http://business.financialpost.com/
Fossil fuels supply more than 80 per cent of global energy – most of which is crude oil. Meanwhile, Canada, with the third-largest oil reserves, produces less than four per cent of global crude supplies
The political discourse surrounding Canada’s oil industry has morphed into a combination of schizophrenia, hypocrisy and fantasy. This debilitating countrywide phenomenon is clearly exemplified at both the federal and provincial levels.
But it’s the recent actions of B.C. Premier John Horgan and his government’s power-sharing puppet-master, Green party leader Andrew Weaver, that deserve to be nominated for special recognition.
Horgan wins the political schizophrenia award for filing a court case that would allow the province to stop the export of oil from the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion while simultaneously filing a separate court case aimed at preventing Alberta from reducing the amount of oil shipped through the existing line. Alberta Premier Rachel Notley summarized his behaviour succinctly by stating, “They want our oil, but they don’t want our oil.”
Then, just two days after the federal government’s announced takeover of the project to counter Horgan’s vow to “use every tool in the toolbox” to stop the project, his attorney general, David Eby, stated that B.C. is still entitled to the $1 billion former premier Christy Clark negotiated in return for her government agreeing to support the Trans Mountain pipeline.
Horgan also takes top honours for the political hypocrisy award. In response to Vancouver’s gasoline prices recently reaching $1.61 per litre, the highest in North America, Horgan called for “the federal government to get into the game … and protect consumers.”
For the rest of this column: http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/gwyn-morgan-political-schizophrenia-hypocrisy-and-fantasy-make-canadas-pipeline-killing-cocktail