Commentary
Western Canadian oil and gas products have been sold at a discount compared to world prices for decades due to a lack of access to deepwater ports for export. With the Trans Mountain pipeline being maxed out in shipping oil to the West coast and with the pipeline expansion hopelessly delayed, the United States remains Canada’s sole customer for oil and gas exports. This allows them to purchase the products at a reduced rate, as they know Canada can’t sell elsewhere.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith may have found a workaround for the bottleneck with her proposal to bring Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba together to work on expanding the rail and export capability at the Port of Churchill in Manitoba, Canada’s only deepwater Arctic shipping port. Prairie provinces could increase their ability to export goods while saying to Ottawa, “What are you going do about it?”…