Here’s what would provide British Columbians and their fellow Canadians with a profitable start to 2019: begin cultivating a better appreciation of how much natural resource riches contribute to Canada’s economic and political stability. That appreciation has been taking a beating lately, especially from the politically motivated and economically uninformed.
Examples include letters from B.C. municipalities seeking climate change costs from petroleum producers and millions of federal tax dollars on offer to those producers to help them survive Canada’s inability to get its oil to world markets and reap higher prices for the benefit of all Canadians.
Regardless of which side of the fossil fuel development debate they are on, Canadians need to know that a robust resource sector is fundamental to their financial well-being.
The Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Philip Cross also points out that the wealth generated by the country’s resource sector is just as important for Canada’s political system “because it helps support the middle class.”
He argues that economic stability in that solid centre of the country, bankrolled primarily by growth in natural resource development, construction and banking-sector stability, has helped Canada avoid the populist political dysfunction in the U.S. sparked by widespread job losses from the collapse of manufacturing and other former cornerstones of that country’s economy. Cross maintains in his recent natural resource economy commentary that the $40 billion LNG Canada and $1.6 billion Woodfibre LNG liquefied natural gas export projects represent a “potential turning point for Canada’s energy industry.”
However, it will be a turning point for the industry and the country’s economy only if the two projects confirm that Canada can still build major energy infrastructure projects. It will be a tipping point in a different direction if they are the last of any ambitious resource developments the country and its leadership dare attempt.
