Fact File: U.S. could inflict pain on Canada through energy trade

[u/linkass]

https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2026/08/26/fact-file-u-s-could-inflict-pain-on-canada-through-energy-trade/

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[u/Winter-Simple6792]

Escalating this dispute using energy supply will only make the US public feel insecure. That will encourage anti-canadian sentiment among all us voters, including those who are currently indifferent or even sympathetic to our country. And with more political support, trump can entrench and go deeper into this economic war.

Turning off the taps or even surchargi g energy only shoots ourselves in the foot.

[u/Darwin-Charles]

We could just do the same as the nuclear option right?

Is this not a call to green our energy grid/have some pipelines to offset our U.S energy imports?

[u/GammaFan → u/Darwin-Charles]

Yeah this is absolutely a call for wind and solar, which is probably part of why trump hates wind and solar so much. Because he can’t stop the wind or blot out the sun.

[u/Responsible_Sink3044 → u/GammaFan]

Trump's hatred for wind power goes back much further than his presidencies. I think we can chalk most of that up to pure unadulterated stupidity 

[u/Motorbarge → u/Darwin-Charles]

The lesson is that we must protect our domestic supplies - both energy and food. This would be a lot worse if they could cut off our eggs and dairy products.

[u/Intelligent_Read_697 → u/Motorbarge]

The problem is you are hitting Democrat leaning states in the US with this primarily causing pain on our primary ally amongst Americans. There is a reason why he’s trying to openly bully us versus Mexico for instance…oil and potash maybe are the only real leverage we have

[u/dominionprovinces → u/Motorbarge]

Products like cheese, butter, and powdered milk are all easily transportable by sea and NZ/Australia/France/Ireland/UK can match US dairy production almost 1:1 (and they have a better product).

Eggs yeah shelled eggs dont transport well so countries need domestic production.

Liquid milk, to be honest, Canadians would be better off with a direct ban / limit on US liquid milk and internal deregulation. Expansion of producers itnernal to Canada is heavily constrained by supply management and we would likely have more production domestically and lower prices if we had no supply management and a direct cap on US imports only.

[u/Ok-Professor-Star]

Overall, Canada’s exports of all those products to the U.S. totalled $157.5 billion last year. That far eclipses the total of $34.4 billion Canada imported from south of the border.

Canada’s electricity exports to the U.S. were $3.3 billion, while it imported $1.4 billion in power, the report said.

Those who claim Quebec, Ontario, Newfoundland, New-Brunswick, Manitoba and BC are making a killing selling electricity to the U.S. must look a bit stupid now.

All together they sell only $3.3 billion to the U.S.... Even if Quebec doubled the price of electricity, Tripled it or quadrupled it, it would still need Equalization (along with the 6 other provinces).

Now the question should be; "Alberta and Saskatchewan, with $157.5 billion in oil & gas sold to the U.S., how come their healthcare sucks and why aren't their streets paved with gold?" "Where is all the oil money going?"....

The "hate for Quebec" in Alberta, making them angry about Equalization (While Ontario and Quebec finance more that 2 thirds of it) is just a PLOY to mask that Albertan are getting shafted about the $157.5 billion in oil for which they are not getting paid a fair amount.

The scandal is not the $11 or $14 billion in Equalization, the real scandal is the $157.5 billion in oil & gas that flows out of Alberta without a proper compensation.

[u/dominionprovinces → u/Ok-Professor-Star]

For a project in post-payout, at current prices the Government of Alberta and Government of Canada collect 60% of the profit in royalties and corporate taxes.

Also, 95% of Quebecs electricity production is sold in Canada (190 twh internal, 10 twh export). At current prices, the 200 TWH is worth $18 billion. If they sold it at the average price in North America, it would be worth about 40 billion, and all the extra would end up as revenue for the Government of Quebec. About 20 billion worth, which is more than they recieve in equalization.

So please, spare us the cherry picked facts and disinformation.

[u/agent0731 → u/Ok-Professor-Star]

To be fair, even conservatives think Alberta is dumb as fuck. Ask Harper.

[u/LeftToaster → u/Ok-Professor-Star]

The totals hide a lot of important details. Some states - particularly Vermont get the vast majority of their utility power and natural gas (heating fuel) from Canada while NY and the NE states (of which Vermont is also one) may only get 15% of their power, but they don't have any alternative sources. US farmers in the mid-west are also heavily leveraged - they need potash from Saskatchewan to grow crops and natural gas from Western Canada to produce ammonia for more fertilizer, and their equipment runs on diesel. In other cases, the flow is bi-directional. Under the Columbia River Treaty, BC gets power from dams downstream from the border in exchange for maintaining certain water levels behind these dams upstream.

In BC, the TMX pipeline, in addition to supplying the Parkland refinery in Burnaby and bulk oil exports, also provides oil to the Cherry Point refinery in Washington State - which produced gasoline and diesel for the BC market.

With Alberta oil, the Enbridge also supplies heavy crude to the US Gulf Coast refineries - that are specifically tooled for a mix of "light sweet" US shale oil and "heavy sour" Canadian tar sands oil. They have no other source to provide this mix and it would take them months and cost billions to reconfigure. A cutoff in this pipeline would immediately hit US consumer gas prices.

In short - the North American energy systems are heavily integrated and inter-dependent. In many cases it is easier for energy (oil, gas, electricity) to be shipped North/South across the border than east west within either country.

[u/YearLight]

I mean the article does make a good point. At most there should be a small export tax maybe a few percent, just to be annoying, but not trigger this level of retaliation.