Jason Kenney calls for nationalization of Alberta oil
The former premier's demand that Alberta use its oil as a negotiating tool with the United States is nearly indistinguishable from Pierre Trudeau's National Energy Program.
Article by Rebel News staff.
The political pressure on Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to join the anti-Trump chorus has been extraordinary. Doug Ford, Mark Carney, Naheed Nenshi, the NDP official opposition, Olivia Chow, David Eby, and Jason Kenney have all been demanding that Alberta weaponize its oil exports — to cut off shipments, impose export tariffs, or otherwise use the private sector's work as a political cudgel.
Smith recorded a public video address and walked through exactly what would happen if any of them got their way.
If Canada imposed a 50% export tariff on the four million barrels of oil it sends daily to the United States, she said, the U.S. would immediately respond with 50% to 100% tariffs on the oil, natural gas, diesel, and gasoline it exports back to Ontario and Quebec.
Texas refineries, currently tooled for Alberta heavy oil, would immediately begin sourcing Venezuelan heavy oil as a replacement — and would reverse their pipelines northward to get it.
"As a result," Smith said, "we would lose the United States as a customer entirely and likely forever." The results would be disastrous: Toronto Stock Exchange would collapse, half a million jobs would be gone, mostly in Alberta but hundreds of thousands more in Ontario and Quebec.
Ontario and Quebec, which import refined petroleum products from Midwest U.S. refineries, would face fuel shortages heading into fall and winter — with no strategic petroleum reserve to buffer them, something the U.S. but Canada does not.
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe made the same point, saying "20 to 50% of Canadians' refined petroleum products — our diesel, our gasoline — travel through the United States of America back into Canada to be refined and utilized," he said. An export tariff on Western Canadian oil would hit Eastern Canada harder than it would hit the energy industry itself.
It was a "flawed policy 10 years ago," Moe said, and it's a "flawed policy today."
In the long chorus of critics calling for Premier Smith to take drastic measures, Ezra's focus was on Jason Kenney.
The former Canadian Taxpayers Federation executive director, former Harper cabinet minister, and former Alberta premier — whose lifeblood was always oil and gas — is now calling for Alberta to cut off U.S. oil exports as a political weapon.
"What's the difference between Jason Kenney ordering a stop to oil production," Ezra asked, "and Pierre Trudeau and Marc Lalonde doing it in the National Energy Program? Both are a de facto nationalization."
Ezra noted that Alberta oil companies have decade-long contracts with American refineries, private contracts no politician has the legal authority to order a company not to fulfill. And if anyone tried, the U.S. legal and financial response would be immediate and catastrophic.
Ezra also drew the parallel to the Emergencies Act and the frozen bank accounts of Freedom Convoy supporters.
His theory: American banks and insurance companies operating in Canada were quietly told by Washington that if they actually complied with Trudeau's order to freeze accounts — violating U.S. customer privacy laws in the process — they would withdraw from Canada entirely, the same way they withdrew from Venezuela after its nationalizations.
"Faced with this," he said, "Trudeau and the finance minister said, 'If there was a run on the banks, that would tank the economy.'" The Emergencies Act was revoked shortly after.
Ezra speculated that the motivation behind Kenney's call to use oil as a bargaining chip is a combination of personal bitterness toward Danielle Smith, a desire to undermine Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, and an ambition to position himself as the federal Conservative who sold out Alberta to win Ontario and Atlantic seats.
"He wants to get back to the big game," Ezra said. "He's always wanted to be prime minister." He added that Kenney has still not been publicly identified as working for any particular client — and said he wants to know who is paying him.
He also connected the broader phenomenon to what he described as a deranged cult of personality against Trump, more powerful and more irrational than any cult of personality for him.
"Every part of our political society — the media, industry leaders, politicians — are acting as if your life, that liquor merchant, that oil man, and that politician must all become political weapons," he said. "I'm furious. And I'm disgusted with what's happening with Jason Kenny."
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Ezra Levant
Rebel Commander
Ezra Levant is the founder and owner of Rebel News and the host of The Ezra Levant Show. He is the author of multiple best-selling books, including Ethical Oil, The Libranos, China Virus, and most recently, Trudeau's Secret Plan.
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