Futurist Roy Amara observed that we “tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” Amara’s Law helps explain why energy shocks have immediate, visible consequences while their deeper strategic effects unfold slowly and persistently.
An American strike on Iran, for example, would cause obvious short‑term harms: disrupted oil, petrochemical and fertilizer supply chains, rising prices and tragic loss of life. But longer‑term consequences — a strengthened or emboldened Tehran, damaged regional relationships, and entrenched anti‑Western sentiment — are harder to measure and may endure. Like the first atomic blast, lessons about using chokepoints and energy leverage as political weapons cannot be unlearned.
Those dynamics matter to energy‑hungry, resource‑poor Asian economies. The prospect that vital arteries such as the Strait of Hormuz could be constricted suddenly makes many Asian states reluctant to rely solely on military escorts or costly strategic stockpiles. They need practical, market‑based alternatives that reduce exposure to Middle Eastern instability.
Canada can be one of those alternatives. Alberta holds the world’s third‑largest proven oil reserves, after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, and currently produces roughly four million barrels per day — in principle enough to cover a country like Japan’s oil needs. The province is also a major natural gas producer and has abundant, low‑cost electricity useful for liquefaction and export infrastructure. The constraint is market access.
Nearly 90% of Alberta’s oil exports flow to the United States, mainly to Midwest refineries. With few buyers beyond the U.S., Canada effectively sells into a monopsony and accepts a persistent price discount, commonly ranging from about 17% to 37%. That dynamic has been reinforced by federal policies that have limited resource development in pursuit of climate goals, and by a long belief in a stable U.S.‑Canada energy relationship.
That picture is shifting. Recent leadership and policy changes, along with economic and political incentives to diversify trade away from an increasingly unilateral U.S. partner, have increased the urgency of westward market access. Better access to Pacific tidewater would allow higher production, attract foreign investment in pipelines and upstream projects, increase royalties and help narrow the southbound price discount.
The Trans Mountain Pipeline is Canada’s main Pacific gateway; after its 2024 expansion it can carry just under one million barrels per day, up from roughly 350,000, and cost about US$30 billion. Plans for additional capacity are being discussed, but substantially more export capability will be needed to shift global supply chains.
A meaningful expansion of West Coast export capacity could offer Asia a stable, politically predictable source of oil insulated from Middle Eastern shocks. Most Canadian oil would still flow to the U.S., but diversifying markets through Pacific gateways would strengthen both Canadian revenues and Asian energy security.
The rockets over the Persian Gulf will eventually stop and tankers will return to the Strait. Amara’s insight, however, cautions that the strategic consequences of this moment will play out slowly. The conditions for a durable shift toward Canada’s Pacific energy gateways may be more favorable now than at any recent time.
Charlie Grahn is a supply chain veteran and business instructor at Langara College in Vancouver, Canada.
