I was really hoping someone would write this article, and Jonah Gindin has done it brilliantly.

"Venezuela's and Canada's Very Different Approaches to Oil," originally published in Alberta Voice (but I found it on Venezuelananalysis.com), runs through the making of oil policy in these nations, pointing to the places where these policies converged and ultimately diverged over time.

Gindin recommends Canada take a page out of Venezuela's book by increasing oil royalties on the Alberta tar sands and diverting these funds towards social programs. He makes two excellent cases for such a move: the first, being the ecological unsustainability of current oil production, ultimately arguing for a reinvestment of oil dollars into a world-leading, renewable, alternative energy industry; the second case, based on fostering a strong, political, civic culture in Canada, where every Canadian has an opportunity to go to university, to get access to free health care, and to eat healthy, nutritious, locally-grown food. At least that's the success Gindin points to of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela. It's exciting to imagine there being no more excuses for cut after destructive cut to Canadian social programs in provinces across the country.

While Gindin writes with alarm that the nationalization of Canadian oil did not even appear remotely as an election issues in the past two federal races, I discovered just now by surfing around the Internet that there actually is substantial support amongst Canadians to pursue this national path. CTV reported that over half of Canadians (1,500 total) surveyed by Leger Marketing wanted to see their petroleum and gas stations nationalized as gas was hitting record high prices. Quebecers were the strongest supporters of nationalization at 67 percent. Leading the way with highest numbers of opposition, no surprise, was Alberta, but surprisingly, at only 49 percent opposed. Maybe there is some hope there somewhere...

Of course, we know that Western discontent and even the spawning of Western separatism resulted from Trudeau's National Energy Program (NEP), but if there is already support in Alberta, perhaps this issue might not be a divisive as one imagines... What is the next step here? How can this issue get on to the political landscape, into public debate? Must find those sympathetic Albertans, and fast.