40: PREVIEW: Canadian National Unity: Alberta's Grievance Over Equalization Payments and Pipeline Prevention Guest: Conrad Black Conrad Black discusses the state of Canada's national unity, highlighting that Alberta feels unfairly treated by the federal gover
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 31 October 2025
⏱️ 3 minutes
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Summary
Guest: Conrad Black
Conrad Black discusses the state of Canada's national unity, highlighting that Alberta feels unfairly treated by the federal government. Alberta sends substantial wealth to Ottawa through equalization payments, a system where money from prosperous provinces is transferred to ensure less prosperous provinces can provide equivalent service levels. Alberta has traditionally been relatively uncomplaining about its role in these payments but now feels it receives little back in return. More significantly, Alberta believes its energy resources are being undermined by federal policy. The province's primary complaint is that it has been prevented for the past decade from building pipelines, both east and west, to utilize its oil and gas reserves, for which there is strong global demand. Black concludes that apart from this critical issue, national unity is relatively stable, and provinces are waiting to see what changes, if any, the new prime minister will implement regarding this contentious policy.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The weather. Tomorrow, expect a biting cold front. Mmm, how naughty. I wonder what I'll be |
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| 0:28.7 | Sun Express, nonstop sunshine. |
| 0:35.9 | This is John Batchel, a conversation with my colleague Conrad Black about Canada and its perception of fairness across all the provinces, |
| 0:39.1 | especially Alberta. |
| 0:41.7 | Conrad explains that Alberta's position is that we send a great deal of our wealth to Ottawa |
| 0:49.2 | and get very little of it back and that we're supporting a policy that is antithetical to our |
| 0:56.2 | understanding of our resources, which is energy, chiefly energy, although there'll be more. |
| 1:02.6 | Conrad lays out the formula very carefully between Ottawa and Alberta. |
| 1:08.8 | Much more of this tonight. |
| 1:11.2 | Thank you. |
| 1:13.3 | Not east to west. |
| 1:16.6 | I think there are the two areas that I mentioned, |
| 1:21.9 | and particularly Alberta feels that it's been unfairly treated. |
| 1:26.7 | We have in this country what are called equalization payments where money from the most prosperous per capita provinces, a certain amount of it, is transferred to ensure that the less prosperous per capita provinces have a level of services that's equivalent to the more prosperous ones. |
| 1:43.3 | And Alberta has been very generous in that and relatively uncomplaining about it. |
| 1:49.2 | And it feels that it now wants pipelines built east and west to take advantage of its oil and gas, |
| 1:56.1 | which the world wants, there's demand for it. |
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