Canada will not let the oil-producing province of Alberta suffer the biggest blow of any Canadian retaliatory tariffs in response to potential U.S. import levies, said Jonathan Wilkinson, Canadian Energy and Natural Resources Minister.
The potential tit-for-tat tariffs have created concern that Alberta, the oil heartland of Canada, would be hurt by possible restrictions on Canadian crude oil exports to the United States.
Canada has reportedly drafted a list of U.S. goods worth about US$105 billion that it could tax with tariffs if President Donald Trump moves to impose tariffs on imports from Canada.
Canada’s federal government has threatened to restrict crude oil exports in response to Trump’s idea of imposing tariffs on Canadian imports.
But Alberta has said it would not support restricting oil exports to the U.S.
“Federal government officials continue to publicly and privately float the idea of cutting off energy supply to the U.S. and imposing export tariffs on Alberta energy and other products to the United States,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith wrote in a post on X earlier this month.
“Alberta will simply not agree to export tariffs on our energy or other products, nor do we support a ban on exports of these same products.”
On Wednesday, Canada’s federal energy minister Wilkinson said in an X post “I know some folks in Alberta are worried that a Canadian response to potential U.S. tariffs could unfairly hurt Albertans. So I flew to Alberta to make one thing very clear: we will not let that happen.”
Wilkinson added, “No one province or territory will be favoured or penalized over another.”
Speaking to reporters he also said, “If there is pain, Quebec will feel it, Ontario will feel it, the west will feel it, Atlantic Canada will feel it.”
“You cannot single out the west. It has to be something that is going to be fair,” Wilkinson noted.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
