Of all the promises that federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has made during this election campaign, perhaps none has been as bold and eyebrow-raising as his pledge to make Canada an energy superpower. It’s not so much that the goal is completely absurd or without merit. It’s more the way he’s framed it – like this is going to be a piece of cake. Just decide on the route to create a preapproved “energy corridor” from coast to coast and before you know it, we’ll have pipelines transporting oil and gas and rail lines carrying other valuable goods and products headed for offshore markets. Things always sound so beautifully simple on the campaign trail. There certainly does seem to be an appetite in Canada at the moment for additional energy infrastructure. Certainly, U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to our independence and economic security have something to do with that. There is now the potential that the oil we move from Alberta to eastern Canada through the United States could be vulnerable. With Mr. Trump, you never know. In a fit of pique he could shut the taps off on the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline that carries oil from Alberta to refineries in Sarnia, Ont. Once upon a time you couldn’t imagine such a scenario. Now we must. So, there is a case to be made for a west-east pipeline to Ontario and perhaps beyond to access European markets. Liberal Leader Mark Carney has made similar sounds to Mr. Poilievre about ramping up energy production and making the country an energy powerhouse. But his timelines aren’t nearly as aggressive as the Conservative Leader’s. Mr. Poilievre has set a six-month approval target for decisions on resource projects; Mr. Carney’s is two years. There are some things to consider. While the federal government can certainly clear the way for a pipeline should it want to – it has the authority – it’s clearly not as simple as that. It has a constitutional duty to consult those who could be affected, including land holders and Indigenous groups. There could be dozens of the latter when talking about a major undertaking like a cross-country pipeline. And finding consensus among these groups could be extremely challenging, if not impossible. If there is no agreement, or if a healthy faction of the total number of Indigenous groups affected want nothing to do with a pipeline, what does a Prime Minister Pierre Poilievre do then? (Or a Prime Minister Mark Carney, for that matter.) Would he ignore them and push on? What if it’s the government of Quebec saying no? Again, is it just too bad, thems the breaks? Somehow I doubt it. When it comes to pushing LNG projects, that’s even trickier. The federal government doesn’t have the same jurisdiction over this area in the way it does oil. Mr. Poilievre recently campaigned on reviving the $14-billion GNL Quebec natural-gas facility in Saguenay, which was previously denied by the province on the grounds there was no “social acceptability” for the project. Is a Prime Minister Poilievre going to tell François Legault to get stuffed? Something tells me that won’t be happening. There are broader questions about both Mr. Poilievre’s and Mr. Carney’s oil ambitions. As Thomas Gunton, professor and founding director of the Resource and Environmental Planning Program at Simon Fraser University, said in The Globe and Mail this week, demand for oil is expected to peak in 2030. Other entities like the International Energy Agency are forecasting significant declines in oil production by 2050, up to 70 per cent. “In this environment,” Mr. Gunton wrote, “investing in a major expansion of oil production in Canada, which is among the highest-cost producers in the world, is highly risky, especially given the unused low-cost oil production capacity in the Middle East.” There are concerns around what the shipping tolls would be to export oil to China. Mr. Gunton suggests they might be so big it would mean Canadian taxpayers would once again have to subsidize any new pipeline to the West Coast. The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion cost Canadians $34-billion. This is not to say that obstacles can’t be overcome. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and others seem to believe there is a strong business case to be made for multiple pipelines stretching in all directions. Yet I haven’t heard too many oil companies raising their hands to say they’d be first in line to build one if the approval process is going to be as quick and easy as Mr. Poilievre is suggesting. Maybe they’re just waiting for the election to be over before they make their intentions known. Then again, maybe their silence is saying something that is much more worrisome: that it’s all a pipe dream.