The Canadian debate on foreign election meddling has focused almost exclusively on China. Some also want to investigate the interventions of other foreign governments. The foreign meddling debate in the United States is broader and encompasses powerful non-state actors, including foreign-influenced corporations. The debate in Canada needs to be broadened too.

We need an independent, non-partisan public inquiry into foreign election meddling that goes beyond China. Powerful, non-government foreign entities, including foreign-influenced corporations, regularly intervene in our elections. Their meddling is more effective than China’s because they hire Canadian managers and seem Canadian. They know how to sway voters better than China’s operatives.

Can democracy live on here if dictatorship fully wins the day south of the border? The biggest obstacle is what’s in our heads. It is ingrained among Canadians that the United States is our greatest friend and will always champion democracy. That can no longer be taken for granted. Can we pivot to seeing the US as our biggest potential threat?

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) may rue the day they made foreign funding a public issue. Did it not dawn on CAPP that crusading against a pittance of foreign funding of environmentalists trying to block the transportation and carbon pollution of oil sands oil would blow back and reveal just how foreign funded CAPP and Big Oil in Canada are?

Environmental concerns about Energy East go much deeper than the threat of bitumen spills. Its proposed capacity of 1.1 million barrels a day, making it the most capacious oil pipeline in North America, is so great it could single-handedly allow oilsands expansion of more than 40 per cent.

Building more export pipelines will encourage more Sands oil production and raise greenhouse gases. Production from the oilsands, rather than Canadians’ oil and natural gas use, are Canada’s fastest growing source of emissions. Growth in Sands emissions has recently added more carbon to the atmosphere than Ontario’s phase-out of coal-fired electricity has eliminated.

We must build a diversified economy while transitioning off the oilsands. New industries and jobs must be created around a green economy that builds on Alberta’s highly educated and skilled workforce.

We are seeing an international paradigm shift on climate change, which will bypass Canada if we remain locked into unlimited energy exports. Until Canada gets a “Mexican exemption” and exits NAFTA’s energy-proportionality clause, there is little chance of Canada fulfilling its modest, international Kyoto targets, let alone going far beyond them.