The fate of the Franklin expedition was just a Cracker Jack puzzle compared to this conundrum. Or so the Liberal government seems to think

There are mysteries beyond the ken of us mortals. How Star Wars came to be accepted as entertainment will torment the minds of the future’s great thinkers till the sun is a black blot in a dead universe. Quantum entanglement is another perplexity, on a scale with Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump, both matters that entoil the deepest thinkers, and will without abatement for generations to come.

Mostly we recoil from mysteries of such power. They trouble us, and almost out of fear we are content to leave them dormant and unanswered. In the words of the surly German: Do not stare into the abyss, for it may stare back at you.

Distroscale

Fortunately, there are some rare people who have the courage to pursue the very darkest, most enigmatic questions, regardless of the cost to mental peace or even sanity itself. Such is our PM, Justin Trudeau, the very Galahad of fearless inquiry.

Photo by Justin Tang/CP

Near midweek, the announcement came that his government would fund, by nearly $300,000, research into the deepest and most unsettling riddle of our entire national life: Why is our Canadian oil and gas sector falling behind? The fate of the Franklin expedition, which troubled us for so long, was just a Cracker Jack puzzle compared to this conundrum.

Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

All Canadians agree: They simply cannot understand, and it may not be given to the mind of man to understand, how it came to be that our oil and gas industry is not all a-blossom, reaping wild revenues, employing hundreds of thousands of Canadians, outpacing the U.S., securing the national economy, and serving as the world’s greatest example of a country using a prime resource to benefit its citizens, bury the national debt, and make life for everyone better than it has ever been.

It's the deepest and most unsettling riddle of our entire national life

As a question, it is a real snorter? Canadians stewed in wonderment on the failure of this industry glance up to timorously inquire: Oh dear, what can the matter be?

We swat away immediately the most obvious misdirections. A few troll-minds try to seed the idea that it’s our federal Liberal government holding things back. Pure libel. A calumny.

Mr. Trudeau’s government holds the oil and gas sector so close to its heart, it’s almost a subsidiary. Minister McKenna has decals of Make Alberta Great Again on every vehicle in the Environment Canada fleet. And to top that, a glorious, gigantic photo-portrait of the oilsands project under the shimmer of the northern lights is the wallpaper in her office. A more loyal ally of the oil industry cannot be conceived.

Photo by Darryl Dyck/CP

Let us not walk by Mr. Trudeau’s extraordinary personal interventions, his many passionate speeches exalting the glory of the oilsands and the miracles of the East Coast offshore. Who can forget his ferocious assault on president Obama when the latter cancelled the Keystone XL? Or his subsequent uncontrolled embrace, the wild volley of thank you’s to Mr. Trump for reviving it.

Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Is it then the Greens and the environmentalists? Absolutely not. The calm and meditative stance of our noble eco-saviours on oilsands development is the very model of how honourable, reasoned, neutral, let’s-look-at-the-whole-question Earth stewards should act. Protect the planet but think of Canada’s industry, too, is their motto. Ms. May, Mr. DiCaprio, Mr. Young, Bills Nye and McKibben, the reverend Mr. Suzuki, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Leadnow, Mr. Weaver — why, are they not a basket of the most cheerful, jolliest, let’s-just-have-a-friendly-chat-about-all-this folks you could want to meet? Against the Canadian oil sector? Propellants of global-warming hysterics? Against a simple line of pipe? Not these savants. They are rationality itself.

Photo by Pete Marovich/Boomberg

Premier Horgan? He’s not fighting Trans Mountain. He’s just teasing. Whenever he and Premier Notley get together they have a glass of wine and share the joke. “Rachel, if you want to run a couple of more, feel free. Just phone ahead and I’ll man the first backhoe myself. And Andrew will be on the first dozer.”

Neither can it be the tissue of regulations. The federal government may be multiplying them faster than minks produce minks, but it’s all just make-work for part-time lawyers contracted by the civil service. Keeps them away from real legislation.

Carbon tax? A pure sham for the bondholders and the banks, something to keep a few eccentrics who’ve drifted into the PMO occupied till we find something useful for them to do. The refashioning of the National Energy Board, well, that’s just another piece of window dressing, a bit of camouflage to shuffle off to the IPCC and get us on the A-list of the next junket to the annual climate party.

Story continues below This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

So, with all this, all this — the government onside, hollow regulations, a fake carbon tax, an emasculated energy board, the prime minister’s unheralded support for the oilsands and the pipelines, environmental groups at home and out of country so reasonable and tame — what, possibly, can it that’s be holding the Canadian oil and gas sector back?

We’ll solve the question of what was before the Big Bang before we have the slightest idea of what it is that’s handcuffing the oil and gas industry.

And if it takes a mere $300,000 to shed some light, just a little beam, a sparkle on this mystery, it’ll be the best $300,000 this government could ever spend, unless it’s on another glorious trip to India.