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MURDOCK: On becoming relevant

Canada must play to its strengths to gain prominence as a global trading partner
Alan Murdock
Alan Murdock

A chaotic emptiness of effective leadership is spreading remorselessly among western styled democracies.

The profoundly discomforting candidates for the USA presidency make it startlingly clear that we have a critical vacuum of competent leadership at our southern border. President Biden will not give up his Quixotic quest to do battle with the Trump windmill of fatuous falsehoods. Authoritarianism is on the march in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Participatory democracy is in retreat.

In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s self-belief in the ultimate power of his oratorical punches will continue his messianic re-distributive socialist policy pursuit to remake Canadian society. We can look forward to higher taxes, lower take-home pay, and accelerating abandonment by investors and owners in Canadian businesses.  Further, we have abandoned our sovereignty over our northern waters and arctic islands. We are wholly dependent on the American economy for our daily bread and lifestyles.

Take the petroleum industry. Energy products made up one-third (33.5 per cent) of the $598 billion worth of our 2022 exports to the United States. At the same time, the USA is now petroleum product self-sufficient so Canadian imports are primarily refined for USA export markets. The opening of the oil and natural gas outlets to Vancouver and Kitimat ports have become crucial should the next American president switch to Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana producers. Except for the political cowardice in Ottawa and a Quebec isolationist government, we could have helped ourselves and Europe, while easing global warming from their coal generated energy needs, had we  built a  petroleum pipeline from western Canada  to New Brunswick. Canadians deserve better. (America came to their rescue).

Additionally, we are no longer a major factor in the USA economy. Canada’s export of goods and services to the USA have dropped to 13 per cent of America’s imports. This situation will worsen as America retreats to its post-First World War isolationist mood, 

Nonetheless, we could have significant leverage in our USA trade negotiations and even become a useful global trading partner.

For example, there is no green energy transition without critical minerals. Happily, we can become a major source of critical minerals for a wide range of essential products at the cutting edge of the new world economy, particularly for cobalt, nickel, tellurium, vanadium and zinc. These metals are essential in the manufacture of such products as jet engines, stainless steel, wind turbines, EV motors and electronics. Jobs in the critical mineral sector exist at each stage of the mineral development cycle: geoscientists, mining engineers and metallurgists, computer technologists, heavy equipment operators, mineral processing, and automotive assembly. It will be vital that we develop that human capacity.

Thankfully we do have a Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy. Let us hope that our federal government finds the intelligence and foresight to use it wisely in the forthcoming USMCA negotiations.

It’s called the "art of the deal."

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