Canada is in a weird situation. Yes, as far as natural resources go, we’re the envy of most globally, and politically we’re an absolute basket case.
Canada, geographically, is only physically connected to one nation, which happens to be the Gorilla on the planet economically, militarily, and it is more than ten fold the Canadian population. To the West is the Pacific, the East is the Atlantic, the North is the Arctic….& to the South is a 7000km long border with the United Stated of America.
Without the political will and economic wherewithal to have a larger global share of the petroleum marketplace, with most of the tidewater access in this country of a similiar age to the average dotage to the posters on this forum I’m assuming…we’ve been shooting ourselves in the foot for decades.
(Now, I know I can be subtle, but some of you might have picked up over time that I happen to not be a fan of our current PM. Yeah, I know, you might be shocked but it’s true though.)
Justin Trudeau does not have a direct bearing on OPEC, but he does have an effect on Natural Resource Investment in Canada itself….which indirectly influences the global petrochemical industry. Canada under our current administration has not only been dissuading investment in Our nation, but has been bureaucratically chasing it away with the metaphoric equivalent of pitchforks & torches.
Due to some of the circumstances above, we have made some political economic agreements that we’ve locked into, but it is what it is. Our largest trading partner is inevitably the US of A. America is the dog and we as Canadians are the tail in our trade relationship without the ability through economic investment to diversify to not have all of our eggs in a single basket.
International Cabotage Rules between our two nations are lopsided at best, and the details are a Google hunt away for anyone who’s actually interested in the search.
Canada can not reduce the volume of oil export to the US without an equal reduction of our own consumption proportionally domestically, and due to our unique geography we can only build pipelines (assuming we could still build pipelines) to one other country directly. Without pipelines (that aren’t geriatric) with modern volume concepts to both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, without reducing our domestic consumption or the proportional volume to our southern neighbour….we are essentially stuck with one trading partner for this resource, which is reflected in the discount off the world price for Canadian petroleum in the US marketplace.
It’s not a coincidence that Canadian petroleum reserves have been counted as domestic reserves for America going back decades….as by landlocking the bulk of this resource, it essentially makes America our only significant customer. It is only recently (Fracking & the Bakken Play) that American is realizing the potential for oil Independence, and by dissuading Canadian market diversification, whether it’s via Warren Buffet or the Sierra Club or outright political bullying like Gretchen Whitmore…Canada economically can wither & dither due to blind woke political stupidity as our resources idle as the reserves of another nation.
Though Tec & Petros above are taking different ends of the apparent spectrum in debate above, they’re both correct. Without the political will and desire, as the third largest proven reserves on the planet for this resource in question, without the ability to sell this product to more than one customer at a significant discount…even though we’re ramping up production that’s really only going to one place for all intents and purposes…we will remain a floundering mess at someone’s else’s will.
Imagine is you will, if our Canadian dollar was not $0.70/USD….but $1.30/UDS? What would that do for the price at the pump in Canada? Yes it would be more difficult to flog our low end manufactured goods, but it would drive us to produce for export higher end products and services on top of our raw and refined natural resources. Imagine if you will that your paycheque just went 40% farther than it currently does.
Anyway, it’s supper time, so I may or may not come back to this later.
