Enough is enough

At what point in time do Canadians rise up on their two hind feet and yell at the top of their lungs. "Enough Is Enough"?

Since the beginning of Canada we have been seen and used as a source of raw material.  Beaver pelts, trees, coal, oil, fish... you know the list.  It is a rare occasion that we call upon ourselves to demand that we refine our resources into products - a process that creates jobs and raises the value of the resources.  But every time we do rise to the occasion we are pounded back down by either our competition or OURSELVES!

Case in point?  The Oil Sands.  Here we have a natural resource that we dig out of the ground and extra the oil from the bitumen.  We then sell the oil at a price that is higher than the bitumen.  Good deal.  But what happens now?  Welcome the Keystone XL pipeline, promoted by Canadian industry and our government.  The goal of the Keystone pipeline is to take the bitumen and ship it to the US where they will extract the oil, refine it into fuels and ship some of it back to Canada.  Some of what, you may ask?

If you know any of your history, you will recall that a few years ago there was a push to get countries who supply raw uranium for nuclear reactors to repatriate the spend fuel back to their own countries for disposal.  The jury is still out on that issue.  But assuming that logic, can we extrapolate that the US can extract the oil from the bitumen and then ship the refuse back to Canada?  Now wouldn't that just be good thing?

So let's see what we have here.  We mine bitumen and extract the oil in Canada.  Now our government wants to help build a pipeline to ship the unrefined bitumen to Texas.

Sounds about right!