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Canada’s debilitating inability to gain fair market value for its largest export commodity – crude oil – has become the top economic story of 2018. It will likely dominate headlines in 2019.

It’s so bad that heavyweight energy investors with large bets on Canada are now seeing fit to write courtly letters to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau explaining the nature of their business, since there seems to be no other way for him to know it. They’re probably wondering why they’re wasting time, with so many of their brethren having already hightailed it out of Canada.

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Just a few years ago, oil executives encountered in Calgary seemed like a taut and eager breed of problem solvers — sharp-eyed and ready to spring on the next challenge. No longer.

Why is the patient so ill when the No. 1 determinant, world oil prices are reasonably sound? Money is still fairly cheap. Success is not hampered by a shortage of labour or knowhow. New oilsands projects are coming online and the result is a record amount of our heavy oil being produced and ready for export. All of this should add up to success, but that’s not what’s happening.