PIPELINES

We couldn’t build the controversial oil pipeline to northern b.c. Then we couldn’t build the pipeline that would have recycled a bunch of existing pipeline infrastructure to send oil east for domestic processing. Then we couldn’t build the oil pipeline that was basically an expansion of an existing pipeline that had existed uncontroversially for half a century. Then we couldn’t build a natural gas pipeline approved with unprecedented levels of Indigenous support. And now we can’t even build an oil pipeline that is already halffinished.

As the world’s investors are beginning to notice, this is becoming a uniquely Canadian problem. Authoritarian countries such as russia, China and Saudi Arabia are obviously going to build oil infrastructure wherever they want, but even progressive, environmentally minded nations like Norway do not trifle with their ability to produce and export petroleum.

For the relatively brief period that we haven’t had Great britain handling our foreign policy for us, Canada has never been what you would call a “heavyweight” in world affairs. but we had our moments: Helping to inspire the dissolution of communism in the Soviet union, orchestrating the rescue of American diplomats trapped in Iran and spearheading the creation of NATO. And, of course, there was that time in 1957 that Lester Pearson got a Nobel Prize for proposing the use of peacekeeping to defuse the Suez Crisis.

Aside from adding in chapters on gender and Indigenous rights, Canada’s demands were mostly sidelined at the NAFTA renegotiations spurred by former u.s. president donald Trump. despite expending immense amounts of resources and political capital, Canada failed at securing the largely tokenistic position of a temporary seat on the un Security Council.

Meanwhile, as an increasingly aggressive People’s republic of China openly threatens its neighbours and perpetrates genocides in its northwest, Canada has repeatedly stood as one of its staunchest apologists in the West. There’s no reason Canada’s small size should define its increasingly limited influence in world affairs. After all, it was the even smaller nation of Australia that rallied international efforts to secure an official inquiry into the origins of COVID-19.