Oops!
Canada has, much to the annoyance of environmentalists, been working overtime to extract usable oil from its oil sands in Alberta and it has been quite successful at it. In the process, it has created thousands of jobs, stabilized part of its economy and developed new environmentally friendly technologies. I suppose that sounds quite pro oils sands and I guess to some extent it is although I’m not fanatical about it. I just think that extracting oil from an environmentally unfriendly sludge has more long-term benefits than negatives.
Not everyone agrees with me, as difficult as you may find that to believe, but enough do that the project went forward and has been quite successful. So successful, in fact, that the consortium behind the oil sands conceived an idea of a pipeline between Alberta and Texas. The idea was simple. Transport crude extracted from the oil sands to refineries in Texas where it would be converted to various products including gasoline.It seems like a win-win situation for both Canada and the United States.
There would be construction, engineering and other jobs created in the thousands. The United States would reduce its dependency on oil from more unfriendly governments in unstable parts of the world by a guaranteed flow from its closest neighbour and ally. It seemed obvious that the economies of both Canada and the United States would benefit at many levels.
Unfortunately, President Obama didn’t quite see the value ‘at this time’ and first delayed a decision on the pipeline all together and then later decided to approve part of the pipeline but only that part that connected Oklahoma to Texas. Unfortunately for the President, the oil is actually a few thousand miles away in Canada so that partial decision really was no decision at all as far as Canada was concerned.
Consequently Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, decided an alternative was necessary and while he and I didn’t have an opportunity to sit down and chat about this, it seems we came to the same conclusion at pretty much the same time. We needed a customer for all that oil we were producing from the oil sands and without my help, the Prime Minister found one.
Canada has entered into an agreement with China to sell oil from the oil sands and that, my American friends, means that the cost of oil from Canada just went up. It isn’t spite that is driving up the cost. We still like America, it’s competition. It also means that Canada’s priorities have shifted a bit. Completing the pipeline that will get the oil to the west coast where it can be shipped to customers in Asia has become as important, if not more important, than getting it down south to Texas, if and when the President decides it might be expedient to make a decision.
And that my gentle readers is what happens when politicians try to walk a thin line between vision and political expediency. Opportunities are lost.
That is how we are governed now. It isn’t vision that leads us, it’s political opportunism. Politicians never looks beyond the next election in most cases and our democracies are losing opportunities every day as a result.
Consider the major accomplishments of the past like the Great Canadian Railway that connected all of Canada for the first time. It wouldn’t make it past the environmental assessment process today. Look at America landing on the moon. While Canadians prize their national health care system, the simple reality is that if we were trying to build it today, it wouldn’t get past the political grandstanding and obstructionism that has replaced vision in our country as much as in any other.
Nope! Giant steps forward requite giants to make them. It requires leaders with vision and courage like Lincoln, Pearson, Trudeau, Kennedy and Churchill. We don’t have leaders like that anymore.
Instead we have talking heads that are surrounded by advisors, strategists, and handlers. They are guided by the latest poll not by a vision. They are not leaders, they are followers of public opinion who wait to craft their ideas until after that opinion is known before making a decision.
That is how a major opportunity to work together with your best neighbour to provide jobs for your people and to secure a cheap, stable energy supply is squandered. That is how the quality of life in democracies is undermined and why our economies, employment, health care and values have been eroded.
In Canada, our politicians are now squabbling over raising the age of Old Age Security benefits from 65 to 67 in about ten years because winning the point today is more important than long-term planning. In the United States the argument is over health care but the issue is the same. Those who hold political office, whether in government (majority) or opposition (minority) have completely lost sight of what is important.
But here’s the thing.
It isn’t winning the point that is important. Democracy isn’t a tennis match. It’s government by the people for the people and leadership isn't about following public opinion. It’s about coming together to lead your country forward and that requires character, integrity and vision that can build cooperation and consensus. You can't lead by waiting to see what the polls tell you. It takes courage to put your vision out there and then to stay true to it.
Polls are all about yesterday. Vision is about tomorrow.
Polls are all about yesterday. Vision is about tomorrow.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for that leadership to show up any time soon though. Politicians today are more about division and polarizing the electorate into groups. It's all part of the strategies of winning rather than the courage of leadership.
All politicians refer to this as bringing about ‘change’ but it isn’t change for the better. In fact it isn’t even change at all. It’s just more of the same tired gamesmanship that got us into this mess we're all in now.
We have become societies with leaders who lack the courage to lead. It makes you wonder why they wanted the job in the first place.
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