GAC suggested reaching out to the Ministry of Finance "for a response to Minister Freeland’s remarks," despite the clear implications for Canadian foreign policy. Finance had no comment.
A couple weeks ago, I attended Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland’s keynote address to the Ukrainian Canadian Congress Alberta Provincial Council’s 50th anniversary conference.
In her speech, Freeland announced—and she made clear this was the first time she was saying it publicly—that Canada is leading international efforts to not just reduce, but eliminate Russian oil from global markets.
“We’ve taken significant steps to push that Russian oil out of the world market. Now we need to move further and work harder … to really push Russian oil out of the global market [emphasis added],” said Freeland, who also serves as Canada’s finance minister.
She insinuated that Alberta bitumen could help displace Russian crude from the global market, which would appear to run counter to Canada’s climate commitments.
Freeland provided no specifics of how Canada intends to pursue this policy, which would be no small undertaking, considering Russia’s two biggest oil customers happen to be the world’s two most populous countries—China and Russia, which together consumed more than 20% of the world’s oil supply in 2022.
In the days following Freeland’s announcement, I waited to hear an official government statement of such efforts. (more...)
Global Affairs Canada unaware of Freeland's plan to rid global market of Russian oil
Related:
No comments:
Post a Comment