Let's Get One Thing Straight. It's Alberta's (Not Ottawa's) Oil.

Ottawa needs to get one thing straight.

In his inflammatory speech in Davos the other day, Mark Carney suggested that Canada is an energy superpower.*

And when he said it, we all knew what sort of energy he was talking about.

Even though Carney used Canada’s purportedly rich critical-mineral deposit as an example, the first thing everyone thought of was Canada’s massive ocean of oil and gas.

Truth be told (and it’s not told nearly enough), if Canada is an energy superpower, it’s only because we have the third-largest proven oil reserve in the world.**

But let’s be more specific.

The reason Canada is considered an energy superpower is because, at minimum, we have 171 billion proven barrels of oil under our feet.

That’s an unfathomable amount of energy, surpassed only by Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.

But that doesn’t tell anywhere near the entire story.

What Carney conveniently neglected to mention in his speech, and what too many Canadians unfortunately do not know, is that out of Canada’s 171 billion barrels of proven oil reserve, 166 billion of those barrels are buried in Alberta.*'

Remove Alberta from the equation, and Canada’s drops from having the 3^rd largest oil reserve in the world to having the 22^nd largest reserve.*''

Granted, activists often counter that staggering fact by saying “the oil might be in Alberta, but it’s not Alberta’s oil. It’s Canada’s oil.”

The problem with that argument is that it’s not true.

In both a legal and economic sense, Alberta’s oil is:

- Found in Alberta;

- Managed by Alberta;

- Sold through Alberta;

- Owned by Alberta.**'

More specifically, the Alberta Crown owns 81% of the mineral rights in Alberta.*'* The other 19% of rights are held by the Federal Government, private companies, or select individuals.

In this, Alberta’s oil (except for what little lies in National Parks or under military bases) is not Ottawa’s. Neither is it Ontario’s, Quebec’s, or British Columbia’s. It’s Alberta’s oil, and Alberta’s oil alone.

The question is not, therefore, whether the oil in Alberta is owned by Alberta or Ottawa. There’s really no debate. It’s obviously, and constitutionally, owned by Alberta.

Rather, the question is “who can manage the production, sale, and transportation, of Alberta’s oil best?”

Is it Ottawa, with all their regulations, bungled trade deals, and appeasement to radical climate activists?

Or is it Alberta with our hard work, entrepreneurial spirit, and free-market attitude?

Is it even a question at all? Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed the article, please consider supporting Tanner Hnidey's work here! https://www.tannerhnidey.com/support *For a list of citations, see: https://open.substack.com/pub/tannerhnidey/p/lets-get-one-thing-straight-its-albertas?r=27cadl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true