If I want Canada to be the greatest nation it can be I have to recognize the contribution of a friendly USA that existed basically uninterrupted until two months ago.
Like selling our oil 20% below the price for comparable oil on international markets, the continued Americanization of our media and culture, numerous instances of fighting over our arctic sovereignty, the erosion of generic drugs via patent extensions for the benefit of American pharma, pushing for the dismantling of one of our greatest technological accomplishments (Avro Arrow) to favor US products, and numerous cases of American companies using NAFTA to bully the government to allow the destruction of our environment because they aren’t that bad see Lone Pine Resources v. Canada or Ethyl Corporation v. Canada.
This has always been a shit relationship, it’s just more obvious now.
For oil, one has to understand that the fixed costs for operating the network are substantial so there is a lot of ability for price making by the purchaser. The price of WTI serves as an effective cap for WCS.
https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/5e6f425a-e1c7-441a-9aa0-64890e4ecade/resource/b7080f88-f748-45f0-8294-81d32a7a834c/download/13-Explaining-oil-price-differentials-formatted.pdf
The price of WTI is artificially low due to the 3/4th of a TRILLION of USD that has been pumped into oil subsidies.
https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-proposals-to-reduce-fossil-fuel-subsidies-january-2024
For pharma, it’s not that we wouldn’t have patents- patents are important for investment. It’s the duration of them that is different due to US influence.
I will concede on the environmental impact, I’m just especially bitter about the 13 million dollar settlement for the priviledge to have gas that causes respiratory irritation.