Pipelines, Power, and Paralysis: It’s time to build, not posture.

As Prime Minister Mark Carney met with U.S. President Donald Trump last month, energy should have been the issue behind every headline, whether mentioned or not. Canada’s future as a sovereign, economically resilient country will depend in no small part on whether the country seizes this moment or stalls out again in a fog of regulatory inertia and political ambivalence.

Canada holds an underleveraged strategic card: the potential to be the world’s most reliable democratic energy supplier. Recent trade figures show Chinese imports of Canadian crude hit a record 7.3 million barrels in March, a direct result of newly expanded access to the Pacific via the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX). But one pipeline does not make a national strategy. Demand in Asia is growing fast. India is among the hungriest, but Canada’s infrastructure is nowhere near meeting Asian demand.

That matters to Canada and the United States as well. In a world where energy markets are weaponized and strategic reserves man…