First, I’m not an economist, financial analyst or energy sector insider, and I don’t claim to predict the future.
But I am a fourth-generation Calgarian who’s worked in journalism, oil and gas, marketing, and real estate. I’ve spent my entire professional career watching for signs and sentiments that motivate people to act, react, take a leap, or fear the worst, and
I’ve launched companies and campaigns by reading the room before the room knew it was shifting. I’ve watched Calgary’s real estate market through countless booms and corrections, and tracked the signals that something is about to move.
Right now, I bring you a storm of 10 major signs.
1. The attack on Iran and the closure of the Gulf’s economic lifeline
On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes on Iran, targeting military infrastructure, nuclear sites, and leadership. Iran’s response was swift: retaliatory missile and drone attacks across the region, followed on March 4 by what Iranian forces declared a full closure of the Strait of Hormuz – a narrow waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil and gas supply transits every day. When Iran declared it closed, tanker traffic dropped approximately 70%. Ships anchored outside the strait rather than risk passage (Kpler, March 1, 2026).
2. The largest energy disruption in 50 years
By March 8, Brent crude surpassed $100 per barrel for the first time in four years, peaking at $126. The Dallas Federal Reserve, in a research note published March 20, called it “the largest disruption to the global energy supply since the 1970s oil crisis.” Larger, in scale and consequence, than anything the market has absorbed in half a century.
The immediate casualties: Southeast Asian manufacturing economies whose refineries run on Gulf crude, and European nations still scrambling after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Global shipping routes are being rerouted, renegotiated, or suspended entirely (Dallas Federal Reserve, March 20, 2026; Al Jazeera, March 2026).
3. Asia and Europe are urgently looking to Canada
For the first time in a long time, Canada is seriously in the conversation. The Canada Energy Regulator’s 2026 outlook projects natural gas production growing from roughly 19 billion cubic feet per day today to as much as 32 billion by 2050. LNG exports could represent a full quarter of Canada’s total gas production within 25 years (Canada Energy Regulator, Canada’s Energy Future 2026). That is not a marginal projection. That is a structural realignment of where Canadian energy goes and who buys it.
4. The world has been reminded that it still runs on oil
Here’s something no press release or industry PR campaign ever managed to accomplish: the Hormuz crisis made the case for Canadian energy in about 72 hours. Ordinary people – not energy analysts, not Bay Street types – watched oil tankers being threatened in the Gulf in real time. They watched what happens when a single chokepoint closes and everything gets more expensive. The abstract argument that the world is not ready to run without oil, and that our transition to renewables and fossil-free energy is far from complete, became viscerally, undeniably concrete.
5. Fifteen years of ill-fated oil and gas industry PR campaigns became near irrelevant
For well over a decade, Canada’s oil and gas sector spent enormous resources on image rehabilitation amidst pipeline protests, public distrust, and environmental concerns. But try as they might, they largely continued to lose the battle in the court of public opinion.
Not necessarily because the arguments were wrong, but because most Canadians had the comfortable luxury of not fully comprehending the depth of the discussion, and what Canada’s oil and gas industry has afforded us economically and beyond.
The Hormuz crisis laid bare that luxury. The argument that if the world is going to produce and consume oil, it may as well come from a democratic, regulated, accountable country like Canada, rather than Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela and the Gulf, is landing differently now than it did 18 months ago. Sentiment shifts are slow, then sudden. This one has become starkly sudden.
6. Canadian sovereignty has become a dinner table conversation
Add Donald Trump’s repeated suggestions that Canada become the 51st state, and you have a political moment unlike any in recent memory. Energy security, economic independence, and diversification away from dependence on America are now mainstream priorities, not policy abstractions. The political climate in this country is now barrelling toward ambitious, expedited resource development for the first time in years. That is a real tailwind.
7. Canada holds the world’s third-largest proven oil reserves
This one is worth its own headline.
Canada holds approximately 168 billion barrels of proven oil reserves – the third largest supply on the planet. The only countries with larger deposits are Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, with Iran sitting in fourth. So make no mistake, we are not a small player in this story. We are one of three countries on earth with the energy reserves to matter at scale. But alas, the question has never been whether Canada has the resource, but rather, whether we have the will to develop it. And that sentiment is quickly shifting.
8. Canada didn’t meet the moment when asked, but those conditions have changed
When Europe sought Canadian LNG (natural gas that is liquified for nautical transport before warming back into its useful gaseous state for home heating and beyond) in 2022 to replace its Russian supply, Canada’s response was slow and politically complicated. That became a flashpoint for Alberta’s frustration with federal energy policy, and fairly so.
The difference now lies in a collision of political will, global demand, and advancing infrastructure in a way we haven’t seen before. The conversation that was stalled or iced has been resurrected by events nobody could have engineered – or expected.
9. The Montney Formation is Canada’s most important underdeveloped resource asset
Underneath northeastern BC and northwestern Alberta lies the Montney Formation, containing an estimated 449 trillion cubic feet of marketable natural gas, 45 years of drilling inventory at current production rates, and some of the lowest breakeven costs on the continent. The Montney has been called Canada’s crown jewel, and it remains largely underdeveloped relative to its potential. That gap between what the Montney holds and what we currently draw from it is not a failure, but an enormous opportunity. One that the current moment makes more accessible and more urgent than at any prior point in history.
10. It’s already underway
LNG Canada, the first large-scale liquefied natural gas export terminal on Canada’s coastline (located in Kitimat, BC), is now operational. Additional facilities, terminals and expansions are in active development. Pipeline discussions that were politically dead 18 months ago are back at the table with new urgency. Capital is beginning to move in ways it did not during the 2022–24 oil run, when producers took their profits without reinvesting substantially in future production capacity because of the uncertainty and wobbly outlook for the landlocked, policy-restricted, PR-challenged industry.
Today, things are looking very different. Every day brings news of production increases, stakeholder buy-in and investment players returning to the table. This isn’t just groundwork or hearsay, it’s action. Taking place in a different political environment, amidst different global conditions, and a whole new set of stakes.
What this means for Calgary
Now, energy booms don’t arrive in Calgary real estate overnight. They never have.
They show up in major projects and jobs afield. Then, in migration, both to remote job sites and urban centres. Then, in trickle-through infrastructure spend and downstream commercial activity. And then, compoundingly, in housing demand that outpaces supply.
Alberta is already seeing the early indicators: GDP growth projected at 2.3% for 2026 (TD Economics), and oil output now surpassing four million barrels per day for the first time in the province’s history (Alberta Economic Outlook). Current numbers show interprovincial migration has moderated from its 2022–2024 peak, but the fundamentals that drove 80,000 new Albertans per year haven’t disappeared, they’ve simply paused. And the writing is on the wall for the next wave of energy sector activity, exacerbated when opportunity and jobs are lacking in other areas of the country, which, sadly, they are.
Calgary’s real estate market today is, for the most part, balanced. Depending on what area of the city and home type you’re watching, prices are steady or down, and inventory is decent, leaving buyers with negotiating power they haven’t had in years (CREB 2026 Forecast). But that’s the entry point, not the warning sign.
One of Calgary’s most consistent stories is that it moves on its own clock, largely independent of national trends. When Toronto and Vancouver were flying in 2020-21, Calgary barely budged. When those centres entered a downswing in 2023, Calgary barely flinched. Supply and demand here respond to our city’s own signals – employment, migration, energy capital, not Bay Street anxiety or west coast-driven demand.
The reality check
Higher global energy prices are not free. They mean higher input costs, higher transportation costs, and higher prices for everything – including the cost of living here. The short-term picture for Calgary households is genuinely complicated, and I can’t pretend otherwise.
But this is not a story about everything being fine. It’s about where Alberta sits relative to everywhere else when a generational disruption like this appears.
I’m not a fortune teller, but I’ve lived in this city my entire life and watched it through a professional lens for twenty years. I know it has a habit of surprising people – myself included. Right now, the signals are here, and unlike most boardroom-driven energy booms, this time they are far from hidden. What happens next is not a matter of if or when, but how fast, how major, and for how long.
If I were a betting girl, I’d go big on all three.
Kelly Doody is a Calgary-based Realtor serving every corner of the city, owner of Kelly Doody Real Estate Corp, and lead overcommunicator at Kelly Doody’s Calgary on Substack. Former columnist and writer for the Calgary Sun and Calgary Herald, business owner, marketer, and PR professional, she’s a fourth-generation Calgarian who can’t get enough of the people and places that make this city amazing.
Find her in her work pants at https://kellydoody.com, and subscribe for more insights and ideas right here:
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Sources
2026 Strait of Hormuz Crisis — Wikipedia -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Strait_of_Hormuz_crisis
US-Iran Conflict: Strait of Hormuz Crisis Reshapes Global Oil Markets — Kpler, March 1, 2026 - https://www.kpler.com/blog/us-iran-conflict-strait-of-hormuz-crisis-reshapes-global-oil-markets
How US-Israel Attacks on Iran Threaten the Strait of Hormuz — Al Jazeera, March 2026 - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/1/how-us-israel-attacks-on-iran-threaten-the-strait-of-hormuz-oil-markets
What the Closure of the Strait of Hormuz Means for the Global Economy — Dallas Federal Reserve, March 20, 2026 -https://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2026/0320
Canada’s Energy Future 2026 — Canada Energy Regulator - https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/canada-energy-future/index.html
Statistical Review of World Energy — BP -https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html
Provincial Economic Forecast — TD Economics - https://economics.td.com/provincial-economic-forecast
Economic Outlook — Alberta.ca - https://www.alberta.ca/economic-outlook
2026 Calgary and Region Yearly Outlook — CREB -https://www.creb.com/News/CREBNow/2026/January/forecast_2026/
2026 Economic Outlook — Calgary Economic Development - https://www.calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com/newsroom/2026-economic-outlook-diversification-and-innovation-chart-calgarys-path-through-global-turbulence/
