MONTREAL, QUEBEC: Here in the normally frigid climes of Canada, the snow is melting. I arrived here last week to celebrate the dawn of 2007 in North America's French metropolis, and amid the cheerful soirées and greetings of "bonne année!" I learned just how pivotal energy is to this unique corner of the continent.

Canada is America, but it is not the United States. Many of my countrymen take the attitude that there is but one voice in English-speaking North America, and that we somehow have a right to the adjoining boreal territory and its resources.

This raises the question, then: What of French-speaking Canada?

This issue is tops in the political and economic landscape for the francophone majority in the province of Québec as 2007 begins, as well as for their linguistic and cultural brethren in places like New Brunswick (where French speakers constitute a large minority of nearly 27%).

Stephen Harper, beginning his first full year as the Canadian prime minister, closed 2006 with a momentous announcement regarding the Québecois, as the provincial majority here is known.

With the approval of the House of Commons, Harper declared on November 27 that the Québecois "form a nation within a united Canada."

This is abundantly clear to the senses. Anyone who has eaten poutine, the gravy-laden dish whose base is, of course, French fries, can tell you. So can anyone with eyes to behold the supremely French fleur-de-lis, which graces tourist items and legal documents alike.

So why did Harper make the statement? His personal and political history provides the answer.

Political Power and Oil Energy

As a young man, PM Harper worked in the oil and gas industry in Edmonton, Alberta, now the key supply and service hub for the Canadian oil sands (or tar sands as I have heard them called more often in Montréal).

As an Energy and Capital reader, you have been in the vanguard of those informed about the oil sands and their potential in a world of petroleum at 60 bucks a barrel.

Oil sands are not nearly as optimal as the light sweet crude that used to gush forth from the surface, Jed Clampett-style, in the flats of Texas and the deserts of the Middle East, but decreasing worldwide supply means that cooking the tar sands for every bit of black gold they can yield is now cost-effective.

No one knows this better than Stephen Harper and his western Progressive Conservative allies.

As the parliamentary representative of the riding (as Canadian electoral districts are known) of Southwest Calgary in the western province of Alberta, Harper has made much political meat of what many western Canadians see as disproportionate influence from Québec.

The key point for the new Western wave is that the federal government is receiving the bulk of the government revenue from the oil sands (41%), while the provincial government of Alberta gets 36%, according to the Canadian Energy Research Institute.

But Harper owes the Bloc Québecois, the party most bullishly pushing for legal separation from Canada, for helping him drive the final nail into previous PM Paul Martin's political coffin last spring. With the Bloc's backing, Harper proclaimed as leader of the opposition that Martin and his scandal-ridden government had lost the moral authority to govern.

The Bloc Québecois has seen referenda come and go as the province's residents narrowly rejected its ultimate political goal. But the Harper announcement is a coup and a step that builds confidence in the new PM, who speaks fluent French as well as his first language, English.

The people of Québec have twin threats to deal with in 2007, and I do not count politics among them. Demographics and its economic corollaries have the potential to do the most damage to the future of Québec's recently affirmed status as a "nation within a united Canada."

The gesture was kind, but with the provincial government already called the Assemblée Nationale (National Assembly), it had already been made. The proud residents of this province should concern themselves with numbers, not nomenclature.

Les Numéros

Québec's natality (birth rate) is 1.48, far below the replacement rate of 2.1 needed for births to make up for deaths.

As Québec's population is very well-educated (it would rank fifth among OECD countries on its own, with over 18% of the population between 25 and 64 holding a university degree), decreasing numbers in the workforce mean a hospitable market to job seekers in knowledge industries. But for factory owners, lack of manpower is a knock at the door of industrial death.

What's more, though Québecois culture is geared towards self-preservation, Montréal at least is rich in immigrants and the service industries they perpetuate. But Ontario, where Toronto and the capital Ottawa are located, draw 60% of new Canadians, compared with 15% for Québec and British Columbia.

Québec's GDP growth is also sluggish compared to Harper's Alberta, which is booming primarily due to its newly tapped oil resources. Alberta's 2007 GDP growth is forecast at twice that of Québec, according to the Conference Board of Canada. The allocation of resources from Ottawa is likely to shift during Harper's tenure, and Québec will find itself increasingly left with the short pieces of cloth.

Importantly, Hydro-Québec, the government-owned corporation that provides hydroelectric power for both provincial and external customers, is the world's largest producer of hydroelectric power. Québec's abundant green energy resources counterbalance the soot being churned out in the West, and the momentum should not stop with the tide from rivers and lakes.

Second in land area only to the far northern territory of Nunavut, Québec has room to spread out and rival Alberta from a technological and renewable standpoint, even if it can't dig up the same 60-dollar dirt.

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