Tarred with the same brush

摘要

"A good neighbour lends you a cup of sugar," read an ad in the Washington Post last month. "A great neighbour supplies you with 1.4 million barrels of oil a day." Ed Stelmach, the premier of the energy-rich province of Alberta, certainly knows how to make the case for Canadian petroleum. Buying from Canada neither props up an authoritarian regime nor exposes the United States to political manipulation of its energy supply. Little wonder, then, that Canada is the biggest exporter of oil to America, with 22% of the total. The runners-up, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, have just 11-12% each. And the country's potential seems limitless: Canada's 179 billion barrels of oil and gas reserves rank second in the world.