Global Affairs Canada unaware of Freeland's plan to rid global market of Russian oil
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.
There was nothing, so I reached out to Global Affairs Canada, which surely would be aware of such plans if they existed.
“Kindly contact the Department of Finance for a response to Minister Freeland’s remarks,” wrote an unnamed GAC spokesperson, who proceeded to outline Canada’s existing policies towards Russian oil interests.
In general, the mystery spokesperson added, “Canada is judicious when it chooses to deploy sanctions and is committed to their effective and coordinated use, when appropriate."
“We also consider the broader political and international contexts when deciding whether sanctions or any other tools in Canada’s foreign policy toolbox may be an appropriate response,” they said.
The GAC spokesperson described the “strong measures” Canada has already taken to curtail the reach of Russian oil, including the G7’s 2022 price cap on Russian oil exports, as well as a series of “targeted sanctions against Russia’s energy sector and entities which provide logistical and material support to Russia’s oil sector.”
Nothing new here. So I took GAC’s advice and reached out to Finance.
“I’ve checked, but unfortunately, we don’t have anything to add, at the moment, to the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments,” said Ministry of Finance spokesperson Benoit Mayrand.
I can think of a few options for what’s going on here:
Freeland was telling tales out of school to impress a hometown crowd of Ukrainian nationalists and the government has no intention of pursuing such extreme measures.
She revealed a forthcoming policy to them that her own government isn’t ready to reveal to the broader public, providing a sneak preview to an ideologically aligned audience.
Freeland is creating Canada’s foreign policy on the fly in an effort to push it in her preferred direction, which seeks total Ukrainian victory, no matter the cost to the developing world.
For a policy that would have profound implications, not just for geopolitics but international climate mitigation efforts, any one of these options is concerning.
This piece has been updated to reflect that China and India are the world’s most populous, not largest, countries.
Reminds me of the time that Alberta fans of oil planned to use nuclear bombs to melt the tar out of the sand. Perhaps she thinks the Russians could save us the trouble of obtaining the necessary bombs.
There's nothing like playing with sanctions while climate chaos grows around us. A little bit of cooperation is what is needed. But no, we have to bow to the American bully and help poke the bear.
The Ukrainian Russian conflict has revealed a lot of things about us that have been a bit surprising. Imagine preferring Nazi collaborators to the Jewish victims that survived.........or imagining that Russia, who paid dearly to turn back Hitler's troops, and with that payment helped us win the war......has always been our natural enemy.
Seems to me we've been the victims of a capitalist propaganda that has set the world on fire....while demonizing a country that also paid dearly to remove the Czars that imagined it was okay for land owners to own the serfs who worked on their estates.
You don't have to be a communist to consider that just maybe other countries have the right to choose other economies....and that perhaps our demonization of Russia hides uncomfortable realities about ourselves. The alt right rising around the world just now didn't come out of nowhere....or spring full blown from the head of Zeus. It's been a carefully cultivated cult in the west since the days of Joe McCarthy.