Jason Kenney has joined Rachel Notley and Naheed Nenshi in calling for Alberta's oil exports to be used as a bargaining chip in the Canada-U.S. trade dispute.

On Wednesday's Western Canada focused Buffalo Roundtable discussion, the panel had a lot to say about the former premiers teaming up.

Sheila Gunn Reid, Lise Merle, Ezra Levant, and Cory Morgan all pushed back on the new partnership.

Ezra reminded viewers that Kenney refused to participate in a formal transition of power when Danielle Smith succeeded him as leader of the United Conservative Party and premier of Alberta.

"That's a big step," Cory said. "He's come out in an outright contrarian position to Premier Smith, who clearly said our oil is not on the table." Lise was more blunt in her assessment: "He's being petty and bitter because she's doing a better job than him."

Ezra walked through the practical absurdity of the proposal. Oil companies have decade-long contracts to serve U.S. refineries. Alberta has virtually no storage capacity — the province doesn't have the infrastructure to hold even a few days worth of diverted production.

"Within days there would be literally no place to put it," he said. "They would stop production. And imagine stopping production of these at a hundred billion dollars' worth of capital investment."

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He also noted that the USMCA trade agreement contains a clause — tracing back to the original Canada-U.S. free trade agreement — specifically guaranteeing the U.S. preferential access to Canadian oil. 

"You're going to cut them off," he said, "and how do you think the United States is going to react to that — legally, politically, and in terms of the financial world?"

Sheila added that the weaponization option doesn't even require turning off the taps. A Pierre Trudeau-era federal power still on the books allows Ottawa to impose an export charge of up to $55 a barrel on Alberta oil shipped to the U.S. 

"All this does in the long term," Sheila said, "is make our oil completely uninviting to the Americans — who now have access to Venezuelan heavy oil their refineries are perfectly tooled to handle."

Sheila noted the combined job destruction record of the two politicians Kenney has now aligned himself with. Rachel Notley's climate policies vapourized 183,000 Alberta jobs. The two of them together wiped out roughly 400,000 jobs during their respective tenures.

"If these are the ones they're trotting out to make the business case," she said, "I don't know who they think they're convincing because we are not hard of remembering."

She also highlighted how this is not new behaviour for Kenney, recalling how in 2018, Kenney colluded with the NDP to support production cuts that unemployed Albertans and artificially inflated oil prices. "He was perfectly fine with supply management for oil and gas," Sheila said, "even as he's been all Mr. Anti-Supply Management for milk."

Ezra speculated on what's motivating Kenney: his desire to be the federal Conservative leader.

"He's willing to sell out Alberta to become the Conservative leader who can say to Ontario and the Atlantic, 'I'm not one of those separatist crazies,'" he said, claiming the former premier and federal cabinet minister has "always wanted to be prime minister."

The Buffalo Roundtable airs Wednesdays at 11 a.m. MT / 1 p.m. ET.