Canada’s Prime Minister Warns Obama That Canada Doesn’t Have To Send Oil To America
Some sharp words from Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but President Obama has earned them with the ham-handed way he’s handled the Keystone XL pipeline fiasco.
Canada could sell its oil to China and other overseas markets with or without approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline in the United States, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
In a year-end television interview, Harper indicated he had doubts the $7-billion pipeline would receive political approval from U.S. President Barack Obama, and that Canada should be looking outside the United States for markets.
“I am very serious about selling our oil off this continent, selling our energy products off to Asia. I think we have to do that,” Harper said in the Monday interview with CTV National News.
Harper’s comments were released a day after the White House sent signals it might kill TransCanada’s oil sands pipeline if it is forced to make a decision on the project in 60 days, saying there wasn’t sufficient time to complete a new environmental review.
It’s a little nauseating to hear Harper talk of this oil as though it belonged to the Canadian government. Harper ought to be concerned with enabling that oil to flow to wherever it wants to in the market.
But setting that quibble aside, it’s pretty clear that the Obama administration is holding America back. The world is in the midst of an energy revolution, with new technologies and techniques opening up fast new reserves of energy, but rather than embrace that revolution Obama wants to sandbag it preferring instead to protect dead-end energies like wind and solar.
This is why we can’t afford another Obama term.
Tags: Barack Obama, energy, keystone xl, stephen harper
