EDITORIAL: We cut our own throats on trade

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It will be good news if Canada’s federal and provincial governments finally get their acts together on approving nation-building projects and removing barriers to interprovincial trade. 

But why did it take a tariff war by U.S. President Donald Trump to get Prime Minister Mark Carney and provincial and territorial leaders to take the issue seriously? 

Interprovincial trade barriers cost the Canadian economy an estimated $200 billion annually, increase the cost of goods and services to Canadians by up to 14.5% and reduce Canada’s economic growth, as measured by Gross Domestic Product, by up to 8% annually. 

As Alberta Premier Danielle Smith noted at Monday’s meeting in Saskatoon between Carney and provincial and territorial leaders aimed at green lighting nation-building projects, Canada’s failure to build oil pipelines alone has been devastating to our economy. 

Had the Northern Gateway, Energy East and Keystone pipelines been built (Keystone was killed by then-U.S. president Barack Obama), Smith said, Canada would be producing 2.5 million more barrels of oil per day. 

“That’s $55 billion a year worth of GDP value, which is worth $17 billion to my government alone and about an equal amount to the federal government,” Smith said. 

“This is not just an ideological argument, it’s not just a minor disagreement, oil is by far the most valuable export for Canada.  

“Any of the projects that you will see on the ultimate list, I will tell you that a bitumen pipeline will be by far the greatest benefit to all of Canada … 

“There’s $9 trillion worth of value in discoverable and achievable reserves right now and so why would you leave that in the ground? No other country in the world would and we shouldn’t either.” 

Indeed, using the profits from Canada’s oil sector to pay for the transition to a green economy was originally proposed by then-prime minister Justin Trudeau. 

His government eventually built the TMX pipeline which now delivers 590,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta to Canada’s west coast and from there to U.S. and Asian markets, but we’ve only scratched the surface of how much we could be profiting from our oil and gas reserves. 

That’s not because of Trump. It’s because of decisions by our own governments.