Canada is all talk

Andrew Cohen, December 04, 2007, The Ottawa Citizen -- So Stephen Harper has declared Canada the world's emerging "energy superpower." He must believe it, because he continues to make that claim at home and abroad.

And why not? We are the fifth largest energy producer in the world, third in gas production and seventh in oil; we generate more hydro-electric power than anyone; we are the world's largest supplier of uranium. Unlike other big producers such as Russia or Saudi Arabia, we are a democracy that offers security of supply.

According to Mr. Harper, the development of the Athabasca Tar Sands is "akin to the building of the pyramids or China's Great Wall." In our imagination, the tar sands evoke the fabulous riches of Arabia - without those mercurial, troublesome sheiks.

While Mr. Harper isn't given to rhapsodizing about anything, he is poetic about the prospects of our oil, gas and uranium. The problem with this claim is that it isn't really true.

In fact, when you look at it more closely, crowning ourselves an "emerging energy superpower" is the latest in our catalogue of conceits about ourselves in the world. It competes with our cherished self-image as humanitarians, environmentalists, and diplomats. Jean Chretien and Paul Martin were afflicted by this tub-thumping myopia, and so is Mr. Harper.

Given our enormous energy resources, you would think that calling Canada an energy superpower is a no-brainer. But Annette Hester, a senior associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says that isn't so. Actually, she argues that the government does not know what an energy superpower is, as well as how - or even whether - to become one.

In a provocative paper published by the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute of Calgary, Ms. Hester says Canada isn't an energy superpower by any of the standard measures. Nor does Mr. Harper have "a grand vision" that would make us one soon.

Why aren't we an energy superpower? Principally, we produce less than three million barrels of oil a day, making us "a price-taker, not a price setter," she says. Ottawa doesn't control the country's resources (the provinces do); that makes leveraging them for a political purpose hard. And psychologically, we show no inclination to act unilaterally in the world as a superpower does; we prefer consensus and collegiality.

Canada's failure to meet its Kyoto targets didn't prevent Mr.Martin from criticizing the environmental record of the United States two years ago.

Ms. Hester not only rejects the idea of Canada as energy superpower, she wonders if it is even desirable to be one. After all, in a country built on fault lines of language and region, energy is already causing tensions between the producing provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan and the consuming provinces of Ontario and Quebec.

But let's get back to Mr. Harper. Politically speaking, calling yourself an energy superpower makes sense for him. It makes us feel good, even if it suggests that we are more important in the world than we are.

This sort of refrain has become popular among our leaders. We also like to say, for example, that we are a leading environmentalist. Yet, as Jeffrey Simpson and his co-authors argue in their insightful new book, Hot Air: Meeting Canada's Climate Change Challenge, we have delusions there, too.

"We made grand statements," they say of our record on climate change. "We beat our chests. We gave ourselves Herculean targets. We made sure the world heard about them. We made promises - and then we did not keep them."

Canada's failure to meet its Kyoto targets didn't prevent Mr. Martin from criticizing the environmental record of the United States two years ago. While our emissions have risen faster than theirs in percentage terms, he accused the Americans of lacking a "global conscience."

As a humanitarian, Canada falls short of its rhetoric. Despite increases in foreign aid and a robust commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan, despite decades of promises to commit 0.7 per cent of our GDP to international assistance, Canada is not even half way there. Unlike other countries, we won't set a date to reach it.

In a trillion-dollar economy awash in money, Canada continues to cry poor. We still don't have a military worthy of a country of our history and geography. We cut the budget of the Department of Foreign Affairs and monitor the liquor consumption of ambassadors as if they were crooks. Worse, while France, Japan, Germany and other countries strut their stuff in the world, celebrating their artists, actors and writers, we abandon public diplomacy altogether. Too expensive, we say.

Where it isn't about money, we take strangely immoderate positions - as we have recently on the death penalty - that undermine our reputation as a progressive nation.

Of course, if we wanted, we could be a world-beater in aid, in diplomacy, in energy, in the environment. But that means desire. We're happier promising, posturing, and pontificating as the world's moral superpower.