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The kind of heavy crude produced in Alberta that was recently trading at US$19.49 in Hardisty, Alta., was simultaneously worth US$64.74 in Houston

It hopefully needs no pointing out at this point that when the Ontario auto sector’s ability to export parts and vehicles into the U.S. market was threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump, the federal Liberal government hurried to come to terms with Americans on a new trade deal. When the protectionist Trump slapped tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum exports, Ottawa immediately responded with targeted retaliatory tariffs of our own, and promised immediate support to workers in threatened industries.

But when Alberta’s pipeline capacity is so constrained that it must warehouse valuable crude even as prices reach levels not seen in years, what does Ottawa do? It nationalizes the existing Trans Mountain pipeline in hopes it can expand it later. Much later, evidently. As in, we have no idea when — or if — that might actually happen. And that’s the extent of it.

Photo by Jonathan Hayward/CP

It’s hard not to notice how to this Liberal government, a threat to Canadian exports that occurs in Central Canada is a crisis requiring an immediate solution, while a threat in the West … is not. One could further compare and contrast the lack of help to Alberta with favours lavished upon Quebec’s aviation sector, or (largely) Eastern Canadian dairy farmers.

In the meantime, Alberta carries on as best it can. Shipments of oil by rail hit new records again in recent months, and major industry players are working every day to come up with innovative ways to get around the catastrophic regulatory failure that has brought us to this point. Of course they are. Alberta is blessed with an incredible natural bounty of a product that the world desperately needs and Canadians everywhere can benefit from it. But the province has been unfairly targeted by activists who have manipulated governments in B.C. and Ottawa into stymieing exports of oil, costing our economy billions, even while production continues to grow. So business does what it does and adapts as best it can.

That’s not good enough. We are all poorer for this inexcusable fiasco. And until Alberta gets the pipelines it needs, all Canadians will continue to pay the price of this failure. Quite literally.