BradfordToday and InnisfilToday welcome letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following is in response to 'LETTER: With U.S. tariffs looming, prime minister wants Alberta's oil,' published Jan. 26.
I would like to offer a response to Michael Jaroch’s letter to the editor regarding his grievances over Justin Trudeau’s failures with respect to the national energy question.
His criticisms are well taken, but miss the point completely when it comes to the broader policy failures of successive Liberal and Conservative governments over the decades.
The Liberals have shown themselves to be totally inconsistent on this issue. They promise climate action on the one hand, while buying pipelines that never get built, leaving Canada more dependent on foreign oil.
Their insistence on market-based solutions and their vague commitments have created policy paralysis, resulting in a whole patchwork of economic inefficiencies. Eastern Canada is dependent on importing foreign oil, while Western resources are sold at a discount to U.S. buyers, who then refine and sell it back to us.
The Conservatives, on the other hand, offer little more than empty promises that sound great in a “verb the noun” sloganeering type of way, but do little to address the underlying issues facing our nation’s energy security. They overemphasize resource extraction while completely neglecting the development of value-added secondary industries, leaving Canadians without the high-paying jobs that refining and infrastructure upgrading could provide.
Their head-in-the-oil-sand (excuse the pun) approach to climate change has left Canada vulnerable to a global economy that is shifting toward clean energy.
Today, we are dangerously exposed to the whims of our southern neighbours. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened Canada with tariffs and trade wars, throwing the entire political and economic establishment into a frenzied panic, which should really emphasize how vulnerable we have let ourselves become as a resource exporter that relies almost exclusively on American markets.
Is there a politically correct term for vassal state? I digress. This dependency has weakened our sovereignty, leaving Canadians paying higher prices for almost everything.
The NDP offers an actual real alternative — a vision for Canada’s energy future that balances the need to develop our resource industry with sustainability and economic security. We should learn from Norway’s example, where pragmatic public resource management through Equinor (formerly Statoil) helped build the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund.
Meanwhile, successive Liberal and Conservative governments have left Canada with comparatively little to show for decades of resource development.
The NDP prioritizes energy independence, environmental concerns and economic prosperity for everyday Canadians. We must have a national energy strategy that addresses the inefficiency of importing oil to Eastern Canada, while exporting discounted unrefined resources south of the border, while also ensuring investments in renewability.
Small business owners and working families in Barrie are very aware of the impact rising energy prices have on their bank accounts. We deserve policies that put our interests ahead of profits for foreign corporations, and the ideological short-termism of Liberal and Conservative governments.
I think it's time we give the NDP a fair shot. They are the only party that offers a vision that will strengthen Canada’s sovereignty, protect its environment and ensure prosperity for normal, everyday Canadians.
Jacob Hodgins
Barrie
