Energy policy is kowtowing, not co-operating, critics charge

Canada’s approach paradoxical, puzzling. We sell more natural gas to the U.S. than we use

When the three leaders of North America met in Cancun, Mexico, last year to review progress on the Security and Prosperity Partnership, they agreed energy security was a top priority.

As the leaders prepare to gather next week in Montebello, that decision seems like a no-brainer. After all, we live in a world of dwindling and increasingly costly energy.

But for those who shudder at the continental co-operation the SPP espouses, it is a red flag.

“Most of these people do not believe that markets work,” said Michael Hart, a former senior Canadian trade official who now teaches at Carleton University.

“They have a knee-jerk reaction to anything that smacks of co-operation because it will reduce the capacity of a Canadian or U.S. government of a nationalist bent from doing things the way that they would like them to be done.”

But you don’t have to be a nationalist to find aspects of Canada’s approach to energy paradoxical and puzzling.

Montreal Gazette