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Sammy Davis Jr. sang “What kind of fool am I?” as a man who had missed out in life by never falling in love. Call it a stretch, but those lyrics somehow began swimming through my head the other day when I heard that an oil tanker from the U.S. had arrived in Europe. It was a historic thing because, last December, President Obama lifted a 40-year ban on the export of domestic oil.

At the time, U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, energy panel chairman, welcomed the decision, saying that “With crude exports comes job creation, economic growth, new revenues, prosperity, and enhanced energy security for our allies and ourselves.” Too true — and it’s what I have been saying for years about the importance for Canada of finding new markets for our oil.

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Yet we risk looking foolish ourselves by failing to capitalize on our own export potential while our competitors in the Middle East, North Africa and Venezuela — and now the U.S. — capture the foreign markets we need for our own economic growth and prosperity.