The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her push to have a new pipeline built to the B.C. coast will test whether Canada works as a country. The Globe's Gary Mason writes that her pronouncement will have come as a surprise to many who had concluded Ms. Smith had already determined that Canada did not work as a country, despite the feds spending $30-billion on Trans Mountain pipeline to Vancouver. Northern Gateway redux will be even more expensive. Energy economist Peter Tertzakian calculated what the upstream costs of such a project might be to fill a pipeline with a capacity for 1.5 million barrels a day. He estimated it would take 10 years of sustained additions at a cost of about $100-billion. Add on to that, say, the $30-billion cost of the new pipeline itself, and you are suddenly talking real money. Even in a landscape with no regulatory impediments, that is a big ask. With so much uncertainty surrounding the energy future of the world in the coming years, it would seem to be a risky bet. That said, as a country we are facing extremely challenging times economically, and we need to work hard to broaden our trade alliances, including to whom we sell our oil.