying this thing is critical. It is statements out there on the Web saying, look, this is important like we need heating fuel for our families, but I’m going to shut the pipeline down anyway due to that same press conference. But it’s just like it defies all common sense. And I can’t reconcile it. And then when you talk about the relations between the two countries, I think Canada is quite upset. Like even our our our left-leaning federal government is like, well, they know what trouble they’d be in if this line gets shut down like no jet fuel could. Toronto’s international airport, which is a big deal, among many other things, all the manufacturers are upset, everybody’s upset, and then they’ve turned to the Biden administration for help. And then that puts the Biden administration between a rock and a hard place there. They can’t say, no, we support a pipeline. And at the same time, they know how stupid it would be to shut it off. So so they’ve just kind of backpedaled away and said this is between a state and Canada, so we’re not going to do anything. So it’s a fiasco, but it is.
Stu Turley [00:04:56] And it’s a little more than just as stated. It will go into that in. But, Heidi, what do you think about the pipeline, like the Keystone pipeline, or any other thoughts that you have going on about what’s going on in Canada right now?
Heidi McKillop [00:05:11] Yeah, that’s exactly what Terry said. We obviously all mutually agreed on this conversation. But one of the things that’s always astounding is if you shut this pipeline down and not only is it hard during Colvert, I mean, people are incredibly desolate right now for jobs they don’t have. There’s not a strong economy. My best friend alone has been in 14 months. She’s been laid off four times from the restaurant industry. So she can’t budget. She can’t figure out what to do. The last thing we want to be putting on people’s plates is higher gasoline prices, higher cost of living, food, whatever it may be because this whole supply chain is dependent on it. So where are those prices going to be allocated to? And the reality is, is it’s going to fall back on the consumer and it’s going to fall back on the people that don’t have the money in the first place to even survive through this. So I really think it’s like this gambling that governments are having and this lack of tangibility to the common person. That really scares me. And it really, really annoys me because it’s like, well, what kind of paycheck are you getting? Are you getting a stable income? Because I know a ton of my friends and family that don’t have stable incomes right now. So what like who are these people making these choices and also the repercussions of the tax burden that’s coming off from all the fossil fuel conversations, too, like the carbon tax. I mean, they’re just coming up really, really horrible times where we’re supposed to be talking about covid recovery and what to do next and how to get both countries on the same page. So I absolutely agree. I mean, I think most people in Canada, in the United States, get along. And the fact that we’re seeing governments fight is really kind of ironic because we can’t do this without each other
Stu Turley [00:06:59] in that crazy. I think last year when we talked, we talked about having an OPEC, the North American trade with Mexico and Canada. Let’s blow off the rest of the world, just trade with all of us to get the different blends. And I kind of like that idea, Heidi. I mean, I think that would be pretty cool. But that would be I think, as Terry said, you can’t make this stuff up with the left-leaning folks. How do you think the politics up in Canada, Heidi, is going? Is it going to come back to the left or right or with Trudeau? What do you see going on up there with all that?
Heidi McKillop [00:07:36] Well, my biggest concern, again, is not necessarily which party you vote for. And I’ve always said this to my friends, it really is about government accountability. So I don’t care if you want to vote NDP want to vote Liberal, you want to vote Conservative. But what is the accountability of the administration? Are you looking at jobs? Are you looking at the cost of living as a young person? Are you able to buy a house or are you able to pay off your student debt? Are you able to fill up your car and all of these things? And what is the cost of living right now? I mean, most of my friends is a younger person. It is an incredible burden as a millennial to get to have a full-time career, to have a house by yourself, or to own a car. I mean, those three things alone, let alone without student debt, is really hard to do nowadays. So we can’t make it harder for the next generation and we could recover. I don’t think people understand how serious covid recovery is, especially with their federal government spending, that the way and the rate that they have without having any tangible plan from the natural resource sector to actually come out of this debt hole and to start and start leveraging it properly internationally for our goods and services that we provide.
Stu Turley [00:08:49] Oh, you bet. And Terry, when you talk about line five, the keystone in line three, which is even of bovver Maury’s line five had I think it’s 20 billion dollar impact on the four states around and thirty-three thousand jobs that it’s going to work. How many on the Canadian side do you think it’s going to work on that?
Terry Etam [00:09:19] So I can’t even guess it’s going to hit manufacturing. We’ll look at all of the petrochemical industries that are going to be impacted. And I think part of it is, is, like Heidi said, there’s going to be a ton of people that are just going to be displaced out of work. But the price of everything is going to go up, too. And I think that we’ve seen the price of things are skyrocketing, like down there. Lumber is up, groceries are up, everything is up. And this is just going to make it even worse for no reason whatsoever. That’s sad. How do you always think to the human element, which is true, that this the the the personal impact, that the way that this is going to ripple out is just going to be huge? And you don’t hear from a lot of people until it happens. Right now, there are people who are paying attention that is saying, like, you realize these are the consequences, but the people that just kind of noise to people hear about a fight over a pipeline or something. But when it gets real, then it’ll be too late and it’s going to be a very big deal. So. Now, you mentioned before the integration of the countries pipeline why you think they’re actually in a lot of people don’t know this, but Canada and the US are incredibly integrated already. It’s just another reason this doesn’t make sense. Like there’s a gas that’s produced in the northeast, U.S. out of the Marcellus area, and that goes straight up into Canada. There’s gas from western Canada that goes straight down into California and it goes into the Midwest. And there’s oil that goes back and forth. And it’s like we really do have integration. So so it’s and it’s it works great. It’s so good to see this sort of thing. It’s just really disheartening.
Stu Turley [00:10:49] So and shortsighted. And Heidi, when in your book, I mean, your movie, A Stranded Nation, we you talk about how cool the regulations actually are. No. One in the world for Canada to help green oil and green in your movie. Doesn’t it make sense for us to have some of that kind of regulations in a smart way?
Heidi McKillop [00:11:14] Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And that’s the thing is it doesn’t matter. I feel like this is maybe my more optimistic approach to things. But most people, most average small businesses to medium-sized businesses and individuals want to do better. They want to see an environment that is healthy. They want to see their children grow up. They want to see their children succeed, etc., etc. Whatever hopes and dreams you have, whether that’s a little bit of upward mobility in their career, all these things are very tangible to the environment and to our industries. And it’s not exclusive. They’re one and the same. And, you know, we keep talking about this. But it seems that what I’m really concerned about is the political rhetoric, as always, is the loudest one. And the media just replays and replays and replays the same occurring kind of garbage. In my mind. It’s like, well, what are we actually achieving these relationship buildings? It’s not a joke because as Terry said, we’re already integrated. So what’s the problem? The problem is X and the problem is the way that we’re speaking to each other, the way we’re communicating with each other, and we’re not going to see a separate Canada and the separate United States, we’re mutually exclusive to each other. We depend on a lot of things. Culturally, we’re very similar. So, yeah, if the United States wants to ramp up a little bit more regulation and kind of a little bit more Canada, obviously, as Canadian, so that I understand that that’s a struggle for some individual companies, but that’s just a natural progression would be tangible about it. You know, don’t just fire out these policies just to look good and try to get voters that don’t understand this area of regulation or don’t understand natural resource development, make it a plan, make it something that is a 20-year plan that got governments and companies is going to be able to work together.
Stu Turley [00:13:05] Did you say a 20-year plan, Heidi?
Heidi McKillop [00:13:07] Right. I know now that doesn’t happen,
Terry Etam [00:13:11] you young dreamer.
Heidi McKillop [00:13:12] Yeah, that’s right.
Terry Etam [00:13:15] We’re old and cynical. Yeah.
Stu Turley [00:13:17] You know, when we talked last time with Michael and Heidi, you and Terry, we had such a great time. And one of the stories that I really enjoyed was you guys sitting there on the side of the or the street and you were just sitting there and you talk people, hey, what about energy? And you would not really lean one way or the other, right? Or did I was I in the same meeting?
Heidi McKillop [00:13:42] You’re exactly as it happened.
Terry Etam [00:13:45] We would have done that more except for covid shut everything down. But yeah.
Stu Turley [00:13:48] Oh, that’s fun. And, you know, we almost need to have that filmed and have a regular series. So I’ll come up to Calgary and let’s go do that, sit out there and have a beer and everything and sit there and talk to people and then film them on how good, stupid or silly they fit and then what category we can put them in. We can’t buy that kind of entertainment.
Terry Etam [00:14:13] That’s great.
Heidi McKillop [00:14:14] Yeah, and it would be really interesting. I mean, I think talking to people again is something that it’s just so fascinating because no one thinks exactly the same. And I’m lucky too as Turino, as most of my girlfriends are not in the resource sector. Most of them are in the service sector. So they work and different areas. Most of them aren’t incorporate cliche kind of offices and things like that. So it’s kind of ironic. Like I’m filled all the time with their comments and their opinions. And I love that because it diversifies. What we’re trying to go after is, is that message.
Terry Etam [00:14:54] And that’s very important that like writing for an oil and gas website to hear from a lot of oil and gas people. And it makes sense. That’s who reads it. But the perspectives are of one kind. They tend to be then. So when you talk to people that don’t know anything about the industry or they only care about it peripherally, you learn a lot. It’s a. It’s a great exercise, so, yeah,
Stu Turley [00:15:17] you know, in talking to the digital way of sitting on the coffee shop, having a cup of coffee, and making fun of people, I mean, interviewing people as they come by. Mr. Producer, Michael kind of got me on Twitter and I’m really not a Twitter fan. In fact, I’ve gotten a few invite with a few people and in the Twitter world there. And I mean, our philosophy is the balance of power. And you got to have a balanced diet of power and. Mr. Producer, thank you very much. And so the balanced diet of power is a lot of fun sometimes, and I just absolutely. Ended the conversation with the balance of power is we need nuclear, we need natural gas, we do need some solar and in other forms, what we needed at the lowest kilowatt per hour that will meet is best for the environment as possible. And I said, all right, as long as it meets the balanced diet of power I’m in and the guy goes, what’s the balanced diet of power? I have not heard of that. And I said, well, look, it upended that conversation. So there are things that we can do on Twitter. But don’t you think we have to help spread the word, Terry? Because I think you just nailed it right there that a lot of like-minded folks talk to a lot of like-minded folks. And it doesn’t seem to get any further than that.
Terry Etam [00:16:51] But no, it doesn’t. And one thing that I’ve yeah, I’ve always thrown in the towel for something like Twitter, too, because there are a couple of issues with it first. So first of all, if we’re sitting out on the street and you ask somebody a question to their face, you’ll get a discussion and you’ll get a viewpoint that might be totally opposite yours. If you do that, if you try that on Twitter, it turns into like a fight instantly. You’re an idiot. You’re stupid because it’s anonymous, it’s faceless, and it’s there’s no repercussions. There’s no downside. Right. Then they like everybody. When people go on social media, they say, which camp are you in? Are you in that one or that one? Because everything is black or white and. All right, so you’re are you for the climate or you for the environment? Are you for fossil fuels? And it’s like that’s not reality, but that’s how it gets carved up instantly. So so that’s a big challenge for me for writing anything and for social media, in general, is to try and breakthrough that. And there is a guy that I work with, he saw something on CBS the other night and they’re analyzing how this works. I didn’t see it and I’d like to see it. But he said that they did an experiment where people just created accounts on social media and then they joined various groups and whatever, like the kind of random or whatever. And then they started liking various things like there were one leaned a bit left or whatever and went a bit right. And within three days they were in these crazy camps like the hard-right guys and the hard left guys like that. That’s what their feed was. Right. So then you see that and then that becomes reality. And then did you see what so-and-so said? They’re trying to destroy America or whatever. Right. Then the crazies meet the creator of the thing.
Heidi McKillop [00:18:28] A lot of trollers. Yeah, yeah. They’re trolling. So like their whole job is just to troll because they create all that stimulation on social media. Like if you guys ever watch the social dilemma.
Stu Turley [00:18:40] No. What’s that? Tell us about it.
Heidi McKillop [00:18:42] It’s a social dilemma. It’s a documentary, a Netflix movie. And it went viral. I mean, it’s one of my favorite documentaries, but it explains the format of the pros and cons, the morality around social media. So, like, it is an amazing tool. But what was not predicted was the strength of the tool. So there are not enough parameters around social media. So now what you see is Facebook trying to backtrack and they’re trying to flag the like the extremists. But it’s really difficult to do that now because what is extreme is the extreme of BearingPoint. From your own point of view. You know, obviously, there are some there are concrete ones like hate speech and groups like that. I’m not condoning that behavior, but it is definitely a very complicated situation. So like, for instance, if you post something and you have a word in there, it gets flagged on Facebook and sometimes it can get taken down even though the content isn’t bad. So that’s your automation system that’s working. And then you have to kind of contact these massive social media places. They don’t have any centers anymore with a person on the other end is automated. So we’re really in a unique era of transmitting information. And that’s really where, again, politicians need to cast off the rhetoric of social media. If anything, I don’t even really believe that any politician should be on social media sometimes because you just feed into this whole rhetoric and you’re not even separating yourself as a leader with no actual logical information. You can disagree with your constituencies and maybe people in parliament. But at the end of the day, like you’re there for a job and you’re there to help the Canadians create a better life. You’re there to help with taxation. You’re there to support schools and infrastructure. That’s your job. So do it.
Terry Etam [00:20:40] It’s good. I the prime minister. That’d be awesome. I was paying attention a little bit to a couple of politicians on Twitter for a while. And there’s one that’s super hardcore, the Green Party leader, I think former Green Party leader in Canada here. And she’s like, shut down the fossil. Industry shut down all the wells we need to shut down wells instantly like that’s her attitude now. And when she would post something on social media, there would be like five hundred instant attacks on her posts and almost no supporters. And then if you go to the right-wing guy, a right-wing leader would post something and the comments would be the same thing, just a mirror image. Five hundred attacks on him like this. You’re the stupidest person, whatever. And it’s incredible what the like how you said what is what it’s become this the rhetoric and so many people out there trying to use it. It’s and now there are extremist groups that are trying to stamp out extreme extremists. So they write it’s like they monitor for words that might indicate hate speech or whatever, and then they just attack people without even understanding the context of what maybe was talking about. Maybe it’s justified, maybe it isn’t. But it’s like a blog now. That’s like if you say a bad word like boom, this crowd comes down on you. And it’s and I think there’s some kernel of goodness what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to make the conversation better. But it’s like it’s not that’s not how you do it. So.
Stu Turley [00:22:14] Oh, no. You know, I’m sitting here thinking about that cafe when we go up there with Michael Meehan, you and Heidi, and we sit there, we’re going to have to have a corner. Is there one that we could have a corner? We could be on this site for the right-hand folks and this site for the left-hand folks, that we can kind of get both sides at the same time when we’re trying to have a story. I mean, wouldn’t that be kind of is there fe like that that we can have two different streets?
Heidi McKillop [00:22:43] We’ll figure it out.
Terry Etam [00:22:44] Yeah, we’ll figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. On table. We’ll have a sign that says the oil stocks, the one that says oil is great and will just attract crowds instantly.
Stu Turley [00:22:51] And a film crew, film crew and a.. I think one of the things that we’re seeing out there is Canada has got such a wide range of needs for energy. I think you either light an article on Fort Nelson’s first chief event offers a historic Fort Nelson project with thermal. Thermal. Yeah, geothermal. What is geothermal? A lot of big things that could happen up there in Canada or I’m not sure I don’t have much information on thermal up there,
Terry Etam [00:23:28] but it’s a possibility. There are hot spots in Canada, literally, where the underground water is hot enough that it makes sense. Then there are geologists that map the province and they know or the country, I guess, and they know where some of these spots are. It has to be fairly close to the surface. The closer the better, the hotter the better. I mean, if you have a place like Iceland where it’s right at the surface, it’s perfect. And so that’s what’s so frustrating about this whole dialog is that there are areas where solar makes sense. There are areas where batteries make sense. There are areas where geothermal makes sense. And it just if you could if people would just analyze the system as a whole. I think the challenge for me is to try and convince people that there are seven and a half billion people that are alive now because of hydrocarbons, oil, and gas. That’s just stone-cold reality. And you can’t change that. And you’re not going to change it next year or 10 years or 20 years, I don’t think. And so let’s accept that and then do what we can and then we can go to this community that’s way up in the sticks that the one that you mentioned. And they have geothermal. And it makes a lot of sense. There’s a First Nations band that put up a solar farm, which is not it’s closer to the Arctic Circle. And it is the year, I think, definitely to you. And they put up a solar installation and you might think, well, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. And that’s kind of my gut reaction. But they actually said, well, actually, we get some of our power. Yeah, you’re right. It doesn’t work for most of the year, part of the year when it does work, we don’t need to burn diesel in our generator. So we actually save some fuel. So it now the economics of it don’t make sense. The government paid for it. Right. But there but I think if if you look at energy as a whole, you can say there are areas where these things make sense. Then if oil goes to one hundred dollars a barrel again, there will be communities where it makes sense to do these things and that’s how it should go. But to say that California has to shut it, we’re talking about with Michael before we started here, California shutting things down, left, right, and center nuclear plants, natural gas-fired plants, and they have no plan B. Their Plan B is to import power from other states. And other states are going, well, you can’t count on us because maybe we’re going to need that, too. And but they’re going full throttle ahead of the on the Green Revolution. And it’s like they’re yeah, it’s a challenge to convey this to people,
Heidi McKillop [00:25:47] but I feel like that’s a positive thing if that they do that, because it’s almost like we were chatting about line five as well. And obviously, I don’t want to see line five go down, but it certainly would be a very like a very wide opening for people to have this direct, tangible link to jet fuel, like when you have a shortage, an understanding that all the work and all the people that go into the supply chain system from all over the world of what we do is not a joke. I mean, the fact that we wake up every day and we have the privileges we do, we take it for granted. And certainly, that is a recurring theme that is also happening as well, is that when we’re saying this, we’re not saying this, that to be the smartest people in the room or anything like that, it’s a big worry because that’s going to go and that’s going to burn in Ontario and Quebec. But if that was the case, especially during the summer where they’re not so much of a security issue, it is kind of an interesting tactic, because if they went a week without it, what would happen to their prices? You know, what would they say then? How would they relate to oil and gas at that point?
Stu Turley [00:27:01] I think we’re seeing that with the pipeline. I mean, it is like going, oh, did you see some of those things? Before I get on to that, Terry, you almost showed some humanitarian side like Heidi. So have you been hearing Haiti’s humanitarian of the group and the nice one out of
Terry Etam [00:27:22] between me and I know I know I
Stu Turley [00:27:25] am ananas here.
Terry Etam [00:27:28] Actually, Heidi and I co-wrote an article for the You report. It was awesome. And she sent me a bunch of her thoughts and it was like, yeah, that’s that that human side that I quite often miss. But it’s you guys, I guess she’s rubbing off on me.
Stu Turley [00:27:44] So you guys are such a great balance. I mean, Terry, you’re here’s what it is. It’s this way, this way or this. And Heidi, you have the whole world look in making sure that is such a great mix. I mean, that is Michael, and I don’t have that. We’re both two idiots running down the road.
Heidi McKillop [00:28:05] No, no, not enough. Obviously, Terry and I are really close friends. So this is like it’s been through our work. We’ve become. Such good friends on top of it, outside of all of our conversations, but I agree, I mean, I respect Terri and I respect you to do like Michael like you guys are all great like this. Like so fun to do this podcast because we all have these values are the same and our beliefs are the same.
Terry Etam [00:28:32] And it’s a perspective that it’s helpful. Like, I it’s not my nature to think like that for whatever reason. For better or worse, I see the world a certain way and I see the step the way I describe it in my writing. And then when I work on something with Heidi, she’ll just have this perspective of what about what would the people in Quebec think or eastern Canada or something? It’s like I never thought of that. And it’s and that’s good. That’s how things should be. Right. And I’m sure that there are things that we don’t agree on. And we can if we talk long enough, we’ll find some. But there’s it’s that it’s if you have a place where you can have these good discussions with differing viewpoints, everything works better. That’s our little people work here. We try and assemble people that don’t agree on everything. And you have these crazy discussions, but everybody’s respectful. And you come out the other end and you go, wow, I’m a lot better off than I was or my phone fell down.
Stu Turley [00:29:29] I thought when I got out that one of your coworkers going to
Terry Etam [00:29:36] the place is empty today. But that’s I mean, that’s just it’s so much better. The output is so much better when you consider these different things. And it’s so sad that that gets chopped off in social media or wherever else. Like, you can’t even extend an olive branch to say, like, let’s meet in the middle and talk about this. Like the world doesn’t work that way anymore.
Heidi McKillop [00:29:59] No, actually, is this does Terry, that is the guy the other day, the environmentalist and the environmentalist that contacted me and say, yeah, and it was really interesting. So like it was a line message. And I get this a lot, especially when people when folks on the opposition reach out to me. Right. They always ask me if I have kids, it’s a number one thing. And then they’ll say, you know if you have children and if you don’t, then you’re going to know you’re going to see the light when you have children. And I always right back and I’m like, thank you so much for your long. Oh, well, opinion, all this other stuff. But just me having children not actually doesn’t change my opinion at all. And it’s kind of almost a little bit of a gender thing like they love to place women into. Like you’re not really you don’t have an athletic opinion unless you’re a mom. And that’s totally
Terry Etam [00:30:57] a gender thing. I’ve had ten thousand emails and not one person has ever asked me that question. That’s it’s bizarre.
Heidi McKillop [00:31:04] Yeah. Yeah. And that’s a very common thing. But we end up having a two-hour phone conversation and super fascinating because he had watched the documentary and didn’t like it, obviously, but he’s very talking. And he was like, why watch this documentary a couple of years ago? And I was like, well, actually that’s really not a fair representation of the industry. One opinion is not taking the opinion level, and it’s certainly not fair unless you can look at both sides and then make your own choice. And by the end of it, and he also doesn’t know that I’m a huge country girl. I love being outdoors. I’m really into local farming, all these different types of things that I’m really passionate about. So we kind of veered off into, like environmental conversation. And he’s like, I have no idea you were like this. Like, I’m actually a little bit sorry for attacking you so hard. It was like, no, that’s fine. I was like, you know what? We just need to learn to calm it down a little bit more and be respectful because, yes, your work is important because he is doing work up in the Arctic between Russia and China or Russia and the United States, the drilling up there. And I said, yeah, that is a bit of a concern because, you know, you don’t see protesters up in like the northern Arctic and you don’t have camera crews up there. So accountability is quite low and transparency is low. So, yes, like, you know, these are things that need to be mitigated. And, you know, just letting people do what they want to do is also not the right solution. But when you are being transparent and you are doing the right thing, you have to let the credit be there. You have to be appreciative of the people that are trying to make a difference.
Stu Turley [00:32:43] You know, one of the things that just drives me nutty, and Heidi just kind of came real close to this conversation. That’s the Yazji the governance, the social, and the environmental, and that’s the accountability. It drives me nuts that there’s very little accountability in regular plans and things companies can say I’m on the ESG wagon and then have no proof that they’re actually going down that road, the Yazji Road, or having. This climate, this kind of thing. Are there any things going on in Canada that say we do are accountable? Are there any processes in place for that?
Heidi McKillop [00:33:27] Well, there’s a couple of could speak to this as well. I mean, I know on the front I’m actually making an indigenous documentary right now, so we’re going to
Stu Turley [00:33:39] talk about a Tilla. That’s cool.
Heidi McKillop [00:33:41] Yeah. And one thing that’s great is we went up into Kitimat and we went up into northern B.C. where the LNG project is primarily based. And I just see the poverty levels and on the reserves and how much is shifting because of the job opportunities that are coming from industry. And this is important because not all job opportunities and not all consolidation should go through. Now, every project that comes to the plate, however, if you look at the massive projects that have been canceled in Canada that were foundationally good, they were there later. And in environmental protection, they had a ton of social governance that was put into it. And some of them happened for 10 years. This kind of dialog between reserves and rural communities that didn’t go through, that’s a problem. That’s a huge red flag. But in this situation, the leader up in the high salination, he was saying it’s great because we we said no to this project. We said yes to LNG Canada because it makes sense for us. But that also created an opportunity for local folks to stay on the reserve or to build new housing on the infrastructural change. You can see the brand new health clinic that is being built there. You can see the school upgrades. You can find a correlation to poverty and uplifting of this burden that’s been placed on especially on our First Nations in Canada. And you can’t do that without natural resource development that is an integral part of this, you know, break away from government dependency and sovereignty. And First Nations people are crying for sovereignty. And this is something that we’ve got to be really astute about. And the environmentalists, the extreme environmentalists that were coming intended not to consolidate with them in terms of caring about the community needs. They were caring about their agenda first.
Stu Turley [00:35:36] Maybe we instead of always say the left or the right. But Terri and Heidi, you guys seem to be the common sense. How do we come up with left, right, common sense? What kind of name can we come up with? You know, like-minded folks that are saying, wait a minute, how about a common plan, a long-term plan, maybe instead of like North America Trade Association, we come up with a. I don’t know, think maybe there’s some we come up in your movie and and
Terry Etam [00:36:07] it hinges on education and that’s one thing that this movie was so good about in her indigenous one. And now one little quick story. There’s something called Under-report United Nations, that Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People. And it’s a United Nations program where they were they’re pushing for indigenous people’s rights to be respected around the world. And that was coming into they said this is a guideline that came from the United Nations. So everybody in the oil patch, of course, is suspicious when somebody comes to the United Nations that it’s not going to be any good or it’s ominous. And Canada was one of the first countries to sign on to this UN drip program. And British Columbia, the province on the West Coast here, was one of the first to actually put it in place. And there was a lot of people are like, oh, boy, there goes like everything’s going to grind to a halt because they have control. And there is an organization when this was about a year and a half ago, they organized this conference for Undreamt. What does it mean to the local economy and what does it mean for us as it comes into play? And I was guilty of thinking that it’s going to be like like we’re not going to get anything done because there’s going to be all of these there’s just another layer of bureaucracy. But as it turned out, it was the opposite of what Heidi saying. All of these groups came out and said, this is fantastic and we want to develop the things we want. We want to create jobs. And it was because, across the spectrum, it’s like the geothermal thing. It’s oil and gas. It’s pipelines, it’s green energy. It’s like we just want to be a part of the show and it’s just the best thing ever to see. And so so there are these preconceived notions that happen for me and for everybody else, I think about what might or might not come to be. But if you can actually sit down and have a discussion with rational people and say, like, here’s and you can understand the reality of people’s perspectives and what and at the same time, what we need, like how hard it is to actually do something, to build something now
