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In 1870, a country of less than four million could, and did, design, build and run a transcontinental railway, yet the country of 35 million today cannot build a transcontinental pipeline and its governments are only capable of begging U.S. corporations to build and run such a line.

This behaviour is a national shame and a betrayal of the legacy, the dreams and the labour of our founding fathers. “Never,” said Quebec’s great co-founder of Canada, George Etienne Cartier, “ will a damned American company have control of the Pacific.” He, John A. Macdonald and the other visionaries who conceived and created this country built an East-West domestically controlled economy that gave Canadians pride and security. Today, not only Canadian Pacific, but also Canadian National and thousands of other Canadian companies have been delivered into U.S. hands.

Why are we not building our own pipelines, under Canadian control, using Canadian money and Canadian know-how? This would mean following our own time-table – and dealing with B.C. and the Indigenous issues fair and square.

(Canada, like every other major oil exporter in the world, once had a national petroleum company, Petro Canada, until it was sold off by some of the same geniuses who have been managing our energy policy over the past three decades. We need such a tool to put some control of, and benefits from, our energy industry back in Canadian hands.)

We could build the infrastructure to supply domestic oil from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland to Canadian consumers from coast to coast to coast. Instead, we offer subsidies to U.S. companies, not only to build the pipelines, but also to run them and to deliver the crude to their customers — at roughly half of world price. Our reward for all this is to receive peanuts for royalties. The province of Alberta, after six decades of massive oil and gas exports, has a huge debt and a deficit to show for it. (Royalties today make up a pitiful eight per cent of the province’s revenue). At the same time, almost half of Canada’s population is left importing U.S. and Saudi oil and paying world price for the privilege.

When will our nation’s leaders find the courage to stop doing the kowtow and introduce a national energy plan that will see Canadian energy made available for Canadian needs, Canadian consumers and Canadian industry?

David Orchard was twice a contender for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. He is the author of The Fight For Canada: Four Centuries of Resistance to American Expansionism. He can be reached at: davidorchard@sasktel.net