George Grant on Stephen Harper

Mr. Trudeau [Mr. Harper] has consistently used the politics of confrontation and contempt against anybody who opposed him and that has done great harm to this country in the last decade.  It has been repugnant to hear Mr. Trudeau [Mr. Harper] to treat such men as Mr. Douglas and Mr. Stanfield and Mr. Ryan with shallow contempt over the years.  One of the difficult truths about politics is that one cannot fight such means by employing the same means.  Mr. Clark was surely right not to respond when Mr. Trudeau [Mr. Harper] tried to talk him down contemptuously. …

Source:  George Grant to Richard Doyle, Editor of the Globe and Mail, 15 May 1979 in George Grant, Selected Letters, ed. William Christian (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), pp.304,305.  Grant’s original comments pertain to the federal election of 22 May 1979.

China in the oil sands (and provincial Canadians)

Premier Alison Redford’s approval of the China National Offshore Oil Corp’s investment in Alberta is shameful.  This state-owned company has bid some $15.1 billion for Calgary-based Nexen Inc., a significant Canadian power in the energy industry.  How can Canadians speak of national self-determination and of control of oil sands development in the same breath when China is making its biggest overseas investment ever here in this country? 

Effectively, the Chinese government will have greater and greater authority over the oils sands, once considered a provincial resource, regardless of what Albertans or other Canadians say or do.  For good reason most of the people of China are not members of the Communist Party, singular in that nation, so why should Canada be subject to it? I am reminded of the beginning of WWII when American business leaders were reluctant to reduce car production because they did not want to make room for arms development.[1]  Where is the loyalty to national sovereignty, or sovereign interests, when provincial business figures gravitate only to money?

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[1] J.K. Galbraith, The Liberal Hour (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1961), p. 112.