Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA)

Studies of Canada's economy largely demonstrate that Canada's economic well-being will be reliant on natural resource production, use, and export for decades to come. That well-being currently faces a variety of challenges, particularly in the oil transportation sector. Canadians are already paying a price for insufficient infrastructure: The discounted price Canada gets for its oil means lost revenues of $17 billion per year or more according to estimates. That loss affects shareholders, oil-workers, pension plans and government revenues across Canada. Other challenges facing Canada's oil export market are surging production in the U.S.; protectionist attacks against Canadian oil by competitors; and increasingly powerful opposition from activists and aboriginal communities in both Canada and the United States. Pipelines, in particular, are facing intense opposition, mostly by forces outside of Alberta who do not care that without the export of Alberta's oil, Canada's economy may suffer, from coast to coa