An interview with Liberal MP and Natural Resources Critic Geoff Regan

MP Geoff Regan and Macleod candidate Dustin Fuller at Harvest Coffee House

Chris Davis, Pincher Creek Voice

Federal Liberals the Honourable Geoffrey Regan and Macleod candidate Dustin Fuller held a meet and greet at Pincher Creek's Harvest Coffeehouse on April 23. Regan is a current Member of Parliament, representing the Halifax West riding, and is also the Liberal Critic for Natural Resources. Regan has represented Halifax West as MP twice, from 1993 t0 1997 and from 2000 to the present.

Earlier this month Dustin Fuller got the official nod to be the Liberal candidate for the riding of Macleod in the upcoming by-election to replace Conservative Ted Menzies, who resigned last November. Fuller will face Conservative John Barlow in the by-election, which is expected to be called very soon. Additionally, a Canadian federal election is expected to take place in October of 2015.


An interview with Dustin Fuller was published in the Pincher Creek Voice recently, click here for that story.

On this occasion I took the opportunity to talk with Geoff Regan, in between his other responsibilities at the event. The first thing I noticed was how easily the interview seemed to reverse itself at the outset, with Regan asking me questions instead of the other way around. When I commented on that he told me a little story from his past.

"Once I had the occasion to go to Sable Island (southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia) and we went on a DFO Coast Guard chopper that only had the pilot, and three passengers. So there was room for me, room for the DFO scientist who was going to give me the tour and room for one more that turned out to be CTV. There was room for the camera man, but not the reporter. There was a woman who worked out there, her name was Zoe Lucas, and she looked after the horses. She keeps track of them, and follows them and so forth for science. So I ended up interviewing her and interviewing the scientist for the tv camera."

"One thing I learned as a law student working at Dalhousie University... when you are working on your own client under direct examination, you want to get them to tell their own story. You don't want to be the center of attention. So the trick is to figure out the right questions to bring out what you need them to talk about, what the public would be engaged in."

"What brings you to Pincher Creek?" I asked. "Well, I am the Liberal Critic for Natural Resources, and you probably are aware that you have some those in Alberta," he replied. "In fact, it is a very important Province for a critic of natural resources or anyone interested in the subject to visit, and to learn more about what people are concerned about in relation to what's happening in oil and gas, wind energy, renewables, the energy sector. That's why I'm here."

"I'm delighted to also be joining Dustin Fuller, our candidate."

From there our discussion turned to the economy. "Justin Trudeau has put quite a focus on strengthening our economy, having a sustained economic growth to benefit the middle class in this country," said Regan.

"We think the middle class haven't seen a decent raise in 30 years and we want to focus on the kind of economic growth that can support them. Justin has promoted the ideas of increased trade, investing in infrastructure, and post secondary education. One of our biggest areas of trade, of course, our biggest export market, is natural resources."

"We're well aware of the fact that according to the CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce)  report a year and a half ago the economies of Alberta, and Canada are losing $50 million a day because of the price differential on a barrel of oil from the well head here to WTI (West Texas Intermediate) and Brent. Brent is the world price, based upon north sea oil. There are different qualities of oil."

"The basic problem is being captive to one market, the US market essentially, and not having enough means to get our oil out to the world market. Our economies are losing out in terms of the revenue."

"We think this is important to our economy. This is why in fact last fall in Washington when Justin Trudeau spoke to a group that included a lot of democrats, and a lot of environmentalists, he told them something that they did not want to hear, that he supports Keystone XL, because it is important to the economies of both our countries. I think it's important for me to bring that message to Alberta."

"I think that it's vital to be mindful of the whole country, not just one part of it. When I was the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans I looked at my responsibility as certainly going way beyond my own backyard."

Regan served in that role for just over two year under Prime Minister Paul Martin. "I was in British Columbia eight times in those two years. Fisheries and Oceans is an important portfolio in British Columbia. I didn't have as many reasons then to visit this beautiful province, but in this role, I do have lots of reason."

"My point is that you have a responsibility to the whole country. I can tell you that in my part of the country there is a real strong recognition of importance of the oil sector and gas sector in this province. It's hard to find a community in Atlantic Canada which doesn't have somebody going back and forth to Alberta."

"When I fly on airplanes, when I'm on an airplane to Ottawa, every time I'm on a plane there is somebody on their way there, or back. They are working in the oils and or other parts of the industry here. Others, of course have moved here on a more permanent basis, or come here for longer periods."

"For those who are going back and forth, there are many communities that are in part being sustained because of that revenue. A lot of Atlantic Canadians recognize the importance of this to the national economy, and their own backyards."

"There are many challenges. Clearly, when we are trying to work out a policy for the future as a country, on how we have a sustainable growing economy, and preserve our environment, the challenges are fairly obvious. We are concerned about reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, we are concerned about reducing pollution."

"We heard this morning as we visited Turner Valley Natural Gas Plant and Historic Site from David Finch, a professor at the University of Calgary who gave us the tour this morning, that the story with gas has always been 'find it, get it, clean it, move it.' In all of those things, technology has been changing over time. The technology to find it today is a far cry from what it was when they struck wet, wet gas in May of 1914 one hundred years ago next month. I was fascinated to hear the drill they used didn't turn. It was basically a hammer. It took them forever to get there. It took them three years to get down 2,000 to 3,000 feet. It's fascinating how the technology has changed."

"That's also true about how it's being cleaned. We have to keep finding ways to be more efficient in the amount of energy we use, in how we produce energy, and how we use energy. Whether it's by making our homes more efficient, better insulated, so they require less energy to heat, or making vehicles that are more fuel efficient, or by driving less, or whatever, we have to find ways to be more efficient, and treat our environment with respect. That's an ongoing challenge."

"The fact of the matter is that Canadians everyday use almost 200 million litres of petroleum based fuels. While the search continues for alternatives, and some are being developed that are taking up part of the market and supporting the economy, that's not happening quickly, and there's not an obvious replacement for petroleum based fuel."

I asked him what his thoughts were on climate change and the environment.

"If you listen to the International Panel on Climate Change, they are very concerned about that. It seems to me that we have to live in the real world of what people are living, and what they want to do. Until you have alternatives that can provide the needs of transportation and home heating for example, in an efficient way at a reasonable cost, then it looks to me that petroleum is going to be the way that we keep going for quite a while to come. The key is how do we do that in a way that is as environmentally sustainable as possible? How do we find it, get it, clean it, move it in ways that are as good for our environment as we can."

"The answer I think is that you have to have stringent environmental reviews of proposed projects whether they are pipelines, or whatever. You have to involve communities. We Think there has to be real consultation with aboriginal communities and I think the government has done a very poor job of that. You even have people like the Prime Ministers own advisor on Energy say that, and you've had Jim Prentice say that, they've done a lousy job of that."

"If we had a stronger policy on climate change, we probably would have had Keystone XL approved by now. But the reputation the country that has been given internationally by this government, I think makes it harder to get the social license for us to export our energy products."

"You need it domestically, to move, sometimes to produce, as well as internationally in order to export. So I think that's a key part of the process."

"We need to be able to succeed with our natural resource products. A lot of that means exporting it. It's getting harder and harder to do that when we're getting a black eye internationally on the environment, which this government has given us."

"I think our decisions have to be science based, and evidence based. This government likes evidence that already fits what they believe, what I'm saying is that you've got to base your decision on the evidence, not just accept evidence that supports what you want to say."

I suggested to both Regan and Fuller that they were probably aware that Liberal candidates didn't often fare well in southern Alberta.

"I think that over the past year, since Justin became leader, we've seen a lot of excitement about him across the country," said Regan.

"We hope that Justin will be successful, and Justin/Dustin - that's a great team."

We don't believe that you should disregard any part of the country, whether you're in government or not. We have a responsibility to be here and listen to Canadians all over the country."

That is a responsibility of us as a major political party. That's something I've believed in for a long time. I've doing town hall meetings in my riding ever since I got elected, I've just done my 117th. We number them. I had a brilliant assistant in my first term who said 'We've done 25 of these or so, let's count how many and number these'. People say that politicians only come at election time, and I wanted them to see that I didn't just come at election time. Our critics travel the country on a constant basis."

"At some point this year we expect there will be a by-election. If you look at what happened in the last by-election, Brandon Manitoba for example, it was a big surprise how well the Liberals did in that traditional Tory stronghold. We are finding that there is a lot of interest. It's around Justin as our leader, and that a lot of people are fed up with the conservative government and want to see alternatives."

"It's important to be here to offer that alternative. That's one of our key responsibilities in our adversarial system. To hold the government to account, and to offer an alternative to the government. It's important that we do that to everybody. It's a democratic system that I believe in very strongly. I accept people that don't want to vote for me, or vote for my party. That's up to them, but it's important to give them the choice."

I asked him if politics was necessarily adversarial. "It reminds me a little of what Churchill said. He said 'democracy is the worst system devised by the wit of man, except for all others.' It's not perfect. In theory it sounds nice if you could just have everyone get along. But the fact of the matter is that there are different political parties and I think they'll always be competing. therefore, there will always be some degree of an adversarial nature. What gets attention most in Ottawa is what is most adversarial, and that's question period. Forty five minutes a day is what people follow the most. Outside of that is a much less adversarial atmosphere, committee work for example. When MP's get along, it's not much of a story for the media."

In addition to a lifetime in law and politics, Regan has had a calendar full of volunteering efforts. "I've coached minor hockey, I was the director of the Beacon House Food Bank, and eventually Chair of the Beacon House Food Bank in Bedford-Sackville Nova Scotia, and was asked to go on the board Halifax Metro Food Bank and I was eventually the chair of that for a year. I was the on the board of the Bedford Board of Trade and was president at one point in time. I still do fundraising every year for the MS Society, I still do the MS bike tour every summer. I rode 135 K over 2 days last year. 85 one day, and 50 the other."

"The thing that I found in all the volunteering that I did was that I learned... you try to give, and do things that are meaningful to you, but I gained and learned so much from the various things that I was involved in. I didn't mention Toastmasters, that is not a charitable activity, but it's mutual help and support to learn public speaking."

Related story:

Dustin Fuller, Liberal candidate for Macleod by-election

*Corrected for accuracy