Alberta moves to fix surface rights, landowners waryBy Lethbridge Herald on August 9, 2026. Canada has the third largest oil reserves in the world and is the world’s fourth largest oil producer. Canada has the third largest oil reserves in the world and is the world’s fourth largest oil producer. Surface rights is a complicated subsection of property rights law that oversees the use of the top layer of land. As of March 31, the Land and Property Rights Tribunal had received around 9,000 surface rights applications, the highest number on record.