The New Oil Order: The Post Staples Paradigm and the Canadian Upstream Oil and Gas Industry

Abstract

The history of the industry can be divided in four different phases: the semi-colonial period of 1867-1930; the era of multinational domination, 1930-1969; the withdrawal of the multi-nationals and the Canadianization of the industry, 1969-1985; and a fourth, current, era in the evolution of Canada’s oil and natural gas industry beginning with the switch to non-conventional oil recovery, the rise of natural gas as the dominant segment of the industry and the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement which guaranteed a reliable market for Canada’s oil and natural gas The re-entry of the federal government into the provincial oil and gas industry through the Kyoto Protocol has challenged the free-market continentalism that has dominated the Canadian oilpatch since the mid 1980s and the beginning of a new phase of environmental regulation in the industry.