Oil sands on verge of Asian M&A surge

With Canada’s new government looking to increased trade with Asia, upstream investment will driven by China

CANADA’s May election ended with a sweeping change in the country’s political balance of power, returning prime minister Stephen Harper with a sweeping majority. It also heralded the emergence of a new resource-driven economic powerbase, with Alberta’s oil sands in the forefront, and the beginnings of a fundamental realignment of the country. Wittingly or not, the provinces of Ontario and Quebec – home to more than 60% of Canada’s 34.5 million citizens and traditionally the country’s industrial heartland – pointed Canada’s economy westward, to the oil, natural gas and mining provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. And, less apparently, Canadians gave Harper a free