I have a problem with this commercial.
I’m sure all Canadians have seen it by now. Three’s only one little thing wrong with it but I find it to be very strange… There’s a quote in there where it is said “we can grow this stuff ourselves which means we wouldn’t be buying fuels from outside the country.” This strangely sounds like “decrease our dependence on foreign oil”, a common sentence heard south of our Canada/US border. While the sentence in the commercial is technically correct, the sentiment it’s trying to instill is unfair.
So what’s wrong with that? Buying fuels from other countries is a bad thing and we should avoid it right? Well maybe, but you see we have a very different platform to operate from when it comes to oil. We don’t depend on foreign oil. That’s right. Canada is a net exporter of oil. That means that while we have chosen to allow dependence on other countries for some of our refining capacity and distribution, it doesn’t have to be that way. We don’t “depend” on our foreign partners in the same manner as the US “depends” on foreign oil.
This point isn’t being brought up because I think that ethanol fuels are a bad idea. Quite the contrary. I actually think that 5% is a pretty weak goal to set. I think we can do better as a country. What I am opposed to is subtle scare tactics used to motivate the populous. I find these tactics to be irritating since they serve only to cloud the issue.
ws // Mar 1, 2007 at 11:26 pm
The major problem with decreasing dependence upon oil (foreign or not) by shifting to biofuels is that much of the fertilizer for said biofuels is derived from oil. This is true whether it’s in Canada or the US.
Marc // Mar 2, 2007 at 9:35 am
That’s an excellent point. I’m curious as to what the ratio is though. How much less oil would we be using by consuming more fertilizer to make ethanol.
I don’t think that ethanol’s a fix to all of our problems, but from the information I have I think it’s a great intermediary step that we can take relatively seamlessly.