Canada today sits at one of the most important strategic moments in its modern history.
The world is entering a period of profound geopolitical instability: war in the Middle East, threats to the Strait of Hormuz, rising energy insecurity, fractured supply chains, inflationary pressures, and growing concern about dependence on authoritarian regimes for critical resources.
At precisely the same moment, the world is searching for something increasingly valuable: reliable democratic suppliers of energy, food, fertilizer, uranium, natural gas, critical minerals, and electricity.
In other words, the world is looking for Canada.
And yet, Canada still seems uncertain whether it actually wants the opportunity.
That contradiction became strikingly clear to me through a series of recent interviews on The Brian Crombie Hour with Heather Exner-Pirot of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and political strategist Rick Anderson.
Both made versions of the same point: Canada possesses extraordinary natural advantages. But we continue to struggle with execution.
And unless we change course, we risk once again squandering a generational opportunity.
Much of the national conversation about Canadian energy revolves around Alberta. But one of the most fascinating parts of my discussion with Heather Exner-Pirot was her description of Saskatchewan — a province many Canadians barely think about strategically.
And yet, Saskatchewan is quietly becoming one of the most important resource jurisdictions in the world.
Consider this:
Saskatchewan produces roughly half a million barrels of oil per day. If it were an OPEC country, it would rank among the top producers. It possesses the world’s largest potash reserves. It is the second-largest uranium producer on Earth after Kazakhstan. The Athabasca Basin contains some of the highest-grade uranium deposits in the world. Saskatchewan also contains roughly half of Canada’s arable farmland.
This is not a marginal economy.
This is a strategic global resource platform.
And yet instead of aggressively building export infrastructure and positioning Canada as the world’s preferred democratic supplier, we continue to trap ourselves in regulatory paralysis, political division, and infrastructure bottlenecks.
The Strait of Hormuz crisis has reminded the world of a reality many policymakers preferred to ignore:
• Energy security still matters. Deeply.
• Europe understands this after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
• Asia understands it because of rising geopolitical tensions.
• And increasingly, even environmental policymakers are recognizing that where energy comes from matters as much as how much is consumed.
Heather Exner-Pirot made an important observation during our discussion: Canadian oil and natural gas are among the lowest greenhouse gas intensity energy sources in the world.
That matters.
Because if global demand for oil and gas is not disappearing anytime soon — and it clearly is not — then replacing higher-emission production from authoritarian or unstable regimes with lower-emission Canadian production is both economically and environmentally rational.
Instead, Canada often behaves as though producing energy itself is immoral.
Meanwhile, Germany is reopening coal plants. China continues building coal-fired generation. India’s energy demand is exploding. Europe is desperately seeking reliable LNG suppliers. Countries throughout Asia are searching for long-term energy security.
Canada should be central to this conversation. Instead, we often appear absent from it.
Perhaps the most frustrating part of these conversations was realizing that Canada’s biggest obstacle is no longer geology.
It is governance.
We have resources. We have expertise. We have political stability. We have rule of law. We have environmental standards. We have Indigenous partnership models improving steadily across the country.
What we increasingly lack is the ability to build.
Heather highlighted several examples:
• rail bottlenecks,
• Port of Vancouver congestion,
• labour disruptions,
• permitting delays,
• uncertainty around industrial carbon pricing,
• and regulatory systems so slow and unpredictable that companies increasingly choose to build infrastructure in the United States instead of Canada.
Nutrien, for example, is increasingly exporting through Washington State because Canadian infrastructure has become too unreliable and congested.
Think about that for a moment.
Canada possesses the resources. But other countries increasingly capture the logistics, value-added infrastructure, and geopolitical leverage.
That is not a resource problem.
That is a policy failure.
Heather Exner-Pirot described what she calls “The Rupture Cycle.”
A world shaped by geopolitical fragmentation, supply chain insecurity, energy nationalism, rearmament, AI-driven electricity demand, critical mineral competition, and strategic decoupling from authoritarian suppliers.
This is not the world of 15 years ago.
And Canada is uniquely positioned to benefit from it.
Rick Anderson made a similar point during our discussion about Canada’s international positioning.
As the United States becomes more unpredictable and protectionist, Canada has an opportunity to deepen relationships with Europe, Japan, India, South Korea, Southeast Asia, and other middle powers seeking stable democratic partners.
But we cannot become a true geopolitical energy and resource partner if we cannot actually move products efficiently to global markets.
That requires pipelines, LNG terminals, rail investment, ports, electricity infrastructure, mining permits, Indigenous partnerships, and workforce development.
In short, it requires seriousness.
The debate Canada now faces is not whether we should care about climate change. We should.
Nor is it whether we should pursue renewable energy, carbon capture, electrification, or technological innovation. We absolutely should.
The real question is whether Canada intends to participate seriously in the world economy during one of the largest resource and energy transitions in modern history.
Or whether we intend to regulate ourselves into geopolitical irrelevance while other countries build the future without us.
Canada should not aspire merely to be virtuous. Canada should aspire to be useful:
• Useful to allies.
• Useful to global stability.
• Useful to energy security.
• Useful to food security.
• Useful to the clean energy transition itself.
And we can be.
Because very few countries possess Canada’s resources, Canada’s stability, Canada’s environmental standards, Canada’s institutional strength, and Canada’s geopolitical trustworthiness.
But advantages alone are not enough.
And that is now Canada’s defining challenge.
