Harry Shannon
Unless you’ve been living under the proverbial rock, you’ll know that U.S. President Donald Trump has been imposing tariffs on various goods entering the U.S. Some important products of the Canadian economy are included. Many goods are exempt, given the free trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. The tariffs have already led to layoffs in some sectors of the Canadian economy.
An even bigger concern for Canada is that when the free trade agreement is renegotiated, Trump may add even more tariffs and industries will move their operations out of Canada into the U.S. As a result, the Canadian government is proposing “nation-building projects” as one way to become more independent of trade with the U.S.
Fossil fuel extraction is a major part of the Province of Alberta’s economy. The oil and gas industry is heavily subsidized by the federal government. Depending on which source you look at, the figure is close to $20 billion.
Yet Albertans complain bitterly that they are poorly treated by the rest of the country. Alberta’s Premier, Danielle Smith, wants an oil pipeline from Alberta to the west coast of Canada (in the province of British Columbia) to be added to the list of major projects. This is a ridiculous idea, so I wrote a letter to the Hamilton Spectator. It wasn’t published.
Here’s the letter:
Re: Premier says Alberta will propose new oil pipeline to B.C. coast, Oct. 2
There’s a joke I’ve heard that can be adapted to today’s Canada: How do you know when a planeload of Albertans has landed? You can still hear the whining when the engines are turned off.
That is the only plausible explanation for the inclusion of an oil pipeline as a possible nation-building project. Disasters like wildfires in Alberta and elsewhere in Canada are increasingly common, thanks to climate change caused by the fossil fuels that would flow through the proposed pipeline.
Moreover, the private sector knows that the longer-term prospects for the oil and gas industry are bleak. Renewable energy is now far cheaper to produce and the cost keeps coming down. That’s why the private sector has shied away from the pipeline project. So why would we waste public funds on this soon-to-be-obsolete venture?
Albertans need to stop complaining, accept the fact that fossil fuels are on the way out, and switch their focus to the clean energy we need for the twenty-first century.
Harry Shannon, Dundas