Given Canada's proximity to the United States, we tend to take our peace and security for granted.
This comfortable distance from most of the world's violence has also led us to underestimate how useful Canada might be in defusing threats elsewhere using an item some people overlook as leverage: energy.
Discussions surrounding the need for new pipelines to transport Canada's oil to market have been a dominant economic, environmental, and political issue for the past several years. Canada's overwhelming reliance on the United States as a customer, the U.S.'s growing energy self-sufficiency, and limited pipeline infrastructure have placed a low ceiling on the prices Canadians are able to secure for our energy exports.