The PM and his minions at the PMO may be good communicators but maybe they should be better fact checkers also. In his year end rah-rah interviews, Harper tells us that he is not worried about the problems with the Keystone XL pipeline project, designed to carry raw bitumen from Alberta to Texas, because he will sell the stock to China instead. Fine idea but just one problem.
The North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) has a clause that maybe he should read again.
The clause is referred to as
Proportionality. In essence it states that Canada cannot reduce the percentage of oil and gas we now export to the United States even in times of domestic shortages. That clause applies a percentage of our overall production that we must send to the US. What does it mean when part of our production goes to China? Does that mean that Canadians have to use less than we do now? You can't take it from the allotment to the US so it has to come from somewhere.
In a report on Proportionality, co-author Gordon Laxer, a political economist at the University of Alberta, stated this: “
The Canadian government must realize it is the only country in the world that has jeopardized the energy needs of its people in this way, and move quickly to exit the proportionality provisions of NAFTA.”
Maybe it is a problem, Steve?
