The Alberta Project - The U.S. DOES NOT subsidize Canada

00:00:00.000 Governor Trudeau, I said, listen, what would happen if we didn't subsidize you?

00:00:04.740 Receiving subsidies of hundreds of billions of dollars. We pay subsidies to Canada.

00:00:10.680 The other thing is we subsidize them to the turn of about $200 billion a year.

00:00:16.760 In the case of Canada, we're spending $200 billion a year to subsidize Canada.

00:00:21.220 So for the last few months, we've been hearing Trump spew this rhetoric that

00:00:25.260 the U.S. subsidizes Canada. And while I've compiled a series of figures from different

00:00:32.220 sources, and the real picture is that the U.S. does not subsidize Canada. Alberta subsidizes Canada.

00:00:40.700 Roll the intro.

00:00:41.240 So first of all, let's deconstruct this whole subsidy claim. As I'm sure most of you already

00:00:57.140 know, this figure that Trump likes to label as a subsidy is actually a trade deficit that the U.S.

00:01:06.020 has with Canada. And it's nowhere near $200 billion, like he likes to claim. It's actually

00:01:12.940 $102.3 billion, according to Stats Canada. So what's interesting about this trade deficit

00:01:22.260 that the U.S. has with Canada is that it's entirely made up of the amount of oil that we send over to

00:01:29.860 the U.S. And so if you actually remove oil and gas imports from Canada from that figure,

00:01:36.240 it actually turns into a $31 billion trade surplus with the U.S., which, you know, Trump really likes

00:01:44.160 surpluses, which, by the way, would be the biggest trade surplus that the U.S. has with any country

00:01:51.080 if we exclude oil and gas imports from Canada. And what's interesting about these oil and gas imports

00:01:58.980 is that they're actually Canada gives, sells the U.S. our crude oil, our heavy crude oil

00:02:06.420 at a discounted price. You know, part of that is because it's heavier crude oil, which means it's

00:02:12.260 a bit more difficult to refine. And another part that we sell it at a discounted price, below market

00:02:19.560 price, is that the U.S. is pretty much our sole customer for oil and gas. 95% of Canadian oil and

00:02:26.420 gas goes to the U.S. So we don't really have much negotiating power there. And because of that,

00:02:32.860 the U.S. actually benefits a lot from this discounted Canadian crude oil. So we can see

00:02:39.380 here in this article, or I guess this is a letter that, yeah, Brian Livingston sent. So the heavier

00:02:46.800 Canadian crude oil is delivered to refineries in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado,

00:02:51.580 Louisiana, and Texas. So these refineries are basically purpose-built to refine heavy Canadian

00:02:58.120 crude oil. And so basically what the U.S. does with this oil, once they've refined it, they can sell it

00:03:04.920 at a market price, basically flipping the oil and making a profit off of it. So they get it at a discount

00:03:12.040 and then sell it at market price. And it also allows them to sell their own light oil to other

00:03:20.340 markets, which they can also sell at a market price. Had they not been receiving so much Canadian

00:03:26.520 crude, they wouldn't be able to reliably sell their own light oil around the world, which again is sold

00:03:34.460 at a market price. And Brian Livingston claims that in simplest terms, the U.S. buys Canadian oil at a

00:03:40.620 discount and export at full price, which currently yields a U.S. $19 billion annual windfall. And so

00:03:48.340 if anything, the Canada's oil and gas industry is partly subsidizing the U.S. because of the discounted

00:03:56.600 oil that we sell them, which is pretty interesting. You know, it sort of not only deconstructs Trump's

00:04:05.820 claim about subsidizing Canada, but it flips it on its back entirely. I also wanted to talk about

00:04:11.080 this oil, this Canadian heavy crude and what it buys for Canada. And it turns out that it actually

00:04:19.340 buys Canada a lot. And you may have noticed that I've been calling it Canadian oil, even though really

00:04:27.160 it's Albertan oil. And this isn't a claim that I'm making out of thin air, you know, under a section 92A of

00:04:35.980 the Canadian constitution, natural resources belong to the provinces that they're in. And so really, this is

00:04:43.480 Alberta's oil revenues, which are then taxed and sent to the government, which then distributes it to the rest of

00:04:52.820 Canada, as you will see. So because this, and by the way, this oil and gas sector, like this is the

00:05:00.800 biggest industry in Canada by far. It's the most revenue generating industry in the whole country.

00:05:06.760 There's nothing even that like comes close to it. And so, and because of that, it generates a lot of

00:05:12.220 taxes. You know, you take the corporate tax that oil and gas companies pay, you take the income tax of

00:05:19.500 oil and gas sector workers. And, you know, the, just the general GSD that Alberta pays, even though

00:05:26.080 that's not really part of, I guess, that's the whole provincial thing. It's not really part of

00:05:31.440 oil and gas sector per se. And so every year, Alberta basically sends around, or I guess I should

00:05:41.840 say generates $23 billion in tax revenue for the federal government. And the federal government

00:05:49.480 puts about, so here we can see it from 2023 to 2024, puts about $7.7 billion of that back into

00:05:57.800 Alberta. And so, which means that Alberta is basically a net contributor, that a lot of the taxes that we

00:06:05.260 pay, we don't get most of that revenue back into Alberta. It goes and is distributed to the rest of

00:06:13.500 Canada by the government. And so, you know, this is a pretty big deal, as you'll about to see. So, the

00:06:20.820 Fraser Institute did a study about this, and it details, you know, from 2007 to 2022, how massive of a

00:06:30.720 contribution Alberta has made to Confederation. You know, again, most of this is due to our oil and gas

00:06:38.240 exports. And, you know, we can see here. So, you know, in these 15 years, Alberta has been a net

00:06:46.420 contributor to Ottawa to the tune of $244.6 billion, which is, you know, interesting. We've been hearing,

00:06:54.660 you know, looking at figures from the other provinces, you know, we've been hearing a lot

00:06:58.780 about the auto sector in Ontario and how much of a behemoth it is and how many jobs it creates. And,

00:07:05.360 you know, this massive auto sector, which, by the way, has been massively subsidized by the

00:07:11.420 government, especially as they've been trying to get into electric vehicles, has only generated,

00:07:15.800 you know, in these 15 years, you know, $42 billion, or I guess contributed $42 billion to

00:07:22.280 Confederation, right? And so, yeah, basically, everything else in red, these have been, these

00:07:28.380 provinces have been net recipients. And so, you know, we can see here, like, the last two. So,

00:07:33.140 you know, Nova Scotia is essentially, like, a nursing home, right? Like, or I guess a nursing

00:07:38.780 province, I should say. There's just, it's just so many old people there. And so, because of that,

00:07:43.680 yeah, part, well, I should say partly because of that, they're, like, massive net recipients. And,

00:07:48.600 you know, $327.7 billion to Quebec, of course, so they can preserve the language. So, you know,

00:07:56.880 you can see here, like, a lot of this money comes from, like, directly from oil and gas revenue that

00:08:04.940 is taxed by the government and is then redistributed to the rest of the province. And by the way, this

00:08:10.180 2007 to 2022 timeline does not paint the full picture. From 1968 to 2018, Alberta's net contribution

00:08:21.560 to confederation has been $630 billion. Again, due to the oil and gas revenues that we generate.

00:08:31.700 And what's interesting, like, I'm going to throw you a little bit of a curveball here is that,

00:08:37.240 you know, had the federal government been actually competent, Alberta would have been generating even

00:08:43.120 more revenue for confederation. Why is that? Well, because, you know, the last 10 years, especially,

00:08:49.920 the federal government has been very hostile towards the oil and gas industry. Lots of,

00:08:55.680 you know, emission caps and net zero mandates and, you know, Bill C-69, which makes it incredibly

00:09:03.100 difficult to build new pipelines. Bill 48, which basically prevents tankers from carrying oil off

00:09:10.840 the coast of British Columbia, which is, which would then let us be able to export oil to broader

00:09:17.960 markets, which is interesting, since, you know, Mark Carney ran on the premise that we need to

00:09:23.020 diversify and find our trading partners and find more reliable trading partners. And so,

00:09:30.300 you know, basically, us being able to sell our oil and natural gas to Asian markets would be exactly

00:09:38.240 just that. And yet, the tanker ban is still in place. So it's, it's, it's a little bit contradictory,

00:09:45.720 you know, what comes out of his mouth and what his actions actually imply. And so had the government

00:09:52.200 not been so hostile, you know, to this sector, which is, you know, again, the biggest sector

00:09:58.560 in Canada, it would have generated so much more revenues, which would then be taxed from

00:10:05.220 a confederation and sent to, you know, the rest of Canada, so that they could benefit, you know,

00:10:12.660 they could keep their social programs, they could, you know, even thrive, they could have

00:10:16.960 better social programs. And so really, like, I've basically, like, given you like a detail

00:10:23.200 of how much just, you know, this sector that, you know, is primarily built from Alberta and Alberta,

00:10:32.200 Alberta's resources is subsidizing the rest of Canada. And it's just very, it's very odd how,

00:10:44.740 you know, the federal government, you know, has decided to sort of hinder the, our development

00:10:52.120 in this area. Because, you know, like, the thing is that a prosperous Alberta is a prosperous Canada,

00:10:57.820 like, like, bottom line, like, like, I said, you know, all the tax revenues that would be generated

00:11:04.060 from oil and gas benefits the entire country, like every, you know, which is interesting. So,

00:11:12.320 like, a lot of the, you know, the equalization that goes to Quebec is from, you know, oil and gas

00:11:19.340 revenues, right, which is then sort of hypocritical when they, you know, oppose pipelines going to Quebec,

00:11:24.980 which would then, you know, expand or reach into markets like in Europe and other things with,

00:11:31.900 you know, like, they, they, they sort of think they have a, this belief that, you know, by blocking,

00:11:38.640 like, an east-west energy pipeline that they, they're, you know, standing up and fighting against

00:11:46.020 climate change, even though, you know, basically all the revenues that they receive is taxed from

00:11:51.120 Canada's oil and gas anyway. So, just by existing, as it is right now, Quebec gets a whole lot of money

00:12:01.740 out of dirty Canadian crude oil. And so, you know, I've, well, my own hypothesis, or I guess,

00:12:11.580 my own belief is that, you know, during these last, um, 10 years under liberal rule, um, the government

00:12:21.040 has basically been kneecapping, you know, the oil and gas sector, its biggest sector, um, so that,

00:12:28.920 I don't know, maybe, um, they can say that they're fighting against climate change and that might,

00:12:34.080 I don't know, win them some points, um, in the international community. Um, well, like,

00:12:39.600 which is interesting because they've never actually met any, um, of the goals in the

00:12:45.200 Paris climate accord. And I don't think they ever will because those goals are, well, you know,

00:12:50.120 let's just say a little bit, just a little bit ambitious. Um, so basically like they're just

00:12:56.080 doing this to keep up the facade that, you know, Canada is a global leader in fighting climate change

00:13:01.540 and that, you know, even though we only make up about one and a half percent of global, um,

00:13:07.360 emissions that, you know, we need to stand up and show all these massive polluters, you know,

00:13:14.140 i.e. the U.S., China, and India, how it's done and how, uh, we, you know, we should cripple our own,

00:13:21.960 uh, economy so that, um, you know, we can be carbon neutral. Now that the liberal government, um,

00:13:28.940 is back in power, um, you know, it just solidifies the fact that 43% of Canadians are essentially into

00:13:37.800 self-harm, I guess, right? They've put back a government that's basically cannibalizing Canada

00:13:45.080 by, you know, with the intent of destroying its single biggest, like, sector, right? And so Alberta

00:13:54.380 doesn't really have a say in any of these federal policies, really. I mean, you know,

00:14:00.940 we're basically at the whims of a central and eastern Canadian electorate, um, which is, you

00:14:07.280 know, greatly disinformed, of course. And we, we can't, because, because of federal overreach,

00:14:15.680 you know, um, that's been caused by the government that the central and eastern Canadian electorate

00:14:20.740 likes to vote in, um, you know, our industry has been kneecapped, like, by a lot, which makes sense

00:14:27.260 why, um, Albertans, so many Albertans have now taken to the Alberta separation movement, is that

00:14:33.660 we can't make so much of our own decisions of how to develop our own resources, you know, again,

00:14:40.340 because of people who don't live in Alberta, because of people who don't care about our struggles

00:14:46.300 or grievances. And I just wanted to, uh, go through, uh, some bullet points of, um,

00:14:53.360 the liberal government's, uh, tenure in the last 10 years. So, you know, there's been skyrocketing

00:14:59.520 mass immigration into Canada, plummeting GDP per capita, skyrocketing home prices, plummeting

00:15:06.980 social cohesion, skyrocketing crime, plummeting business investment. Um, yeah, so half a trillion

00:15:14.020 dollars of business investment that was, has, you know, fled to the U.S., which is, you know,

00:15:20.800 interesting because, you know, during the last 10 years, because of that fleeing investment,

00:15:25.500 Canada has become more reliant on the U.S. And so, which makes, you know, Donald Trump's temper tantrums

00:15:33.680 a bigger threat, which, you know, again, won Mark Carney this election that he, uh, ran against Trump

00:15:40.320 instead of actually running against the leaders of the other parties. Yeah. Skyrocketing government

00:15:46.500 spending debt and deficits. And so, yeah, what's interesting, I think, yeah, these last 10 years,

00:15:52.860 you know, Trudeau managed to, I think, double our national debt, which, I mean, kudos to him,

00:15:58.900 I guess. And, you know, the cherry on top of all of this, you know, all of this, you know,

00:16:04.760 loss in investment and, um, massive spending is that the government has continued to kneecap

00:16:12.720 Alberta's oil and gas industry by implementing policies and bills such as Bill C-69, Bill 48,

00:16:20.560 which is the tanker ban, the consumer carbon tax, which has been scrapped, but now there's an

00:16:26.460 industrial carbon tax coming in to replace it and an emissions cap that'll devastate Alberta's

00:16:34.060 revenues. And in turn, the government's revenues from taxes that they would be making from the oil

00:16:40.540 and gas sector. But, you know, let's, let's set all that aside. Let's, um, let's ignore the

00:16:47.580 self-cannibalizing forces that exist in Canada and let's focus on the real threat to our country,

00:16:53.600 or I guess, um, you know, the biggest crisis of our lifetimes, as Mark Carney likes to put it,

00:16:58.680 and that is Donald Trump, you know, orange man who likes to, who has, you know, personal grievances

00:17:05.420 with people and, uh, takes it out on them through tariffs. And so, yeah, the last 10 years of, you

00:17:11.300 know, economic stagnation in Canada has been because of Trump. And so Albertans have a real chance now

00:17:19.760 to flee, you know, the sinking ship that is Confederation. Like, why should we have to put up

00:17:27.580 with all of these bills and policies and mandates that devastate the oil and gas industry just so

00:17:37.000 Canada can keep up the facade of being a climate conscious, let's say, country and, you know, eating

00:17:45.880 into our revenues and eating into our profits, you know, all the meanwhile, extracting all of that

00:17:53.020 wealth and distributing it to the rest of Canada. Like, this is, like, peak ungratefulness. Like,

00:18:00.400 Alberta should not be part of Confederation. Like, this is, like, pure abuse. Like, what's the federal

00:18:08.040 government has been doing to Alberta? Like, there's no other word to describe it. And so, yeah, that is all

00:18:13.620 for me for today. I will be posting other series of videos detailing the, you know, long-winded history

00:18:21.580 of Alberta separatism, which isn't covered as much as it should be. And also, yeah, don't forget to

00:18:29.740 like and subscribe and, you know, share this with your friends and family or anyone else who wants,

00:18:36.700 you know, information on this topic. And so, yeah, that's all for me.

The Alberta Project - May 15, 2025

The U.S. DOES NOT subsidize Canada

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