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CALGARY - A Tory election pledge to ban bitumen exports to countries with looser emissions targets than Canada will compel our country to clean up its own act, as a movement to stop "dirty oil" from flowing across the U.S. border gains traction, an energy analyst says.

Geopolitics Central's Vincent Lauerman said the move would tie Canada even more closely to the U.S. market, currently the only one in a position to buy bitumen from Canada.

"It could exclude markets such as China and India, which have been talked about as potential alternatives if there were disruptions to the American market because of environmental concerns," he said.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, flanked by Industry Minister Jim Prentice and Environment Minister John Baird, announced the policy on a campaign stop in Calgary, the epicentre of Canada's oil and gas industry.

Harper's export ban would effectively be like "putting a bit of a gun to the Alberta government and the producers to work extremely hard to get the carbon situation under control with the oilsands," Lauerman said.

"It's almost forcing us to maintain our close relationship with America."

Bitumen is the thick, tarry substance extracted from the oilsands in northern Alberta.