If Alberta Premier Jason Kenney had been running the fur trade, Stanford mocked, he would not have said, "Maybe we should learn to produce other stuff!"
When the market for beaver pelts, used to make felt hats, began to wane, he probably wouldn't even have said, "'Maybe we should try to get as much value for our beavers as we can while the demand is still there,' instead of just trying to flood the world market, to respond to a downturn in demand by selling even more. Not very thoughtful!"
"And it will occur to our staples today," Stanford averred. "No matter how much we stand up and tilt at windmills, no matter how much we point fingers at environmentalists and others, the reality is the world is going to stop using oil."
"If we get ahead of the process -- and there are, believe it or not, places in the world that do produce oil that are thinking down the road -- then we can position ourselves for maximum benefit," he said. "If we just deny that it's happening, stick our heads in the sand and point fingers, we will absolutely be left behind."
"And this," Stanford concluded, "is the fundamental flaw, the enormous weakness, in Jason Kenney's vision."
You can call this the Lesson of the Beaver -- Stanford does -- and you can bank on it.
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