Letter from Canada: Alberta’s oil sands in the rifle hairs

The Alberta government and Western Canadian oil industry love to blame Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the federal government for the lack of oil pipeline capacity leaving the region, but in fact they should largely blame themselves

Former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed—whom many older Albertans consider their best-ever premier—began warning the province and industry to go slow on oil sands development in the middle of the 2000s for several reasons, including skyrocketing costs and environmental damage. Higher costs meant lower revenues for Albertans given the structure of the royalty regime, while Lougheed was concerned rapidly rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other environmental damage to land and water would put a bullseye on the oil sands industry. But, rather than heeding Lougheed’s advice, the premier of Alberta at the time, Ralph Klein, adhered to the wishes of industry instead, allowing oil sands projec