gas that crossed (both ways) across the Cana- da-U.S. border. There are other energy products that made their way across the border (refined petroleum and other liquids at $253 billion; electricity at $69 billion, coal at $20 billion, and nuclear fuel at nearly $19 billion), but it is mostly the trans- border trade in oil and natural gas that powered economies on both sides of the border and kept homes warm.
The Mackinac Center notes how, absent Canadian natural gas through Line 5, those 330,000 Michigan homeowners would have to spend US$25,000 ($31,700 Canadian) to convert their home heating from propane to electric. And after that, they’d pay another US $3,500 ($4,400 Canadian) in extra heating costs every single year. The value of the energy trade flow is weighted to Canada’s exports. Out of $138 billion in energy products shipped in 2019 for example, roughly four-fifths were from Canada to the United States (about $112 billion). In reverse, American exports to Canada tallied up to about one-fifth ($26 billion) of the total energy trade that year. Of note, Texas and North Dakota shipped $9.6 billion and $3.5 billion worth of oil into Canada in 2019; on natural gas, Michigan sent nearly $1.5 billion in gas north to Canada with New York ($517 million) also sending a significant amount north. Whether measured in dollar terms in trade or in homes heated in a state like Michigan, the U.S-Canada energy trade is significant. It takes place between two countries which are both liberal democracies and whose last war took place over two centuries ago. Thus, it’s not as if Canadian companies are going to shut off natural gas supplies to the USA mid-winter (see: Russia vis-à-vis Ukraine in 2009), or cut off oil shipments to Americans akin to OPEC in 1973. Friends—especially friendly liberal democra- cies—don’t let their politicians attack each other. All that does is help our non-liberal competitors. Mark Milke and Lennie Kaplan are with the Canadian Energy Centre, an Alberta government corporation funded in part by carbon taxes. They are authors of the report, Nearly $2 Trillion in Energy Trade Flows between Canada and the United States: Trends from 2000 to 2019
To use one example from Line 5, as the Mich- igan-based Mackinac Center think tank points out, the pipeline provides nearly 65 per cent of the propane needed to heat 330,000 homes in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, propane used to “heat their homes during Michigan’s frigid winters.”
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MARCH 2021 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • MARCH 2021
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