Former U.S. vice president Dick Cheney was firing on all cylinders as he spoke in Toronto on Thursday, throwing his support behind the Keystone XL pipeline, Tea Party Republicans and stepping up the fight against Al Qaeda.

But he also joked not to worry — the 72-year-old, who has had six heart attacks, said he won’t be “running against anybody” in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

“It’s very much in our interest to build the Keystone pipeline,” Cheney said of the controversial plan to ship oil from Canada to the U.S. Cheney was addressing a largely Bay St. crowd at the International Economic Forum of the Americas, a global business conference at the Metro Convention Centre.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s unwillingness to follow through on Keystone is “totally foolish policy,” Cheney said, as the audience clapped. “There is no reason in the world we shouldn’t build that pipeline.”

Outside the forum, protesters called Cheney a war criminal over his role in the invasion of Iraq. “It is a shame he is here,” said demonstrator James Campbell. “Canada is aiding and abetting all of Dick Cheney’s crimes by letting him speak here.”

The 46th U.S. vice president started his speech on the revolution of energy policies that have “come about in spite of government,” thanks to the private sector using new technologies such as fracking or extracting natural gas from shale.

“Our directional drilling and our fracking, somewhat controversial practices, although they shouldn’t be . . . has opened up new resources to us in the oil and gas area, it is fundamentally transforming our economy and reducing what has historically been one of our major security concerns,” Cheney said.

“The problem at present is the current administration spends a lot of time trying to cap any use of fossil fuels,” he added. “The war on coal is what we call it.”

Cheney was arguably one of the most influential U.S. vice presidents. He is widely known for having profound influence on matters of U.S. national security and for spearheading the invasion of Iraq, of loosening limits on the coercion of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and of erasing environmental protections. He also inadvertently shot one of his hunting companions in the face seven years ago in Texas.

Cheney spent most of his speech on Thursday discussing national security threats.

“I’m going to put back on my Darth Vader mask that I used to be accused of wearing when I was vice president because of my concern about terrorism and the possible use of weapons of mass destruction by terrorists. I used to believe that was a major threat. I still believe it is a major threat today and, if anything, it is worse today than it was on 9/11,” he said.

Al Qaeda and “their fellow travellers” have reasserted or re-energized, he warned. He pointed to increased violence in Iraq and the terrorist threats in North Africa. “The problem is growing in terms of the numbers, the size and diversity of, if you will, what we have all deemed fundamental Islamist terrorists,” he said.

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Concerning Afghanistan, the U.S. supported fighters in the 1980s, but that stopped and the Taliban came to power. Then the U.S. was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, he said. “What do we think will happen when we turn our backs on Afghanistan again? Yet that is exactly what we are doing,” he said. “The bottom line is the threat of terrorism is increasing . . . the problem of the proliferation of nuclear weapons is probably greater than it has ever been.”

Turning to domestic politics, Cheney said even though the Republicans lost the last two federal elections, he was not ready to write off his party or its Tea Party factions. “I am reluctant to let the critics define us,” he said.

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