You just have to laugh sometimes when you read the news. (Actually, that’s generally good advice about a lot of things in life.)
I couldn’t help but chuckle Friday while reading a report out of Ottawa quoting a senior Chinese official who said that Beijing is super keen on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s proposed free-trade deal with that Asian giant as long as Canada lifts restrictions on foreign investment and — and here’s the funny bit — builds an oil pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. coast. Sunny ways now, Prime Minister Zoolander?
How does Trudeau plan to reconcile the pipeline demand with his promises to B.C.’s anti-capitalist greenies and natives, not to mention his impractical, legally questionable proposal to ban crude-oil tankers from B.C.’s coast? And how many Canadians would support allowing even more, at times shady Chinese cash to buy up even more real-estate and natural-resource investments in this country, especially in Metro Vancouver?
Yup, it’s a puzzler.
“What is China most in need of?” mused Han Jun, vice-minister of financial and economic affairs, to the Globe and Mail while visiting Ottawa to meet with federal trade officials.
“We have a shortage of agricultural products. China is the biggest importer of agricultural products in the world and, also, we are one of the countries with the highest dependency on imported energy from other countries,” he said. “If there is an FTA arrangement between China and Canada, you can see a flooding of potash, agricultural products and energy products from Canada to the market of China.”
A “flooding” of energy products isn’t probably the best phrase to use about crude oil unless you want to further rile the professional nervous Nellies in B.C.’s histrionic environmental movement, who see annihilation in every new natural resource extraction project.
China’s pragmatic demand for oil in the proposed trade deal shows again the extent to which last month’s Paris climate-change conference was largely a feel-good exercise. World leaders may talk about the need to reduce fossil-fuel use but never do because we don’t have practical alternatives.
Consider U.S. President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address Tuesday, where in one masterfully oratorical breath he praised his country’s push to tackle climate change while in another crowed about how his economic policies had resulted in record annual sales for the U.S. auto industry in 2015 — nearly 17.5 million new vehicles.
Aren’t CO2-spewing motor vehicles supposed to be a bad thing?
Canadians, it should be pointed out, have no cause to feel smug about any of this. We also set a record last year for new-vehicle sales — 1.9 million cars, trucks and utility vehicles. That’s up 2.5 per cent, or 47,000 vehicles, from the previous record set in 2014.
Just to add to our shame, three of the top four best-selling vehicles in Canada last year were gas-guzzling pickup trucks.
Surely, you might say, none of this could possibly be true in B.C., the sanctimonious beating heart of the world’s environmental movement. Alas, you’d be wrong.
Record vehicle sales in Beautiful B.C. through the end of November last year led the country, increasing 7.6 per cent over the same period in 2014 — three times the growth in sales for the nation as a whole.
We might tell pollsters that we’re worried about the environment or elect vacuous, warm and fuzzy politicians who claim to care, but when the rubber hits the road, who are we kidding? What many Canadians clearly want is big chunky tires bolted to a Ford F-150. Again, how can you not laugh?
The Gordzilla in the City column, which appears on Mondays, is written by Gordon Clark, the editorial pages editor. He can be reached at gclark@postmedia.com. Letters to the editor can be sent to provletters@theprovince.com.
