Ship containers are stacked at the Panama Canal Balboa port in Panama City, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025. The Panama Canals is one of the most significant trade infrastructure projects ever built. CP Images photo

From the Canadian Energy Centre

Q&A with Gary Mar, CEO of the Canada West Foundation

Building a stronger Canadian economy depends as much on how we move goods as on what we produce.

Gary Mar, CEO of the Canada West Foundation, says economic corridors — the networks that connect producers, ports and markets — are central to the nation-building projects Canada hopes to realize.

He spoke with CEC about how these corridors work and what needs to change to make more of them a reality.

Gary Mar, CEO of the Canada West Foundation. Photo for the Canadian Energy Centre

CEC: What is an economic corridor, and how does it function?

Gary Mar: An economic corridor is a major artery connecting economic actors within a larger system.

Consider the road, rail and pipeline infrastructure connecting B.C. to the rest of Western Canada. This infrastructure is an important economic corridor facilitating the movement of goods, services and people within the country, but it’s also part of the economic corridor connecting western producers and Asian markets.

Economic corridors primarily consist of physical infrastructure and often combine different modes of transportation and facilities to assist the movement of many kinds of goods.

They also include social infrastructure such as policies that facilitate the easy movement of goods like trade agreements and standardized truck weights.

The fundamental purpose of an economic corridor is to make it easier to transport goods. Ultimately, if you can’t move it, you can’t sell it. And if you can’t sell it, you can’t grow your economy.

CEC: Which resources make the strongest case for transport through economic corridors, and why?

Gary Mar: Economic corridors usually move many different types of goods.

Bulk commodities are particularly dependent on economic corridors because of the large volumes that need to be transported.

Some of Canada’s most valuable commodities include oil and gas, agricultural commodities such as wheat and canola, and minerals such as potash.

Rail cars carry commodities through Saskatchewan. Photo courtesy CN Rail

CEC: How are the benefits of an economic corridor measured? 

Gary Mar: The benefits of economic corridors are often measured via trade flows.

For example, the upcoming Roberts Bank Terminal 2 in the Port of Vancouver will increase container trade capacity on Canada’s west coast by more than 30 per cent, enabling the trade of $100 billion in goods annually, primarily to Asian markets.

Corridors can also help make Canadian goods more competitive, increasing profits and market share across numerous industries. Corridors can also decrease the costs of imported goods for Canadian consumers.

For example, after the completion of the Trans Mountain Expansion in May 2024 the price differential between Western Canada Select and West Texas Intermediate narrowed by about US$8 per barrel in part due to increased competition for Canadian oil.

This boosted total industry profits by about 10 per cent, and increased corporate tax revenues to provincial and federal governments by about $3 billion in the pipeline’s first year of operation.

CEC: Where are the most successful examples of these around the world?

Gary Mar: That depends how you define success. The economic corridors transporting the highest value of goods are those used by global superpowers, such as the NAFTA highway that facilitates trade across Canada, the United States and Mexico.

The Suez and Panama canals are two of the most significant trade infrastructure projects ever built, facilitating 12 per cent and five per cent of global trade, respectively. Their success is based on their unique geography.

Canada’s Asia-Pacific Gateway, a coordinated system of ports, rail lines, roads, and border crossings, primarily in B.C., was a highly successful initiative that contributed to a 48 per cent increase in merchandise trade with Asia from $44 million in 2006 to $65 million in 2015.

China’s Belt and Road initiative to develop trade infrastructure in other countries is already transforming global trade. But the project is as much about extending Chinese influence as it is about delivering economic returns.

Piles of coal awaiting export and gantry cranes used to load and unload containers onto and from cargo ships are seen at Deltaport, in Tsawwassen, B.C., on Monday, September 9, 2024. CP Images photo

CEC: What would need to change in Canada in terms of legislation or regulation to make more economic corridors a reality?

Gary Mar: A major regulatory component of economic corridors is eliminating trade barriers.

The federal Free Trade and Labour Mobility in Canada Act is a good start, but more needs to be done at the provincial level to facilitate more internal trade.

Other barriers require coordinated regulatory action, such as harmonizing weight restrictions and road bans to streamline trucking.

By taking a systems-level perspective – convening a national forum where Canadian governments consistently engage on supply chains and trade corridors – we can identify bottlenecks and friction points in our existing transportation networks, and which investments would deliver the greatest return on investment.

Aspenleaf Energy vice-president of wells Ron Weber at a clean-up site near Edmonton.

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Deborah Jaremko

Aspenleaf Energy brings new life to historic Alberta oil field while cleaning up the past

In Alberta’s oil patch, some companies are going beyond their obligations to clean up inactive wells.

Aspenleaf Energy operates in the historic Leduc oil field, where drilling and production peaked in the 1950s.

In the last seven years, the privately-held company has spent more than $40 million on abandonment and reclamation, which it reports is significantly more than the minimum required by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER).

CEO Bryan Gould sees reclaiming the legacy assets as like paying down a debt.

“To me, it’s not a giant bill for us to pay to accelerate the closure and it builds our reputation with the community, which then paves the way for investment and community support for the things we need to do,” he said.

“It just makes business sense to us.”

Aspenleaf, which says it has decommissioned two-thirds of its inactive wells in the Leduc area, isn’t alone in going beyond the requirements.

Producers in Alberta exceeded the AER’s minimum closure spend in both years of available data since the program was introduced in 2022.

That year, the industry-wide closure spend requirement was set at $422 million, but producers spent more than $696 million, according to the AER.

In 2023, companies spent nearly $770 million against a requirement of $700 million.

Alberta’s number of inactive wells is trending downward. The AER’s most recent report shows about 76,000 inactive wells in the province, down from roughly 92,000 in 2021.

In the Leduc field, new development techniques will make future cleanup easier and less costly, Gould said.

That’s because horizontal drilling allows several wells, each up to seven kilometres long, to originate from the same surface site.

“Historically, Leduc would have been developed with many, many sites with single vertical wells,” Gould said.

“This is why the remediation going back is so cumbersome. If you looked at it today, all that would have been centralized in one pad.

“Going forward, the environmental footprint is dramatically reduced compared to what it was.”

During and immediately after a well abandonment for Aspenleaf Energy near Edmonton. Photos for the Canadian Energy Centre

Gould said horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing give the field better economics, extending the life of a mature asset.

“We can drill more wells, we can recover more oil and we can pay higher royalties and higher taxes to the province,” he said.

Aspenleaf has also drilled about 3,700 test holes to assess how much soil needs cleanup. The company plans a pilot project to demonstrate a method that would reduce the amount of digging and landfilling of old underground materials while ensuring the land is productive and viable for use.

Crew at work on a well abandonment for Aspenleaf Energy near Edmonton. Photo for the Canadian Energy Centre

“We did a lot of sampling, and for the most part what we can show is what was buried in the ground by previous operators historically has not moved anywhere over 70 years and has had no impact to waterways and topography with lush forestry and productive agriculture thriving directly above and adjacent to those sampled areas,” he said.

At current rates of about 15,000 barrels per day, Aspenleaf sees a long runway of future production for the next decade or longer.

Revitalizing the historic field while cleaning up legacy assets is key to the company’s strategy.

“We believe we can extract more of the resource, which belongs to the people of Alberta,” Gould said.

“We make money for our investors, and the people of the province are much further ahead.”