Gateway pipeline a crossroads for Canada
An economic superpower is a country with the influence, impact and standing on the world stage that only comes from delivering to partners across the globe.
Right now Canada doesn't -and can't -do that in energy.
Our proximity to the world's largest energy consumer is a unique advantage, one all our competitors would love to have. But our unparalleled integration with the U.S. market is also a problem: It makes us complacent, and it makes us a captive supplier. We only have one customer for our energy, the United States.
Make no mistake, the United States is, and will remain, Canada's most important market and our closest trading partner. The interdependence of our economies is a huge permanent advantage for Canadians and Americans.
But Canada's energy relationship with the United States can more accurately be described as "dependent," not "interdependent." Today, virtually all of Canada's oil exports go to the United States. At about two million barrels per day, they make up one out of every five barrels imported by the United States. No competitor can trump Canada's advantage of geography, capacity and a trading partnership built on shared values on the environment, human rights, the rule of law and democracy.
We might be the most important energy supplier to them, but the United States has other options available for energy trade partners. Canada today doesn't have options.
Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline project will change that. To succeed in the 21st century and beyond, Canada needs to look west, across the International Date Line, to the vast, growing economies and huge markets of the Pacific Rim nations.
The Northern Gateway pipeline is Canada's energy crossroads. It would safely move energy to the West Coast, open new markets for Canadian petroleum and create thousands of construction and supplier jobs. Reliable independent estimates of the project's impact over 30 years say it will deliver to all Canadians an additional $270-billion increase in Canada's GDP that would be felt across the nation, in steel mills and manufacturing centres, from heavy industry to high finance, for a long, long time. We will generate millions of dollars in direct, lasting and meaningful benefits for the First Nations and other communities involved.
For too long, Canada has been a price taker in North American oil markets. Gateway liberates Canadian oil producers from that straitjacket. Canadian oil will move closer to world oil price levels, from its current position about $2 to $3 less than that.
Canada can become a leader in the world energy market -but only if we make the smart, strategic moves, and take the sustainable steps to make it happen, now.
Northern Gateway is a great Canadian project. It is currently being reviewed and assessed by our tough and profes-sional regulators to determine if it is in our nation's best interest and if it can be built and operated to Canada's worldclass environmental and safety standards. I know it can.
As Canadians, we need to better understand the connection between what the energy industry does and the lives we all lead. There is a direct connection between your car's gas pedal and your house thermostat, and Canadian oil and gas.
Some critics say we are too small to be a global player in any sector; that we should be grateful for our access to the United States; that we can't compete as an equal on a global stage. Can we be more than that? Yes. With politicians who are far-sighted, courageous, strategy-driven nation builders. The world is clamouring for energy, and will continue to require all sources of energy over the coming decades as we make the transition to renewables.
We could choose to keep Canada's vast supply of oil, which we have developed ethically and responsibly, landlocked in North America. We could continue to sell it at a discount, while other nations create the energy supply lines and energy market access for the rest of the world.
Or we can take the steps required to bring Canadian oil to markets around the planet. We can responsibly, sustainably and safely construct and operate nationbuilding projects like Northern Gateway. We can make the most of the opportunities available to us and build on our strategic advantages as a responsible, democratic trading nation. We can build an even stronger Canada for future generations.
The ignored civil war
This week, the world was scandalized by the case of Eman alObaidi, the woman who burst into a Tripoli hotel and told a pool of Western reporters of the rape and torture she'd suffered at the hands of Muammar Gaddafi's henchmen. The story of this one woman is indeed horrible. Yet how many Westerners know of the half-dozen women who were mowed down in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, while they demonstrated in support of the democratically elected presidential candidate Alassane Ouattara?
Ivory Coast's current bout of violence began amid the fallout from the country's 2010 election, whose results incumbent Laurent Gbagbo refused to recognize. Since late February, the country has become a violenceplagued rogue state. And for most of this time, its plight has received little attention from the Western foreign-policy corps, which (as usual) has been focused on the Middle East.
Though the human-rights crisis in Ivory Coast was on a par with that of Libya, no serious consideration was given to a NATO military intervention. Aside from sanctions imposed by the UN, ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West Africa States) and the African Union, the world more or less abandoned Ivory Coast to its fate.
Fortunately, the civil war seems to be reaching a conclusion, with Mr. Gbagbo surrounded by rebel forces as of this writing on Friday afternoon. We can only hope that Mr. Ouattara soon will be installed as president, and all violence will cease. In the Middle East and the Balkans, the West generally pays close attention to the actions of tyrants. In Sub-Saharan Africa, on the other hand, most freedom fighters are on their own.
Ivory Coast's current bout of violence began amid the fallout from the country's 2010 election, whose results incumbent Laurent Gbagbo refused to recognize. Since late February, the country has become a violenceplagued rogue state. And for most of this time, its plight has received little attention from the Western foreign-policy corps, which (as usual) has been focused on the Middle East.
Though the human-rights crisis in Ivory Coast was on a par with that of Libya, no serious consideration was given to a NATO military intervention. Aside from sanctions imposed by the UN, ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West Africa States) and the African Union, the world more or less abandoned Ivory Coast to its fate.
Fortunately, the civil war seems to be reaching a conclusion, with Mr. Gbagbo surrounded by rebel forces as of this writing on Friday afternoon. We can only hope that Mr. Ouattara soon will be installed as president, and all violence will cease. In the Middle East and the Balkans, the West generally pays close attention to the actions of tyrants. In Sub-Saharan Africa, on the other hand, most freedom fighters are on their own.
An end to Alberta-bashing
It was not by chance that NDP Leader Jack Layton chose Montreal as the locale for his Thursday attack on the oil sands: Quebecers typically show the highest support in the country for environmental issues, for public spending on "green" initiatives and for such punitive measures as carbon taxes. "Stephen Harper is handing billions to oil companies developing Canada's dirtiest energy sources, like the tar sands," Mr. Layton said, trying hard to tap into the province's green zeitgeist. "As prime minister, I'll cancel his dirty fuels subsidy and ... redirect the savings into Canada's most promising clean energy," such as that being developed at Insertech Angus, the Montreal environmental technology firm whose facilities he was touring at the time.
But is Mr. Layton overdoing it? A new survey conducted for the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI), a free-market think-tank, finds that 61% of Quebecers have a generally positive view of Alberta. And 68% would like to see Quebec strengthen its political and economic ties with the Wild Rose province. "The majority of [respondents] (56%) think that Quebec will still need oil in 20 years," the MEI reported. "And an even larger proportion (71%) consider the development of Alberta's oil sands to be desirable, as long as a consistent effort is made to limit the environmental impact."
And yet, Quebec's politicians have a funny way of reflecting these attitudes. In 2009, the province's Liberal Premier, Jean Charest, flew all the way to Copenhagen to denounce the oil sands at a UN climate summit. He declared himself "disappointed" with what he saw as Ottawa's lack of effort to curtail carbon dioxide emissions that occur when oil is extracted from bitumen. He pleaded with the international community not to punish Canada in any climate treaty for the misbehaviour of just one or two provinces. (Under the circumstances, Alberta's response was remarkably muted. Just imagine the outrage in Quebec if Alberta showed up at a World Trade Organization hearing and protested Quebec's dairy and pork subsidies, or its asbestos industry.)
More recently, the Quebec government has proposed a two-year moratorium on shale-gas extraction, coupled with a demand from Ottawa that the federal government help make up the difference by taxing resource-rich provinces (guess who?) and using the proceeds to boost equalization payments. Former Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, of course, scapegoated the "sands" during the 2008 federal election, as part of his unpopular Green Shift platform. He recommended that Albertans accept a temporary drop in their standard of living for the good of the planet.
It's good that Quebecers have a largely favourable opinion of Alberta. Perhaps they might convince their politicians that there isn't as much currency as they might think in bashing the oil patch and those who derive their living from it.
But is Mr. Layton overdoing it? A new survey conducted for the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI), a free-market think-tank, finds that 61% of Quebecers have a generally positive view of Alberta. And 68% would like to see Quebec strengthen its political and economic ties with the Wild Rose province. "The majority of [respondents] (56%) think that Quebec will still need oil in 20 years," the MEI reported. "And an even larger proportion (71%) consider the development of Alberta's oil sands to be desirable, as long as a consistent effort is made to limit the environmental impact."
And yet, Quebec's politicians have a funny way of reflecting these attitudes. In 2009, the province's Liberal Premier, Jean Charest, flew all the way to Copenhagen to denounce the oil sands at a UN climate summit. He declared himself "disappointed" with what he saw as Ottawa's lack of effort to curtail carbon dioxide emissions that occur when oil is extracted from bitumen. He pleaded with the international community not to punish Canada in any climate treaty for the misbehaviour of just one or two provinces. (Under the circumstances, Alberta's response was remarkably muted. Just imagine the outrage in Quebec if Alberta showed up at a World Trade Organization hearing and protested Quebec's dairy and pork subsidies, or its asbestos industry.)
More recently, the Quebec government has proposed a two-year moratorium on shale-gas extraction, coupled with a demand from Ottawa that the federal government help make up the difference by taxing resource-rich provinces (guess who?) and using the proceeds to boost equalization payments. Former Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, of course, scapegoated the "sands" during the 2008 federal election, as part of his unpopular Green Shift platform. He recommended that Albertans accept a temporary drop in their standard of living for the good of the planet.
It's good that Quebecers have a largely favourable opinion of Alberta. Perhaps they might convince their politicians that there isn't as much currency as they might think in bashing the oil patch and those who derive their living from it.
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