Director’s Forum with The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada
Whatever the final Keystone XL decision, Canada will still pursue new markets for its oil exports, especially Asia, Prime Minister Harper told a Wilson Center audience Monday. “Whatever the energy mix of the future—conventional and renewable—Canada will be a major provider,” he said.
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The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada
Regardless of the final Keystone XL decision, diversifying energy exports is a long-term strategic goal for Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told a Wilson Center audience Monday. “Not to diversify to Asia when Asia is growing doesn’t make sense,” he said. A major pipeline connecting western Canada oil wells to ports and refineries in Texas, the Keystone XL project is undergoing a federal review and has not yet been fully approved by the administration. That it could fail review underscores Canada’s need to open new markets for oil and other energy products and relieve its historical overdependence on US export markets, Harper noted.
Apart from energy issues, Harper discussed the depth of the US-Canada trading relationship, which he called the “largest economic relationship in history” with more than US$750 billion in goods and services crossing the border annually. He stressed Canada’s absorption of massive US exports, noting that the northern neighbor imports more yearly than the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), Germany, and Great Britain—combined.
Harper was in Washington for the annual Trilateral Leaders Summit with President Barack Obama and President Felipe Calderon of Mexico. His talk was the latest in the Center’s Director’s Forum series and was moderated by Wilson Center Director Jane Harman.
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Canada Institute
The mission of the Wilson Center's Canada Institute is to raise the level of knowledge of Canada in the United States, particularly within the Washington, DC policy community. Research projects, initiatives, podcasts, and publications cover contemporary Canada, US-Canadian relations, North American political economy, and Canada's global role as it intersects with US national interests. Read more
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