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Oil is the sole reason the Middle East is awash with ridiculously rich petro-princes

Corrupt politicians around the world have grown fat on their pilferings from oil. Not in Canada. In Canada, the oil business has been so profoundly botched by political interference that the federal government felt compelled Tuesday to offer $1.6 billion in aid to an industry struggling to keep its head above water.

“Today, our government is taking critical next steps with new measures to protect and promote Canada’s natural advantage,” intoned International Trade Diversification Minister Jim Carr. “Measures that reflect our belief that Alberta’s energy sector is not just the historic backbone of our economy but a key part of our country’s future.”

Carr’s announcement is itself an illustration of how cockeyed Canada’s treatment of its energy industry has become. If oil is a “natural advantage,” why on earth does it require federal measures to “protect and promote it?” It’s like Gary Bettman declaring special protection for the Stanley Cup champions because they have too many good players. How many other countries do you know that can hail “the historic backbone of our economy,” and at the same time toss it five bucks so it can get itself a sandwich?

Rachel Notley sniffed out this paradox right off the bat. Noting that the money is mostly loans, she grumbled: “We didn’t ask for the opportunity to go further into debt as a means of addressing this problem.”

Carr maintained Alberta’s struggle to make money from one of the world’s most sought-after commodities is mostly about “liquidity.” But it’s much, much more than that. It’s about the Liberal government’s adoption of policies so counter to national interests that no one wants to risk building a pipeline that might alleviate the yawning gap between world oil prices and the price Alberta gets. It’s about an Ottawa so clueless about the asset Canada enjoys that it’s continuing to push legislation that will further raise the bar the industry must clear for future projects, at a time it can’t even meet existing restrictions. It’s about a country that has allowed the culture of disdain for its “natural advantage” grow so rampant that the mayor of Whistler — who makes his living running a limo service from Vancouver to the ski slopes — thinks it’s the producers, not wasteful consumers like himself, who are to blame for the problems of climate change. If Whistler closed down its hot tubs, heated sidewalks and SUVs from the airport, it would do a whole lot more to reduce emissions than demanding money from executives in Calgary.