Canada Desperately Trying to Unload Tar Sands Oil

Imagine being a car dealer and you’re stuck with a huge lot full of 2-ton gas guzzlers that get 4.2 miles per gallon.  Or:  you’ve wasted an entire night hanging out in a singles bar, it’s 1:45 a.m. and nobody you’ve talked to likes the cut of your jib.

Canada is desperate.  “Please buy what I’m selling.”  “Please go home with me.”

Canada can’t even get the U.S. to ship Alberta’s tar sands oil to Texas refineries.  And now the European Union might designate Alberta’s tar sands oil as “highly polluting.”  Canada doesn’t currently export oil to Europe, but the Canadian oil industry is worried that the “highly polluting” label will jeopardize future sales to other markets besides Europe.

Canada might file a complaint with the World Trade Organization against the European Union if the EU goes ahead with the “highly polluting” designation.  The EU will be voting on this issue later in the week.

Canada is even threatening a trade war with the European Union over this issue.

Then again, the Canadian oil industry could always go back and relearn what they (supposedly) learned in Business 101:  In order to make a sale, you have to be selling something that somebody somewhere might want to buy.