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Wow Richfaa that was some post.
Canada still produces the majority of it's oil from wells. This will be overtaken by production from tar sands in Alberta. This is not environmentally friendly but these sands hold about half the known recoverable oil on the planet.
Yes the rapid rise of the $Can means higher energy costs to our US cousins. At the same time it means many of our manufacturing plants are closing as we are no longer competitive either domestically or in external markets.
A new 300,000 plus barrel refinery is to be built in Newfoundland to supply the eastern US market. It will process sour crude oil from Africa and the Mid-east. It would be virtually impossible for this to be built at any port in the US because of state and local regulations.
NAFTA has created both winners and losers in Canada and the USA but I believe it was absolutely necessary to make NA a free trade zone within itself. Now I would like to see us move to a linked currency policy, place tariffs on goods that come from countries that do not have comparable labour and environmental standards and to further develop hydrogen fuel. This would mean forcing the current gas/diesel distribution network to carry hydrogen. It would use both water and petroleum as a source of the hydrogen. Unfortunately this will not provide a cheaper fuel although current gas prices are getting close.
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