A Calgary oil executive says prevailing narratives are not always informed or motivated by truth and false beliefs have hindered advancement of the energy sector.Questerre Energy president Michael Binnion gave his comments at the Reclaiming Canada Conference at the BMO Centre in Calgary. Binnion recalled making a shale gas discovery in Quebec, only to be unable to capitalize on it. He faced a public backlash too well-organized to have been organic.“It was backed by strategic planning, donor presentations, shared expertise and highly competent strategies,” Binnion recalled.“The facts were solid. The outcome was not. That experience forced me to confront a difficult truth. Belief isn't governed by evidence. It’s governed by … social permission and by cultural narrative.”Binnion said the problem he encountered is plainly evident in many contemporary aspects of society.“We are living in a time now when common sense sounds like heresy,” he said. “So many smart people believe things that make no sense. … Truth has become a matter of tribal loyalty.”The executive, who formerly chaired the board of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, looked deeper into why people believed as they do. . “In a world too complex to fully understand, we form beliefs, not as isolated convictions, but as filters that align us with others and shape how we perceive reality in groups. These beliefs become culture,” he explained.“Belief doesn't just drift. It can be manipulated. Just as software can be hacked, hacked culture can be captured by institutions, elites or ideologies, like the ones I faced in Quebec,” he continued. “Those who challenge the gap are punished not because they're wrong, but because they threaten the system that profits.”Binnion said “emotionally resonant narratives” prevail and “bypass logic” to motivate people. Facts don’t automatically move people.“Most people don't provide some worldview because of a preference or a fact sheet or a scientific paper. They only change when truth is translated into belief when it reaches them where they are, in ways they can absorb and from sources they can trust,” Binnion said.“Belief is the interface, the filter that translates that input into meaning. Culture is our software, the operating system for cooperation and politics is the output of sociological power,” he explained..The fifth-generation Calgarian founded Modern Miracle Network in 2016 to advocate for the fossil fuel industry.Binnion said truth can prevail if one acknowledges the “secret basis of communication.” This acknowledges how minds “convert reality into meaning” through “emotional and social processing,” not just “pure logic.”Modern society, Binnion said, has stopped taking responsibility for themselves an that a young generation lives on “emotion and approval, not feedback and consequence.” Here people “protect their beliefs” instead of testing and correcting them “even when the cost is potential collapse.”Binnion said everyone had a part in reforming this society.“Taking responsibility means telling our story differently. It means meeting people where they are, not where we wish they would be, and it means rebuilding trust in an amazing product that literally is responsible for modern society: hydrocarbons.”Former Conservative MP Michelle Ferreri was in attendance. She said she was “fan girling” at what she called a "brilliant" presentation. She said the address had personal relevance given her surreal experience encountering false beliefs so commonly held in Ottawa.More information on the conference and a link to its livestream is available at https://www.weunify.ca/. A separate broadcast stream is also below. Tickets to attend in person are still available here.
