Can Canada and the US together become the dominant global energy power? Brian Lee Crowley, managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, thinks so. He explores the idea, and much more, with our Stewart Muir on our Power Struggle podcast.
CANADA’S RESOURCES
Crowley sees Canada as “almost unique in the world” when it comes to its natural-resource endowment. But will we actually take the steps that are needed for Canada to thrive?
What’s needed, he says, is to accept that we cannot realistically compete with some other countries on manufacturing but we have natural resources in the ground. And not only do we have the resources, we are leaders in resource technology.
Yet when other countries asked about getting Canadian liquefied natural gas via the East Coast, to reduce their dependence on Russia, the prime minister of the time sent them away with “Oh no, no, there’s no business case with this.”
And to those who support a federal emissions cap on the oil-and-gas sector, Crowley has this message: It would in fact be a production cap, and would reduce or prosperity, productivity, and Canada’s living standards.
He argues that with our natural resources Canada could work in tandem with the US to make North America “the dominant energy power in the world.”
But we have to understand Donald Trump.
ABOUT DONALD TRUMP
Crowley says most Canadian commentary presents Donald Trump as an incomprehensible thug who does nasty things for no explicable reason.
But “there is method to his madness” and “if we don’t respond intelligently to what he’s trying to do he will always have the upper hand.”
Trump’s tariff threats, says Crowley, are about trying to make America the “Top Nation, capital T, capital N.” So he wants the US to have its own steel and aluminum industries, and to be the dominant energy player in the world.
“What Trump wants to do is . . . to bring back the physical-manufacturing kind of economy and he wants to use cheap energy as the way to bring it back to those communities that that lost it over the last 40 years. Trump feels that those are his people there.”
And Crowley says Canada cannot escape its deep and abiding relationship with the United States. Anyone who talks of diverting our trade away from the US is “talking through his hat.”
RESTRAIN GOVERNMENT
Crowley points out that in the last 10 years Canadian government spending has increased more than population and more than economic growth, to the tune of $70 billion. And the number of government regulations has gone from 220,000 to 320,000.
All this has led to investment money flowing out of Canada.
“Canada desperately needs to fix the economic climate so that people find it worthwhile to invest in Canada because that’s our future living standards. Investment today is our wages tomorrow.”
Crowley argues that Canada also needs to revise immigration policy to focus on whether the immigrant “can contribute to Canada and how much they can contribute to Canada.”
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