Preston Manning is the former leader of the Reform Party of Canada and a former leader of the opposition in Canada’s Parliament.
What is Canada’s strongest feature on the global economic stage? We don’t have the largest population on the planet. We don’t have the biggest GDP. We aren’t a financial powerhouse and we don’t have the smartest or most economically astute government.
But area-wise, we are the second-largest country on Earth, which means that we have the second-largest, or perhaps even the largest, stock of natural resources on the planet – an enormous source of strength and responsibility if we would only recognize it, capitalize on it, and make its future development and stewardship a national priority.
Unfortunately, the current federal government tends to regard the natural-resource sectors as relics from the past and even as environmental liabilities. It gets away with this negative posture because Canada’s increasingly urban population does not fully recognize how many urban jobs and incomes are actually dependent on the health and performance of the rural-based natural resource sectors – agriculture, energy, mining, forestry, and fisheries. These are truly fundamental building blocks of the Canadian economy as a whole, and this fact needs to be more fully appreciated.
Ask the average urban resident and voter what comes to mind when asked about the agricultural sector, and the usual answers are fields of grain, cattle, hogs and chickens, and maybe orchards and vegetable gardens – the most visible elements of the rural-based producing subsector of Canadian agriculture. But what is often not realized is that there is an agricultural manufacturing subsector on top of that one, manufacturing all the machinery and equipment agriculture requires to function; that there is an agricultural service subsector on top of that, providing all kinds of services from transportation, to processing, to storage, to the wholesaling and retailing of foods; and on top of that, there is an agricultural knowledge and technology subsector generating all the science and technology required for the agricultural sector to perform as effectively and efficiently as possible.
The same can be said for all the other natural resource sectors – energy, mining, forestry and fisheries – each of which also have manufacturing, service, and knowledge subsectors built upon their producing foundations. And where are the majority of the jobs and incomes produced by these natural resource subsectors located? In the towns and cities of urban Canada. This is why it can be truthfully claimed that the natural resource sectors are fundamental building blocks of the economy as a whole, and why the urban resident/urban voter should be as interested and concerned about the natural resources development commitments and policies of our governments as rural Canadians.
Furthermore, isn’t the physical environment – the soil, minerals, vegetation, wildlife, water, and atmosphere that provide the raw material of every natural resource sector and is the ultimate source of life on this planet – the greatest natural resource of all? And does that not mean that both rural and urban residents and voters should insist that, when it comes to the policies governing the development of our natural resources, Canada’s commitment should be to do so in the most environmentally and socially responsible way possible?
As a federal election approaches, the natural resource development policies of the various parties deserve our attention and close scrutiny. Which one truly recognizes the natural resource sectors as fundamental building blocks of the Canadian economy, as immense generators of jobs and incomes for urban as well as rural Canadians, and insists that their development be conducted as responsibly as possible? That is the party to be entrusted with the governance of the second-largest country on earth and the bountiful stock of natural resources that comes with it.