text: The fact is, we don't have any idea when oil consumption will peak and we certainly don't know how the price of oil will change over the next few decades. Here's what we do know:
  
  1) The cost of open-pit bitumen mining will continue to come down with technological advances.
  2) The major sources of lighter, cleaner oil are politically scary and getting more so
  3)  Shale oil is expensive to extract and environmentally problematic.
  
  Given all this, it makes no sense for Canada to engage in its penchant for pious and gratuitous moralism.  Our only moral responsibility is to meet the targets we've set ourselves.  Closing down our oil industry will achieve nothing except to channel money into foreign pockets. It certainly won't lessen reliance on oil internationally. Professor Harrison would make more sense if she pitched her argument as a warning to the oil and pipeline companies, but frankly, they know they are taking a risk. It doesn't seem to bother them, and one can easily see why.