Many Albertans might think Quebecers want nothing to do with Western oil, or any oil for that matter. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Let’s start with the obvious: A little more than half of the oil that is consumed in Quebec comes from Canada, largely Western Canada, and this proportion has been steadily increasing since 2014, according to the Financial Post.
A large majority of Quebecers, 66 per cent, prefer to get oil from Western Canada, versus seven per cent who want it from the United States, three per cent from Algeria, and one per cent each for the countries of the Middle East and Nigeria, according to a recent Leger poll conducted on behalf of the MEI.
We also learned in the same poll that 53 per cent of respondents would rather that Quebec develop its own oil resources than continue to import the oil it consumes. Quebecers also think oil should be shipped by pipeline. Indeed, they know that there is less risk involved in pipeline transport than in the other common modes of transportation.
Click here to read the entire Financial Post opinion piece.
Obviously, Quebecers’ opinions are very different from what is often heard from certain interest groups and from a portion of the political elite. Moreover, when Quebecers are polled on these matters year after year, the results remain pretty similar.
(Financial Post/Germain Belzile, senior associate researcher at the MEI)
