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Who should be the supplier of choice for the world’s 100-million-barrel-a-day oil needs? Should there be a merit order ascribed to producers?

We rank ballroom dancers and wannabe singers on television. Restaurants, hotels, videos, and even doctors are thumbs up and down on social media.

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So why wouldn’t we rate oil-producing countries too?

For too long, self-appointed judges have demoted Canada’s oil and gas industry to the bottom of the world’s producer list, as if we’re some seedy hotel on TripAdvisor.

Anyone who’s traveled to oilfields in authoritarian countries knows we live in a world where environmental accountability and social responsibility are as rare as an honest dialog.

Canada’s oil and gas industry, the world’s fifth largest, ranks highly on many performance dimensions, including corporate governance, transparency, environmental stringency, and innovation. All these qualities are desirable amidst an unstable Middle East, a wily Russia, and an oil-addicted world struggling to achieve any sense of sustainability.