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Is anything more convoluted and contradictory than the politics of oil? Or more bizarre than our refusal to face it?

Consider this: Canada has the ability to get off imported oil. We produce about twice as much each day as we use. It would be difficult, but not impossible, to ensure that, as Green party leader Elizabeth May suggests: “As long as we are using fossil fuels we should be using our fossil fuels.”

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Self-sufficiency would have real environmental and economic benefits. It would ensure security of supply, and bring all production under domestic regulation. We can’t control how Saudi Arabia, Nigeria or Venezuela handle their production, but an all-Canadian market would ensure every barrel had to meet domestic environmental standards.

The reason we don’t do this is largely political. It would require building pipelines that activists oppose on environmental grounds, even though the alternative, shipping crude by rail, is worse for the environment, and more dangerous. It’s also cheaper to import foreign oil, even if it’s from countries with lower environmental standards.