Tuesday, March 21, 2023
No Result
View All Result
  • Media
Support Us
Macdonald-Laurier Institute
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
    • Women’s History Month Fundraiser
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy Program
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Annual Reports
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
    • Women’s History Month Fundraiser
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy Program
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Annual Reports
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media
No Result
View All Result
Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Canada is allowing Russia’s energy blackmail to win the day in Europe: Christian Leuprecht and Shuvaloy Majumdar in the Globe and Mail

Instead of promising to leverage Canadian strengths to privilege European energy resilience, the Trudeau government is enabling Russia’s energy blackmail.

July 18, 2022
in Christian Leuprecht, Columns, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy Program, In the Media, Latest News, Shuvaloy Majumdar
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A
Photo by the Office of the President of Ukraine, via Flickr.

This article originally appeared in the Globe and Mail.

By Christian Leuprecht and Shuvaloy Majumdar, July 18, 2022

Canada is in a deep strategic crisis.

In a contest where the democratic world’s economic and political order is under systemic assault by tyrants, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government appears to be dispensing with natural Canadian strengths that would change the geopolitical equation.

Ottawa claims to be defending the rules-based international order, and yet, confronted by the Kremlin and Beijing, it is doing the opposite – it is undermining it. The Trudeau government’s decisions are helping bolster the democratic world’s authoritarian rivals.

European allies have asked for more from Canada in the fight for Ukrainian sovereignty: more money, more weapons, more support for Ukrainian soldiers, more jet fighters, more frigates and more liquefied natural gas (LNG). At the recent NATO and G7 summits, allies committed 500 artillery systems, 600 tanks, and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Mr. Trudeau served up a predictable diet of platitudes: He announced Canada’s intent to co-host an “innovation hub” and a “centre of excellence on climate security,” failing to produce concrete deliverables on defense, energy and agricultural security that the world needs now. Instead of promising to leverage Canadian strengths to privilege European energy resilience, the Trudeau government is enabling Russia’s energy blackmail.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin is playing for time. As the invasion of Ukraine enters a protracted phase, Russia has been leveraging its ability to scale both personnel and materiel. Ukraine, running low on ordinance and fuel, is now wholly reliant on Euro-Atlantic support to keep it in the fight. Mr. Putin seems to be banking on war fatigue and Western fracture to occur long before Russia’s capacity to weather hardship wanes. And he appears bent on stoking chaos by weaponizing the global food supply, burning and blockading Ukrainian grain so it cannot reach fragile markets.

Mr. Putin has also spent years choreographing German dependency on Russian oil and gas, now exploiting that to shake down Europe. He intervened in Syria and Libya to subvert pipelines that would supply Europe; conducted a corrupt and expansive elite-capture campaign across Europe; and amplified misinformation against Canadian hydrocarbons. This has all ensured a steady stream of revenue to Russia – nearly $1-billion a day, including more than $250-million a day from Germany alone – to fund Mr. Putin’s brutal war across Ukraine.

Canada is the sole NATO ally with the potential to backfill European energy demand, with $3-trillion worth in natural resources, the world’s fourth-largest oil reserves, NATO’s third-largest reserves of natural gas and the capacity to scale agricultural products and technologies for the world.

Were Europe to replace its dependency on Russia with Canadian energy permanently, and partner with Canadian agriculture to preserve global food security, Canada could also stand to benefit, to the tune of $1-billion or more a day. That number approximates annual federal and provincial expenditures combined. It would help pay down our ballooning national debt, equip the military, assert Canadian interests as a major player in international affairs, and allow for schemes such as pharmacare, childcare and just about any other care – including the energy transition this government has been promising for the better part of a decade.

To achieve this grand bargain, squaring comprehensive energy security with a compact on energy transition, Canada could build critical infrastructure – especially natural gas pipelines – to LNG terminals at our deep sea ports. Specifically, Canada could build pipeline capacity across the Prairies to Thunder Bay, exporting hydrocarbons via existing sea routes to the U.S. and Europe.

Naïve opposition to pipelines does nothing to halt the climate crisis, win the war in Ukraine, or assure the world of its food supply. Anxious customers will simply turn to less scrupulous suppliers. That’s even been true domestically: Ottawa cynically enables the very dictatorships it denounces by importing their authoritarian oil to Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

Mr. Putin expects to prevail in a contest of wills. European allies are reigniting their coal plants, certifying gas and nuclear as green – and preparing for winter energy rationing and a grinding recession should Mr. Putin slow down or turn off Russian gas exports. With leadership and conviction, Canada could redefine the terms of engagement with which our rivals confront our allies, and deliver a decisive victory in this contest. Instead, at a time of crisis on a continent of crises, European allies find themselves at the mercy of a federal government unwilling to provide the very Canadian natural resources that would defeat Russian energy extortion and its weaponized famine.

Christian Leuprecht is professor at the Royal Military College and Queen’s University, senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and the author of books including his latest, Intelligence as Democratic Statecraft. Shuvaloy Majumdar is a Munk Senior Fellow and heads the foreign policy and national security program at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

Source: Globe and Mail
Tags: christian leuprechtNATORussiaShuvaloy MajumdarUkraine
Previous Post

Webinar panel video: Walking together – Why the papal visit matters for reconciliation

Next Post

Government failures are making the case for focusing on core competencies: Aaron Wudrick in the National Post

Related Posts

Oaths, trust and Canadian democracy: Stephen Van Dine and Karl Salgo for Inside Policy
Inside Policy

Oaths, trust and Canadian democracy: Stephen Van Dine and Karl Salgo for Inside Policy

March 17, 2023
Preparing for the Foreign Threats to Canadian Democracy: Straight Talk with Richard Fadden
Inside Policy

Canada and Japan’s common miscalculation in cyberspace: Koichiro Komiyama for Inside Policy

March 15, 2023
Defending against foreign interference in our elections: Marcus Kolga for Inside Policy
Columns

As Ottawa balks at an election interference inquiry, public trust in our democracy is draining away: Marcus Kolga in the Globe and Mail

March 15, 2023
Next Post
Government failures are making the case for focusing on core competencies: Aaron Wudrick in the National Post

Government failures are making the case for focusing on core competencies: Aaron Wudrick in the National Post

Macdonald-Laurier Institute

323 Chapel Street, Suite #300
Ottawa, Ontario
K1N 7Z2 Canada

613.482.8327

info@macdonaldlaurier.ca
MLI directory

Follow us on

Newsletter Signup

Support Us

Support the Macdonald-Laurier Institute to help ensure that Canada is one of the best governed countries in the world. Click below to learn more or become a sponsor.

Support Us

Inside Policy Magazine

  • Current Issue
  • Back Issues
  • Advertising
  • Inside Policy Blog
  • Privacy Policy

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
    • Women’s History Month Fundraiser
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy Program
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Annual Reports
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.