Macfarlane: Canada should “make it a national priority to ensure we have the capacity to export our energy products beyond the US, and specifically to Asia.” Agree?

By: /
6 February, 2012
By: Verto Support

Agree, with two key provisos. First, contrary to much of the rhetoric that followed President Obama’s decision to reject (delay) the Keystone XL pipeline, the decision is not an either/or proposition. Canada does not need to choose between exporting energy products to the US or to Asia. We can and should do both. Second, developing the capacity to export to Asian markets should not automatically override other concerns. Coastal communities in British Columbia, particularly Indigenous communities, have legitimate concerns about the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline that would see oil shipped by tanker off the BC coast. The ongoing environmental assessment process is crucial to ensuring decisions about building capacity are done from an evidence-based perspective. This process has already been subject to politicization, which is inevitable. But political and economic expediency must not be allowed to rule the day if the environmental risks prove too high.

Before you click away, we’d like to ask you for a favour … 

 

Journalism in Canada has suffered a devastating decline over the last two decades. Dozens of newspapers and outlets have shuttered. Remaining newsrooms are smaller. Nowhere is this erosion more acute than in the coverage of foreign policy and international news. It’s expensive, and Canadians, oceans away from most international upheavals, pay the outside world comparatively little attention.

At Open Canada, we believe this must change. If anything, the pandemic has taught us we can’t afford to ignore the changing world. What’s more, we believe, most Canadians don’t want to. Many of us, after all, come from somewhere else and have connections that reach around the world.

Our mission is to build a conversation that involves everyone — not just politicians, academics and policy makers. We need your help to do so. Your support helps us find stories and pay writers to tell them. It helps us grow that conversation. It helps us encourage more Canadians to play an active role in shaping our country’s place in the world.

Become a Supporter