The end of Canadian foreign policy |
Prime Minister Mark Carney can’t categorically rule out the possibility of participating in US President Donald Trump’s illegal war against Iran — and that may be because he believes another conflict in the Middle East will be great for Canada’s fossil fuel sector.
Carney’s actions are hard to fathom: just a few weeks ago he correctly told a crowd at Davos that the Pax Americana was effectively over, thanks to the increasingly reckless actions of the Trump administration.
And given Trump has started both an unjust trade war against Canada — to say nothing of his repeated calls for our annexation — and has further threatened the political, economic and territorial sovereignty of myriad Canadian allies, Carney’s apparently unwavering support for Trump’s foreign policy seemingly defies explanation.
Until you consider that the price of a barrel of crude rose by US$10 in just a few days.
America’s imperial conflicts have always been good for Canada’s oil patch.
When OPEC initiated an oil embargo against Western nations that supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Canada’s nascent oil patch was ready and available to supply not only Canada, but the United States. As recounted by journalist and former roughneck Don Gillmor in his recent book On Oil, “in the 1970s you could still hear Texan or Oklahoman accents on the street. Calgary was more aligned with those states, its allegiances formed on a north/south axis.”
Canada’s role as America’s stable supply of oil and gas would only continue to develop in subsequent decades. By the time of the Iraq War in 2003, Alberta government ministers and energy executives were apoplectic that the Chretien administration wouldn’t support George W. Bush’s ill-fated and fraudulent war, as noted by journalist Geoff Dembicki’s review of leaked diplomatic cables.
It will be the political class, the banks, the pension plans, the energy companies and maybe even Danielle Smith who benefit first and foremost from Trump’s attack on Iran.
The government of Alberta and their partners in the fossil fuel sector were keen to get Jean Chretien out of the way and a new “business-friendly” prime minister into office. Paul Martin “understands and supports the oil and gas industry,” read one American diplomatic cable from the time.
While history may not repeat itself, it certainly rhymes.
It’s worth remembering some of the news from the weeks before Trump decided to start a new war. Alberta posted a massive deficit. Enbridge said it wouldn't build a new West Coast pipeline. Australia was shipping LNG to Canada because they couldn’t find any buyers amongst those ostensibly thirsty Asian markets.
Add to this mix an Alberta separatism movement, which has taken the form of Premier Danielle Smith proposing a sovereignty referendum potentially more injurious to the nation than anything to have ever come out of Quebec while Alberta separatists apparently hold high-level meetings with the Trump state department.
Now analysts are already predicting a stronger Canadian dollar and increased oil and gas exports. America’s war against Iran won’t provide much benefit to the average Canadian, but that couldn’t be further from the minds of the political class. Though there may be short-term economic benefits that temporarily reverse negative trends recently observed (including Alberta's massive deficit), it will be the political class, the banks, the pension plans, the energy companies and maybe even Smith who benefit first and foremost from Trump’s attack on Iran.
Consider as well that the majority of Canada’s oil and gas sector is not only foreign-owned, but that it’s predominantly owned by American shareholders.
With constraints like these, exercising any kind of independent Canadian foreign policy may already be effectively impossible. And it’s hard to imagine someone as intelligent and worldly as Carney isn’t already aware of this. The “elbow’s up” rhetoric that got him elected a year ago now rings hollow, particularly given that — regardless of where Carney’s fast-tracked pipelines ultimately get built — the profits will primarily flow south.
The Canada Pension Plan is already bankrolling Trump’s fossil fuel build-out. It stands to reason Carney won’t stand in the way of American wars that benefit the fossil fuel economy.
But whatever the short-term economic gain, what’s being traded away will be hard — perhaps impossible — to recover. As former prime minister John Turner said during the 1988 federal leaders debate — an election that was essentially a referendum on whether Canada should enter a free trade agreement with the United States — once the economic levers of power are relinquished, political sovereignty is certain to follow.
If we want to be free to chart our own course in this world, unplugging from the American oil economy as quickly as possible is the only viable way forward. By completing a transition to renewable energy on a national scale, we free ourselves from some of the disruptions and economic impacts caused by the global fossil fuel economy.
As columnist Max Fawcett correctly pointed out, Trump’s war against Iran is destroying the very thing he’s apparently trying to defend, and Canadian politicians won’t be able to argue in the future that we weren’t warned. Major industrial economies — as much as developing nations — have all the more reason to speed up the transition to renewable energy as long as despots like Trump, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin commit war crimes that cause global economic instability. Rather than betraying our values to align our foreign policy — and sunsetting industries — with people like Trump, Canada should be looking to corner the growing global market in renewables.
Energy sovereignty is economic security as much as geopolitical sovereignty and, by changing course on energy, Canada can do much more to protect both.