McGuinty dismisses Alberta’s call to defend oilsands development
Posted February 27, 2012 11:51 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is rejecting calls from his Alberta counterpart to do more to publicly defend the oilsands.
Alberta Premier Alison Redford wants the premiers of Ontario and Quebec to speak out in favour of the oilsands, saying it’s not enough for her to talk about the importance of the resource.
A study by the Calgary-based Canadian Energy Research Institute says Ontario enjoys the lion’s share of oilsands benefits outside Alberta.
However, McGuinty says any benefits to Ontario were more than offset by the soaring loonie, which he calls a petro-dollar.
He says the high dollar, up from 67 cents in 2003 to around parity with the U.S. greenback today, has “knocked the wind” out of Ontario’s manufacturing and export sectors.
McGuinty says given a choice between a rapidly growing oil and gas sector in the West or a lower dollar, he’d take the lower dollar.
