Canada has a tidy relationship with the US -- but for how long?
Current trade relationship suits us, but there may come a day when the American appetite for our resources might exceed what we consider to be our best interests.
Barbara Yaffe, Vancouver Sun: A US takeover of Canada?... Realistically, the issue would become pressing only if Americans were to relentlessly continue their unsustainable consumption patterns even as US resources kept on depleting and their economy declined...
Last year, Boston University economics professor Karen Holbik, in a US academic journal, wrote about 'one of the more subtle problems facing the US. The problem concerns retaining economic and political power in the face of decreasing self-sufficiency in natural resources and raw materials.'
The fact is that Americans increasingly depend on Canada's bounty. The two countries have been upgrading North American transit and electricity corridors and installing new pipeline infrastructure, to share resources. The US experienced peak oil way back in 1970. That was the year its old production began declining.
Canada funnels more than half the 3.4 million barrels of oil it produces daily to the US. And provides 82 per cent of all US natural gas imports. And sells a third of its hydroelectricity to US markets. And supplies a third of the uranium used in US nuclear power plants.
Water, of course, is another resource Americans will soon be short of, while Canada's supply remains healthy. Earlier this year, the US Government Accountability Office revealed at least 36 states are anticipating water shortages within five years. The US National Drought Mitigation Centre pinpointed areas hardest hit: The Southeast, Southwest, West Texas, Georgia and southern California -- all high population centres...
If Washington, DC can get what that country needs through 'an economic takeover' -- which nationalist groups like the Council of Canadians assert has been occurring in recent years... Why bring out muskets against a country politely marketing to you what you desire? And doing so happily, in the knowledge that US purchases make Canadians richer.
Obviously it's only at a point when the US appetite might exceed what Canada considers to be in its best interests that push might come to shove... For most Canadians, the current arrangement suits -- we've got extra, they can buy it. That said, we'd be foolish to think that within the current century this tidy equilibrium might not be challenged.
