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Thus I was puzzled when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, building on his presence at the historic Paris Conclave a few weeks ago (which saved the world) and presenting at the Davos summit this week (which will merely improve our rescued world), offered this rhetorical crackerjack: “My predecessor wanted you to know Canada for its resources. I want you to know Canadians for our resourcefulness.” (The Trudeau years are going to be great for the T-shirt and bumper-sticker scribes.)

The first difficulty with his statement is that it suggests there is a problem with having, you know, resources. If a country has an abundance of wheat, timber, coal, minerals, fish, oil, gas, farmland and livestock, and the work ethic to go along with making the most of them (this too is a great resource), then the usual response is “hallelujah” or “thank God.”

Further, if a country is so providentially supplied, I can see no reason for any prime minister to play down that fact at Davos, or any other elite ski resort, for that matter. Trudeau’s toasty epigram more than implied that it’s a little tacky to actually have resources, when we can see how clever and resourceful we can be without them. It calls up an idea of Canada as a nation of Robinson Crusoes abandoned on a barren strand, patching stuff together from whatever could be salvaged from an offshore wreck.