If sabotage of the energy industry doesn't end now, we face impoverishment

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With his removal of Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela, Donald Trump has opened another front in his economic assault on Canada by indirectly targeting our oil industry. Canada must respond decisively with diversification to the world market via the rapid construction of at least another pipeline to the coast, and ideally more.

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There is now a new urgency to Canadian pipeline construction that didn’t exist prior to the weekend. The reason is simple: Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, and its oil – from the Orinoco Belt — is extra heavy crude, similar to that found in Alberta’s oilsands. With around 303 billion barrels of proven reserves, Venezuela has nearly double the proven reserves of Alberta’s heavy oil. Further, until 1997, Venezuela was the no. 1 exporter of heavy crude to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries. This only changed in 1999 with the election of Hugo Chavez who raised export prices and royalties.

Due to sanctions and mismanagement of the Maduro regime, the........

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