Carney Wants to Sell More Canadian Oil Beyond the U.S., but Alberta’s Jobs Boom Isn’t Coming Back

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Alberta’s oil could reach more overseas buyers without bringing back the hiring frenzy that once filled its work camps. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s push for a new Pacific export route promises a wider market for Canadian crude and less dependence on the United States. The employment outlook is more restrained.

Oil sands companies can increase production by improving facilities they already own and using technology that requires fewer workers for some tasks. That creates a difficult gap between national ambitions and household expectations. A stronger export business could support investment, public revenues and worthwhile careers. The evidence, however, points toward a different kind of prosperity from the construction-driven boom that reshaped northern Alberta.

Carney’s Pacific Plan Is Taking Shape

Carney’s latest push centres on Pacific Link, a proposed oil pipeline intended to add one million barrels a day of export capacity to Asian markets. On October 1, 2026, Ottawa listed it as a project of national interest. The designation gives the proposal stronger federal backing while work continues on the details needed to build it. For producers, the attraction is straightforward: more routes to more customers could reduce the vulnerability that comes with relying heavily on one trading partner.

The government aims to finalize the project’s conditions by September 1, 2027. Indigenous consultations, route planning, environmental work and cost estimates remain part of that process. Those steps matter to employment expectations because political support does not itself put crews on a construction site. Pacific Link could become a significant source of activity, but the timing and shape of that activity still depend on turning a supported proposal into a project ready for construction.

Overseas Sales Are Already Growing

Canada has already begun changing where its oil goes. Statistics Canada reports that exports of crude oil and equivalent products to countries outside the United States increased 132.6% in 2025, reaching 27.2 million cubic metres. Those destinations accounted for 10.9% of exports, compared with an average of 2.8% between 2016 and 2024. The United States remained overwhelmingly the largest customer, but the shift shows that diversification is becoming a measurable part of the business.

Trans Mountain provides a practical example. Its expanded system entered service in May 2024, and throughput averaged 840,000 barrels a day in the second quarter of 2026, representing 94% utilization. Of that total, 510,000 barrels a day went to the Westridge Marine Terminal. The system also continued delivering oil to Washington State and British Columbia. These figures show how an overseas outlet can grow alongside existing relationships. They demonstrate demand for transportation capacity; they do not, by themselves, measure the number of new oil sands workers required.

The Earlier Boom Was Built on New Megaprojects

The earlier oil sands boom was also a massive construction programme. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers identifies the major buildout between 2005 and 2015 as the foundation of much of today’s production. New facilities needed to be developed before they could generate decades of oil sales. That distinction helps explain why the same industry can remain economically powerful after its busiest hiring period has passed. Operating an established asset involves a different pattern of spending from creating it.

The adjustment was painful. ATB Economics links the drop in capital investment after 2014 to Alberta’s recession in 2015 and 2016. The province did not recover its 2014 level of economic output until 2022. That is a measure of the whole economy, but it illustrates the depth of the disruption. Today’s expanding exports draw heavily on facilities built during that earlier period. Rising output can therefore reflect the payoff from old investment without recreating all the construction work that originally accompanied it.

More Barrels Can Come With Fewer Jobs

Energy Safety Canada’s outlook anticipates an oil sands workforce about 4% smaller by 2035, a decline of 920 positions. Its companion production scenario anticipates roughly 6% growth in oil sands bitumen output between 2025 and 2035, under its assumptions about investment and market access. Together, the figures describe an industry capable of moving more oil through its operations while employing fewer people overall. The employment decline is a projection, not a count of announced layoffs.

The assumptions are important. The outlook reflects policies and plans known by March 2026, so it cannot settle what Pacific Link would ultimately deliver. An Energy Safety Canada spokesperson told Reuters that a new pipeline would probably reverse the decline, although permanent hiring could remain modest. The organization’s broader analysis identifies technology and industry consolidation as reasons output can rise without equivalent hiring. The central issue is therefore how much additional staffing each expansion requires. Export growth alone cannot answer that question, even when the additional business is substantial.

Driverless Trucks Show How the Work Is Changing

At Suncor’s Base Plant near Fort McMurray, the changing relationship between production and employment is visible on the mine roads. The company reports that its Millennium Mine expanded from 15 autonomous haul trucks in May 2024 to 91 by the end of that year. Suncor also says all ore at Base Plant is transported by autonomous haulers. Moving more material consequently does not require a driver behind the wheel of every truck. The example illustrates a change in tasks, without providing a direct measure of total job losses.

People still run the operation. Control-room employees use software to coordinate truck movements, monitor conditions and manage traffic across the mine. Suncor says the technology improves consistency and reduces downtime. For an experienced equipment operator, this kind of transition can mean learning a different way to oversee machinery. It also changes what employers need when production expands. A busier mine may require different skills, while the connection between its growing fleet and the number of driving positions becomes much weaker.

New Investment Is Going Into a Leaner Industry

Money is still flowing into Alberta’s energy resources. The Alberta Energy Regulator estimates capital spending across oil, gas, oil sands and emerging resources at C$32.4 billion in 2025, up 1.6% from 2024. Its September 2026 outlook expects oil sands investment to grow through expansions, drilling, the removal of production bottlenecks and further efficiency improvements. That is meaningful activity for equipment suppliers and service companies. It also describes a growth pattern centred heavily on improving what already exists.

An expansion at an operating facility can use infrastructure, services and organizational capacity already in place. Industry calls this brownfield development. Building a completely new facility requires a much wider package of work before production begins. Both can create employment, but their labour requirements differ. A pipeline opening access to additional buyers may encourage either approach; it does not determine which projects companies choose to finance. The practical test for Alberta’s workforce is therefore the investment programme behind the extra barrels: what will be built, where the work will happen and how many positions will continue afterward.

The Biggest Job Estimate Describes a Peak

Ottawa’s 140,000-job figure requires a closer look at what the number represents. The federal explanation accompanying Pacific Link’s designation identifies RBC Capital Markets modelling prepared for the project’s proponent. It considers C$70 billion to C$81 billion in pipeline and upstream construction investment and estimates that employment could peak at about 140,000 jobs. The document explicitly expects employment to decline as construction gives way to operations. The estimate concerns economic activity across Canada, including work beyond Alberta’s oil sands.

Construction employment still matters. A substantial contract can support a household for years and keep a supplier busy through several seasons. But the duration and location of that work determine its lasting effect on an oil town. A position building infrastructure in British Columbia has a different local impact from an ongoing operating job near Fort McMurray. Assessing the employment benefit therefore requires the peak workforce, the construction schedule and the jobs sustained afterward to be examined separately.

Retirements Will Still Create Openings

A quieter jobs market can still produce substantial recruitment. Careers in Energy projects 18,400 additional direct jobs across nine Canadian energy sectors between 2026 and 2035. It also identifies 54,200 workers eligible to retire over the forecast period. Together, those figures produce a potential hiring requirement of 72,600 people, if all openings created by industry activity and retirements are filled. These are national estimates covering established and emerging energy businesses, including oil sands, pipelines and liquefied natural gas.

They should not be read as 72,600 new Alberta oil jobs. Much of the hiring would replace people leaving existing positions. For example, if an employer loses 100 workers to retirement and replaces 80, its workforce shrinks even though 80 people have been hired. That simple distinction helps explain why recruitment can continue during an industry’s adjustment to lower staffing needs. For workers and trainees, the useful questions concern specific vacancies, required qualifications and location. A subdued outlook for total employment does not close every route into an energy career.

Fewer Camp Workers, More Permanent Residents

The region around Fort McMurray offers a more complicated picture than a simple boom-or-bust story. In January, the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo reported that its 2025 census showed its permanent population had grown 11.16% since 2021, while temporary workers in camps and short-term accommodation declined 22.15%. The number of work camps fell from 68 to 25. These figures suggest a community becoming more settled even as its temporary workforce contracts. The municipality identified family connections, housing options and employment among the reasons people moved there. Part of its population estimate was still under provincial review when released.

The quality of available work remains crucial. ATB’s analysis of 2024 data put average hourly wages in Alberta’s broader energy sector at C$67.26, with 94% of jobs classified as full-time. That category includes more than oil sands employment, and the average does not describe every worker’s pay. It nevertheless helps explain why these careers carry such weight in household decisions. For a family considering a home purchase or a long-term move, dependable employment can matter as much as the excitement surrounding the next major project.

Lasting Prosperity Will Look Different

Better market access can still deliver a valuable return. The Canada Energy Regulator explains that pipeline shortages can widen the price gap between Western Canadian Select and the U.S. benchmark, West Texas Intermediate. With unconstrained transportation, that difference typically reflects quality and shipping costs, at around US$12.50 a barrel. During tight capacity, it has widened to US$25 or more, reducing producer and government revenues. An additional outlet can therefore strengthen the value of existing production as well as make room for growth.

“I wouldn’t use the term ‘boom’,” Carney said in Fort McMurray this month. “I would use ‘sustained growth’.” That ambition fits an industry increasingly able to expand without rebuilding its workforce at the old pace. The evidence supports expectations of investment, replacement hiring and opportunities requiring different skills, with the eventual scale dependent on projects proceeding. For Alberta’s communities, the lasting benefit would come from turning that activity into dependable livelihoods. More valuable exports can help support that goal; a return to the old hiring frenzy is a much less certain prospect.

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