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Alberta

Better late than never: Trudeau finally gets a home-turf visit from U.S. president

Published

3 years ago

8 minute read

WASHINGTON — Joe Biden’s last official visit to Canada came with a palpable sense of foreboding. 

Change was in the air. Authoritarian leaders in Syria and Turkey were consolidating power. Britain had voted to leave the European Union. And Donald Trump was waiting in the wings to take over the White House. 

“Genuine leaders” were in short supply, and Canada and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would be called upon to step up, said the U.S. vice-president, who was on a farewell tour of sorts in the waning days of the Obama administration.

Six years later, Biden is coming back — this time as president — and the world is very different. His message likely won’t be. 

“There’s a seriousness to this moment in America,” said Goldy Hyder, the president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada, who spent much of last week meeting with U.S. officials in D.C. 

Chinese spy balloons are drifting through North American airspace. Russian MiG fighter jets are downing U.S. drones as the bloody war in Ukraine grinds on. North Korea is testing long-range ballistic missiles. 

And Xi Jinping is sitting down Monday with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, a meeting that will underscore the geopolitical context in which the U.S. sees the world — and amp up the pressure on Canada to remain a willing and reliable partner, not only in Ukraine but elsewhere as well. 

“It shines a much brighter light on security in all its forms: national security, economic security, energy security, cybersecurity — all of these things come home to roost,” Hyder said of that meeting.

“For America, there’s nothing more important, and there should nothing more important for us, quite frankly.”

Enter critical minerals, the vital components of electric-vehicle batteries, semiconductors, wind turbines and military equipment that both Biden and Trudeau consider pivotal to the growth of the green economy. 

Ending Chinese dominance in that space is Job 1 for the Biden administration, and Canada has critical minerals in abundance. But it takes time to build an extractive industry virtually from scratch, especially in this day and age — and experts say the U.S. is growing impatient. 

“The reality is, nobody’s moving fast enough, relative to escalating demand,” said Eric Miller, president of the D.C.-based Rideau Potomac Strategy Group, which specializes in Canada-U.S. issues.

More and more jurisdictions, including the European Union and U.S. states like California and Maryland, are drawing up ambitious plans to end the manufacture of internal-combustion vehicles by 2035, Miller noted. 

That’s just 12 years away, while it can take upwards of a decade to get approval for a mine, let alone raise the money, build it and put it into production, he added. 

“The challenge you have in a democracy is that processes are slow, and are in reality too slow relative to the needs of making the green transition,” Miller said. 

“So when you when you look across the landscape, of course, you think that other people’s systems are inherently easier than your own.”

National security, too, has been top of mind ever since last month’s flurry of floating objects exposed what Norad commander Gen. Glen VanHerck called a “domain awareness gap” in North America’s aging binational defence system. 

Updating Norad has long been an ongoing priority for both countries, but rarely one that either side talked about much in public, said Andrea Charron, a professor of international relations at the University of Manitoba. 

“The problem for Norad is it’s literally under the political radar — it’s difficult to get politicians to commit funds and recognize that it’s been the first line of defence for North America for 65 years,” Charron said. 

“Russian aggression and these Chinese balloons now make it politically salient to try and speed things up and make those commitments.” 

Hyder said he expects the U.S. to continue to press Canada on meeting its NATO spending commitments, and reiterate hopes it will eventually agree to take on a leading role in restoring some order in lawless, gang-ravaged Haiti. 

So far, international efforts to provide training and resources to the country’s national police force aren’t getting the job done, the UN’s special envoy to Haiti warned in D.C. as she called for countries to put boots on the ground. 

“We’re not getting the job done,” Helen La Lime told a meeting of the Organization of American States last week. “We need to get down to the business of building this country back.”

Roving criminal gangs have been steadily rising in power following the 2021 assassination of president Jovenel Moïse, and are now said to control more than half of the capital city of Port-au-Prince. 

Even in the face of public — if diplomatic — pressure from U.S. officials, Trudeau would rather help from a distance, investing in security forces and using sanctions to target the powerful Haitian elites fostering the unrest. 

Haiti is a “complete and total mess” that can’t simply be fixed with military intervention, no matter the size of the force, Charron warned. The Canadian Armed Forces are already overstretched, facing ongoing long-term commitments to Ukraine and a chronic shortage of personnel, she added. 

“Haiti is a quagmire, and nobody’s particularly keen to get in there — especially if the U.S. isn’t there to be the exit strategy.”

The question of irregular migration in both directions across the Canada-U.S. border is also likely to come up during the two-day visit, although the Biden administration is not keen to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement, which critics say encourages migrants to sneak into Canada in order to claim asylum. 

As well, look for plenty of mentions of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the NAFTA successor known in Canada as CUSMA that now provides the framework for much of the economic relationship between the two countries. 

No one is keen to renegotiate that deal right now either, but they need to think about it nonetheless, Hyder said: a six-year review clause means it could be reopened by 2026. 

“We all had a near-death experience a few years ago; it doesn’t seem like it was that long ago,” he said. 

“And yet here we are. In a matter of a few years, we’ll be back at it again.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 19, 2023.

James McCarten, The Canadian Press

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Alberta

Danielle Smith slams Skate Canada for stopping events in Alberta over ban on men in women’s sports

Published on December 17, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

The Alberta premier has denounced Skate Canada as ‘disgraceful’ for refusing to host events in the province because of a ban on ‘transgender’ men in women’s sports.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has demanded an apology after Skate Canada refused to continue holding events in Alberta.

In a December 16 post on X, Smith denounced Skate Canada’s recent decision to stop holding competitions in Alberta due to a provincial law keeping gender-confused men from competing in women’s sports.

“Women and girls have the right to play competitive sports in a safe and fair environment against other biological females,” Smith declared. “This view is held by a vast majority of Albertans and Canadians. It is also common sense and common decency.”

“Skate Canada‘s refusal to hold events in Alberta because we choose to protect women and girls in sport is disgraceful,” she declared.

“We expect they will apologize and adjust their policies once they realize they are not only compromising the fairness and safety of their athletes, but are also offside with the international community, including the International Olympic Committee, which is moving in the same direction as Alberta,” Smith continued.

Earlier this week, Skate Canada announced their decision in a statement to CBC News, saying, “Following a careful assessment of Alberta’s Fairness and Safety in Sport Act, Skate Canada has determined that we are unable to host events in the province while maintaining our national standards for safe and inclusive sport.”

Under Alberta’s Fairness and Safety in Sport Act, passed last December, biological men who claim to be women are prevented from competing in women’s sports.

Notably, Skate Canada’s statement failed to address safety and fairness concerns for women who are forced to compete against stronger, and sometimes violent, male competitors who claim to be women.

While Skate Canada maintains that gender-confused men should compete against women, the International Olympic Committee is reportedly moving to ban gender-confused men from women’s Olympic sports.

The move comes after studies have repeatedly revealed what almost everyone already knew was true, namely that males have a considerable innate advantage over women in athletics.

Indeed, a recent study published in Sports Medicine found that a year of “transgender” hormone drugs results in “very modest changes” in the inherent strength advantages of men.

Additionally, male athletes competing in women’s sports are known to be violent, especially toward female athletes who oppose their dominance in women’s sports.

Last August, Albertan male powerlifter “Anne” Andres was suspended for six months after a slew of death threats and harassments against his female competitors.

In February, Andres ranted about why men should be able to compete in women’s competitions, calling for “the Ontario lifter” who opposes this, apparently referring to powerlifter April Hutchinson, to “die painfully.”

Interestingly, while Andres was suspended for six months for issuing death threats, Hutchinson was suspended for two years after publicly condemning him for stealing victories from women and then mocking his female competitors on social media. Her suspension was later reduced to a year.

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Alberta

Alberta’s huge oil sands reserves dwarf U.S. shale

Published on December 16, 2025

By

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Will Gibson

Oil sands could maintain current production rates for more than 140 years

Investor interest in Canadian oil producers, primarily in the Alberta oil sands, has picked up, and not only because of expanded export capacity from the Trans Mountain pipeline.

Enverus Intelligence Research says the real draw — and a major factor behind oil sands equities outperforming U.S. peers by about 40 per cent since January 2024 — is the resource Trans Mountain helps unlock.

Alberta’s oil sands contain 167 billion barrels of reserves, nearly four times the volume in the United States.

Today’s oil sands operators hold more than twice the available high-quality resources compared to U.S. shale producers, Enverus reports.

“It’s a huge number — 167 billion barrels — when Alberta only produces about three million barrels a day right now,” said Mike Verney, executive vice-president at McDaniel & Associates, which earlier this year updated the province’s oil and gas reserves on behalf of the Alberta Energy Regulator.

Already fourth in the world, the assessment found Alberta’s oil reserves increased by seven billion barrels.

Verney said the rise in reserves despite record production is in part a result of improved processes and technology.

“Oil sands companies can produce for decades at the same economic threshold as they do today. That’s a great place to be,” said Michael Berger, a senior analyst with Enverus.

BMO Capital Markets estimates that Alberta’s oil sands reserves could maintain current production rates for more than 140 years.

The long-term picture looks different south of the border.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that American production will peak before 2030 and enter a long period of decline.

Having a lasting stable source of supply is important as world oil demand is expected to remain strong for decades to come.

This is particularly true in Asia, the target market for oil exports off Canada’s West Coast.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects oil demand in the Asia-Pacific region will go from 35 million barrels per day in 2024 to 41 million barrels per day in 2050.

The growing appeal of Alberta oil in Asian markets shows up not only in expanded Trans Mountain shipments, but also in Canadian crude being “re-exported” from U.S. Gulf Coast terminals.

According to RBN Energy, Asian buyers – primarily in China – are now the main non-U.S. buyers from Trans Mountain, while India dominates  purchases of re-exports from the U.S. Gulf Coast. .

BMO said the oil sands offers advantages both in steady supply and lower overall environmental impacts.

“Not only is the resulting stability ideally suited to backfill anticipated declines in world oil supply, but the long-term physical footprint may also be meaningfully lower given large-scale concentrated emissions, high water recycling rates and low well declines,” BMO analysts said.

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