Economy
A Fair Deal Includes Energy Security
This article contributed by Josh Andrus, Executive Director of Project Confederation
Energy security.
It’s a concept that has been ignored by many – including our federal government in Ottawa – for far too long.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has suddenly helped the world realize what’s been obvious to many Albertans for a long time – we still need oil and gas!
The same parade of politicians who crusaded to save the world from the threat of “catastrophic” climate change are now coming to the realization that there is a fundamental flaw in the Green New Deal / Leave It In The Ground / Build Back Better strategy.
Energy is the industry that powers every other industry – and as such, a safe supply of affordable, reliable energy is not only good for the domestic economy but also a crucial tool in an increasingly volatile international geopolitical landscape.
Earlier this week, after a big push by our friends at the Alberta Institute, and many other political and non-profit groups, the federal government finally announced that they would ban the importation of Russian oil.
Russia’s aggressive actions, and the related uncertainty, have now driven the price of crude oil over the $115/bbl benchmark.
[Editor’s note: we had to increase that price four times while writing this piece!]
Thankfully, Alberta has a large supply of energy resources, resources that could displace the loss of Russian imports and help keep energy affordable for Canadians.
Of course, it would have been better if our calls had been listened to years ago, and we had the infrastructure in place already!
But, as the saying goes:
The best time to build a pipeline was 20 years ago.
The second-best time is now!
If our politicians had any sense, Keystone XL and Energy East would have been given emergency approval the moment war broke out.
Yet, here we are, a week into a European war, and there’s been nary a whisper from the White House or Rideau Cottage.
If Alberta can’t convince Canada to build a pipeline in the middle of a war in Europe, we’ll surely never get one.
To make matters worse, the pipeline issues aren’t even the only possible problem on the horizon.
In past years, $100+ oil was good for Alberta.
Economic growth explodes, jobs are plentiful, and the pay is phenomenal.
Some of that will surely happen in the coming months, but with this current boom coinciding with major inflationary pressures, there are risks for Alberta too.
High energy prices and the ensuing increase in the cost of living will hurt the rest of the country.
The Rest of Canada will complain that Alberta has it so good, while they struggle to pay their hydro bills.
Will the Rest of Canada decide to start extracting their own plentiful natural resources, currently kept in the ground for nonsensical environmental concerns?
Of course not.
Ottawa will, undoubtedly, devise yet another means of wealth redistribution instead.
Once again, they’ll figure out a way to make Alberta pay for their poor policy choices.
They probably won’t have the gall to call it a “National Energy Program”.
But they might.
Remember, the major issues driving Western alienation are structural deficiencies in Confederation, deficiencies that have only gotten worse in recent decades, not better.
The West is underrepresented in Parliament, the Senate is unelected and ineffective at protecting Provincial rights, the very concept of fairness is undermined in our Constitution via equalization, and the Supreme Court screws the West and protects the rest.
At Project Confederation, our mission is clear:
To build a movement that will reform Confederation and achieve a fairer deal, in whatever legal configuration that may require.
I suspect we’re going to have a lot of work to do in the coming months!
If you’d like to help us with that work, please reach out to us to get involved, or consider making a donation to help fund our efforts.
Regards,
Josh Andrus
Executive Director
Project Confederation
Economy
The White Pill: Big Government Can Be Defeated (Just Ask the Soviet Union)
From StosselTV
People have been “black pilled” to think the world is doomed. Michael Malice says there’s hope.
In his book, “The White Pill,” he argues that tyrannical regimes, like the Soviet Union, can be toppled.
Today, media and universities distort history, and push socialism. It used to be worse. The New York Times once covered up Stalin’s famine, even as millions starved. Why? Malice says it’s because NYT star reporter Walter Duranty liked communism’s utopian promises, and status he got from his exclusive Stalin interviews.
Malice says the fall of the Soviet Union should give us hope that America can resist the universities and media’s brainwashing – or any tyranny that someone is “black pilled” about.
Our video explains Malice’s “white pill” and why you might want to take it.
After 40+ years of reporting, I now understand the importance of limited government and personal freedom.
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Libertarian journalist John Stossel created Stossel TV to explain liberty and free markets to young people.
Prior to Stossel TV he hosted a show on Fox Business and co-anchored ABC’s primetime newsmagazine show, 20/20.
Stossel’s economic programs have been adapted into teaching kits by a non-profit organization, “Stossel in the Classroom.” High school teachers in American public schools now use the videos to help educate their students on economics and economic freedom. They are seen by more than 12 million students every year.
Stossel has received 19 Emmy Awards and has been honored five times for excellence in consumer reporting by the National Press Club. Other honors include the George Polk Award for Outstanding Local Reporting and the George Foster Peabody Award.
Links
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To get our new weekly video from Stossel TV, sign up here: https://www.johnstossel.com/#subscribe
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Alberta
Ford and Trudeau are playing checkers. Trump and Smith are playing chess
By Dan McTeague
Ford’s calls for national unity – “We need to stand united as Canadians!” – in context feels like an endorsement of fellow Electric Vehicle fanatic Trudeau. And you do wonder if that issue has something to do with it. After all, the two have worked together to pump billions in taxpayer dollars into the EV industry.
There’s no doubt about it: Donald Trump’s threat of a blanket 25% tariff on Canadian goods (to be established if the Canadian government fails to take sufficient action to combat drug trafficking and illegal crossings over our southern border) would be catastrophic for our nation’s economy. More than $3 billion in goods move between the U.S. and Canada on a daily basis. If enacted, the Trump tariff would likely result in a full-blown recession.
It falls upon Canada’s leaders to prevent that from happening. That’s why Justin Trudeau flew to Florida two weeks ago to point out to the president-elect that the trade relationship between our countries is mutually beneficial.
This is true, but Trudeau isn’t the best person to make that case to Trump, since he has been trashing the once and future president, and his supporters, both in public and private, for years. He did so again at an appearance just the other day, in which he implied that American voters were sexist for once again failing to elect the nation’s first female president, and said that Trump’s election amounted to an assault on women’s rights.
Consequently, the meeting with Trump didn’t go well.
But Trudeau isn’t Canada’s only politician, and in recent days we’ve seen some contrasting approaches to this serious matter from our provincial leaders.
First up was Doug Ford, who followed up a phone call with Trudeau earlier this week by saying that Canadians have to prepare for a trade war. “Folks, this is coming, it’s not ‘if,’ it is — it’s coming… and we need to be prepared.”
Ford said that he’s working with Liberal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland to put together a retaliatory tariff list. Spokesmen for his government floated the idea of banning the LCBO from buying American alcohol, and restricting the export of critical minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries (I’m sure Trump is terrified about that last one).
But Ford’s most dramatic threat was his announcement that Ontario is prepared to shut down energy exports to the U.S., specifically to Michigan, New York, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, if Trump follows through with his plan. “We’re sending a message to the U.S. You come and attack Ontario, you attack the livelihoods of Ontario and Canadians, we’re going to use every tool in our toolbox to defend Ontarians and Canadians across the border,” Ford said.
Now, unfortunately, all of this chest-thumping rings hollow. Ontario does almost $500 billion per year in trade with the U.S., and the province’s supply chains are highly integrated with America’s. The idea of just cutting off the power, as if you could just flip a switch, is actually impossible. It’s a bluff, and Trump has already called him on it. When told about Ford’s threat by a reporter this week, Trump replied “That’s okay if he does that. That’s fine.”
And Ford’s calls for national unity – “We need to stand united as Canadians!” – in context feels like an endorsement of fellow Electric Vehicle fanatic Trudeau. And you do wonder if that issue has something to do with it. After all, the two have worked together to pump billions in taxpayer dollars into the EV industry. Just over the past year Ford and Trudeau have been seen side by side announcing their $5 billion commitment to Honda, or their $28.2 billion in subsidies for new Stellantis and Volkswagen electric vehicle battery plants.
Their assumption was that the U.S. would be a major market for Canadian EVs. Remember that “vehicles are the second largest Canadian export by value, at $51 billion in 2023 of which 93% was exported to the U.S.,”according to the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association, and “Auto is Ontario’s top export at 28.9% of all exports (2023).”
But Trump ran on abolishing the Biden administration’s de facto EV mandate. Now that he’s back in the White House, the market for those EVs that Trudeau and Ford invested in so heavily is going to be much softer. Perhaps they’d like to be able to blame Trump’s tariffs for the coming downturn rather than their own misjudgment.
In any event, Ford’s tactic stands in stark contrast to the response from Alberta, Canada’s true energy superpower. Premier Danielle Smith made it clear that her province “will not support cutting off our Alberta energy exports to the U.S., nor will we support a tariff war with our largest trading partner and closest ally.”
Smith spoke about this topic at length at an event announcing a new $29-million border patrol team charged with combatting drug trafficking, at which said that Trudeau’s criticisms of the president-elect were, “not helpful.” Her deputy premier Mike Ellis was quoted as saying, “The concerns that president-elect Trump has expressed regarding fentanyl are, quite frankly, the same concerns that I and the premier have had.” Smith and Ellis also criticized Ottawa’s progressively lenient approach to drug crimes.
(For what it’s worth, a recent Léger poll found that “Just 29 per cent of [Canadians] believe Trump’s concerns about illegal immigration and drug trafficking from Canada to the U.S. are unwarranted.” Perhaps that’s why some recent polls have found that Trudeau is currently less popular in Canada than Trump at the moment.)
Smith said that Trudeau’s criticisms of the president-elect were, “not helpful.” And on X/Twitter she said, “Now is the time to… reach out to our friends and allies in the U.S. to remind them just how much Americans and Canadians mutually benefit from our trade relationship – and what we can do to grow that partnership further,” adding, “Tariffs just hurt Americans and Canadians on both sides of the border. Let’s make sure they don’t happen.”
This is exactly the right approach. Smith knows there is a lot at stake in this fight, and is not willing to step into the ring in a fight that Canada simply can’t win, and will cause a great deal of hardship for all involved along the way.
While Trudeau indulges in virtue signaling and Ford in sabre rattling, Danielle Smith is engaging in true statesmanship. That’s something that is in short supply in our country these days.
As I’ve written before, Trump is playing chess while Justin Trudeau and Doug Ford are playing checkers. They should take note of Smith’s strategy. Honey will attract more than vinegar, and if the long history of our two countries tell us anything, it’s that diplomacy is more effective than idle threats.
Dan McTeague is President of Canadians for Affordable Energy.
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