WASHINGTON - When the government of Alberta opened its Washington offices inside the Canadian Embassy four years ago, its mission was challenging, if relatively straightforward: promote a little-known but secure source of petroleum to an at-war nation itching to break its addiction to Middle East oil.

At first, it seemed Alberta could do no wrong in Uncle Sam's eyes. There were invitations to meet at the White House with Dick Cheney, then vice-president and the string-pulling architect of Bush-era energy policy. CBS's 60 Minutes aired a documentary advising Americans that the province's vast oilsands were about "to become more important to the United States than all the oil that comes to us from Saudi Arabia."

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