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Many countries would offer profound thanks to their preferred deities if they were blessed with Canada’s abundant natural resources. Perhaps Canadians should join together in prayer for politicians with the slightest sense of what to do with our riches, and some concern for the national interest to boot.

In the latest example of our continuing national self-sabotage, the minority British Columbia government has said it will consider whether to ban expanded exports of raw bitumen from the B.C. coast. The province’s NDP government says the proposed ban is designed to forestall any increase in exports via the Trans Mountain pipeline until it is confident that its coasts are perfectly safe from a spill of Alberta oil, which the province uses in abundance, but which the NDP government and its Green party coalition allies consider to be vile.

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This is such a transparent con that it should offend all intelligent people. The anti-oil ideologues that now control the provincial NDP and Green parties will never be satisfied that there are sufficient safeguards in place. The strategy is clearly obstructionist, intended to forestall, likely indefinitely, Kinder Morgan’s plan to expand the capacity of its pipeline (including new construction of sections in some areas) to the B.C. coast. This is a slap in the face of all Canadians who support our energy sector, made worse by the insulting fiction that it’s anything other than a permanent roadblock gussied up as a procedural delay.