Mark Carney has found his theme. Canada must pivot away from the United States (US), rebuild sovereignty, and stop being so dependent on the Americans. In his April 19 national video address, he said Canada’s once-beneficial economic relationship with the US had become a “weakness” that must be corrected. He framed the issue as a national project, invoking Canadian sovereignty, economic resilience, and the need to “take back control.” Carney has also put real money behind the message. His government’s Defence Industrial Strategy includes $81.8 billion in Budget 2025 defence investments, including $6.6 billion specifically tied to building Canada’s defence industrial base. He has also promised to reduce Canada’s reliance on American defence procurement, saying the days of sending “70 cents of every dollar” in military spending to the US are over.Then there is space. Ottawa has introduced the Canadian Space Launch Act, explicitly describing it as a way to build “sovereign space launch capabilities,” reduce reliance on the US, and help develop a commercial space launch industry that could be worth $40 billion. Canada has also committed $200 million toward a planned spaceport in Nova Scotia. Canada, we are told, must be able to launch things into orbit without always having to ask the Americans for help.All very bold. All very expensive. All very “sovereign.”Which makes the oil question almost comical..Alberta is one of the world's great oil-producing districts. Industry and government material have long described Western Canada as having the third-largest proven oil reserves; the current federal framing more often ranks Canada fourth, but either way, the point remains. We are sitting on a global-scale petroleum endowment. And yet Eastern Canada still imports large volumes of crude oil from the US.In 2024, Canadian crude oil imports averaged about 518,000 barrels per day. Of that, the US supplied roughly 407,000 barrels per day — about 78%. Most of those US crude imports went to New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario. At today’s prices, that is an extra $60 million that leaves Canada each and every day. That $60 million could still be floating around the Canadian economy. So while Ottawa delivers speeches about independence from Washington, Eastern Canadian refineries remain materially dependent on American crude supply routes.This is where the hypocrisy starts to glow in the dark. .Canada can spend billions of dollars trying to reduce its reliance on US defence contractors. It can design a sovereign space launch regime. It can talk about economic nationalism, supply-chain resilience, and “Canada First” procurement. But when it comes to using Canadian oil to supply Canadian refineries for Canadian consumers, suddenly the sovereignty sermon gets very quiet..The solution, or at least one major solution, was once called Energy East.Energy East was a proposed pipeline project by TransCanada, now TC Energy. The concept was straightforward: move Western Canadian crude from Alberta and Saskatchewan across the country to Eastern refineries and export terminals, including in New Brunswick. The project would have involved converting existing natural gas pipeline infrastructure and building new pipelines, pump stations, and related facilities. Its estimated cost was about $12 billion. That is not pocket change. But in the context of modern federal spending, it is hardly science fiction. Ottawa can find $81.8 billion for defence investments, billions more for industrial strategies, and hundreds of millions for sovereign space launch capacity. But a pipeline that would have physically connected Canadian oil to Canadian markets was treated as some kind of national moral emergency.Energy East died in 2017. The official and practical reasons included regulatory uncertainty, changed market conditions, lower oil prices, environmental opposition, indigenous concerns, and strong political resistance, particularly in Quebec. The National Energy Board (NEB) process also became messy, including controversy over private meetings involving NEB officials and Jean Charest, who was then consulting for TransCanada. But the politics were impossible to miss. Quebec politicians and environmental groups celebrated the project’s cancellation. Opponents argued that the pipeline would lock Canada into fossil fuels, increase emissions, and impose risks without sufficient benefit to Quebec. Montreal-area politicians were especially vocal. Former Montreal mayor Denis Coderre famously dismissed the project’s benefits and questioned why Quebec should accept the environmental risks. As recently as this month, BQ MP Christine Normandin blamed “dirty oil” from Alberta for flooding into Quebec. In other words, Western oil was good enough to fund Confederation, but apparently too vulgar to move through it..Eastern Canada does have refining capacity. New Brunswick has the Irving Oil refinery in Saint John, the largest in Canada, with a capacity of around 320,000 barrels per day. Quebec has Suncor’s Montreal refinery, around 137,000 barrels per day, and Valero’s Jean-Gaulin refinery at Lévis, around 265,000 barrels per day. Ontario has facilities operated by Shell, Imperial Oil, Suncor, and others, including refineries at Corunna, Sarnia, and Nanticoke. Yes, they may have to be upgraded to accept Alberta’s “vulgar” and “dirty” crude. But does that not make sense in the long term?So this is not a case where Eastern Canada has no energy infrastructure. It does. The problem is feedstock access, pipeline politics, refinery configuration, economics, and federal-provincial cowardice dressed up as environmental virtue.Could Canada build more refining capacity? Technically, yes. In practice, it would require billions in private capital, long-term regulatory certainty, environmental approvals, indigenous consultation, market confidence, and a government that does not treat oil infrastructure as a sin during the permitting process and as a strategic asset during campaign season. New refineries are not built because a prime minister gives a speech. They are built when investors believe the rules will remain stable long enough to earn a return. Canada has spent years teaching investors the opposite lesson.That is the heart of the contradiction.Carney wants Canada to be less dependent on the US. Fine. Then start with the obvious. Use Canadian oil in Canada. Move Western Canadian energy to Eastern Canadian consumers. Reduce imports from the very country Ottawa now says we must stop relying on. Keep more value inside Canada. Strengthen national infrastructure. Improve energy security. Give Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada a real economic stake in the same national project..Instead, Canada’s political class seems more comfortable importing American oil than admitting Alberta has a point.The irony is almost too perfect. We are told Canada must be sovereign enough to launch rockets, manufacture defence inputs, diversify trade, and renegotiate its place in the world. But apparently, we are not sovereign enough to build a pipeline across our own country to supply our own refineries with our own oil.If Mark Carney genuinely wants to distance Canada from the US, this should be one of the simplest and most practical places to begin. Not simple politically, of course. That would require telling Quebec, Ottawa, and the professional activist class that national sovereignty involves more than speeches, grants, and photo opportunities.It involves steel in the ground.But perhaps that is the problem. Spaceports are glamorous. Defence strategies sound Churchillian. Pipelines are messy, practical, and very Western. They solve real problems without flattering the Laurentian sensibilities. And in modern Canada, much to Alberta’s detriment, that may be the one unforgivable offence.
