We get it:
Logic would suggest it would take a pretty serious issue to create a major rift between Canada and the U.S., given how close the countries have been over the years.
While obvious cultural differences exist – Americans have trouble finding Canada on a map, while Canadians boggle at their love of shooting one another – as neighbours the relationship is generally strong. The most serious recent conflict resulted from Ottawa’s refusal to engage in the Iraq invasion, a position numerous other close U.S. allies shared. That argument was about war, and human lives.
It certainly seems illogical that an oil pipeline should be elevated to the level of friction now represented by the Keystone XL project. But through one means or another, the project has become a source of real conflict. On Wednesday the CEO of TransCanada Corp. came pretty close to calling the President of the United States a liar. Russ Girling said that “the notion that this oil is going to get exported is pure fabrication by those that are opposed to our project.”
Later, he added: “It’s very highly unlikely that any of this crude leaves North America.”
The timing was important, because Mr. Obama made those very allegations just last week. The pipeline, he said was merely “providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land, down to the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else.” He was parroting the latest line in the war against Keystone mounted by U.S. environmentalists, which portrays Canada as a nefarious purveyor of dirty oil, with plans to send shipments across the pristine U.S. to ships in the Gulf, which will immediately transport it to China.
In reality, TransCanada doesn’t own the oil, it just ships it for the oil companies. It gets sent to a refining hub in Texas, which turns it into gasoline. The refiners say less than 10% of the gasoline they refine gets exported. If the refiners did decide, illogically, to export it all, they would have to ship in other oil from Venezuela or elsewhere to replace it, which makes no sense at all. The U.S. State Department, which has assessed Keystone to death, found that pipelines have no impact on U.S. exports, and that Alberta’s oil is likely to stay in the U.S.
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We get it: Canadians finally figure out why Americans gave up on Obama | National Post
Logic would suggest it would take a pretty serious issue to create a major rift between Canada and the U.S., given how close the countries have been over the years.
While obvious cultural differences exist – Americans have trouble finding Canada on a map, while Canadians boggle at their love of shooting one another – as neighbours the relationship is generally strong. The most serious recent conflict resulted from Ottawa’s refusal to engage in the Iraq invasion, a position numerous other close U.S. allies shared. That argument was about war, and human lives.
It certainly seems illogical that an oil pipeline should be elevated to the level of friction now represented by the Keystone XL project. But through one means or another, the project has become a source of real conflict. On Wednesday the CEO of TransCanada Corp. came pretty close to calling the President of the United States a liar. Russ Girling said that “the notion that this oil is going to get exported is pure fabrication by those that are opposed to our project.”
Later, he added: “It’s very highly unlikely that any of this crude leaves North America.”
The timing was important, because Mr. Obama made those very allegations just last week. The pipeline, he said was merely “providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land, down to the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else.” He was parroting the latest line in the war against Keystone mounted by U.S. environmentalists, which portrays Canada as a nefarious purveyor of dirty oil, with plans to send shipments across the pristine U.S. to ships in the Gulf, which will immediately transport it to China.
In reality, TransCanada doesn’t own the oil, it just ships it for the oil companies. It gets sent to a refining hub in Texas, which turns it into gasoline. The refiners say less than 10% of the gasoline they refine gets exported. If the refiners did decide, illogically, to export it all, they would have to ship in other oil from Venezuela or elsewhere to replace it, which makes no sense at all. The U.S. State Department, which has assessed Keystone to death, found that pipelines have no impact on U.S. exports, and that Alberta’s oil is likely to stay in the U.S.
more
We get it: Canadians finally figure out why Americans gave up on Obama | National Post
