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When Alberta Premier Rachel Notley announced a boycott of British Columbia wines following B.C.’s proposed restrictions on Kinder Morgan’s $7.4-billion Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion, she raised the spectre of an all-out trade war between two of Canada’s most economically intwined provinces.

Banning B.C. wine deals a blow to a business worth about $70 million per year between the provinces, but the stakes are higher if boycotts spread into other sectors. B.C. depends on Alberta for a large share of visitors in its tourism industry, for example, and Alberta relies on B.C. ports to get its exports to markets around the world. Combined, they sold each other $34.4 billion in goods and services in 2014, the latest figures available from Statistics Canada.

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Five ways B.C. benefits from Alberta

1. Tourism dollars: Alberta is a billion-dollar player in B.C.’s tourism sector as the province’s second-largest market for visitors after British Columbians themselves, as tracked by Destination B.C. Between Kootenay mountain ski trips and Okanagan lake vacations, Albertans took 2.9 million overnight trips to B.C., accounting for 14 per cent of B.C.’s overall overnight visitation in 2017, and spent $1.4 billion on hotels, restaurants and attractions. Alberta visitors mostly drive — 70 per cent of trips are by car or truck — and their average travel group is 3.1 people, who spend about five nights in the province and spend $479 per person. Just over one-third of their trips were to the Kootenays, 27 per cent visited the Thompson-Okanagan region, and 21 per cent of trips were to Vancouver and the Coast Mountains.