TORONTO — Former prime minister Jean Chrétien said Canada may one day have to put an export tax on oil, gas and potash if the United States keeps escalating its tariff war — a position former Alberta premier Jason Kenney also floated this month and Premier Danielle Smith has already rejected as Albertans head toward an Oct. 19 referendum that includes a question on the province’s place in Canada.Chrétien told CBC News on Tuesday that Ottawa’s dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs were “a good move” because “we have to stand up when they’re a bully in front of you.” He noted Washington had already carved energy and fertilizer out of its own list: “They have excluded oil, gas, electricity, potash. Why? Because they need it very badly. So perhaps one day we will have to impose an export tax.” He dismissed President Donald Trump’s order to call Lake Ontario “Lake America” as proof the White House was “running out of arguments” and called the gesture “cheap and nasty.”“The Americans never bought anything from us they didn’t need,” Chrétien said.Kenney made the same energy argument two weeks earlier on CBC Radio, saying a modest tax on oil, gas and potash “needs to be telegraphed” if Trump does “something really reckless.” He was clear he does not support cutting off shipments. Alberta oil exports to the United States were worth about $111 billion in 2025. .Smith has called an energy export tax “not a viable option” and “a more disastrous policy decision.” She warned that any Canadian levy would be met with a larger U.S. tariff on refined products that Eastern Canada still imports through American pipelines. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has taken the same line on potash and oil. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government kept energy off the counter-tariff list that took effect Tuesday.The timing is not lost on either side. Albertans vote Oct. 19 on ten questions, one of which asks whether the Government of Alberta should remain in Canada or begin the legal process for a later binding referendum on independence. Commentators including Ted Morton and Jack Major argued in the Calgary Herald this week that a federal export tax would hand the sovereigntist side a fresh grievance weeks before ballots are counted. A 1981 Alberta Court of Appeal ruling already struck down a federal export tax as an illegal levy on provincial property under Section 109 of the Constitution, and CUSMA Article 2.15 bars export taxes unless the same tax is applied at home.Federal NDP leader Avi Lewis, Ontario Premier Doug Ford and B.C. Premier David Eby have all urged Ottawa to treat Alberta energy as leverage. Smith’s office says the only path that protects Alberta jobs is a return to the negotiating table, not a tax that lands on the resource the Government of Alberta owns.
