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Alberta

Here are the people who will set the tone for Alberta’s financial future

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Premier Kenney and Finance Minister Travis Toews with members of Alberta’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Alberta’s Finances.

From The Province of Alberta

Blue Ribbon Panel to assess Alberta’s finances

The Alberta government has appointed an independent panel of experts as a key first step in getting the province’s budget back to balance.

The Blue Ribbon Panel on Alberta’s Finances has been directed to do a deep dive into Alberta’s finances and economy. The focus will be on identifying areas to eliminate waste, duplication and non-essential spending to create the space to fund government’s key priorities.

“Albertans elected a government committed to getting our fiscal house in order, and reversing the province’s dive into debt. This exceptional panel will offer great experience and expertise to give us an honest read of the province’s finances, and a road map for fiscal responsibility.”

Jason Kenney, Premier

The panel will provide advice in a number of areas to get government’s budget back on track, including on:

  • Government’s fiscal outlook and department and agency expenditure trends and cost drivers.
  • A plan to balance the budget by 2022-23 without raising taxes, and a new fiscal framework that includes requirements for future balanced budgets and a plan to retire the province’s accumulated debt.
  • Government’s budgeting, fiscal planning and public reporting processes and systems for operating and capital.
  • The business investment climate in Canada and its impact on the Alberta economy.

“By identifying inefficiencies in Alberta’s current fiscal situation, we can begin making plans to bring balance to the province’s finances. We will do this while remaining committed to ensuring the future of high-quality, frontline services for Albertans.”

Travis Toews, President of Treasury Board and Minister of Finance

The Blue Ribbon Panel members:

Janice MacKinnon, chair: MacKinnon is chair of the board of Investment Saskatchewan, chair of the board of directors of the Institute for Research on Public Policy and a former finance minister with the Government of Saskatchewan.

Mike Percy, vice-chair – Percy was previously an Alberta MLA and former Stanley A. Milner professor and dean of the Alberta School of Business at the University of Alberta. Percy was also the chief of staff to Premier Jim Prentice.

Kim Henderson, member – Henderson is a principal at Sproat Advising. Her previous roles include deputy minister to the Premier, cabinet secretary and head of the Public Service, Province of British Columbia and deputy minister of finance with the Province of British Columbia.

Bev Dahlby, member – Dhalby is a Distinguished Fellow and research director, School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary.

Dave Mowat, member – Mowat is the former president and CEO, ATB Financial.

Jay Ramotar, member – Ramotar has held many deputy minister postings with the Alberta Public Service, including Service Alberta, Solicitor General and Public Security, Health and Wellness, Infrastructure and Transportation and Treasury Board.

After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

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Alberta

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith Discusses Moving Energy Forward at the Global Energy Show in Calgary

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From Energy Now

At the energy conference in Calgary, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith pressed the case for building infrastructure to move provincial products to international markets, via a transportation and energy corridor to British Columbia.

“The anchor tenant for this corridor must be a 42-inch pipeline, moving one million incremental barrels of oil to those global markets. And we can’t stop there,” she told the audience.

The premier reiterated her support for new pipelines north to Grays Bay in Nunavut, east to Churchill, Man., and potentially a new version of Energy East.

The discussion comes as Prime Minister Mark Carney and his government are assembling a list of major projects of national interest to fast-track for approval.

Carney has also pledged to establish a major project review office that would issue decisions within two years, instead of five.

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Alberta

Punishing Alberta Oil Production: The Divisive Effect of Policies For Carney’s “Decarbonized Oil”

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From Energy Now

By Ron Wallace

The federal government has doubled down on its commitment to “responsibly produced oil and gas”. These terms are apparently carefully crafted to maintain federal policies for Net Zero. These policies include a Canadian emissions cap, tanker bans and a clean electricity mandate.

Following meetings in Saskatoon in early June between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Canadian provincial and territorial leaders, the federal government expressed renewed interest in the completion of new oil pipelines to reduce reliance on oil exports to the USA while providing better access to foreign markets.  However Carney, while suggesting that there is “real potential” for such projects nonetheless qualified that support as being limited to projects that would “decarbonize” Canadian oil, apparently those that would employ carbon capture technologies.  While the meeting did not result in a final list of potential projects, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said that this approach would constitute a “grand bargain” whereby new pipelines to increase oil exports could help fund decarbonization efforts. But is that true and what are the implications for the Albertan and Canadian economies?


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The federal government has doubled down on its commitment to “responsibly produced oil and gas”. These terms are apparently carefully crafted to maintain federal policies for Net Zero. These policies include a Canadian emissions cap, tanker bans and a clean electricity mandate. Many would consider that Canadians, especially Albertans, should be wary of these largely undefined announcements in which Ottawa proposes solely to determine projects that are “in the national interest.”

The federal government has tabled legislation designed to address these challenges with Bill C-5: An Act to enact the Free Trade and Labour Mobility Act and the Building Canada Act (the One Canadian Economy Act).  Rather than replacing controversial, and challenged, legislation like the Impact Assessment Act, the Carney government proposes to add more legislation designed to accelerate and streamline regulatory approvals for energy and infrastructure projects. However, only those projects that Ottawa designates as being in the national interest would be approved. While clearer, shorter regulatory timelines and the restoration of the Major Projects Office are also proposed, Bill C-5 is to be superimposed over a crippling regulatory base.

It remains to be seen if this attempt will restore a much-diminished Canadian Can-Do spirit for economic development by encouraging much-needed, indeed essential interprovincial teamwork across shared jurisdictions.  While the Act’s proposed single approval process could provide for expedited review timelines, a complex web of regulatory processes will remain in place requiring much enhanced interagency and interprovincial coordination. Given Canada’s much-diminished record for regulatory and policy clarity will this legislation be enough to persuade the corporate and international capital community to consider Canada as a prime investment destination?

As with all complex matters the devil always lurks in the details. Notably, these federal initiatives arrive at a time when the Carney government is facing ever-more pressing geopolitical, energy security and economic concerns.  The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development predicts that Canada’s economy will grow by a dismal one per cent in 2025 and 1.1 per cent in 2026 – this at a time when the global economy is predicted to grow by 2.9 per cent.

It should come as no surprise that Carney’s recent musing about the “real potential” for decarbonized oil pipelines have sparked debate. The undefined term “decarbonized”, is clearly aimed directly at western Canadian oil production as part of Ottawa’s broader strategy to achieve national emissions commitments using costly carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects whose economic viability at scale has been questioned. What might this mean for western Canadian oil producers?

The Alberta Oil sands presently account for about 58% of Canada’s total oil output. Data from December 2023 show Alberta producing a record 4.53 million barrels per day (MMb/d) as major oil export pipelines including Trans Mountain, Keystone and the Enbridge Mainline operate at high levels of capacity.  Meanwhile, in 2023 eastern Canada imported on average about 490,000 barrels of crude oil per day (bpd) at a cost estimated at CAD $19.5 billion.  These seaborne shipments to major refineries (like New Brunswick’s Irving Refinery in Saint John) rely on imported oil by tanker with crude oil deliveries to New Brunswick averaging around 263,000 barrels per day.  In 2023 the estimated total cost to Canada for imported crude oil was $19.5 billion with oil imports arriving from the United States (72.4%), Nigeria (12.9%), and Saudi Arabia (10.7%).  Since 1988, marine terminals along the St. Lawrence have seen imports of foreign oil valued at more than $228 billion while the Irving Oil refinery imported $136 billion from 1988 to 2020.

What are the policy and cost implication of Carney’s call for the “decarbonization” of western Canadian produced, oil?  It implies that western Canadian “decarbonized” oil would have to be produced and transported to competitive world markets under a material regulatory and financial burden.  Meanwhile, eastern Canadian refiners would be allowed to import oil from the USA and offshore jurisdictions free from any comparable regulatory burdens. This policy would penalize, and makes less competitive, Canadian producers while rewarding offshore sources. A federal regulatory requirement to decarbonize western Canadian crude oil production without imposing similar restrictions on imported oil would render the One Canadian Economy Act moot and create two market realities in Canada – one that favours imports and that discourages, or at very least threatens the competitiveness of, Canadian oil export production.


Ron Wallace is a former Member of the National Energy Board.

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