Energy Drivers - Can Canada’s energy and natural resources fuel economic growth and global competitiveness?

00:00:00 - 00:00:57

Lance Mortlock

Welcome to the next episode of the Energy Drivers podcast. I’m Lance Mortlock, your host for today’s discussion with Goldy Hyder, the President and Chief Executive officer of the Business Council of Canada, who brings over 25 years of experience in strategic leadership, advising business leaders and government officials on critical public policy subjects.

Under his leadership, the Business Council of Canada has been at the forefront of advocating for sensible policies that support economic growth. Additionally, Goldy hosts the Speaking of Business podcast, which features revealing conversations with influential innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders. Today, we will explore key challenges and opportunities for Canadian businesses in the current economic landscape.

Goldy, thank you for joining our podcast.

00:00:58 – 00:01:00

Goldy Hyder

I’m delighted and honored to be here. Thanks for having me.

00:01:01 – 00:01:04

Lance Mortlock

It’s long overdue. So I’m excited to get into this.

00:01:05 – 00:01:13

Goldy Hyder

Me too. Anything that comes out of Alberta and Calgary is home to me, as you know. So I’m looking forward to the discussion. But it’s about so much more than that.

00:01:14 - 00:01:19

Lance Mortlock

So, kicking off the episode, maybe introduce yourself and the Business Council of Canada to our listeners.

00:01:20 – 00:03:14

Goldy Hyder

Well, you got the part about me being from Calgary originally, both my degrees are from the University of Calgary, there. So, I’m very proud Albertan, but I’ve been living in Ottawa for the last 25 years, where I worked for Joe Clark, when he was leader of the Progressive Conservative Party.

And then I ran, I joined Hill and Knowlton, the public relations public affairs firm, ran that for a while until I came over here to replace the Honorable John Manley as the CEO of the Business Council of Canada. And it is an extremely interesting perch from which to have a viewpoint, because you’re working with 170 or so of Canada’s chief executives of our largest companies, about 75% Canadian and 25% fall into the United States and other countries, category, including as far away as, Korea and Japan and India. You know, these member companies employ several million employees in multisectoral, national, international companies, right across the spectrum from agriculture to energy to financial services to mining, etc. I mean, it’s right across the spectrum, retail, of course. And our mandate is really about making sure that Canada’s competitive and to recognize that capital is very predictable in its behaviour.

It goes where it grows and what can we do to make sure that Canada’s competitive. And I must say that we’ve been through a lot in my short time here, including COVID and a number of federal elections, a couple of US elections. You know, some kind of economic risks on the horizon. But I am so proud of the members that I represent because they are Canada’s not just business leaders, but in most cases, Canadians who are proud of Canada and, are wanting to lean in and provide leadership at a time in which the country is at what the Prime Minister calls a hinge moment.

00:03:15 - 00:03:33

Lance Mortlock

As a seasoned leader, Goldy, who provides, as you point out, advice to various stakeholders across Canada, what is your perspective at the moment on the current state of our economy and what do you think the key challenges and opportunities that we have, or your members have today?

00:03:34 - 00:07:27

Goldy Hyder

Well, that’s a big question. I mean, it’s certainly the thing I get up every day thinking about and go to bed thinking about because we are, it is fragile is the word that comes to mind, Lance.

I mean, look, first of all, nothing lasts in society, like it doesn’t matter what your past is, it’s what matters of  what you do today and what you do tomorrow. ’We’re in a very difficult situation here vis-a-vis the United States and job one of our Prime Minister has got to be to stabilize that relationship because it is existential to Canada. We have 75% of our trade with the United States. And while I am empathetic and I share the response of the Canadians to being hyper patriotic on the “elbows up,” and the reality is while geopolitics is changing and geoeconomics is changing, geography is not changing. We will remain attached to the United States of America.

So obviously for Canadian business leaders, our relationship with the US is paramount. Secondly, I would say that this is really an existential moment for this, the opportunity to strengthen Canada. Look, I love my country the way I love my children. Sometimes it means you got to give it some tough love. But we have sure gotten in our own way. We have a history of sort of country born on third, thinks it hit a triple, got comfortable and got complacent and at times got cocky. And it’s catching up to us. And this is a moment now where I hope that we take that emotion that Canadians are feeling and ask ourselves, how do we get out of our way?

How do we strengthen Canada so we are never as exposed as we are today, to any single economy anywhere in the world. How do we leverage and play to our strengths? And I know we’ll dive into that a lot more. But from getting out of the way and the interprovincial trade barriers, from the need to expedite permitting and build infrastructure in our country that doesn’t need to be nationalized for it to be completed.

Our fiscal situation, I mean, over 41 million OR so, but we’re just going to keep adding to our deficit and our debt and pray that interest rates don’t go up. You know, that’s borrowed money from our kids. That’s what I keep telling people. If you feel alright going into your children’s room, taking their piggy bank and emptying it and going out and spending it on things you need today, be mindful that you’ve got to pay it back.

And those kids are going to be counting on us to be in a better fiscal situation, our immigration situation. You know, this is an issue that has long enjoyed consensus that has now been eroded and perhaps even more fragile than that. But it’s central to our growth in terms of talent. Our workforce they’re being they’re feeling threatened by AI and so forth.

So what are we going to do to prepare the workforce of the future? What’s Canada’s place in the world that’s fundamentally changing? Now this is like I said, this is a huge issue. But those are the things that our members think about that they pay us to think about and to advocate on their behalf. And then thirdly, I would say that this is also a moment where we are going to find out whether we can truly diversify, because talk is cheap, but if we’re going to actually diversify and boy, are we well positioned to diversify.

When you think about the fact that we’re a multicultural society, with people coming from all over the world who have contacts and networks back in their countries from where they came, their regions from where they came, for having a trade regime [that’s the] envy of the world. We have access directly to about 1.5 billion soon. Once we add Indonesia and finalize that and maybe even the ASEAN, over 2 billion people are accessible through our trade agreements.

Yet we put most of our eggs in a single basket, as I mentioned. So can we diversify? And that would mean can we actually build the infrastructure to go east, west, south and north? This is available to Canada because we are born with the four best neighbors that you know, the G1 economy and three oceans.

00:07:28 - 00:08:06

Lance Mortlock

I’ve seen as you mentioned, I mean, I follow you on LinkedIn and on social media. You’ve been on the road a lot advocating for the country and advocating for business leaders from a Canadian perspective. When you’re on the road, and I saw you were in Mexico recently and other places around the world, what do you hear about investment in Canada, particularly when it comes to energy and natural resources and maybe manufacturing, which is near and dear to my heart. Is Canada seen as an attractive place to do business? And what’s the common theme that you hear?

00:08:07 – 00:11:34

Goldy Hyder

Well, first of all, the world, particularly when you go to Asia, wants and not just wants, but needs what we have.

They are desperate for our energy. These are countries that are not only utilizing coal plants, they are building coal plants. And so, if for all those out there who want to talk about the climate, I said, you just can’t have your own facts. I mean, the cleanest form of energy is nuclear. If you don’t want that and you still have the bridging technologies available to you, you have LNG available to you.

None of this excludes renewables. Of course, we want to do wind and solar and all the things that you can. We want to invest in innovation and we want to do carbon capture. We want to be able to look at hydrogen. We want to be able to, as I said, even in the nuclear space, developed small modular reactors. The world is looking to us for what we already have and also what we can innovate and bring to them in the long run. But then the verdict goes out and they say, yeah, but you know, what you’re guilty of is you can’t get it to us. You’re not able to supply the demand and we don’t understand it.

I mean, if we had half of what you had, we would be an energy superpower. You have all that you have. You talk about being an energy superpower, but are you really one? And that speaks to the concern that people say, Goldy, you shouldn’t talk like that. You know, we got to talk up our country and all that. Look, this thing called the internet, it’s available around the world. They have it. They know that we nationalized a pipeline to build one. They know it. And so, they’re looking back and saying, this is a country that had to pull out the Northern Gateway pipeline after it was approved by our government with conditions it accepted with the support of Indigenous groups on the route with that pipeline.

It was a country that cancelled or basically asked at that time, Trans-Canada Energy to reapply after having spent about $800 million in the regulatory process to say, no, we need you to do it all over again. Like what? How can you say you’re a serious rule of law democracy and come up with these retroactive changes? So how do we provide certainty so that the infrastructure, what I call the trade-enabling infrastructure, the arteries of our economy are in fact things like roads, railways, ports, bridges, airports, our digital infrastructure, all of these things are the things that are available to us and needed for us to be able to be a reliable partner in the world.

And that’s the brand I think we should seek. If you come to Canada, we’re reliable. The only other thing I will just add to that again, there’s no conversation we can have today without talking about what’s going on with the United States. There is more and more voices coming to us from other markets saying, hey, listen, we’re watching very carefully what’s going on with you, understand that if you don’t have a USMCA, you’re losing the reason we invest in your country as foreign direct investment.

So, we’re exposing ourselves not just to a challenge with our economy with the US, but other countries may not invest here because they’re saying one of the reasons we invest here, you give us access to the United States, but you also give us a lot of good things that we want from you. You know, the talent pool that you have perhaps our health care system, disputable, but better some of the other things that the safety, etc., that other investors might be looking at, plus access to the rest of the global markets that I identified that we have.

So, lots of potential, Lance, but it’s in the execution where we’ll ultimately be successful or fail.

00:11:35 – 00:12:19

Lance Mortlock

And it’s an “and” story. We need USMCA and we need to diversify the economy to be not so reliant on the US, but actually work with our trading more of our trading partners internationally. In my view, just to double-click on the energy and natural resources, in particular mining as well.

These are key sectors that I’ve been saying for a long-time fuel economic growth in Canada. We know that, for example, the energy sector alone represents more than 10% of Canada’s GDP and supports approximately 700,000 jobs. In your view, what role does energy and resources play in shaping the country’s next chapter of economic growth?

00:012:20 – 00:12:34

Goldy Hyder

Great question, and I think that this is one of those opportunities before us.

You know, this is a country that actually doesn’t have an industrial policy. We don’t really set out to say this is what we’re going to lead in.

00:12:35 – 00:12:36

Lance Mortlock

Well, how is that possible?

00:12:37 – 00:13:33

Goldy Hyder

We were born on third base. I mean, we won the geographic lottery. It became so easy to just simply say, hey, we got this country next to us.

They consume like nobody else consumes. They have money. So, let’s just sell stuff to them. And if we’re selling it at a discount, don’t worry, we’ll be fine. There’s a sense of good enough, and we’ve got to shake ourselves out of that, those shackles of complacency and say it’s not good enough. I mean, energy is one component.

I mean, it’s what many of our members refer to as “Canada’s family business.” It’s core to who we are, it’s core to our brand. And it’s not just energy, and we always talk about energy as if it’s just oil and gas, it’s energy in all of its forms. Whether you’re talking hydro, whether you’re talking, you know nuclear, whether you’re talking renewable, whether you’re talking in the innovation side of carbon capture and hydrogen and so forth. So, we have, I think back to one of the podcasts that I hosted with Scott Balfour, the CEO of Emera.

00:13:34 - 00:13:35

Lance Mortlock

He’s been on the show actually.

00:13:36 - 00:16:01

Goldy Hyder

Has he. Great. Well, look, I mean, we have great guests, you and I. And on that Speaking of Business podcast, he talked about the need for a clear energy industrial policy.

So, what does that mean? That means being deliberate and intentional about what we want to do and how we’re going to go about doing it. And so, I think we find ourselves in a moment where there’s no question Canadians are angry, Canadians are frustrated by where they find themselves. They are leaning in and saying to governments, we’re going to give you a lot of rope to do what needs to be done to get the stuff built that we need to build to be able to diversify. I think Canadians are also, as you’ve just said, it’s a US+ strategy. We’re not leaving America. We’re not going to go to 0% trade with America, we’re going to have America, but we’re now going to lean in and really diversify. I know the PM talks a lot about Europe. Personally, I think the opportunities are mostly in Asia where the population is young, it’s where they’re growing, it’s where their needs are for our energy.

So, what we also did was put out a report available on our website at thebusinesscouncil.ca, it’s called Selling to our Strengths. And what it’s basically saying is we’re actually uniquely positioned, because not only do we have all the things I’ve mentioned, let’s not forget the role that critical minerals and technology play, other areas where we can lean in and be strong. And you have in Canadian companies, people who understand the climate is changing, people who believe and made commitments on how they’re going to be able to help bring down their emissions. But if you’re really serious about climate change, you got to go to where most of the emissions are happening. And that is in Asia, it is in Africa, it is in South and Latin America. We’ve got to help those that are actually producing the emissions, because they don’t do customs and immigration at the border. It doesn’t matter what Canada does. Our emissions are much smaller than what you have in the rest of the world. So, we see it as a tremendous opportunity to lean in and provide both leadership while also a strategy to grow our economy.

And if you have an energy policy, you capture mining and other things in there, it’ll force us to also think about what other lanes should we be in, because we are going to have to make choices. We can’t be 10 things. We’re going to have to figure out what are the 2 or 3 things where Canada can truly separate itself from the pack and grow the economy but also help others and grow their economies and also address social issues and broader issues such as climate change.

00:16:02 - 00:16:30

Lance Mortlock

Talk a little bit about metals and minerals. they are essential clean technologies. And the IEA is projecting that demand for minerals like lithium and nickel is set to quadruple by 2040. You’ve talked a lot about energy, but do you think Canada can play a leading global supplier of critical minerals? think about the Ring of Fire, close to home for you. What’s your outlook there? What do we need to be doing?

00:16:31 – 00:17:16

Goldy Hyder

Well, as you know, Canada has vast deposits of critical minerals, it’s over like 32 or 33, something like that. Now, we don’t have them necessarily in huge volumes. Like, for example, I think Indonesia has like 30% of the world’s nickel. You know, I think we have, like three, but that’s three still that the world needs and wants. And so, we talk about critical minerals right now as if they’re available and an aisle 5 at your local grocery store, they’re in the ground.

I mean, the Ring of Fire you reference. I’ve been hearing about the Ring of Fire since I moved to Ontario for 25 years. I don’t believe anything’s actually happened in those 25 years, but, boy, we sure talk a lot about it. There’s still no road. There’s still no train, no railway going up there. I don’t believe we’ve got the dialog taking place with the Indigenous communities.

00:17:17 – 00:17:20

Lance Mortlock

Well, is now the moment as a country that we’re going to really get it done, do you think?

00:17:21 - 00:18:47

Goldy Hyder

If not now, Lance, I don’t know what it will take. Because I’ve never seen Canadians, I often start my public speaking saying, I want to begin by thanking President Trump and everybody stopping was, what the hell does he mean? I’ll tell you what I mean. President Trump has managed to do what no Canadian has been able to do, in the 50 years that I’ve lived in this country, he has united us East and West, French and English, urban and rural, maybe even Oilers and Flames fans, I don’t know. But the reality is, if not now, when? And if not us, who? I think we owe it; I think this is an opportunity. It is a gift in some ways to say, listen, yes, there’s some pain happening in our economy and I’m obviously conscious of what’s taking place in steel and auto and aluminum.

And I work regularly with our federal government to try and help navigate that situation. But ultimately, let’s control our own destiny. Let us take this moment to get out of our own way, build a trade-enabling infrastructure. And also think about shouldn’t we be doing more? For example, why not just extracting the resources? But what can we process?

What can we refine? How can we integrate it into the cleantech supply chains like we tried to do with EV batteries? The other thing about critical minerals and people don’t realize this, it’s so essential, not just for clean technologies, but for our defence commitments. Critical minerals can be calculated into our NATO commitments because some of these technologies and so forth are going to be requiring those critical minerals to be a part of that.

00:18:48 - 00:19:15

Lance Mortlock

So, just explore that a bit. Are you saying that in terms of, one of the things that the US has been talking about and, frankly, I agree with them that different NATO countries need to pay their fair share. So, are you saying that critical minerals that are involved in the building of defence assets plays into the NATO contribution that countries need to make?

00:19:16 - 00:22:01

Goldy Hyder

Absolutely. I think this is one of the arguments that we’re making here is to say when you’re looking at defence, you should look at it more holistically. You know, what can Canada contribute? And whether you’re talking about basic things like steel, which, as you know, the President is saying this is a national security issue for the United States of America.

That’s why he’s imposing the tariffs that he is. Well, if it’s a national security issue for them, then it must be an issue for us as well. And so, this is part of our value proposition to the world. It’s like, look, we’ve got these critical minerals. There are deposits, there’s reserves here. We will set them aside, obviously at market rates, for allies to have access to it. Because then, that by the way, that’s what we’ve done. We have blocked out those whose cost of capital is less than it would be here. And we have said, no, we’re going to sell this to our allies. And now my message to people who get mad at and I’m no apologist for the president, but I do think sometimes it’s good to think about things a little bit differently.

You know, we all say this is just President Trump’s agenda. I want to remind people that about March of 2024, the president at the time, Joe Biden, came to Canada and he gave a speech in Parliament. And I’m pretty sure it was ’24, it might have been ’23. I forgot where I am, Lance, these days, never mind what year it is. But what he said is what’s important. And what he said basically in his speech was, listen, great to be here. I love Canada, we’re greening our economy. We’re going to need a lot of critical minerals. And we’re going to send the Department of Defense up here, to identify mining opportunities for our country. We’re going to take the minerals, and literally not kidding here, you guys don’t like to refine things you don’t really  do processing. But don’t worry, we will do that. And I mentioned it’s great to be up here right. Because it really is great to be up. But that was his speech. I defy anybody to go look it up and tell me there’s any other narrative in there, except I want your critical minerals, I’m going to take your critical minerals, and I’m going to process them and refine them and sell them to the world. And I as an Albertan, I’m sitting in that room and thinking to myself, would somebody pay attention? Because that is exactly what they’ve done to our oil and gas. And we were fools for it, because we kept selling it at a discount when we know we could, I mean, look at what happened the day TMX opened, the day TMX opened, the barrel price in Alberta went up $8. That means Canadians benefited from the diversification. And the province of Alberta, which is a net contributor to our country, was able to do a little bit more for those that needed it, and we should be grateful that happened.

Imagine what would happen if we doubled the size of LNG Canada, if we got another pipeline heading west. Now there’s a lot of talk about east, let’s be serious here. The shortest distance is from Alberta to the coast of British Columbia. If we can get another one done and get it out and get access to the export of oil and double up on the LNG side, we’re making a lot more progress than we have in the last 25 years.

00:22:02 - 00:22:42

Lance Mortlock

I would add, though, we need to egress and in talking to some of the leaders of the key upstream companies, there’s like, look, a pipeline is fine, but you need the production to fill the pipeline. And we need to create an economic environment that incents upstream producers to fill that pipeline and that environment, we’ve got to look at the emissions cap as an example and say, well, why are we doing this?

We’ve got problematic regulation and policy that is not conducive to these companies investing. So, while I would agree with you on the pipeline that there’s more to it, Goldy, in terms of some of the other things that need to come into play. Right?

00:22:43 – 00:22:52

Goldy Hyder

Listen, we are in violent agreement on this and it is a point of view that I have shared very publicly, very often with the government of the day and the preceding government, which is to say, look, as some of my members have pointed out, if we were to build a pipeline going west, it would be a pipeline to nowhere. If there’s a tanker ban in place, how would we get it out? You know, we have Bill 69 that we’re still dealing with and all its flaws. And I remember speaking with the then Environment Minister because we tried to find a way to be supportive. We were the last group that came out and said, you know what? Despite our best efforts to try and get you to understand what the issues are, your bill falls short, but you’re going to pass it because you had a government that was going to be able to pass it. But I said to the Minister very clearly, the measurement of success is not the passage of a bill in Parliament.

The measurement of success is does the bill achieve its intended outcomes. And in due course we have learned that it has not. It has failed to do so. And that is something that cannot be denied. We have not actually been successful. We had to nationalize a pipeline, for God’s sakes, to build it. So clearly.

00:22:53 – 00:23:55

Lance Mortlock

And spend 6 billion in the process.

00:23:56 – 00:25:00

Goldy Hyder

Yeah, and something’s wrong. So, between the cap, between C 48 and Bill C 69, the intentions don’t match the outcomes. And so, the moment today and what I know has been discussed with the Prime Minister, our Natural Resources Minister and our chief executives in the energy sector has been what can we work around these things?

The problem with the workaround is, it’s only going to work while you’re around. What happens if the next government comes along and says, yeah, we’re still going back to what we had before. Our members have been pretty clear privately, and I’m being a little bit more publicly here because that’s sort of what I’m paid to do, is we need the legislative changes to be hard and fast. We need to know that the cap is eliminated, or we need to know that the tanker ban has been lifted. We need to know that the elements of Bill C 69 that have created uncertainty for capital to deploy are going to be removed. And again, we’ll wait you out because it’s not like capital has only one choice. We’re seeing announcement after announcement from the energy sector moving capital to the United States. Believe me, it’s not, they’re not doing it because they’re not patriotic.

00:25:01 – 00:25:10

Lance Mortlock

Because, by the way, they made a choice that the biggest exporter of LNG to Europe now. you know, they filled that void.

00:25:11 – 00:25:19

Goldy Hyder

Ten years ago, there was zero. And today the number one in the world it’s great.

So again, the joke’s on us because some of that is our energy.

00:25:20 – 00:25:24

Lance Mortlock

They are packaging up recently and actually not only a Republican government but a Democrat government or both.

00:25:25 – 00:26:02

Goldy Hyder

100%. Right. I mean, they were while they put this ruse out there, but we’re going to review LNG and everything, LNG production doubled. Yeah. Right. And investments continue to go into America.

So if we want to really get you know, I want to say to Canadians, if you want to hit back, one of the ways you hit back is you allow for diversification to happen to get energy to markets, right, that allow us to sell it at full price and actually address the issue of climate change in a responsible way. I just don’t think people should be entitled to their own facts. These things may not be convenient truths for them, right? But they are the truth. They are the facts. And we have to recognize that. And I think Canadians are getting that.

00:26:03 – 00:26:26

Lance Mortlock

You touched on this before, but I want to go into it a little bit deeper with geopolitical landscape shifting, particularly with the return of Trump administration and tariffs affecting various sectors in Canada.

 How do you see Canada strategically responding to protect its competitiveness in this evolving trade environment? Are we doing the right things, Goldy?

00:26:27 – 00:30:12

Goldy Hyder

Well, this is a macro-level question, right? This is not a question just for Canada. As I travel around the world, and I was in Germany back in April. And so, and I met with people from the EU.

I was in India just a few months ago. Argentina, Chile, people are looking at this and saying, is there a fundamental long term global strategic trade realignment taking place? Where do we fit in? Are we going to go the protectionist route? Are we going to double down on the free trade route? I think we have to double down on the free trade route, we are a country of 40 million people, we just can’t consume enough.

So, what we make has to be sold somewhere in the open market. And so, we’ve got to figure out a way and be very clear eyed about this, because we’re not going to be able to get away from the United States, as I’ve said, and nor should we want to. It’s the G1 economy. They consume like mad and they’re ready to buy our stuff.

I just want them to pay full price for it. And in many ways, one of the opportunities for us here, you know the old saying, don’t get mad, get even. One of the best ways we can do that is thank you, United States, for waking us up to the fact that as fools, we sold you too many things, just a single customer. Because when we start selling everybody else, you will pay full price for what you buy from us now. You know that’s the opportunity for us. That’s how you get even. Don’t get mad, get even. Diversify. Double down on our strengths and start working with other allies. I was so pleased to see we have tried to rebuild our relationship, which was strained with Mexico.

You want to talk about diversification? The lowest-hanging fruit is a country in which you share a continent and two free trade agreements with both USMCA as well as the TPP. Let’s expand our relationships with them. Let’s look at this notion of sort of fortress North America, where we’re able to say, hey one thing COVID taught us is the integrity of supply chains.

Let’s show how Canada contributes to the integrity of North America’s supply chains. And I do think we need to invest in our own competitiveness. I mentioned right off the top the litany of issues that are there, but with leadership, with vision, with a strategy, with the determination to execute, we can control our own destiny. We can make ourselves more competitive. One of the things I will say about the United States, yes, they are our trading partner, yes, they are our neighbor, yes, they are our ally. But you know what else they are? They are our competitor. They are competing to draw capital into their country, and they’re winning because they’re able to give up the messages. Yes. There are no tariffs if you come to America.

But beyond that, we have lower taxes, personal taxes. We have lower corporate taxes. We haven’t looked at our tax system in Canada for over 50 years. You know, we have to be competitive. Their regulations, they’re moving quicker and quicker on regulations. Permitting, there’s a process underway, bipartisan, to try and get permitting done in two years. At that time our Minister said, well, we’re not going to compromise. It doesn’t matter what you’re going to do or not going to do. Someone is doing permitting in two years and yours is 12, capital will tell you who won. It won’t take very long for you to find out. So, we need to think about macro issues, skills training, infrastructure development, regulatory reform, tax competitiveness.

And all of this is doable because the circumstances have been created. We are now in a place where I think Canadians are emboldened. They see this moment as we have an opportunity here. I get asked a lot, Lance, what keeps you up at night? And I know I tell the people, I said, I know you’re expecting me to say it’s the US. You’re really close, because the answer is actually us. I’m more worried, I’m not worried about what America will do to us. I’m more worried about whether we will do what we need to do for ourselves to use this moment to not be dependent and reliant on a single economy and a single customer, because that’s just not smart. It’s not smart if you are a lemonade stand and it’s not smart if you’re a G7 country to do that.

00:30:13 – 00:30:26

Lance Mortlock

Winston Churchill once said that a country that tries to tax and regulate its way through problems, is like a man standing in a bucket trying to lift himself up by the handle.

00:30:27 - 00:30:52

Goldy Hyder

Well said. I love his quotes. You know what else he said that I really like? Now that you mention he said my favorite quotes of his. Is, it says you’ve made enemies, good, it means you stood for something. And I think that is the courage of leadership that’s necessary today. Do not let perfect be the enemy of the good.

Stand up for what you believe in as political leaders and business leaders. Speak out and I think you’ll be rewarded for it by Canadians.

00:30:53 – 00:31:21

Lance Mortlock

North American energy security is receiving renewed attention amid the rising geopolitical risk. In the past. Your organization, the Business Council of Canada, has called for a North American energy and resource security hub to coordinate infrastructure, permitting, regulatory practices.

Maybe just explore a little bit what role should Canada play in driving that agenda forward, and what are the expected benefits of that initiative given our current climate?

00:31:22 – 00:34:27

Goldy Hyder

Yeah, thanks for raising that. I mean, this North American Energy Alliance was put together in the spring with our partners at the US Chamber of Commerce and the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial in Mexico. And what the purpose of it was to say,

let’s work together to create a framework for a competitive North America. I’ll give you an anecdote here. In Calgary a few years ago, we had, the ambassador, Bob Lighthizer, as our guest for our members. And, when he was finished, we’d given everybody a copy of his book, “No trade is free.”

And when it was over and I was sitting with him and Premier Smith, as a matter of fact and she carries the book around and has it all marked up and everything because it was instructive. He may not be in the administration, but what he talked about is there. Anyhow, I gave him the book and I said, do you mind signing it for me? And he picked it up and here’s what he wrote. He said “To Goldy, your main message is keep North America number one.” And what that told me is he heard what I was talking about, which is America is not going to speak out for North America because America is America. It doesn’t need anybody. But Canada and Mexico are stronger when we are in a continent that is stronger and that’s the message we delivered Americans as well.

It’s not in your interest to have a weak Canada and a weak Mexico. So, this alliance is about saying when it comes to energy, we can build infrastructure, we can have the sharing of critical minerals, we can create integrity in our supply chains. I mean, they want to make semiconductors. How are you going to do it without critical minerals?

You want more energy for yourself, your energy security, you want food security. We’re the number-one provider of potash. You know, I think something like 85% of the potash comes from Canada, from Nutrien. I think I’m going to be wrong on the number here, maybe. there’s so many statistics in my head.

But Cameco will tell you that they’re providing some 30-plus percent of the uranium, for the 95 nuclear reactors that are in the United States. So, their reliance on us is deep, but we can integrate. We can do it right across North America. And what it allows you to do is also recognize that, for example, infrastructure. Right. Take CPKC, Canadian Pacific Kansas City Rail, which kind of merged into the CPKC headquartered it out of out of Calgary. You know, this is a railway now that goes through all three countries. We could probably use more of those because the flow of goods is going to be truly trilateral, because I still believe, despite everything that you’re reading and hearing, there is going to be a USMCA.

There is going to be a review and renewal of the USMCA. I’m not saying it out of some wish. This is what Americans in the White House, in the West Wing at the United States Trade Representative, in the Senate, in the Congress tell us repeatedly you guys are writing it off. We’re not writing it off.

We know there’s going to be a review and renewal. And so, the opportunity for Canada is to help shape that review and renewal, engage with the trilateral. And which is why I’m pleased that we’re doing more so of that with Mexico. Because I think strengthening North America is in our collective interest, but it will position us to be even more competitive than when we are just simply thinking about the United States.

00:34:28 - 00:35:27

Lance Mortlock

Shifting gears a bit, one of the things that I thought was really interesting from the Business Council of Canada is the work and the research that you did as it relates to productivity. And so, for our listeners, Canada’s productivity growth has continued to lag behind peer nations. In 2024, in fact, RBC Economics reported that Canada’s GDP per hour worked is roughly 30% lower than the United States.

And this has been, Goldy, a massive, kind of source of frustration for me because we’re this country blessed with resources. And as you said earlier, we just don’t seem to be able to get out of our own way. How can Canada’s energy and mining sector be better leveraged to support economic growth, innovation and, ultimately, productivity in the future?

Maybe,  boil it down to its basics, for some of our listeners that might not be kind of deep on economics.

00:35:28 – 00:39:18

Goldy Hyder

Well, let me just say that if my members would say I question the premise of your question with the idea that Canada’s failing in productivity, because I remember Governor Poloz once said to me, he goes, the only place productivity is not showing up is in the statistics, because the reality is there’s a lot of productivity that takes place in the private sector.

Anybody who understands the private sector knows you are fighting for your survival, for your growth, for your opportunities every single day. You cannot be comfortable and complacent in the private sector. So, are they investing in efficiencies? Are they investing in innovation? Are they investing in technology? Are they investing in skills development? Are they thinking constantly about how do I do something faster, better, cheaper? Of course they are. And so, I think it’s important to separate productivity in the private sector versus productivity in the public sector. More broadly, though, we need to be thinking about, not just our natural resources, which we’ve obviously spent a lot of time talking about. But Canada has two sets of resources, right? It has the natural resources, but it also has human resources.

We are a smart people. We have and until recently we had, a country that had such support for immigration policy, for talent to come here so that we could say to employers, you can bring if you can’t find the person you need here, we can bring them here for you. It’s not a lottery. We can actually help you identify. Americans had the lottery, as people would know. We would actually help you bring in the kinds of people that you need, the skilled labor that you need. So we have got to become more of an innovative society and that some of that does come from partnerships. Government often has to have skin in the game, because if you’re at the seed-level funding, if you’re at the loss leader type stuff, companies will do so much.

But you know, they have shareholder duty, they have fiduciary duty, they will invest, but it’s a lot easier to invest if you have some de-risking going on that government support can do. So, I think we should be looking at best practices. This is not unique to Canada. Many countries around the world do collaborate, do partner.

I mean there’s a lot of countries that we should be looking at how they scale. You know what is it that they’re doing well and really lean in on the innovation and the technologies pieces. I mean but that also means you need the digital technology infrastructure. You know, we’re a huge country.

And so, we have to look at our taxes and our regulations. You know, part of what we’re talking about here is competitiveness. Are we a competitive place because you would think that would drive productivity. Well, one of the reasons that we get in trouble on competitiveness is, it’s actually government that makes businesses uncompetitive. If you look at the airline industry, if you had an airfare that said $1 to fly from Calgary to Edmonton, the invoice to the traveller would be about $175.

Why? Because $174 of it is taxes, it’s collections in some form. What are those except flowthrough taxes guised in some other way? When you look at the telecommunications industry we’re charging these companies for spectrum. But the competition in Japan and other places gives spectrum for zero to those companies. So their costs to their customer is cheaper, but the other money is being spent in innovation. So, if our taxes weren’t as high as they are, ’cause that’s what these are. These are hidden taxes to customers, to Canadians that are really flowing through a corporation. Those tax, that money collected is not staying with the corporations. It’s being sent back into the government. So, we’re uncompetitive in taxes and regulations, and that also is a drain. I mean, it suffocates productivity because you’re not deploying the capital that you could have had available to you to do some of the things that I just mentioned in terms of innovation and work skill improvement and infrastructure.

00:39:19 – 00:40:10

Lance Mortlock

And that actually dovetails into the next question, which is many Canadian energy and resource companies cite regulatory overlap and the slow permitting process as barriers to investment.

Canada, I think, was ranked 23rd in the world in the ease of doing business index, and potentially it’s getting worse. What specific changes do you believe are necessary as a country to streamline approvals and really boost investment confidence in this country? I mean, regulation has been something I’ve talked a lot about on this podcast with all kinds of leaders across the country, and it keeps coming up as a big issue that we don’t make it easy for ourselves.

Our regulatory environment is overlapping. It’s complex, it’s difficult to navigate and hence investment goes elsewhere.

00:40:11 – 00:46:56

Goldy Hyder

Exactly. And as I said, money goes where it grows. I’ll give you an example of that. You know, Mark Collette, who is the CEO of Crosby Group, is based in Saint John’s, Newfoundland. I had him on as a guest on the speaking or business podcast not too long ago and I had done some homework on where their business lines are and I’d found it very interesting because, Crosby services out of Newfoundland, services the offshore oil industry, not only in Newfoundland but in Guyana. I said Guyana, how and why did you end up there? He said, Guyana discovered oil just 10 years ago. Lance, their output today is now greater than that of Newfoundland and Labrador. And that just speaks to the power of streamlining regulation, the clarity that investors want in terms of the rules and the regulations, how decisions will be made, how long it will take to make them and whether successive governments of different stripes will carry on.

Because we cannot have, in a democracy, black become white every single election because there’s no predictability and certainty. You know, if you approve a project and then the next election, it gets disapproved and then the one after that, as we’ve seen with Keystone, by the way, down in the US, that’s not conducive. It doesn’t build confidence, right? It doesn’t build confidence to deploy the capital.

One of the best ways that I think we can do that is to eliminate duplication in Canada. I’ve often said if Canada were founded today, we probably wouldn’t be a country. We would probably be a European Union of some kind, because you wouldn’t be able to build a national highway or a national railway because we’ve just been bogged down in regulations across this country.

I mean, we’re still talking about interprovincial trade barriers. Any other country that was self-aware of just what a crisis this is would have brought those darn things down, like as fast as humanly possible. Instead, a lot of MOUs are being signed. A lot of good intentions, I don’t want to judge it just yet, but time will tell what really changed on those things because it’s territorial.

The easiest way, I think from an infrastructure perspective, Lance, and again, this is a bit of a no-brainer, is basically the notion of, let’s call it mutual recognition, but one project, one review. So, if we’re going to develop a mine in British Columbia and we’re going to use the provincial regulations, the federal government needs to say we agree with whatever British Columbia decides.

Right. And so, we’ve had examples of that. And when you have it, capital comes because capital says, okay, I mean, I’ve eliminated 50% of my regulatory cost because I’m not having two filings going in for five-year processes, I’m going to have one process and I know that this process is going to be accepted by the other jurisdiction.

And so, one project, one review is a very big component. Look, I’m looking forward with excitement and hope to the major projects office that is to be opened up around Labour Day. You know, Minister Hodgson himself has alluded early on in his mandate that he wants to be the minister of delivery, not of delay.

And I think the time will soon come to deliver without delay, because we are talking a lot. And now the measurement is going to be, well, what did we get done? And it can’t be talking points. It can’t be examples of what’s possible. My advice to this government and again, let me be clear, the Canadian business community sees this as an opportunity for Canada, for us to become a place to attract capital.

We are we have a fiduciary duty, obviously, to our businesses and our shareholders, but we are working really more collaboratively than I can say about the previous 10 years, I think there’s goodwill. I think the premiers are in a better place together, even with their differences of opinion. I think the federal government and provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan have found a rapprochement to be able to say, okay, let’s lay down our arms, let’s find a way to get stuff done.

But I think there’s a clock on that. I don’t think that’s a perpetual goodwill. I think what everything I hear and see is we’re going to measure what gets done. We’re going to measure what gets built. We’re looking to see progress on that. I personally have, on behalf of our members, done everything I can to lean in and work with our governments, federal government and provincial governments and territorial governments to say, what do you need from us?

Here’s what we need from you. Let’s work together. Let’s show Canadians that business, government, labour, Indigenous groups can work together to get stuff done, but the bar cannot be unanimity. We cannot be living in a world where when the Prime Minister was asked if a province objects to a project, will you proceed? No. If an Indigenous group objects to a project, will you proceed? No. Well, that’s the exact same policy Prime Minister Trudeau had, and nothing got built until we nationalized it. And so, there’s a reason capital continues to flow south, or in other directions, because until we build confidence and certainty, we’re not going to see that happen. And my advice to the government as recently as a few hours ago is put some points on the board.

Go after some low-hanging wins and it may even be saying, listen, national projects aside, here are a number of projects that are in the pipeline today of infrastructure. We’re going to expedite those. We’re going to give them the go ahead. We’re going to get those built. It might be a bridge, it might be a road, it might be an extension to a railway, it could be an expansion of a port. Expedite them so that the rest of the world sees that the perception of Canada as being a difficult place to build is no longer true.

No one wants this to be the case more than my members do, than I do. We want to be the place that says, come to Canada, bring your capital, come and invest here. We’re the place where you can build things because then prosperity will come and what’s important is that prosperity gets shared with the very people whom we are now borrowing money to support, because they’re having an affordability crisis, because the need of social programs. Look, one of the messages I tell government all the time is you’re doing more harm than good if you’re going to introduce programs on borrowed money, because the day will come of reckoning when you’re going to have to cancel that very program, and all that will do is breed suspicion of government and it will create distrust. Why would we want to do that?

You’re better off being honest with people and saying, we can do that program, and we can afford it. And here’s how we get there. We need to build projects. We need to have good permitting, good regulations, good taxes. It’s all in our hands, Lance. I mean, my passion for this country, it comes out when I talk to people like you because I’m like, it’s so there, all of the ingredients, all of the elements are there. Just get out of our own way and do it. And part of my message to government is set the rules and then let us do what we need to do. Businesses have been working collaboratively with Indigenous groups. Businesses work with labour unions. We agree to disagree. And you know what? That’s okay.

It’s all right in civil society to have disagreements about things. But what I have found is never underestimate the collective wisdom of Canadians. We’re smart group of people and I think we have high expectations of all of us today and I sure hope we don’t disappoint them.

00:46:57 – 00:47:02

Lance Mortlock

What’s your advice to business leaders at the moment? Stay the course, have faith?

00:47:03 - 00:49:02

Goldy Hyder

No, I think, look business leaders have become leaders and the roles that they have, because they are strategic, they are visionary, they are risk takers. And I would like to see them continue to lean in to leverage the trust that Canadians have.

And let me be clear, CEOs enjoy far more trust, and I know this may be a low bar, than politicians and the media. The employees trust their employer. They value the role that they’re playing in society. And so, I think they’re looking to business leaders. And as I said, I’m so proud of the people that I represent because they have tried through the crisis of COVID, through our economic crisis, to their response to challenges like climate change, to the responses we’re facing today with the threat of the US trade situation.

These leaders are leaning in, men and women who love our country, but who have a fiduciary duty. They have no choice but to deploy capital where it can grow. They want to be able to do it here. I think we need to lean in on that. I think we need to continue to lean in on capacity-building skills. I know there’s a lot of people out there facing anxiety about AI. What will happen to my job? I think businesses have to train and skill in partnership with government and academic institutions and labour unions for that matter. Let’s work together, Indigenous groups and figure out how to reskill the workforce, because AI is not going to take your job.

The person who’s going to take your job is the person who knows how to use AI. And so, we’re going to have to skill that workforce. Businesses can play a leadership role there and businesses have to stay ahead of the curve on innovation. That is our competitive advantage. We have to continue to lean in on innovation and I think businesses are prepared to do that. I guess all we’re saying is the give us the confidence that the rules of this game are going to be set, that they’re going to allow us to invest and deploy capital in Canada, because we’d love to do it. We’re not obligated to do it. We want to do it. And if you create the conditions, you can be sure we will do it.

00:49:03 - 00:49:10

Lance Mortlock

Fascinating conversation. Before we wrap up, anything else you want to share with our listeners?

00:49:11 – 00:49:53

Goldy Hyder

Well, look, as I said, I love this country, and I trust Canadians deeply. I think Canadians need to remain engaged. I think they need to recognize that nothing lasts, that you have to work at it and that we need to have ambition here.

We need to have a seismic cultural shock that says we’re no longer going to coast. We’re no longer going to be comfortable. We’re no longer going to stick Canada in cruise control. We are going to dream big dreams. We’re going to be ambitious. We’re going to take some risks. We’re going to scale. We have all of the ingredients to do it.

And I wouldn’t bet against us because when Canadians go into the corner and they usually come out with the puck.

00:49:54 - 00:50:27

Lance Mortlock

Goldy, it’s been a pleasure having you on the show. I’ve been a big fan of you for a long time and everything that you are trying to do to make our country better, to make our business environment better, the passion that you clearly bring today and in all kinds of other forums.

Thank you. Thank you for everything that you do, and I am optimistic, like you. But I appreciate you coming on the show.

00:50:28 – 00:50:43

Goldy Hyder

Lance. It’s a privilege to be here. Thank you for the kind words. And thank you for what you do. Because it is communities like this that are going to start chipping away at some of the longstanding challenges that we face. So, I applaud your efforts, and I look forward to continuing the dialog. And thanks to your listeners for listening.

00:50:44 – 00:52:35

Lance Mortlock

So, for our listeners, we encourage you to reflect on today’s discussion with Goldy and share your insights with us. You can reach out to EY via the attached contact details or join the conversation on social media. Finishing another great episode, I’d like to share a few final messages on my conversation with Goldy.

Number one: energy and natural resources are vital strategic drivers of the Canadian economy. The energy sector must be central to our national productivity and growth agenda. By leveraging both traditional and emerging energy sources, we can enhance industrial competitiveness, create jobs and promote regional development, all while reinforcing Canada’s role in the global economy.

Number two: investment should be enabled through policy and regulatory clarity. And I think Goldy said this well, that to attract capital and scale infrastructure, Canada must prioritize clear, faster and more coordinated regulatory processes by improving timelines, aligning across jurisdictions and providing policy certainty, we can build the confidence needed to enhance major energy and resource projects and foster innovation.

And finally, North American collaboration can be a global advantage. Establishing a strategic energy and resource trade alliance with the US and Mexico, supported by joint infrastructure planning, regulatory alignment and cooperation on critical minerals can significantly enhance North American competitiveness. Creating mechanisms for cross-border coordination will also help unlock shared energy and economic opportunities. So once again, thank you for joining our podcast.

We’ll see you on the next episode, everyone.