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Quebec buys an awful lot of stuff from Alberta

According to 2015 figures, Albertans spent $8.9 billion on goods and services produced by Quebec. Quebec, in turn, spent $6.2 billion on goods and services from Alberta. This works out to a trade deficit of $2.7 billion, but it still means that up to two per cent of Alberta’s GDP exists thanks to Quebec money. Quebec’s largest single purchase of Alberta goods in 2015 (the last year for which data is available) was the $840.7 million they spent on natural gas products. Quebecers fly WestJet a lot, which accounts in large part for the $142 million they spent on Albertan air transportation (Albertans, by contrast, spent $193.5 million flying Quebec-based airlines such as Air Canada). Quebec also seems to enjoy Alberta’s plastics and industrial gases, buying more than $100 million of them per year. The point is, if Alberta wants to throw down with La Belle Province, Quebec can do a lot more damage than simply stonewalling a pipeline.

Photo by The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

Insurance and banking services are, by far, the number one Quebec product purchased by Albertans

After the Fort McMurray wildfires, one of the first people allowed into the stricken city were teams of Quebec insurance claims processors dispatched to calculate how many cars and houses they would need to replace. In 2015, Alberta spent $266 million on Quebec-owned auto insurance companies. They spent $110 million on Quebec-owned life insurance, and another $320 million on property and liability insurance. Quebec holding company services, meanwhile, collected $519 million from Alberta. If Alberta premier Rachel Notley wanted to hurt Quebec economically as quickly as possible, her best course of action would be to throw up a bunch of arbitrary regulations that would effectively seal off her province from Quebec insurers. The move would spark a torrent of litigation, but it would maximize economic pain and definitely get the attention of the Quebec National Assembly (who, let’s be honest, would probably respond by doubling down on their hatred of Alberta). As U.S. president Donald Trump is currently discovering, however, trade wars come with blowback. The thousands of Albertans who chose to bank with a Quebec-owned financial institution presumably did it because it was the best fit for their needs and budget. Quebec has some of Canada’s lowest wages and rents, meaning they can generally crank out cheaper financial services than anyone else. If Alberta did suddenly stop sending insurance premiums and banking fees to Quebec, it’s not like those dollars are destined to stay in Alberta. More likely, they’d simply go to financial companies in Toronto or Vancouver, two places not tremendously renowned for their love of Alberta’s resource industry.