The wikipedia entry for Maude Barlow describes her as a "Canadian author and activist". Politicians across the country who have had to deal with her over the past three decades or so might have a less flattering description: busybody, perhaps. Maude has a left-leaning, nationalist and politically correct opinion to offer about any subject you'd care to name. She styles herself as "voluntary Chair" of something called the Council of Canadians, which was founded by, er, Maude Barlow, and is in fact little more than a vehicle for amplifying her voice in the public forum, as even a cursory glance at its all Maude, all the time website would confirm.
Last week, the Premiers of Canada's provinces and territories pitched up in our little town for their annual conference. Maude organised a demonstration in support of universal public health care. This is something most Canadians support, and Maude bused in a couple of thousand retired trade unionists to wave placards outside the conference site.
Fair enough, except for two things. First, Maude's beef in this particular case is actually with the Federal government, which wasn't represented at the conference. Second -- and this appears to have been a pure gaffe -- the main demonstration outside the conference centre took place at an hour when the Premiers were not actually there. They were having lunch at a winery just outside town. Talk about sound and fury signifying nothing! It was little more than a photo op for Maude and her cronies, and not a very successful one at that -- the demo merited nary a mention in the national press and scarcely any more in the local rag.
Unabashed, Maude is on to a new crusade this week, against a plan to build an oil pipeline from Alberta to New Brunswick. On a net basis, Canada is self sufficient in oil, but because of the country's vast scale, it has historically made sense to import oil for refineries in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. The planned refinery would put an end to that. Since Alberta oil currently trades at a big discount to internationally-traded crude, because of the lack of pipelines to get the stuff to market, there would be a big tax windfall for the Alberta and federal governments if the pipeline were built, plus a lot of jobs created by the construction itself.
Sounds like a win-win proposition, provided the pipeline is built and operated to the correct standards, right? Not according to Maude, who has announced her intention to organise a national campaign against it. Maude doesn't believe that the company involved, TransCanada Corp, really wants to supply refineries in Eastern Canada. As the Council of Canadians website puts it: The 4,400 kilometre pipeline is expected to lead to massive tanker exports from Atlantic coast to send crude to the much larger and more profitable markets of India, China and Europe.
"Expected" by whom, exactly? No doubt oil companies can make some pretty dumb decisions. But it's a bit difficult to see why TransCanada would spend $12 billion to build a pipeline several thousand kilometres in the wrong direction if its goal was to ship the oil to China and India. There's also little doubt that if the pipeline were built, the discount currently applicable to Alberta crude would be arb'd away, with the result that sales outside Canada would no longer be more profitable than sales within the country.
Whether Maude and her Council like it or not, Canada's economy is more dependent than ever on natural resources. That in turn means that the universal "free" healthcare she and they were lobbying for just last week is similarly dependent on the tax take from those resources. Winding the clock back to the bucolic, poorer and much less populous Canada of a half century ago is no longer an option -- or certainly not one that most Canadians would support.
And that may be the most interesting thing about Maude Barlow. She has never sought election to public office, so the degree of public acceptance of her often wacky views has never been put to the test. Imagine that.
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