Pipelines, railways and the old drama of East-West versus North-South

Here we are once again arguing about whether Canadian energy should be used for short-term profit or long-term security.

The oil industry always claims they are in a business like any other. Everyone else — around the world! — knows that energy is a strategic area. Civilizations rise and fall on their ability to heat and propel themselves.

I wrote about this in my second novel — Baraka, or the Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honor of Anthony Smith.

Yes, there is a lot of money involved. A lot! But energy is not primarily a question of money. It’s a philosophical matter of the most dramatic sort. In the case of Canada it is central to how the country functions.

Do we focus on sending our energy south? This is easy until they don’t want it. Rome always decides what it wants and doesn’t want. And reserves the right to change its mind without notice. Good old Rome. There are no friends when it comes to national self-interest. There may be allies. But the U.S. in particular is an inward-looking project. The outward looking moments are exceptions in their history.

So what do we do if we want to be more than passive passengers in our own energy drama? How do we ensure our independence from U.S. nationalism and their resulting energy politics?

Do we send it to a Pacific port — not too far away? Or do we send it across the country?

Last time around, those in favour of short-term profit won. Who were they? Companies owned or influenced by U.S. interests. So, our energy went south. Today’s crisis is the direct result of that decision. Canada became increasingly dependent, for exports, on the US. And for eastern supply, on other foreign markets, even though as a country we are actually self-sufficient.

Did the federal government handle the situation badly? Yes, producing a lot of bitterness in Alberta. But did the oil industry, along with its supporters and its primarily U.S. orientation, act with honour, or with the interests of Albertans or Westerners or Canadians in mind? Absolutely not. It acted the way the oil and gas industry has acted in the Middle East or in Latin America, or anywhere.

What I’m reading this time around sounds like an almost identical version of the old arguments.

And of course one of the key factors, if the energy goes east, is whether we should spend the extra money needed to keep the pipeline within Canada as opposed to in the United States for a good part of the way. Surely, the argument goes, the US government would never interfere with our supply simply because it runs through their country.

Really? I think this is increasingly naive. The US is the last 19th century-style nationalist society in the West. Donald Trump is not an accident. He resembles many 19th century U.S. presidents. We know that he does not believe Canada should exist. We know that he has no respect for the rule of law. Nor do the people around him. If it strikes him that there is an advantage to breaking the rules — the law — he will break the rules.

There are those who say he will be gone in under four years. Perhaps. And I do mean ‘perhaps’. He and his people are working hard to ensure that rules of all sorts are changed in order to further weaken the American political system. Why? To make it ever-easier for the anti-democratic forces, which support Mr. Trump, to have much more influence over what comes next.

I think and write a lot about the nature of risk. Frankly, these days, when it comes to dealing with the United States, I would rather spend some extra money to avoid the risk of being physically subject to their fantasies and ambitions.

One last thought. This whole drama is also identical to the 19th century drama which surrounded the building of the railway across Canada. The same sort of interest groups thought we should be integrated into an American railway system. Opposing them were those who thought that a country like Canada could exist. Those people thought it was worth spending more money to build a railway line north of the border.

They built it in the midst of continuing drama, political and social; there was corruption and there were many injustices. But the result for many years was the longest and probably the most successful railway system in the world.

And with that came the physical structure and organized stability which eventually produced much of modern Canada.