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If the country put less energy into trying to develop a national energy strategy and more into actually producing energy, we’d all be better off. The premiers last week issued a 35-page document on the subject that has been widely and justly criticized for its vacuity. That it was the product of several years’ work helps explain the vacuity, but also reduces hope for sensible policy. If John A. Macdonald had been required to produce a consensus National Railway Strategy document before proceeding with the actual building of the railway, we’d all be speaking American now.

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How about the following for an energy strategy?

All Canadians, each and every one of us, decide on our own which kinds of energy we’d like to use, weighing the benefits of the various energy options, including convenience, power, adaptability and so on, against their costs, which is mainly their price but may also include their local stinkiness, their tendency to explode while in the consumer’s hands, their likelihood of burning down the house, and so on. At the same time, companies decide which kinds of energy they want to produce, comparing the costs of doing so with the benefits production will bring them, which will mainly be in the form of revenues.Consumers will be looking for the best trade-off of benefits against price. Companies will be looking for the best trade-off of cost against price. Whatever comes out of this process will therefore balance the costs of the various kinds of energy against their benefits, which is precisely what any sensible strategy should do. If the process is open and competitive — and there is certainly a role for government in resisting business attempts to limit competition — we’ll get the energy we need.