Think Trump Evokes Orwell’s ‘1984’? Welcome to the Canadian Hive Mind

Donald Trump’s “words are ignorance, coarseness and mendacity, expressing his personal resentments while feeding those of voters. And like Newspeak, the thought-restricting language of Nineteen Eighty-Four, prolonged exposure closes the mind.” – Globe and Mail op-ed, September 26

This is peak Canadian smugness. As if Canada doesn’t have its own nicer, more polite version of MAGA’s closed mind. Our version isn’t George Orwell’s dystopian nightmare but the warm, fuzzy collective of the Borg. Instead of “the Party,” Canada has a hive mind, a collective consciousness where oil pipelines for Asia are accepted as a greater good rather than challenged and debated, even if they don’t make business sense or run roughshod over the environment. Canada’s hive mind is nice, just like Canadians.

Watch how it works.

In 2024, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith declares that Alberta will double its oil production. During an onstage event in Calgary with American MAGA gadfly Tucker Carlson, no less. She instructs her energy minister to make her vision so, including the numerous pipelines needed to get 4 million barrels per day of new production to market. Trump becomes president. Mark Carney becomes prime minister. Suddenly, Canada has to build bigger and faster than ever before.

Overnight, the West Coast pipeline becomes a “nation-building project.” Other premiers sign on. Bank CEOs write op-eds praising Canada’s ambition to become a “conventional energy” superpower. Industry proxies and shills are platformed by the national media, with absolutely zero pushback. Or even hard questions, for that matter. Respected energy economists reassure Canadians, without a shred of evidence, that Asia will take every extra drop Alberta can produce.

Magically, a national consensus appears. Canadians, not having the tools to question the consensus, enthusiastically sign on. They may not know much about Asian refinery and petrochemical demand for ultra-heavy sour crude oil, but they know a big middle finger to Trump when they see one.

But where is the dissent, the counter-arguments, the hard questions? Like, where are the customers? What will they pay? Has Trump’s disastrous military bumble in Iran persuaded Asia to electrify faster and break their oil addiction?  Who eats the losses if the grand vision turns out to be a lousy investment?

Apparently, asking for a business case is what you do when you lack ambition for your country. The people selling the project get to call themselves nation-builders. The people asking for evidence – and there are precious few of us – get to yell into the void.

Welcome to the Borg. Resistance is futile.

Repetition Is Not Evidence

Smith’s sales pitch becomes a national consensus when enough powerful people repeat it and enough journalists mistake the chorus for proof.

Industry points to political support. Editorial writers applaud both as evidence that Canada is finally getting serious. Round and round it goes, each endorsement validating the next until the original proposition disappears beneath the weight of all those important people agreeing with one another.

Where, in this circle of mutual congratulations, did anyone establish that the investment makes sense? A pipeline needs paying customers. It can’t run on applause.

Further reading from the Energi Media website:

What a Counterargument Looks Like

Energi Media has invested considerable time and resources investigating the case against the West Coast pipeline.

Energi Media examined Chinese government databases, Chinese oil demand modelling, and credible international agency projections. Our conclusion: China’s oil demand peaked in 2025 and will begin declining before 2030. Modestly rising petrochemical and aviation consumption will be eclipsed by the frenetic electrification of road transport, which accounts for half of all oil demand.

We also downloaded extensive Indian government datasets. Those numbers suggest India is following its own version of China’s electrification trajectory, albeit at an earlier stage. Interviews with Ember energy analysts and Indian economist Karthik Ganesan reinforce that interpretation. Ganesan’s analysis suggests Indian oil demand will grow by about 3 million barrels per day (b/d) by 2050, well short of the 8 million b/d assumed by Smith and Ottawa.

That difference matters enormously to anyone proposing to expand Alberta’s oil sands to supply Asian markets. China and India drive the region’s oil demand growth. If that growth is stalling, then the entire business case for the pipeline is in tatters.

Here is a counterargument built from data, modelling, and expert interviews. Where is the national debate about what it means?

Maybe we’re wrong. Perhaps the oil industry, which one would think has done some market analysis, has a different take. And it’s not inconceivable that Ottawa has geopolitical and national security interests that favour building the pipeline even if the economics aren’t terrific.

Great. Let’s put everything on the table and see who can make the best case. But committing tax dollars to a massive project without doing the homework is irresponsibility on an epic scale. And if the homework isn’t available to the Canadian public, we should assume it hasn’t been done.

The burden of proof is on the proponents, not the skeptics. To quote Energi Media’s new tagline, Show Your Math or STFU.

A Closed Mind With Better Manners

The Globe measures Canada’s political health by the reassuring spectacle of Liberals and Conservatives agreeing. It should ask whether that agreement survives a serious challenge.

In the case of the pipeline project, who tests the assumptions? Who gives contrary evidence to the Alberta and federal governments? Who insists that public money come with a public accounting of the risks?

When politicians, business leaders, academics and journalists fail those tests, Canadians are being recruited into a consensus they have never had a meaningful opportunity to examine.

A closed mind is still a closed mind, even when it says please and thank you.