Hundreds of shivering factory workers locked out of their plant by manufacturing giant Caterpillar in London, Ont., might well draw some warm comfort from -- of all things -- the sayings of Newt Gingrich.

Of course, the conservative Republican presidential contender is no friend of labour or social justice; he recently proposed that poor children be schooled in the ways of free enterprise by being hired to clean school washrooms.

Nonetheless, Gingrich, one of the stars of the Republican freak show, is desperate to defeat front-runner Mitt Romney. With the mitts off, Gingrich is denouncing Romney's background as a Wall Street corporate raider, accusing him of practising a form of capitalism where "you basically take out all the money, leaving behind the workers."

Natural resources are increasingly central to Canada's economic trajectory. Our challenge is to maximize the positive spinoffs from resource developments, while minimizing the economic and environmental costs. In that regard, imagine two extreme cases: one in which resource projects generate diversified and lasting benefits, and one in which they do not.