From ‘Will Canada Play the Energy Card in a US-China World’ by Campbell Clark in the Globe and Mail, January 19, 2011
…The U.S. concern for energy security, though it clashes with environmental opposition in Congress and parts of the Obama administration, makes Canadian energy a strategic interest – a way to ensure supply for the country, including its defence establishment, in any crisis.
The fact that Canada is a rare friendly, reliable and nearby supplier of energy is “our trump card,” says Colin Robertson, a former Canadian diplomat in Washington and Hong Kong.
Energy security, and the possible shipment of Alberta oil to China, are arguments Canadians are already using to overcome environmental objections to the TransCanada Pipelines XL pipeline, which would extend an Alberta oil sands link to Texas.
Proponents of West Coast pipeline argue it would diversify markets, allow a better price for oil exports, and encourage China to improve trade arrangements with Canada, such as investment protections or a broader trade deal. Mr. Robertson argues it would also provide leverage with the United States, attracting attention to encourage the approval of pipelines, improving electricity-grid links, even speeding the flow of goods at the border.
Pipeline projects take years of regulatory and government decisions, but if the Canadian government announced it was making a West Coast pipeline a priority, it would send both an encouraging signal to China and make the United States take notice, he argues.
Some doubt that would work, unless Canada was willing to play rough and offer the United States a quid pro quo – perhaps delaying a West Coast pipeline, or discouraging fast growth in Chinese energy investment. But the real benefit of a West Coast pipeline is still diversifying markets to China, and solidifying ties with a rising power, one Conservative politician argued.
That would require controversial domestic decisions. The Northern Gateway faces stiff opposition from environmentalists and first nations. Some who favour a pipeline worry it’s the wrong project because of those hurdles.
Aside from narrow economic interests, some argue that energy and pipelines are a way for Canada to expand its small role, a little, in the big game of shaping the two-superpower world.
The big question behind the Obama-Hu summit is whether superpower China joins a club of nations that deals with security outliers such as Iran and North Korea, and co-operates to create a more stable international economy. Mr. Robertson says Canada has historic, trade and people ties with both the United States and China, and real interests such as energy that concern them, that it can use to influence the new order.
“We really have an opportunity to play, if we choose to.”