‘Yes. That means it’s in Canada’s best interest to change the way things stand.’
I’d say its in both countries best interest.
Bush went off the deep end with the NAU two years ago. Might be just the pressure of the job. Probably too it has to do with family loyalties that run south of the border. His brother Jeb gets it. That's why he's said he's out of the race for the president.
In both the case of oil and water its the NAU model that's driving policy rather than technology. The technology is moving so fast however, the statist NAU solutions are simply going to be outmoded and irrlevant in five years or so.
And this is in fact what people want. People want cheap plentiful supplies of water and energy from domestic sources. And that's what they're going to get. (They don't want to swap one kind of dependency for another.) The job of the feds is to just fund research & start ups and then sit tight.
I focus on the water angle. If you want to see more in depth discussion see
Desalination VS Water Transfers.