'Perfect Storm' Engulfing Canada's Economy Perfectly Predict

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'Perfect Storm' Engulfing Canada's Economy Perfectly Predictable

[ http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/08/03/Pe ... n-Economy/ ]

Years ago Andrew Nikiforuk, citing experts, warned where Stephen Harper's priorities would lead us.

By Andrew Nikiforuk, 3 Aug 2015, TheTyee.ca

EXCERPT:

What I warned

Years ago I warned Canadians and Tyee readers that bitumen would not make us a superpower, or pave our streets with gold.
[ http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2010/08/13/Ta ... nomicFate/ ]

I detailed the pitfalls of petro-currencies and the economic inequalities bred by dependency on oil exports.

I warned that countries that rely on black gold for revenue generally come to represent the interests of petroleum extractors. [http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/11/03/Oil-Sands-Ethical-Challenges/ ] Cursed by oil, they become more belligerent and thumb their noses at international institutions. [ http://energypolicyinfo.com/2014/05/mic ... ve-states/ ]

I explained the Dutch Disease [ http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2010/08/13/Ta ... nomicFate/ ] and I warned about the folly of tying a nation's future to a resource as costly and dirty as bitumen. [ http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/10/31/Difficult-Oil/ ]

I wrote that rapid bitumen expansion would lead to reckless overproduction and reintroduced Canadians to the ghost of Harold Innis.

Innis, our greatest historian, said that Canada had a resource addiction problem: it got hooked on the raw export of trees and rocks to global empires and then went on a mining binge, only to awake with no memory of the destruction and no markets.

I warned that oil exports would diminish our democracy and expose our economy to uncommon vulnerabilities and increasing volatility.

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No commodity that promises explosive price volatility, diminishing energy returns and increasing carbon insecurity on the scale of bitumen can ever sustain a nation, let alone a province.

It is a train wreck in slow motion that will surely immolate innocent bystanders.

The Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano once wrote that "History never really says goodbye. History says, 'See you later.'"

It also says: I told you so.