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February 28, 2008 Canada hit the 1-billion-barrel mark this year, although it’s not necessarily a record we should be proud of. As reported by the Calgary Herald this morning, a new Statistics Canada report shows that Canadian companies produced a record 1.01 billion barrels of oil and equivalents last year. That’s up about 4.2 percent from 2006 and works out to about 2.77 million barrels of oil per day, “including bitumen and associated natural gas liquids,” said the article. Significantly, the articles notes that: "Canada remains a net oil exporter, despite imports that edged up 0.3 per cent to 851,000 bpd. About half that figure came from OPEC countries such as Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, while the bulk of the remainder originated from Norway and the United Kingdom, which accounted for 39 per cent of imports. Natural gas production slipped about two per cent in 2007 to 5.9 trillion cubic feet (tcf) from 6.1 tcf in 2006. Despite the drop, exports rose about seven per cent to 3.9 tcf from 3.6 tcf in 2006." It was yet more proof that Canada’s energy policy consists almost exclusively of supplying the U.S. market while we are left importing to satisfy our own energy needs. Oddly enough, after Democratic presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both said they would renegotiate NAFTA or pull-out if environmental and labour protections were not included, International Trade Minister David Emerson warned that if that were to happen, he would be tempted to pull guaranteed U.S. access to Canadian energy out of the continental agreement. According to the Globe and Mail: "Americans' privileged access to Canada's massive oil and gas reserves could be disrupted if Washington cancels the NAFTA accord as Democratic presidential candidates threaten, Canadian Trade Minister David Emerson warned yesterday… Canada and the United States have free trade in energy because the accord effectively prohibits discriminatory export controls on oil and gas.” Less than two weeks ago, on February 14, the Globe also reported that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is planning on appointing a special envoy for energy issues “to deal with countries that use their oil and gas for political means.” Her action “underscores the growing concern about security of energy supplies in the United States, and the shrinking pool of reserves available to multinational corporations as producing countries put their resources in the hands of national oil companies,” wrote the Globe. So while the Council of Canadians would welcome an energy policy that focused on security of supply, security of production and security of the environment for Canadians, such a policy would apparently put us into major conflict with the White House.
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