ABSTRACT
Natural gas customers in southern Ontario became concerned that the province's known gas reservoirs were becoming rapidly depleted and succeeded in making this point to the members of the Ontario legislature. Consequently, the Ontario government took steps to restrict natural gas exports. In the early years following the 1947 discovery of the Leduc oil fields in Alberta, large reserves of natural gas were discovered. The value of this gas was rather limited. Distant markets, transportation difficulties, geographical barriers and market uncertainty continued to be barriers to profitable natural gas production. Commencing in 1949, several natural gas transmission companies were incorporated by Special Acts of the federal Parliament, for the purpose of carrying natural gas between Canadian provinces and from Canada to the United States. In 1961, Canada put in place a "National Oil Policy", the purpose of which was to gain a large enough market, domestic and foreign, to develop and maintain a healthy petroleum industry in western Canada.
