The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.
Stephen Harper won’t stand in the way of Beijing’s biggest-ever foreign investment, a $15.5-billion (U.S.) bid unveiled Monday for Calgary-based oil producer Nexen Inc. by China’s state-owned Cnooc Ltd., or China National Offshore Oil Corp. Indeed, the Canadian prime minister will be applauding.
If Athabasca is rivalled only by the Middle East in its vast oil reserves, the world’s top creditor nation has its own vast resources — of cash — that Harper is eager to tap. Chinese firms already have pumped $17 billion into North American oil and gas plays since 2010. But there’s at least another $2 trillion of acquisition firepower where that came from.
The Cnooc embrace also puts muscle into Harper’s warnings to Washington that Canada is ready to redirect its oil exports to Asia if the U.S. balks at, say, the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that Calgary’s TransCanada Corp. proposes to build across the length of the U.S.
U.S. President Barack Obama has crossed swords with Ottawa with his one-year moratorium on the Keystone XL megaproject. That delay prompted Harper to turn up the volume on his kind words for China.