London Letter

Black gold, green anger

When we decided to up sticks to choose a safer life for the kids, we had three options: England, Australia and Canada. Australia was the first choice, but it took a few seconds to discover that out of all their immigration criteria, I only ticked one box: I could speak English (although that’s sometimes disputed). Canada was ruled out by management as it was too far from her mom, which left England, as we both had British passports. It was a tough choice as I loved Africa - still do - but now I’m really at home here.

However, I sometimes wonder wistfully about Canada, mainly because it’s the last English-speaking outback and the fishing’s superb. But Canada now has an even greater attraction. It’s the only Western country with the guts to halt the feeble demise that’s rotting the soul of the old democracies. And as the ‘anti-war’ crowd would froth: ‘It’s all about oil’. Canada has oil, you see. More than Saudi Arabia - but instead of her black gold being in the desert, it’s in shale gas. And as Canadians want to exploit their God-given resources, this means they have to dig up wilderness areas that they will restore pristinely afterwards, thanks to modern technology.

It also means greenies are incensed, lashing out at Canadians at any given opportunity. The green movement was one I supported until it became a radical anti-growth, anti-West, anti-capitalist quasi-religion. They’re not called watermelons (red in the middle) for nothing. They also have every Western government on the run. Except for Canada. Of all the great nations Canada is probably the only one left still standing up for the values that made the West great.

Leading questions
Canada is governed by true conservatives who’re now asking leading questions why foreign environmentalists are doing their damnedest to derail the country’s energy policies. Even more pertinently, they’re asking exactly why non-Canadian vested interests are ploughing vast amounts of money to stymie Canadian growth. They’re also asking why eco-jetsetters with personal carbon footprints the size of small countries are using celebrity platforms to undermine Canada’s national economic viability.

According to Vivian Krause, an investigative journalist based in Vancouver and one of the few reporters taking on the greens, American charities including the David Suzuki Foundation and the American Tides Foundation have in total squirted a staggering $300-million into crusading environmental groups to prevent Canada from exploiting sovereign assets. Says Krause: ‘Why are American foundations spending so much money in Canada instead of in their own country or in other countries around the world that are far needier than Canada?’ There’s also suspicion that much of the funding indirectly comes from the Middle East who, of course, want to sell their own oil; that the greens are - unwittingly or otherwise - proxy movements for other vested interests.

Neighbourly problem
There’s another problem for Canada. Emotionally and geographically, she’s joined at the hip with America and obviously wants to sell oil to her neighbour. To use Canadian oil, America needs to build a pipeline to the Texas refineries, but President Obama has vetoed this. He had two choices: support the unions who want pipeline jobs; or the greenies who want stagnation. Obama decided he was more frightened of the greenies. The irony is that Canada is a supremely ‘green’ nation. The wildness is imbued in Canadian ethos. She’ll never destroy her wild places, and most Canadians understand that exploiting resources doesn’t have to mean destroying the environment.

If people can’t see that, then the argument is not worth having. So Canada’s decided to hell with it all. She won’t wait. She’s going to sell her oil to America’s arch-competitor, China. Obama and Americans are stunned. It was one move they never expected from the loyal Canucks. Now the battle lines are drawn. On one side are China, Brazil, India, Korea and other emerging economies whose priority is growth, jobs and a higher standard of living. On the other are the moribund economies of the West - hamstrung by red tape and radical activists. The result is that for the first time in two centuries, my children’s generation will have a lower standard of living than their parents. Canada is championing that next generation.