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The Loonie Hour

Energy Superpower? Canada Is Blowing It

08 May 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is Canada's potential as an energy superpower?

0.031 - 24.807 Unknown

oil sands alliance they put out a note on may the 4th they said the prime minister has set a vision for canada to realize its full potential as an energy superpower and the premier of alberta has set a goal of doubling alberta's oil production it could be the cornerstone for canada to be a true energy superpower unfortunately we are at risk of letting this opportunity pass canada by because of complex regulatory processes uncompetitive carbon frameworks and fiscal systems that do not incent growth

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24.787 - 33.787 Steve Saretsky

Canadian energy policy is making Canadian energy uncompetitive with the rest of the world. The world needs oil. If they're not going to get it from Canada, they're just going to go elsewhere to get it.

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34.028 - 38.157 Rich Diaz

The UK is, I think, everything you should not do as a country.

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38.317 - 51.599 Steve Saretsky

And in many ways, it's like the path Canada wants to go down. The similarities to Canada are very strong, except for the whole energy side. We have a huge advantage, but ironically, for some reason, we're not wanting to take advantage of it.

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51.639 - 54.423 Unknown

The Toronto housing market appears to have bottomed.

57.767 - 60.331 Rich Diaz

Oh, my God. Are you calling a bottom right now?

60.391 - 84.828 Unknown

No. Hey, there's a bubble. If you're a mortgage broker, you already know the story. A quality borrower walks through your door. Strong equity, clear exit strategy, but they don't check every box at the bank. Maybe they're self-employed, between properties, or bridging a gap. What do you do? That's exactly where Neighborhood Holdings comes in.

85.028 - 93.1 Unknown

Neighborhood partners directly with mortgage brokers across Canada to fund short-term residential mortgages for borrowers in transition. The ones the banks can't move fast enough for.

93.08 - 105.975 Unknown

Neighborhood is one of the largest alternative mortgage lenders in Canada, with more than $2 billion funded over more than a decade of operation and now backed by three decades of combined experience following the acquisition of Fisgard. Neighborhood is the team you can trust your mortgage clients.

Chapter 2: How is Canadian energy policy affecting competitiveness?

122.273 - 142.493 Unknown

Visit neighborhood.com or check out the link in the description to learn more. This is not advice. Consult a professional advisor before investing Looney in any of these investments. Visit neighborhood.com. Welcome back to Looney Hour episode 240. As always, joined by the three amigos. We've got the boomer over in Halifax and Mr. Rich Diaz in Montreal. Richard. Hello. Hello.

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142.513 - 145.536 Unknown

You guys didn't deserve to come out of the first round.

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145.856 - 172.145 Rich Diaz

No. Well, I'm sad. We did not play well. Last night, I broke one of my cardinal rules as a sports fan. I bet somebody on... I bet on someone on Twitter, a Twinkie, that the Montreal Canadiens would beat the Buffalo Sabres. Sabres are a wagon. You bet on your own team? I know, I know. He was... I got goaded into it. I got goaded into it. But I'm a man of my word.

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172.526 - 180.299 Rich Diaz

So if the Habs lose, I will eat a Twinkie. But whoever you are on Twitter... You know who you are. Man, you've seen those fans there, Keith.

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Chapter 3: What are the recent trends in the Toronto housing market?

180.359 - 187.449 Unknown

I love Buffalo. They're great. I love Buffalo. They're great, the fans. Let's do a loony hour in Buffalo. There's so many fans there.

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187.69 - 197.183 Steve Saretsky

Steve saw a Buffalo Bills game last year, and I saw one a few years ago as well. So it's an interesting group of people.

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197.604 - 217.301 Unknown

Hey, Steve. Every corner has a Tim Hortons, and they call it Tim Hortons Cafe. Oh, is that? Very nice. And they drink a lot of Labatt Blue. Yeah. They're more Canadian than Canadians. We should annex them. They're very fancy. They can be part of the great state of Canada.

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217.321 - 218.363 Steve Saretsky

Hey, guys.

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Chapter 4: How do mortgage brokers navigate the current real estate landscape?

218.383 - 222.63 Steve Saretsky

Speaking of food, Boomer got a new toy this week.

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223.231 - 223.411 Unknown

Uh-oh.

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225.575 - 251.526 Steve Saretsky

If you're not watching, I'm now wearing these big heat-resistant rubber mitts. They gave you those with the thing? Yeah, you need them. You need them. Rich, you're in trouble when you go to Ben's College. I'm going to bring these with me. Those look like Chernobyl gloves. Yeah, they do. So I got a smoker. It's called Kamado Joe. The green egg? Well, it's a different brand.

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251.546 - 253.949 Rich Diaz

It's a red egg. Yours is red. Excuse me. It's red.

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254.129 - 271.881 Steve Saretsky

I got into pizza a few years back. I had fun with it. became a little bit better with it. And now I'm going to go into the whole world of smoking meat. That's my new thing. So I've been sharing photos of this enormous box that arrived. It's the size of the new small Tesla that they're making. Pretty big.

272.342 - 273.905 Unknown

That's a bull market purchase right there.

273.925 - 275.367 Steve Saretsky

Did you get a subsidy from the government?

276.123 - 303.649 Steve Saretsky

no no this is ice cap did approve it so it is what's the emissions on that thing yeah well yeah what is the emissions i'm surprised you're allowed to buy it well i think you know you know all the guys are building that nimby around the corner from me steve they're rather gonna really like the smell of all the you know the brisket and all that stuff happening so i think i think the work on that nimby might be very slow doesn't that thing burn coal uh no no it charcoal so wood

304.777 - 308.703 Steve Saretsky

Oh, okay. Sorry. Yeah, you're not like in 16th century London.

Chapter 5: What challenges are facing the UK bond market?

400.846 - 427.157 Unknown

dwellings or homes that would you call it is that what this number is for uh this is for just uh the all all prices so detached condos etc yeah i think you're likely to see like a tightening more in like the single family market right like if you're going to see a tightening first you'll see it in the single family market and then the condo market you know again investors aren't coming back anytime soon that market seems likely to be um the one that underperforms the most

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427.627 - 429.409 Steve Saretsky

in the near future. That's going to take a while to clear.

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429.89 - 440.685 Unknown

Yeah, that's going to take a while to clear. I mean, the Doug Ford Vulture Fund is doing its best to clear it, but hey, since he announced that, prices are up, man. This guy might be a good buyer. Everyone loves a bailout, Steve.

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441.066 - 449.377 Steve Saretsky

Everyone loves a bailout. It's just a threat of doing it, right? That's all that can do, all that you need sometimes.

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450.138 - 477.076 Unknown

Yeah. Greater Vancouver. Home sales down 1% from last year. So pretty much the exact same as last year. Outside of 2019, it was the slowest April in 20 plus years. If you look at home sales... from January through April. So you've got like four months now of sales data. We're tracking like literally on par with last year. Like there's like, it's almost neck and neck.

477.096 - 492.531 Unknown

So throughout the first four months, there's basically we're tracking last year when last year for the year 2025 was a 25 year low in annual home sales. So we're tracking to be another historically slow year for housing sales.

493.574 - 496.018 Steve Saretsky

The ferry operator is not going to like that.

496.659 - 496.919 Unknown

No.

498.602 - 499.183 Steve Saretsky

I have a question.

Chapter 6: What is the impact of carbon taxes on Canada's energy sector?

517.973 - 540.213 Unknown

And I think right now we're at 14,000. Okay. So still like, obviously, you know, it hasn't dropped significantly. The reality is those that should come down more. I think what happens is you, when you get licensed, you, your license renews every two years. It's like, if you're not doing sales over the last like nine, 10 months, you'll probably let it lapse, you know, 14 months from now. Yeah.

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540.233 - 542.235 Steve Saretsky

And what's been the max?

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542.275 - 547.56 Unknown

Like how is 15,000?

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549.059 - 556.369 Rich Diaz

But the lion's share of those people, like 75%, 80%, they sell what, one or two houses a year?

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556.389 - 584.112 Unknown

I think the last, I think it was, so I think of 15,000 realtors, I think like 8,000 of them did a deal. Did a deal. Yeah. So what I'm saying is you have, what's the loony hour math on that? You had 7,000 agents, almost 50% of them didn't do a deal. Did not do a deal. And that's a big deal. That's a big deal, yeah.

584.716 - 612.156 Unknown

You get people that get their license part-timers or you get builders that get their license just so they can have access to the MLS or sometimes as appraisers. So I take the number with a little bit of a grain of salt. But in general, yes. The old rule of thumb, Keith, that 20% of the industry does 80% of the business definitely holds true in the realtor space. Crazy.

612.497 - 612.597

Yeah.

612.965 - 622.518 Rich Diaz

It's kind of wild how that industry just dominated so much of the Canadian oxygen, economically, investment-wise, jobs.

624 - 625.762 Unknown

There was a good piece out in the hub this week.

Chapter 7: How is inflation affecting food prices in Canada?

837.519 - 845.31 Steve Saretsky

Exactly. But that transaction has to go through a bank as well. They have their AML policy.

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846.491 - 849.235 Unknown

Well, yeah, but Keith, you're buying all cash, man.

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851.881 - 865.435 Steve Saretsky

canadian banks known for their oh sorry rich yes i am steve yes i am of course yeah anyways moving on cool thank you i was i was genuinely curious about that thank you for answering that synovus

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867.811 - 895.219 Unknown

synovus energy um so he's in the news the uh decarbonized oil there's someone that's finally rich is not the only guy in canada now talking about it um synovus ceo says the oil sands dialogue myopically focused on the climate agenda so he was in um was it their earnings earnings yeah it

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896.684 - 910.52 Unknown

He basically goes on to say, now, before we open the line for questions, I want to talk about an opportunity that we as Canadians have if we choose to seize it. The events of the last few weeks have clearly shown the world that energy security is national security and energy security is economic security.

911.001 - 928.99 Unknown

The reality is the world needs affordable, abundant, reliable energy from all sources, regardless of how we label them. The world will require hydrocarbons to form a material component of the energy supply mix for decades to come. And there is no examples of first world nations that don't also have access to affordable, abundant, reliable energy.

929.17 - 939.767 Unknown

It is essential and irreplaceable for a high quality standard of living. In Canada, we're blessed with some of the highest quality, longest life resources in the world, including the Canadian oil sands.

940.207 - 958.551 Unknown

These resources not only supply Canada with affordable, reliable, abundant energy we use and take for granted every day in our modern lives, but they also fund our social benefit network, schools, hospitals, roads, pensions, through the payment of taxes and royalties in the creation of high paying jobs.

958.531 - 980.067 Unknown

And yet the national dialogue on further development of the oil sands has been myopically focused on the climate agenda and climate policy. We have ignored a multitude of benefits that responsible oil sands development has brought to this country. Of the top 10 global producing oil nations, Canada is recognized as the most responsible producer across a broad range of metrics.

Chapter 8: What are the implications of US tech earnings on the market?

1162.313 - 1173.42 Rich Diaz

In order to pay for that safety net, we need to exploit natural resources. And so if you're not interested in that, then you're in my view, you're basically by default saying you don't care about poor people.

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1174.244 - 1189.34 Steve Saretsky

What's interesting with that, though, you said we have a strong social safety net. Well, we used to anyway. Yeah, I would argue that it's not as strong as before. It is weakening, if anything. Just think about health care. How long does it take to get X done?

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1189.36 - 1209.801 Steve Saretsky

And the response from the health care center, from the health care industry, of course, in Canada is, well, if something is a priority, absolutely you're going to get it done right away. But that's not what the response should be. If you're in other countries and you need any kind of a health care procedure or a test or something done, it's not a nine or 10 month wait to get it done.

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1210.422 - 1225.11 Steve Saretsky

And so, Rich, why don't you remind everyone again how Canada is a, for trade, we are a net exporter. Yeah. And what are we exporting? Well, we export natural resources. Yeah, natural resources.

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1225.13 - 1250.239 Rich Diaz

Pulp and paper, minerals. And we export loads of stuff. We export autos. We export airplane parts, goods, food, all kinds of stuff. But what matters ultimately to our balance sheet and our current account balance is the net number. And the net number is dominated by natural resources, oil, mining, software, lumber, excuse me, softwood, lumber, etc. And that brings in US dollars, of course.

1250.259 - 1274.606 Steve Saretsky

Yeah, which we pay for imported goods and services and stuff like that. And if that net trade number or net export starts to decline or doesn't even grow as fast as we need to, Because remember, we're consuming everything all the time. That's what we're doing. Everyone else is consuming. The cost of consuming things is going up. We'll talk about it a bit more here in a minute.

1274.626 - 1289.164 Steve Saretsky

So we need to grow our net exports to pay for everything in Canada. If we don't... then Canadians should, you know, you think things are bad right now in some parts of the country? They're going to get worse. But that's exactly the point.

1289.204 - 1319.22 Rich Diaz

So right now our current account balance, which is exports minus imports, then you have income from capital and portfolio and direct investment. And right now we're right in balance. And if we don't continue to, and we basically, we pay, we sell oil to pay for consumer goods. And if that number, because we have terrible productivity, high debts and foreigners own a, I think 42, 43% of our bonds,

1319.74 - 1344.364 Rich Diaz

If we screw with that current account balance, you'll have to have an internal devaluation, meaning all of us will have to consume much less of everything, services and goods. And that means, by the way, less health services, less social services, less goods like roads or cars. Or we'll have to have an external devaluation, which means our currency will fall significantly

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