The model that produces these scenarios is written out in full in Appendix J. Every figure in this section can be rebuilt from the two revenue rules and three spending rules set out there, and Appendix J also states what the model deliberately leaves out and how its growth rates were calibrated. A reader who wants to argue with the twenty-year numbers should start there rather than here.
Two commodity-price paths
The Canada Energy Regulator (CER) publishes several long-term energy scenarios. Its Current Measures case is a traditional baseline built around existing policies, moderate economic growth and steady technological progress. The regulator explicitly says it is a reference case, not a prediction and not the 'most likely' future [CER-26]. Its Higher case assumes stronger economic growth, higher oil and natural-gas prices and greater energy demand.
| Reference commodity prices | Higher commodity prices | |
|---|---|---|
| Brent crude oil, United States dollars per barrel | US$75 | US$95 |
| Canada Energy Regulator source | Current Measures | Higher scenario |
| Less Brent to West Texas Intermediate spread | -US$4 | -US$4 |
| Less Western Canadian Select differential | -US$13 | -US$13 |
| Western Canadian Select, approximate Alberta realized price | US$58 | US$78 |
| Henry Hub natural gas, United States dollars per million British thermal units | US$5.25 | US$6.75 |
| AECO natural-gas benchmark, Alberta realized price | US$4.00 | US$5.50 |
The international price assumptions come from Canada's Energy Future 2026 [CER-26]. Western Canadian Select differentials use [CAPP-26][AER-ST98]. All long-term fiscal figures are stated in real 2026 Canadian dollars.
Three economic cases
The three cases below are deliberately different in ambition.
- The first asks what happens if Alberta broadly follows today's published path.
- The second assumes Alberta becomes a more competitive place to invest and does somewhat better.
- The third asks what a major energy and economic build-out could look like if capital, infrastructure and market access all arrive.
| Current Path | Competitive Growth | High-Growth Build-Out | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oil and bitumen, million barrels a day | 4.4 | 4.9 | 7.0 |
| Marketable natural gas, billion cubic feet a day | 16.0 | 18.5 | 24.0 |
| Non-energy real growth, a year | 1.8% | 2.5% | 3.0% |
| How to read it | Closest to published baseline | Modest independence and competitiveness gain | Upside boundary above published oil scenarios |
Current Path: the cautious case
This is the least optimistic case and the one most directly anchored to published projections. Energy production remains close to the Canada Energy Regulator's baseline direction and the non-energy economy grows at 1.8 per cent a year in real terms. It requires no extraordinary policy success.
If current infrastructure, investment and production trends broadly continue, this case is readily achievable. It should still not be called a forecast, because the regulator itself assigns no probabilities to its scenarios.
Competitive Growth: a plausible improvement
This case assumes independence produces a measurable but not spectacular competitiveness gain: more predictable regulation, somewhat lower taxes over time, faster project decisions, improved market access and enough investment to lift both energy production and the wider economy.
Non-energy real growth is 2.5 per cent a year, 0.7 percentage points above Current Path. This is plausible, but it requires competent policy, stable institutions, private capital and infrastructure.
High-Growth Build-Out: the upside boundary
This is intentionally difficult. Oil and bitumen reach about 7.0 million barrels a day, natural gas reaches 24 billion cubic feet a day, and the non-energy economy grows at 3.0 per cent a year. The oil assumption is above the regulator's published Canadian production scenarios and therefore should not be described as likely.
It is technically conceivable only with major new pipelines or export routes, sustained investment, labour and power availability, faster permitting and strong external demand. Its purpose is to show the upper end of what the fiscal system could absorb, not to sell it as the expected outcome.
The three economic cases are then crossed with the two commodity-price paths. That produces six outcomes. Separating production and economic performance from commodity prices matters because Alberta can influence competitiveness and infrastructure, but it does not set the world oil price.
| Current Path | Competitive Growth | High-Growth Build-Out | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price path | Reference | Higher | Reference | Higher | Reference | Higher |
| Resource royalties | 22 | 38 | 25 | 42 | 35 | 60 |
| Total revenue | 203 | 228 | 235 | 262 | 271 | 308 |
| Total spending | 138 | 138 | 140 | 140 | 141 | 141 |
| SURPLUS | 65 | 90 | 95 | 123 | 130 | 167 |
Components are rounded independently; the surplus is calculated from unrounded model values, so a column may differ from the displayed subtraction by C$1 billion.
The rules that generate every figure in this table are set out in Appendix J, together with the sensitivity that matters most: half a percentage point a year on the non-resource growth rate moves the 2046 result by more than C$10 billion.
The figure compares the six modelled 2046 endpoints in Table 20. It does not draw a smooth twenty-year line because the analysis does not claim to forecast each intervening year.
The assumption that matters most is spending
| Scenario and price | Spending grows with population | Population plus 0.5% | Spending grows with the economy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Current Path, reference | 65 | 48 | 44 |
| Current Path, higher | 90 | 73 | 70 |
| Competitive Growth, reference | 95 | 78 | 49 |
| Competitive Growth, higher | 123 | 106 | 76 |
| High-Growth Build-Out, reference | 130 | 113 | 63 |
| High-Growth Build-Out, higher | 167 | 150 | 100 |
C$ billions. Scenario and price definitions as in Table 19 and Table 20; spending assumptions as in Table 21. The lowest of the eighteen modelled outcomes is C$44 billion, on the Current Path at reference prices with spending growing at the rate of the economy — roughly double Alberta’s present-day annual balance of C$22.2 to C$32.1 billion, shown as the band across the chart. The Current Path is not a growth assumption. It is Alberta continuing to do what it does today.
Read across any row. Spending discipline is at least as important as the commodity price path. In the Current Path case the two effects are comparable; in the Competitive Growth and High-Growth cases the spending assumption moves the 2046 balance materially more than the price path does.
Independence can create the room; nothing about independence stops a future government filling it.
That is the one variable on this page entirely within Alberta’s own control.
Long-term surpluses could be used for debt reduction, tax relief or a larger Heritage Fund. Those are competing uses of the same money, set out in Part III. What is striking about the chart is not the upside cases but the floor beneath all of them: every one of the eighteen outcomes clears Alberta’s position today, and the weakest clears it roughly twofold.
Alberta does not need any of the upside cases to arrive. On these figures it needs only to carry on doing what it already does.
What the scenarios do not assume
- No breakthrough technology is assumed.
- No federal debt-and-asset settlement is included in the long-term model.
- No windfall from market diversification beyond the two commodity-price paths is assumed.
No probability is assigned to any scenario. The High-Growth Build-Out case is explicitly an upside boundary. The present-day viability case stands on Parts I to IV.
