The trouble with staking Alberta’s future on oil | The Narwhal
In an interview on CBC’s The National, United Conservative Party (UCP) leader Jason Kenney last month espoused a view that is persistent in Alberta politics — that the province can once again make a fortune in the oil industry.
“We’re talking about trillions of dollars of potential wealth,” Kenney said, perched on a chair in a coffee shop across from CBC host Rosemary Barton. “There’s a growing global demand, whether people like it or not, for oil and gas through at least the year 2040.”
But with changes in the world’s appetite for oil — and global goals to reduce carbon emissions — Albertans are left to wonder if this is still a safe assumption.
“It’s a pipe dream,” Gordon Laxer, a political economist and professor emeritus at the University of Alberta, told The Narwhal. “We are in the twilight of oil.”