Canada needs to expand its energy market beyond its southern neighbor and access the Asian market, according to a former environment minister.

Selling more oil to China and the rest of Asia was "obviously where the future has to be," Jim Prentice told a forum on Canada-U.S. business relations here Monday.

In the "so-called global energy game," Canada was not "playing with sufficient skill, foresight or cohesiveness," said Prentice, who was Canada's industry minister and later environment minister before leaving politics in late 2010 to become senior executive vice-president and vice-chairman of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC).

In his keynote address to the Washington, D.C.-based Canadian American Business Council(CABC)'s 18th annual policy forum, Prentice said Canada exported 99 percent of its oil to the United States and sold it at a 35-percent "discount" to the going global rate, making Canada more of a "price-taker" than a "price-maker."

He said, as the United States was on its way to achieving energy self-sufficiency and becoming the world's largest oil producer, Canada should access the market in China, where the bilateral relationship was "blossoming."

David Jacobson, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, told the forum his country would also benefit from greater trade between Canada and China, since "twenty-five cents of every dollar that Canada exports is U.S. content."

In a statement issued before the forum began, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper characterized the Canada-U.S. relationship as one of the world's "closest and most extensive," noting that bilateral merchandise trade between the two countries last year was valued at 611 billion Canadian dollars (about 613 billion U.S. dollars).

Marking its 25th anniversary, the focus of this year's CABC policy forum was "what is next" for the Canadian-American business community following U.S. President Barack Obama's re-election.