A document meant for a behind-closed-doors group of fossil fuel advocates earlier this year got right to the point: Canada’s policies to fight the climate crisis, protect nature and defend Indigenous Rights are a “problem,” and environmental organizations are “opponents.” 

The document, a copy of which was reviewed by The Narwhal, relates to a presentation that was scheduled to occur in January 2026. It was prepared by two advocacy groups called Energy United and Resource Works, both with connections to the country’s largest oil and gas lobby group, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. 

It was part of a session in which fossil fuel advocacy groups were to discuss shaping public perceptions in favour of the oil and gas industry and against the transition to clean energy, according to materials downloaded from a coordinating group’s website by The Narwhal and originally uncovered by Greenpeace Canada.

Under the heading “Knowing our opponents,” the document details work by environmental advocacy organizations and First Nations, and the funding that supports them.

It lays out how environmental non-profit groups are collaborative, well-funded — and effective. “The damage is real & intentional,” the document says of environmental advocacy in Canada, adding, “Every major ‘problem policy’ we fight traces back to an ENGO-authored framework or idea.” 

An ENGO is an environment-focused non-governmental organization. The document includes examples of “problem policies,” including the federal emissions cap, Canada’s commitment to protect 30 per cent of its lands and water by 2030 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The document also highlights funding for Coastal First Nations, and their stance against lifting the oil tanker ban in northern B.C. — a years-long thorn in the side of the fossil fuel industry and another “problem policy,” according to the document.

“So, what can we do about it?” the document asks of environmental advocacy in general. It proposes moving “from defence to offence” by launching “counter-campaigns,” “calling out hypocrisy” and filing “regulatory complaints” against environmental groups like the David Suzuki Foundation.

“They want to be on the attack,” Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist for Greenpeace Canada, said of oil and gas groups in an interview.

Stewart is one of the authors of the Greenpeace report “Manufacturing Petro-Populism,” which was published Oct. 8 and delves into the web of pro-fossil fuel organizations. 

The document was one of eight presentations scheduled to occur at the January “funders session,” according to an agenda published on the website of a coordinating network, Energy In Action. The session was organized for a group called Canadian Energy Prosperity. The Energy In Action website stated that it hosted a “showcase of a selection of our 30+ groups” Canadian Energy Prosperity works with.

The document was posted publicly on the Energy In Action website, where The Narwhal viewed it. The Narwhal emailed questions to Energy In Action on Oct. 5. The following day, the website became password protected.

Energy In Action and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did the advocacy organizations Energy United and Resource Works. Canadian Energy Prosperity does not appear to have its own web presence or any publicly available contact information.

Media, including The Narwhal, singled out in internal oil and gas document

The document also singled out a government funding program called the Local Journalism Initiative. 

It included a screenshot of a story published by The Narwhal, written by journalist Matt Simmons, whose work has been supported by the initiative. The story recounts Simmons’ experience being followed by private security as he reported on a pipeline being built through Wet’suwet’en lands.

The Local Journalism Initiative is a federal program that funds news reporting in rural, remote and otherwise underserved communities. The Narwhal receives this funding for reporting in northwestern B.C. and northern Ontario.

To protect the independence of the press, the government does not directly fund media outlets. The program is delivered by independent non-profits representing different segments of Canada’s media industry. 

“It’s clear that they see some journalists as opponents,” Stewart said of the pro-fossil fuel groups behind the document. “They don’t want anyone looking too closely at what they’re actually doing.”

Material ‘appears to build on a long-standing public outreach program’: Greenpeace

Greenpeace Canada claims the Energy In Action network “appears to build on a long-standing public outreach program” by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, “which seems to have been repurposed to enable oil companies to spread their message via third parties.”

Energy United founder Tim McMillan was president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers for seven years, and is currently registered as a federal lobbyist on energy issues. Stewart Muir, the president of Resource Works, formerly lobbied for a pro-fossil fuel group organized by Resource Works called The Task Force For Real Jobs, Real Recovery. The task force’s website claims the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers is a “supporter.” 

Requests for comment to McMillan and Muir’s LinkedIn pages were not returned.

Greenpeace Canada’s report says the Energy In Action network operates “under the guise of independent and grassroots entities” but actually coordinates industry-linked activities designed to “shift public discourse and actively lobby against renewable energy initiatives.”

It said the network’s “hidden funders” are investing in campaigns targeting a large cross-section of Canadian demographics and regions, using different tools like lobbying, public advocacy and digital and traditional advertising.

The network’s activities and internal materials, it said, deploy “climate disinformation, covert influence campaigns and attacks against activists.”

The Energy In Action documents should be seen as part of a broader context of an industry that’s been proactive for years in trying to shape public opinion about its activities, its climate impacts and its economic benefits, according to Shane Gunster, a professor in the school of communication at Simon Fraser University who studies oil and gas populism.

In an interview, Gunster said his research has shown pro-oil-and-gas messaging shifted over the last decade from more expensive public relations campaigns to using social media to mobilize supporters. 

He said in recent years he’s seen greater use of what he calls “pop-up groups,” which appear to be self-contained entities that focus on a particular issue in a particular geographic location, and only appear for a limited time.

“Groups that are not explicitly connected to particular funders or industry itself can do things that industry itself would find challenging to do or to say,” he said.

He said the group of funders tied to the activities Greenpeace uncovered are supporting particularly aggressive messaging, but that isn’t always the case with pro-oil-and-gas campaigns.

Canada passed legislation in 2024 to crack down on greenwashing, which is when companies make misleading claims about how environmentally friendly their products or actions are. It created a requirement for companies in Canada to back up their green claims with evidence. After it passed, oil companies scrubbed their websites and social media feeds. 

Although Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government rolled back a clause stipulating that this evidence be based on internationally recognized standards, several oil companies were still citing the law as a reason why they can’t disclose more information. 

Gunster said he felt the anti-greenwashing changes were a factor, but not necessarily the driving force behind the pro-oil-and-gas messaging shift towards pop-up groups, which he began seeing before the anti-greenwashing law was in place.

There is public evidence that at least some of the entities Greenpeace connected to the Energy In Action network have received funding from oil companies themselves. 

According to corporate disclosure records, Cenovus, one of Canada’s largest oil and gas companies, has funded seven of them, including Resource Works. Cenovus is a member of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, and Cenovus president Jon McKenzie is also the chair of the association’s board.

Cenovus proactively discloses its advocacy funding, while some other prominent oil companies do not. 

There’s no indication that the funding Cenovus has provided is directly related to the public advocacy activities reported by groups such as Resource Works during the Canadian Energy Prosperity sessions. Cenovus did not return a request for comment.

Groups tied to Energy In Action are funding disinformation: Greenpeace

Another document, a video presentation viewed online by The Narwhal, introduced itself as a “performance update for CEP,” the acronym for Canadian Energy Prosperity. The beginning of the video is dated July 2, 2025, and states that it would take place at the Calgary Petroleum Club.

That video highlighted four pro-fossil fuel ad campaigns by the organization Debunk Inc., which claims its mission is to “challenge misinformation.” Debunk’s video said the campaigns were “thanks to CEP’s support,” but did not specify who funded them or how much funding they received.

One of Debunk’s ads defended the use of natural gas in homes. Another attacked a proposal to limit heat-trapping carbon pollution from the oil and gas industry. A third downplayed the necessity of transitioning to lower-emissions fuels, and a fourth suggested liquefied natural gas, or LNG, could lead to “lower” emissions.

A Harvard study has shown that low levels of pollutants seep into homes with gas heat, while gas stoves have been associated with increased risk of asthma in children. Scientists say a disputed theory long favoured by the industry, that LNG can displace coal power abroad, underestimates the climate impact of equipment leaking methane, the main component of natural gas.

Each of these campaigns achieved results, the video claimed. The most successful was the anti-emissions cap campaign. Debunk claimed it had reached “up to 1.5 million Canadians” each month, and scored 22.3 million total views in 2025. 

The Calgary Petroleum Club did not return a request for comment.

On the Energy In Action website viewed by The Narwhal, an individual webpage also featured content from Debunk, listing the four campaigns as well as a “top performing post” which claimed it is “debunking the ‘complete fabrication’ of climate change.” 

That post, which the webpage said received “over 3,000,000 views,” contained a video claiming carbon dioxide does not cause harmful climate change. Hundreds of global climate scientists working under the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have confirmed that the burning of fossil fuels is “unequivocally” responsible for recent global warming.

The Debunk webpage on the Energy In Action website featured a social media post claiming, “We’re wasting a lot of money for very little, if any, gain with all this climate hysteria.”

That post contains another video claiming the amount of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere isn’t a significant problem. Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have increased dramatically in less than two centuries, recently to levels that have not been seen in millions of years.

Debunk did not respond to requests for comment. Founders Anastasia Columbos and Britni Weston are described on the website as “two Canadians with deep roots in the energy industry.” Neither responded to requests for comment on LinkedIn.

Greenpeace is calling on “all entities, organizations and corporate partners” involved in the Energy In Action network to disclose their funding sources and any financial connections to Canadian Energy Prosperity.

It is also echoing UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s call for countries to ban fossil fuel advertisements.

Methodology+

The presentations and agendas for two “Canadian Energy Prosperity funders” meetings, one in mid-2025 and one in early 2026, were posted publicly on the Energy In Action website, energy-in-action.com. The contact email listed was hosted on the domain cep-eia.com, a combination of the acronyms for both Canadian Energy Prosperity and Energy In Action.

The Narwhal reviewed the material directly by downloading it from the Energy In Action website on Oct. 2 and Oct. 5. The Narwhal emailed questions to Energy In Action’s email on Oct. 5. The following day, the Energy In Action website became password protected. Energy In Action did not return the request for comment.

One of the documents mentioned in this article included reference to a handful of philanthropic organizations, several of which have provided funding to The Narwhal and are disclosed on our website along with all major donors. Greenpeace carried out its investigation with support from the Trottier Family Foundation, which also provides funding to The Narwhal. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, no foundation has any editorial input.

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Yvonne Zawada leads us down a long hallway where pipes and electrical conduits snake their way along walls.

We’re deep in the guts of the Lemieux Island Water Purification Plant, on the eponymous island in the middle of the Ottawa River.

“It’s a little bit like a maze,” plant manager Zawada says as we emerge into a high-ceilinged room filled with industrial-sized pumps, generators and other equipment.

She crouches next to one of the screens used to remove debris like branches and leaves, and opens up a service panel. Inside, the raw river water smells musty.

“What we pull in is this tea-like coloured water,” she says. It’s an apt comparison: the colour comes from organic materials like decomposing plant matter, which release tannins into the water just like tea leaves.

But in drinking water, it’s one of the many components that need to be screened out, filtered and disinfected before it can be sent through roughly 3,000 kilometres of distribution pipes.

Along with the Britannia plant in the west end of the city, Lemieux Island treats most of the 275 million litres of drinking water that close to a million Ottawans consume each day. (For residents in outlying communities, the city also has six groundwater well systems that are treated separately.)

What comes out of most Ottawans’ taps originates in the Ottawa River’s drainage basin, a huge, mostly forested landscape that stretches across 146,300 square kilometres of Quebec and Ontario. It covers roughly as much area as the Atlantic provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

The river draws on a dense network of tributaries and many wetlands that act as natural filters.

Because the Lemieux Island and Britannia plants draw directly from the Ottawa River, their operations rely on governments safeguarding that source water — not only by continuing to carry out rigorous treatment and testing, but also by protecting the watershed.

Those protections could be threatened, critics say, by recent federal legislation that would shift the way environmental projects are assessed, along with a provincial government push to speed up development by overhauling the system for managing watersheds.

Access to clean water is not equal across Canada

If you live in a big Canadian city, it’s easy to take the clean drinking water that flows from your taps for granted.

But as of Sept. 10, the federal government is still tracking 38 active long-term drinking water advisories on First Nations reserves across the provinces, except for in British Columbia where figures are tracked separately. As of Aug. 31, there were a total of 30 long-term drinking water advisories in effect across B.C.

In 2015, then-prime minister Justin Trudeau promised to end drinking water advisories on First Nations reserves within five years (although he was excluding B.C. First Nations when he made that promise.)

The Trudeau government admitted in 2020 that, although it had lifted close to 100 advisories by then, it would still miss its target.

Under Prime Minister Mark Carney, the government has refused to commit to a new deadline for ending drinking water advisories, although it says it is still working towards lifting them. In December 2025, the Federal Court found Canada has a certain duty to First Nations to take reasonable measures to provide them with safe drinking water, and in June, the government unveiled new legislation it said would help “unlock” funding for communities to tackle their drinking water issues properly.

That bill is currently sitting at the beginning of the process for getting legislation passed in Canada, so the government will have to move it forward before it can become law.

Straight to the source of Ottawa’s drinking water

Even where there is purportedly clean drinking water, crises do occur. In 2000, in the southern Ontario town of Walkerton, seven people died and roughly 2,300 people became sick after farm manure contaminated a well. The fallout from the crisis led to the creation of committees that oversee the sources of drinking water in Ontario, called source protection committees.

Ottawa has its own history of ignoring waterborne health threats, to tragic results, and it’s one of the reasons the Lemieux Island plant exists.

For much of its existence in the 19th and 20th centuries the national capital region, which includes Ottawa on the south side of the river and Gatineau on the north side in Quebec, has dealt with successive public health concerns over sanitation.

There was pollution from sawmills during the timber trade, and even raw sewage dumped into the river as the local population began to climb, leading to waves of typhoid fever in the early 20th century.

For years, the poorer districts of the town dealt with typhoid-related deaths that were effectively ignored, even though health officials would have known by then that chlorine could be used as a disinfectant, according to a column by James Powell, a director of the Historical Society of Ottawa.

A typhoid epidemic between 1911 and 1912 killed 185 people in Ottawa, with thousands of other cases reported, Powell wrote.

Construction on the Lemieux Island Water Purification Plant began in 1928 and the plant opened in 1932. Standing in the marble-clad main hallway, Zawada said the city “built this plant in response to public health concerns.” It received a heritage designation in 2024.

The capital region continued to deal with contamination, from industrial activity as well as sewage. Ottawa opened a wastewater treatment plant in 1962 that continues to operate today as well as a sewage overflow tunnel in 2020.

While the water quality is much better than it was in the decades past, there are still issues and threats to that source water.

For one, there are the more simple challenges, like those brought on by Ottawa’s infamous winters, when slush and tiny ice particles called frazil ice can build up on the metal surfaces of the intake at Lemieux Island, Zawada said.

“If you go to Dairy Queen and get a slushie, that’s kind of what it is,” she said. “We call them slush puppies, or slush pods, because they float on the water and they can plug up our screens.”

Then there are the more complicated threats. In early 2026, for example, the federal government fined a Quebec company $1.35 million under the Fisheries Act for discharging sodium chlorite, which is harmful to fish, from its chemical manufacturing plant into the Lièvre River, which drains into the Ottawa River.

Ottawa Riverkeeper, a charitable organization, says other threats, spanning from municipal and agricultural runoff to the destruction of wetlands, alterations to the river from its many dams and other human impacts like boating, are also applying pressure on the watershed.

Another issue is climate change: more than 6,000 people reported flooded basements after intense summer rainstorms in July and August overwhelmed drainage systems. July was the rainiest month in Ottawa’s history.

Federal climate scientists have concluded that heavy rains and flash floods will become more frequent and more severe in Canada due to climate change.

City officials say that, while the drainage systems “could not move water away quickly enough,” drinking water services themselves remained operational.

Providing clean drinking water also doesn’t end at the plant. A recent Canadian Environmental Law Association report found a few schools in Ottawa have high levels of lead in their drinking water.

No matter how pure the water is coming out of a treatment plant, it can still pick up contaminants, for example if it runs through pipes in older buildings that aren’t flushed properly or tested regularly.

Aside from being treated, how is water protected in Canada?

Health Canada sets out thresholds for concentrations of certain substances in water, like lead or mercury, drinking water is ultimately regulated by the provinces.

In Ontario, that’s seen its share of changes.

For one, the Ford government is moving ahead with amalgamating the conservation authorities tasked with protecting watersheds, from 36 organizations into nine regional authorities.

That shift, which becomes official in February 2027, has raised concerns among staff at authorities and the source protection committees that work closely with them. The province has said it’s not making any “fundamental” changes to source protection committees.

The federal government is also proposing changes to environmental oversight through new legislation, Bill C-39.

Among many changes, the bill proposes to force all projects subject to federal reviews to be approved or rejected within one year. That would mean all environmental and other analyses would be carried out over a matter of months.

Standing in front of a map of the watershed, Zawada argues there’s limited development that affects the water quality of the Ottawa River. “It has very little impact because of the region that it covers being forested,” she said.

The environmental advocacy group Centre québécois du droit de l’environnement has warned this timeline won’t work for large-scale projects that can often involve complex risks to watersheds, as well as to other factors like wildlife.

These risks can require long-term studies, and their complexity demands meaningful consultations with First Nations and significant public input, they said.

After the federal government proposed a series of similar changes for environmental assessments in a discussion paper back in May, Ottawa Riverkeeper said it could “significantly weaken environmental protections.”

To keep drinking water safe, it takes environmental protections for watersheds, health and safety rules and diligent 24/7 testing and monitoring — like the more than 100,000 water quality tests each year done by the City of Ottawa.

“We have some of the best water around the globe, because of our source water and the process that we use,” Zawada says. “Our water is very safe.”

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Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has introduced legislation to expand its “national interest” regime meant to speed up major projects, overhaul federal environmental scrutiny of industrial activity and consolidate Indigenous consultations.

In doing so, the government is largely moving ahead with sweeping proposals it made in May, and making them permanent, despite spending the summer hearing from a public concerned about exactly this: that the Liberals’ plan could sideline scientific expertise and concentrate political power.

Transport Minister and Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon introduced Bill C-39, the Building Canada Strong Act, in Parliament on Sept. 21. The nearly 250-page omnibus bill will entrench new powers to bypass normal government approval processes for projects like pipelines, highways and nuclear facilities, by removing a five-year time limit that was built into last year’s Building Canada Act.

The Building Canada Act first introduced a special designation to allow projects to skirt regular rules if the government deems them in the “national interest,” coming in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats to annex Canada. 

Asked by reporters on Wednesday to justify why the government was making its temporary powers permanent, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said Canadians “understand what we’re facing is unprecedented in Canada’s history.” 

“We need to make sure that we have the proper tools in the toolbox to favour economic security in our country,” he said.

The government claims the bill will “bring greater speed, certainty and predictability to infrastructure project reviews” while maintaining “strong environmental safeguards” and upholding Indigenous Rights. 

One of the key changes in the bill is to force all projects subject to federal reviews through a one-year timeframe for approval or rejection, compressing the time to examine things like environmental impacts into a matter of months.

“If you’re going to say no — decide it within a year,” is how Carney put it on Tuesday, addressing criticism of the bill on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

But this shortened timeline is one of many proposals Canadians have been cautioning Ottawa against since it was first made last May, warning that such fast-tracking could create conditions incompatible with the time and space necessary to properly assess big projects. 

The government received more than 26,000 emails and over 40 written submissions on its spring proposals from provinces, territories, Indigenous groups, industry representatives, environmental organizations, academics and think-tanks, according to a summary report published earlier this month.

While much of the feedback was broadly supportive of the effort to speed up approval of major projects and cut down on inefficient government processes, there was also “widespread agreement that reform should not come at the expense of environmental protection or Indigenous Rights,” the report noted.

In particular, Canadians expressed a “recurring concern” around the concentration of decision-making authority in a single minister, or in a small group of powerful people. 

“Many cautioned that increased ministerial or Cabinet discretion could weaken accountability, increase politicization, reduce predictability, and diminish the role of independent scientific, technical, environmental, and Indigenous expertise,” the report stated.

Meanwhile, Indigenous groups worried the changes could undermine reconciliation and limit their ability to assert their constitutional rights within their territories, warning of potential lawsuits.

After tabling its bill, the government received praise from business groups for taking steps to attract investment and boost the economy. 

Business Council of Canada president and CEO Goldy Hyder urged Parliament to “pass the legislation quickly to safeguard the interests of Canadians and rebuild the country’s reputation as a reliable trading partner.” The Western Business Coalition welcomed the one-year timeline for reviews, among other changes.

The changes also come after months of intense lobbying from the oil and gas industry to “simplify” project reviews and commit to much shorter deadlines for approvals.

Starting in 2025, oil and gas executives and lobby groups launched a public campaign pressuring Carney to “unwind the past decade” of environmental and energy policy, complaining that the current system was “impeding” fossil fuel growth.

The bill also follows regulatory changes Carney’s government made early in September to remove certain oilsands facilities and fossil fuel power plants from federal assessments.

Other groups have expressed dismay that the government was moving ahead despite public concerns of overreach. 

The environmental advocacy group Centre québécois du droit de l’environnement said a one-year timeline is “incompatible with the assessment of complex, large-scale projects” that often involve big risks to watersheds, wildlife habitat and communities. 

Such projects generally require long-term studies and analysis of cumulative impacts — not to mention meaningful public input and Indigenous consultations.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak warned Carney against “abusing” his powers to speed the bill through Parliament without adequate debate and consultations. 

The national chief said the government should be open to incorporating amendments to the bill offered by First Nations leaders.

So what else is in Bill C-39? Here’s what you need to know.

Moving pipeline and nuclear reviews away from an environment agency

The legislation takes federal reviews of pipelines, nuclear facilities and power lines out of the hands of the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, a federal body that reports to the environment minister and is meant to ensure project designs protect Indigenous Rights and the environment.

Instead, pipeline projects will be reviewed by the Canada Energy Regulator, an agency of the Crown that reports to the energy minister and oversees construction and operation of certain pipelines and power lines.

For nuclear projects, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which also reports to the energy minister, will carry out assessments.

The government said “diverse stakeholders” had expressed support for the move and that environmental, health and Indigenous considerations would continue to be “addressed with rigour.”

Yet making the energy regulator the sole assessor of pipeline projects was one proposal where the public, through “advocacy campaigns distributed through civic engagement platforms and petitions,” had “consistently emphasized concern,” according to the feedback report.

Indigenous representatives also asked the government to hold the energy and nuclear regulators “to the same standard” as the Impact Assessment Agency.

They asked that Indigenous Peoples be involved in updating the laws that govern these agencies, so they’re consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which is meant to uphold their “free, prior and informed consent.” 

In 2021 Canada passed a law to embed that declaration at the federal level.

Taking ‘national interest’ projects a step further

Another idea that elicited major unease from the public was the creation of federal “economic zones” where certain projects could be “pre-approved.” 

Carney’s new legislation rebrands these as “regions of national interest.” Once designated, certain projects inside the region would benefit from the ability to bypass normal approval processes, just like “national interest” projects.

The type of “regions” the government is considering are wide-reaching: a telecommunications network, an industrial area or an “energy production” area are all in play, it said. The region doesn’t even have to be currently used — it could be picked for “future development needs.” 

The first step would be to conduct a regional assessment through the Impact Assessment Agency, which the government said would measure the “cumulative effects of current and foreseeable activities in the area” and involve Indigenous consultations over things like impacts, boundaries and “culturally sensitive areas.”

Then a federal minister will recommend whether to list the region as in the “national interest.” If it does, projects will be “considered pre-approved” and be given a list of conditions.

Kerrie Blaise, founder and lawyer at the nonprofit Legal Advocates for Nature’s Defence, warned in a statement that the Ring of Fire mining and development region on Treaty 9 territory in northern Ontario could be designated as a “region of national interest.”

A group made up of representatives from 15 First Nations and the Impact Assessment Agency are in the midst of a regional assessment of development in the Ring of Fire area.

“Effectively ‘pre-approving’ mining projects within the Hudson-James Bay Lowlands — where the Ring of Fire is proposed — risks irreparable harm to pristine rivers, globally significant carbon stores, refuges for wildlife and species at risk and the Indigenous Peoples who call this region home,” Blaise said.

The regional designation follows a similar process for designating individual projects in the “national interest” that was established in last year’s Building Canada Act.

That process allows the government to automatically grant all federal approvals at the same time, following consultations.

Since passing the law, the government has moved to formally designate four projects as in the “national interest” — a new oil pipeline to the west coast, a nuclear waste depot in Ignace, Ont., the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 in Vancouver and the Mackenzie Valley Highway in the Northwest Territories. 

Many more projects are being considered for the designation by the Major Projects Office, a body run out of the central government agency that supports the prime minister and Cabinet.

A streamlined impact assessment process and the option of earlier project starts

Currently, the Impact Assessment Agency produces a project review to be considered by the environment minister, who then issues a decision on whether it should move forward. 

Other ministers who oversee departments with expertise in different fields, such as fisheries, still have to issue permits for the project after that decision is made, as part of separate processes, which the government says has made the overall project approval process take five years or more.

The new bill would empower the environment minister to issue a decision statement that comes with all required permits issued concurrently from different departments — and all of this happening within a year. 

As well, the environment minister can authorize some work to begin on a project before its Impact Assessment Agency review is completed, if this is deemed in the public interest.

Consolidating Indigenous consultations, making climate one consideration among many

The bill mentions “climate” five times, but vaguely: it’s one of many considerations officials must weigh when deciding on projects like pipelines, power lines or regions of “national interest.” 

The project’s effects on the government’s climate change commitments are among them, but there are no specific dealbreakers, such as an amount of heat-trapping emissions that might trigger a rejection, for example.

Others include “the interests and concerns of the Indigenous Peoples of Canada,” Indigenous Knowledge, scientific information, environmental effects, safety and security, health, social and economic effects, “the existence of actual or potential markets” for pipelines and their “economic feasibility,” and the financial resources of the applicant.

The bill also moves to centralize federal consultations with Indigenous groups by establishing a new “Crown Consultation Hub” within the Impact Assessment Agency, though the energy and nuclear regulators will still oversee their own.

Changes to transportation, navigable waters and fisheries laws

The bill would create a new “National Trade Corridors Council” that would monitor the movement of goods and provide advice to the transport minister on “disruptions.” 

It gives the transport minister new powers to authorize exemptions to the Canadian Navigable Waters Act for dumping materials into waterways. Materials that are currently banned from dumping include sawdust, wood scraps and waste.

As well, some companies would be allowed to harm fish and fish habitat by paying a fee to an environmental damages fund to “offset” it.

The bill also allows the labour minister to end a work stoppage if the government believes that to be in the “national interest.” Labour leaders say that infringes upon Canadians’ right to strike.

Greenpeace Canada dubbed Bill C-39 the “Bulldoze Nature Bill.” 

In a statement, nature and biodiversity campaigner Salomé Sané said, “Carney’s government is locking us into a short-sighted strategy in which decisions about workers’ health and rights, living ecosystems — from rivers, forests to grasslands and communities — are subordinated to a logic of speed and profit, not care and protection.”

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Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government says keeping the federal gas tax off at the pumps will create indirect savings felt all through the economy. But critics argue it could drive up Canada’s emissions while benefiting wealthy households the most.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced last week Canada would be extending its suspension of the federal fuel excise tax until February 2027 and then phasing it back in at half its regular rate through the end of next March.

Government MPs are now fanning out across the country to promote the tax cut.

Excise taxes are imposed on specific goods like fuel or tobacco, as opposed to other taxes that are applied more broadly. Canada charges an excise tax of 10 cents per litre on gasoline and four cents per litre on diesel and aviation fuel.

The government originally cut the tax on April 20 after the Iran war pushed up global oil prices, with the price of gasoline climbing to an average of $1.90 per litre across Canada in early May, according to the Canadian Automobile Association.

The tax break was supposed to last until Labour Day, but at a press conference held at a Canadian Tire store in Ottawa on Sept. 2, Champagne said “Middle East disruptions” continue to drive up the cost of energy and put “additional pressure on families, workers and businesses here at home.”

“This is real relief, right now, relief for families commuting to work … driving their children to activities, or managing the costs of everyday life,” the minister said. “Lower fuel costs help to bring down costs across the country.”

The government said it will forego $5.3 billion in revenue in total from the two tax suspensions.

Crude oil prices are still much higher than before the Iran war and the price of gas in Canada remains high too, with the national average for gasoline sitting at $1.80 per litre as of Sept. 8, or 60 cents higher than it was at Christmas.

But the high oil prices have also translated into billions of dollars in windfall profits this summer for Canada’s major oil companies. As gas prices remain stubbornly high, NDP Leader Avi Lewis has called for an additional tax on those profits, beyond the existing royalties oil companies pay. Lewis argued sharing the proceeds is a better way of delivering cost relief to individuals and families — with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives finding a windfall tax could net between $18 billion and $46 billion over the next year.

“People are getting gouged at the pumps, but another costly handout of public money to oil and gas companies is no solution,” Lewis said in a statement after Champagne’s announcement.

“Instead of more corporate welfare, it’s time for a windfall tax on the big oil giants that are set to make $100 billion in profits this year because of Trump’s illegal war in Iran. Doing so will generate billions in new revenue that we can use to give Canadians real relief at gas stations and grocery checkouts.”

Gas tax breaks are most beneficial to wealthy households

When the government first announced the fuel tax suspension, the Winnipeg-based think-tank International Institute for Sustainable Development called it a “fossil fuel subsidy” because the only way Canadians receive it is by consuming fuel.

Nichole Dusyk, Canada energy transition lead at the institute, said she recognizes there’s an affordability crisis and that a tax break on fuel can distribute a little bit of money to a lot of people.

But she said the relief isn’t targeting the people who need it most. Wealthy households tend to buy more gas and drive more often, she said, so they see the greatest benefits from gas tax breaks compared to lower-income households.

When the tax was first suspended, the parliamentary budget officer estimated that households with the lowest incomes would save only $59 between April 20 and Labour Day, while the highest incomes would see $211 in savings.

For those families who don’t own a car at all, they have no way of directly accessing this relief, Dusyk said.

Asked about these criticisms, Champagne’s press secretary John Fragos argued the measure “promises to not only bring down costs at the pump but across the board too.”

“Canadians will benefit, just as truckers and businesses in the food, agriculture, housing, construction and delivery sectors will similarly save, and because fuel is so omnipresent, a reduction in one area, drives savings through others altogether,” Fragos wrote in an emailed response.

The Narwhal asked the minister’s office if it had any estimates on hand for what kind of indirect cost savings the government was expecting to see.

Fragos said there were “too many variables at play” to offer any firm estimates. But nevertheless he expected to see around 30 cents on the litre in total savings, as the cut reduces production and transportation costs for a wide range of goods.

The federal government has no requirement that manufacturers or transportation companies pass gas tax savings on to consumers.

Experts offer cost-savings alternatives to Canada’s gas tax break

Removing the gas tax also encourages more fossil fuel consumption, Dusyk said. That may mean Canada’s emissions will rise, leading to increased costs on society and more difficulty implementing the country’s official goal of net-zero emissions.

Climate change is leading to more frequent and intense wildfires, which generate toxic smoke that drives up hospital emergency visits, costing the health-care system, while air pollution creates more burdens through increased heart disease, stroke, cancer and premature death. Emergency response and evacuations are also expensive for governments and individuals.

A federal climate science report released on Sept. 3 said this extreme weather will continue to get worse with climate change, and that the question of whether global warming can stabilize after 2050 “will be determined by the level of global greenhouse gas emissions.”

“On both fronts, it’s not really working,” Dusyk said of the tax break. “It’s not an effective policy to really tackle affordability, but it’s also making the climate crisis worse.”

She said a better approach could be to take the billions of dollars in revenue associated with the tax and use it to boost the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit, which is the new name for the federal GST/HST credit.

That could allow households in lower income brackets to decide whether the money should go towards fuel, if they do drive a lot, or for covering other essentials.

Another approach could be to reduce Canadians’ exposure to fossil fuel price volatility by supporting the electrification of heating or transportation, or improved public transit, she said.

While the Carney government has recently committed billions to transit and clean energy, the amounts are dwarfed by its multibillion-dollar commitments to fossil fuel projects, including part ownership of a new oil pipeline to the West Coast and financing for a carbon capture project that will address only a small fraction of oilsands emissions.

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Canada’s large oil companies are raking in record profits during an energy crisis.

We’ve been here before — but unlike last time, Ottawa isn’t prodding the industry to use more of the money to clean up its act. In some ways, it’s even volunteering to pick up the tab.

The last time was just four years ago, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to Western sanctions on Russian oil and fears about global energy supply. The price of oil shot skyward, and large Canadian oil companies reaped the benefits, taking in billions of dollars in windfall profits.

The oil and gas industry is the largest source of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, which cause climate change that scientists say has been driving major heat waves and wildfires across the country this summer, destroying communities and upending lives.

Yet instead of using its windfall during the Russian invasion to invest heavily in non-emitting energy sources, or to widely deploy technology to decarbonize its operations, the industry began funnelling a larger proportion of its revenues to shareholders, while a group of oilsands companies went to governments asking them to cover much of the cost of their proposed emissions projects.

The federal environment and climate change minister at the time, Steven Guilbeault, pushed back, suggesting oil companies needed to put their money where their mouth is when it came to their own publicly stated environmental goals.

“As Canadians see those profits, we need to see reinvestment into cleaner energy instead of share buybacks,” Guilbeault said in a video posted online in October 2022.

Share buybacks are when companies use cash to buy their own shares back from investors. It’s a different way of giving money to them than dividends, which distribute earnings to shareholders.

The Iran war, that began this February, is again leading to big profits for Canada’s oil industry, which are again being directed in part to shareholders.

The conversation has reignited calls for a windfall profits tax on the oil and gas industry, something more than 60 unions and civil society organizations have been calling for.

In a survey this May by Liaison Strategies, 66 per cent of a random sample of 1,526 Canadians reached by landline and cell phone also supported a tax on oil and gas excess profits, with the revenues going to help lower energy bills.

Elbows Up For Climate, which represents almost 300 mayors, councillors and local officials from across Canada advocating for national environmental projects, is one of the groups calling for a windfall tax.

Former Toronto mayor David Miller is the co-chair of Elbows Up For Climate alongside former Montreal mayor Valérie Plante. Miller told The Narwhal such a tax makes sense given the global fossil fuel industry spent decades obscuring the truth about climate change and lobbying governments to roll back climate action, and so is “in many ways responsible” for delaying the economy’s transition to clean energy.

“We are in a frightening summer from wildfire smoke. The damage yet again will be in the billions, and the question is, who should pay for that? Should it be the general public?” Miller, now managing director of a global network of mayors called the C40 Centre, said. “Or should it be the people, the entities, that are causing the problem?”

“The entities that are causing the problem — which is climate change, that’s what’s making the wildfires so bad — are the fossil fuel companies, and they should pay for the damage. It’s a user-pay kind of principle, and because of the profits they’re making as a result of the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran, it’s a very appropriate moment.”

Oil companies argue they already pay significant taxes as well as royalties, which are separate payments that companies make to the province that owns the resources. In 2024-25, Alberta took in $17.2 billion in royalties from the oilsands.

But the Vancouver-based Centre for Future Work has argued that royalties collect “only a small fraction” of the increased revenues from higher oil prices. In 2022, they found, oil and gas profits jumped almost three times as much as the increase in royalties.

Applying a new windfall tax on oil profits today could generate between $18 billion and $46 billion over the next year, depending on the tax rate and how much of a company’s profits it applies to, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The Narwhal asked Environment and Climate Change Minister Julie Dabrusin’s office whether she believes, like Guilbeault did, that oil companies should be spending more on emissions reductions, and what she thought of a windfall profits tax.

“Oil and gas companies have an important role to play in driving down Canada’s emissions,” Dabrusin’s director of communications Chris Zhou responded in an emailed statement.

Zhou said the government was focused on “durable, unifying solutions that will deliver sustained emissions reductions over the long term,” including restrictions on methane, a greenhouse gas, in the oil and gas sector, as well as the industrial carbon pricing system.

Oil companies bringing in record-breaking profits amidst Iran war

The Iran war has led to the intermittent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint between the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea that one-fifth of the world’s oil is shipped through.

It created the “largest supply disruption in history,” according to the International Energy Agency, and sent oil prices higher again. The higher price translated to big profits for the world’s largest oil companies, and those in Canada have been no exception.

Earlier this month, Canadian Natural Resources Limited, one of the country’s largest oil and gas companies, reported $4.5 billion in profit in the second quarter, which covers April to June. That result was “the strongest in the history of the company,” Chief Financial Officer Victor Clinton Darel said.

The company returned $2.4 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases. This year, he added, was the 26th consecutive year of dividend increases.

The record results followed a report from Cenovus, one of Canada’s large oilsands companies, of a $2.9-billion profit in the second quarter, its “best quarterly financial result ever,” president and CEO Jon McKenzie said. Cenovus plans to increase shareholder returns, and sent $1.4 billion to them in the second quarter.

“We would never apologize nor take credit for a higher commodity price environment, but the key is to run well while it lasts and capitalize on the opportunity,” McKenzie said.

A third oilsands firm, Suncor, recently posted a $3.7-billion profit, and returned $1.7 billion to shareholders — it too said it plans to spend more money giving cash to investors in return for their shares.

Imperial Oil, a Canadian firm majority-owned by one of the world’s largest oil companies, ExxonMobil, posted a quarterly profit of $2.2 billion. John Whelan, the chairman, president and CEO, said Imperial has grown its annual dividend for 31 years.

In addition to reaping rewards from the higher price of oil, Canadian companies have also been creating more of it. Oil production hit a new record last year in Canada, and crude oil production hit the highest volume this May since comparable records began in 2016, according to Statistics Canada.

This year, Cenovus expects to join the club of companies worldwide that can produce, on their own, the equivalent of a million barrels of oil per day, on average. Only one other Canadian company can do that, Canadian Natural, which also said it had hit a new quarterly production record.

Oil execs praise Alberta deal that taxpayers could be on the hook for

During their earnings calls this summer, executives praised Prime Minister Mark Carney’s deal with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith — in which the federal government has hinted it’s prepared to spend significant public dollars.

Canadian Natural, Cenovus, Suncor and Imperial Oil are four of the five members of the Oil Sands Alliance, formerly known as the Pathways Alliance, which signed a trilateral memorandum of understanding with the federal and Alberta governments that envisions a new oil pipeline to the West Coast, to be filled with increased levels of oil production, as well as a new emissions reduction project in the oilsands called Pathways, which will rely in part on carbon capture technology.

Ottawa says two government-owned corporations will own most of the oil pipeline and one of them will develop and run it. The only private-sector involvement announced so far is a pipeline company signing a non-binding agreement to take a 10 per cent interest during construction, with possibly another 10 per cent interest when the pipeline begins operating.

Pressed by CBC News to reveal how much federal money would be involved in building the new pipeline, Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said that while he didn’t have “the numbers in front of me right now,” the cost to build an earlier oil pipeline — the Trans Mountain expansion project, which cost between $30 and $40 billion — was a “reasonable thing to look at.”

The government’s deal with Alberta also includes a commitment from Ottawa to “offer financing or support mechanisms” supporting the operating costs of carbon capture and storage projects.

It’s hard to precisely tally up how much this financing and support might cost Canadians, but the government has already committed billions of dollars in the form of carbon capture tax credits, funding for carbon contracts and other related research and development efforts.

At the same time, it’s unclear how much of their own money oil companies are willing to spend on the industry’s infrastructure — whether that’s to move more oil, or to lower their emissions.

Companies tight-lipped about environmental progress, vocal on environmental regulations

Many major oil companies have cited Trudeau-era changes to the federal Competition Act as a reason why they cannot publish information on their environmental performance on their website or in corporate disclosure reports.

The changes introduced an anti-greenwashing requirement for businesses, ensuring they backed up claims about protecting the environment or tackling climate change with evidence. (While the Carney government removed a rule that required this evidence to conform to internationally recognized standards, it left the broader requirement in place.)

Suncor’s 2025 report on sustainability says the company aims to “reduce the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of our base business,” but notes the report intentionally does not contain any “environmental content or data” due to the law. Cenovus says it does not publish any information on its website regarding its environmental performance or targets, for the same reason.

Imperial Oil’s website says it does not publish “an active representation” of its environmental performance although it mentions efforts in “lower-emission fuels,” renewable diesel, lithium and carbon capture technology. Canadian Natural’s website points to reclamation projects, like tree planting, at its oilsands sites.

The four companies, as well as the Oil Sands Alliance, did not respond to requests from The Narwhal for how much money they have spent over the last year on emissions reductions projects, or their opinion of a windfall profits tax.

They have been outspoken, however, about how environmental policy is affecting their bottom lines.

​McKenzie, at Cenovus, said in June that a new oil pipeline to the West Coast could not be ⁠financed by the ​private sector because of Canada’s industrial carbon pricing system. “Industry has been clear that the industrial carbon tax is insidious and it should be revoked,” he said.

On the July earnings call, ​after announcing record profits, McKenzie again described the industrial carbon pricing system as an “uncompetitive carbon tax that uniquely burdens Canadian industry.”

But he praised the Canada-Alberta deal, saying it “creates a framework for governments and industry to work together on production growth, emissions reduction and expanded market access.”

Similarly, Scott Stauth, president of Canadian Natural, said the agreement was a “positive first step” and said it would “benefit all of Canada by providing more jobs, combined with social and economic benefits to our country.”

“It’s a very different mood and tenure today than it has been in the past. We’re encouraged by that,” Suncor president and CEO Rich Kruger said about the Alberta deal, although he also said there was still “a lot of work to do.”

Oil Sands Alliance President Kendall Dilling said in a statement posted July 13 that the trilateral deal was a “framework that is positive for the oilsands industry and provides a step forward to help enable production growth and to advance the Pathways project.”

“It helps meet our shared vision to grow Canadian oil production and benefit Canadians across the country,” he said.

Windfall profits tax could help offset affordability crisis, advocates say

For his part, Carney posted a video online in June suggesting the world needed more of Canada’s fossil fuels, as a result of the Iran War.

“The hard truth is that we don’t control the price of oil, so what we’re doing is helping Canadians through tough times in the short term,” the prime minister explained.

The government suspended the federal gas tax for the summer as an affordability measure, Carney said. But he also argued that addressing global “energy security” means ensuring Canada supplies the world with as much oil and gas “as possible.”

While he acknowledged this “will mean that our emissions will be higher in the next few years than they were projected to be under the previous government’s plan,” he said Canada “can’t afford to restrain the growth of an important part of our energy mix, oil and gas, to meet a short term goal.”

Carney also claimed Canada’s oil would be “produced responsibly and with a clear focus on lowering emissions over time.”

For Elbows Up For Climate, though, the fact remains that carbon pollution from fossil fuels is directly and indirectly the cause of tens of billions of dollars in damages from climate-driven extreme weather, Miller said.

Annual insured losses reached $37 billion between 2016 and 2025, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

“It’s quite remarkable and eye-opening when you look at [insurance] statistics, and those are happening because of the exploitation of fossil fuels,” Miller said.

“Expanding oil and gas production puts more Canadians at risk of extreme weather, extreme heat and other climate-related disasters. We actually can’t afford those disasters.”

Several groups like the Green Budget Coalition, Canadians for Tax Fairness, Seniors For Climate Action Now, For Our Kids and 350.org have also submitted budgetary recommendations to the House of Commons finance committee that endorse a windfall profits tax on oil and gas companies.

Thomas Green, senior manager of climate solutions at the David Suzuki Foundation, part of the Green Budget Coalition, pointed out that the United Kingdom has its own windfall tax.

Between 2022 and 2025, the UK’s Energy Profits Levy raised 9.1 billion pound sterling, or $17 billion at today’s exchange rate.

The coalition wants to see a new levy on oil and gas companies linked to when oil prices exceed certain thresholds — indexed to inflation and periodically reviewed — and for the money to be allocated toward affordability and climate action measures.

“These profits come at the expense of affordability for everyday Canadians,” Green told The Narwhal.

“A windfall profits tax would at least rectify some of the injustice that we see right now.”

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Wildfires are raging in every province and territory across Canada, leaving entire First Nations communities burnt, upending the lives of thousands of evacuees and creating plumes of toxic smoke dirtying the air in major cities like Toronto and New York. 

While some politicians claim the out-of-control wildfires are being primarily caused by improper forest management, scientists agree that climate change, driven by greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, is the main culprit.

To stop contributing to the problem, the Canadian government could be implementing strict limits on the oil and gas industry for their carbon dioxide emissions. But Prime Minister Mark Carney has rejected that idea, opting instead for an unproven technological fix. 

In doing so, The Narwhal reported this week, the prime minister has become the latest in a long line of politicians to make big promises about carbon capture and storage to cut industrial emissions, despite the technology’s meager track record in Canada.

Read on to learn more.

1. Climate change from fossil fuels is making wildfires more severe and more frequent

Climate change is altering rainfall and storm patterns, creating hotter and drier conditions and more lighting strikes, causing fire seasons to start earlier and last longer and making those fires burn hotter, grow bigger and spread quicker. The result: Canada’s most recent fire seasons have been among the worst on record.

There’s only one real way to slow this escalating problem, scientists say: stop using so much coal, oil and natural gas, the fossil fuels that generate the emissions that are trapping heat in the atmosphere, changing the climate and leading to more extreme weather.

In Canada, the oil and gas industry is the country’s largest source of emissions. That’s partly because the type of petroleum in Alberta’s oilsands, the world’s fourth-largest proven oil reserve, requires extra electricity, steam, fuel and machines to turn it into usable products like gasoline compared to some other oil deposits. Oilsands emissions have grown from 41 million tonnes in 2007 to 92 million tonnes in 2024.

2. Carney expects Canada will soon generate more, not less, emissions

As Ontario faces what’s now estimated to be its worst wildfire season on record and other provinces and territories have been similarly devastated in recent years, Carney is focused on coordinating an emergency response with those jurisdictions, including managing the thousands of firefighting personnel and hundreds of aircraft involved. The prime minister says he’s committed to deploying “every resource needed to keep Canadians safe.” 

He also signed a deal with Alberta meant to increase oil production. The deal, which includes a commitment to build a new oil pipeline, is expected to result in more carbon pollution. Carney has admitted his government’s actions will raise emissions. More Canadian emissions means Canada is contributing more to the global problem of climate change that’s making wildfires worse.

Environmental advocate Catherine Abreu, a former member of Canada’s Net-Zero Advisory Body, told MPs in June that Carney’s government has “repealed or weakened virtually every climate policy and regulation that Canada had developed in the last decade.”

3. Instead of capping emissions, Carney is betting on carbon capture technology

Carney’s deal with Alberta promises not to follow through with a proposal, first made during the government of former prime minister Justin Trudeau, to implement an emissions cap on the oil and gas sector. 

A cap is a government mandate to prevent emissions from rising beyond a certain point. It’s something the industry itself previously said was achievable: in 2022 a group of oilsands producers came out with a plan they said could cut 22 million tonnes of annual emissions by 2030. That plan involved carbon capture, a technology that filters out carbon dioxide from industrial exhaust streams and stores it so it doesn’t get released into the air. 

But even though the Trudeau government proposed the emissions cap as a way to ensure the industry followed through with that plan, oil companies fought the cap proposal and Carney eventually agreed not to implement it.

Now, Carney’s deal with Alberta includes an agreement to build a carbon capture and storage network in the province, but the ambition has been dialed back considerably. Five oilsands companies agreed in July to use carbon capture technology to remove just six million tonnes of emissions per year by 2035, and a “range of technologies” to eventually capture 16 million tonnes per year by 2045. 

Compare that with an average of 20 million tonnes a year in new emissions from the oilsands that the Canadian Climate Institute has estimated will result from higher production levels to feed the new oil pipeline in the deal.

4. The track record for carbon capture of industrial emissions in Canada is bleak

Carbon capture and storage is real, and in use at nine commercial operations in Canada. But the technology is expensive and requires lots of new construction to scale up, while globally it has underperformed, according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

The results speak for themselves. Over a 24-year period, 68.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide was captured across Canada, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada. That means the oilsands added more to the atmosphere in one year than carbon capture technology has ever stopped from industrial sources over more than two decades.

While oilsands emissions more than doubled from 2007 to 2024, the cumulative amount of carbon being captured from industrial sources is still “on the order of several [million] tonnes per year,” a Natural Resources Canada spokesperson told The Narwhal.

But that’s relatively tiny, compared to the eye-popping figure of 600 million tonnes a year that a government report had once claimed Canada could theoretically capture.

5. Carney’s support for carbon capture makes him the latest in a long line of politicians to tout its benefits

Despite this underperformance, both Liberal and Conservative federal governments in Canada keep projecting optimism about carbon capture’s prospects, dating back to former prime minister Stephen Harper, who gave a speech in Edmonton in 2007 that sounds strangely familiar now. This week, The Narwhal peered into the historical public record — and the national archives — to show just how real the enthusiasm has been.

In Edmonton, Harper talked about “the exciting new technology called carbon capture and storage.” He told Canadians that, “instead of pumping tonnes of carbon dioxide into the Earth’s atmosphere, we may be able to collect it from our oilsands … and pump it deep underground where it will remain for eternity.” He projected confidence, saying he felt “the era of empty rhetoric on the environment is over” and “we’re taking real action that will produce real, tangible results.”

In 2011, his then-natural resources minister Joe Oliver called Canada “a world leader in carbon capture and storage” and “in an excellent position to use this technology on a wide scale.” (Oliver recently wrote an op-ed opposing the latest carbon capture proposal in the oilsands, in part because of the technology’s spotty track record.)

After Trudeau won power in 2015, his first natural resources minister, Jim Carr, told a ballroom full of people in New York in 2016 that carbon capture is one of “the most pressing issues of the day.” One of Carr’s successors, Seamus O’Regan, would go on to describe carbon capture as “an integral part of lowering emissions” that was part of “how we get to net zero.” In 2021, he said Canada was “on the cusp of doing a lot of these things.”

Last year, Carney’s minister of energy and natural resources, Tim Hodgson, a former oilsands company board member, told a Calgary business crowd that the government, as much as private industry, should be pulling for the carbon capture project in the oilsands. In a faint echo of Harper, he said this government “will not be a government of talk, but a government of action.”

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Summary

• Two decades of records show Canadian politicians making big promises about carbon capture technology.
• In 2008, one government report claimed Canada could capture as much as 600 million tonnes of carbon a year — and carbon capture technology could be “implemented quickly.”
• From 2000 to 2024, a total of just 68.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide was captured across Canada and experts say the technology has yet to be proven at scale.

It was March 2007. Apple had just debuted the iPhone. The Iraq War was raging. Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth had won two Oscars. And the prime minister of Canada was talking about “the exciting new technology called carbon capture and storage.”

“Instead of pumping tonnes of carbon dioxide into the Earth’s atmosphere, we may be able to collect it from our oilsands, our coal-fired electrical plants and other industrial emitters, and pump it deep underground where it will remain for eternity,” Stephen Harper told a crowd of journalists at an event in Edmonton that year.

“If we can perfect this technology, we can use it not only to curb Canada’s contribution to greenhouse gas production, but we could also export it around the world.”

It was the beginning of a long line of claims from political leaders in Canada about how carbon capture could slash planet-warming industrial emissions, including in the oilsands, the world’s fourth-largest proven oil reserve, where 159 billion barrels lie buried under Albertan sand and clay.

For close to 20 years, both Liberal and Conservative governments have talked about using carbon capture and storage technology to filter out carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from exhaust streams and store it so it doesn’t get released into the atmosphere, where it traps heat and causes climate change. Yet, while oilsands carbon pollution more than doubled from 2007 to 2024 to 92 million tonnes, the ability of facilities in Canada to capture carbon from industrial sources hasn’t yet grown beyond a few million tonnes of emissions per year.

Meanwhile, the consequences of fossil fuels and climate change are being felt today. Life is more expensive, cities have dirtier air from wildfires, deadly heat waves and other extreme weather are more common, First Nations are disproportionately threatened with disasters and Canadians are more at risk of poverty, heart disease, cancer and premature death.

Around the time Harper spoke in Edmonton, mining the oilsands was thought to be generating 26 million tonnes of emissions. Since then, the federal national inventory report has recalculated historical emissions using updated methodologies and new data to find it was closer to 41 million tonnes. The petroleum in the oilsands starts as a viscous goo called bitumen, and takes large amounts of electricity, steam, fuel and heavy machinery to mine and transform into usable products. This extra activity means oilsands production has been associated with more emissions than some other oil deposits, adding to its climate impact when its end products like gasoline are eventually burned for energy.

There was also a boom happening when Harper made his remarks. Investment in the oilsands had tripled from 2003 to 2007, leap-frogging manufacturing, while oil and gas operating profits had doubled. Office space in Calgary, where many oil companies are headquartered, had dried up as the province rode a wave of record-low unemployment. By 2009, production levels from the oilsands would muscle out other forms of oil production in Canada.

Scientists agree the way to slow the chaos unleashed by climate change is to stop using so much oil, gas and coal. But Harper wasn’t about to impose strict government limits on oilsands emissions that day in 2007. Instead, he would talk about using carbon capture as a possible environmental and economic solution.

“This is a dream that could truly change the world,” he said.

“Friends, the era of empty rhetoric on the environment is over. We’re taking real action that will produce real, tangible results.”

Nineteen years later, that dream is still waiting to be realized.

From 2000 to 2024, 68.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide was captured in the country, Environment and Climate Change Canada confirmed to The Narwhal. That means the oilsands added more emissions to the atmosphere in one year, 2024, than carbon capture equipment has ever stopped from industrial sources over roughly a quarter-century.

It’s also a small fraction of the capture amounts once thought possible. A 2008 report that came out of Harper’s announcement said Canada could theoretically capture as much as 600 million tonnes a year, and that carbon capture could be “implemented quickly, within a decade, using existing technology.”

Carbon capture and storage “is a viable way to achieve significant domestic greenhouse gas reductions,” the report stated, and is a “must-have for western Canada which relies on fossil energy.”

Instead, after tremendous attention and investment, this year Canada will be able to capture “on the order of several [million] tonnes per year,” a Natural Resources Canada spokesperson told The Narwhal. (The department declined to offer a precise figure when asked.)

Capturing this amount when the oil industry is sending so much more into the air is equivalent to taking a million cars off the highway while 30 million more drive up the on-ramp.

“Carbon capture has never, ever been proven at scale, or price. That’s just a fact,” Catherine McKenna, a former environment minister under the Justin Trudeau government, said in an interview.

“The oil and gas companies talked to me about carbon capture and storage, and made promises, for like a decade. We have yet to see anything.”

Now, like Harper before him, Prime Minister Mark Carney is putting his faith in carbon capture technology to do the heavy lifting, while he advocates for more oil production.

Carney struck a deal with Alberta that promises not to follow through with a Trudeau-era proposal for an emissions cap on the oil and gas sector.

Instead, the deal, meant to grow oil production and get a new oil pipeline to the West Coast built, includes an agreement to build a carbon capture and storage network in the province.

In July, five oilsands companies agreed to terms that envision using carbon capture to suck out six million tonnes of oilsands emissions per year by 2035. The project, dubbed Pathways, is supposed to use a “range of technologies” to eventually capture 16 million tonnes per year by 2045.

“The Alberta [deal] will build carbon capture and storage,” Carney said in Parliament in January. “It will build our future.” The deal, he told reporters in June, is about “working together, getting results for the citizens.”

His minister of energy and natural resources, Tim Hodgson, a former oilsands company board member, told a Calgary business crowd last year that the government, as much as private industry, should be pulling to get Pathways off the ground.

“All of us — governments and industry — need to get the Pathways project done. This government will not be a government of talk, but a government of action,” Hodgson said.

The federal government was boasting about being ‘a world leader in carbon capture’ in 2011

Harper’s full remarks from that day in 2007 are held at the national archives in Ottawa, where The Narwhal listened to a recording of them in June.

But plenty of other comments exist online in the public record of others talking optimistically about carbon capture to lower emissions.

In 2011, for example, Harper’s then-natural resources minister Joe Oliver said Canada was “a world leader in carbon capture and storage” and was “in an excellent position to use this technology on a wide scale.”

The next year he repeated this message: “Canada is in an excellent position to lead the world in the development, implementation and deployment of carbon capture and storage technology.”

In 2013, he said the government was “devoting significant amounts of money to carbon capture and storage, and we are doing that in co-operation with companies.”

Oliver now opposes the latest carbon capture proposal in the oilsands, in part because of the technology’s spotty track record and uncertain impact.

The trend continued after Trudeau’s Liberal government won power in 2015. Trudeau’s first natural resources minister, Jim Carr, told a ballroom full of energy analysts in New York in 2016 that carbon capture is one of “the most pressing issues of the day.”

The next year, he said carbon capture improves Canada’s “environmental performance.”

One of Carr’s successors, Seamus O’Regan, would describe carbon capture as “an integral part of lowering emissions” and said it was part of “how we get to net zero.” In 2021, he told CBC News Canada was “on the cusp of doing a lot of these things.”

François-Philippe Champagne, who in 2024 was Trudeau’s industry minister and is now finance minister, described Canadian companies then as “world leaders in carbon capture” and portrayed it as one of the “clean-tech solutions for the net-zero economy.”

(Story continues below.)

Two decades of political support for carbon capture

• Jan. 23, 2006: Harper Conservatives win minority government
• May 11, 2006 “Canada is already on the right track, particularly in research on energy efficiency, alternative energy sources and carbon capture and storage technologies. These technological advances will help us reduce greenhouse gas emissions and will enable Canada to capitalize on its huge energy potential for the benefit of all Canadians.”— Christian Paradis, parliamentary secretary to the minister of natural resources, in Parliament
• March 8, 2007 “Instead of pumping tons of carbon dioxide into the Earth’s atmosphere, we may be able to collect it from our oilsands, our coal-fired electrical plants and other industrial emitters, and pump it deep underground where it will remain for eternity. … Friends, the era of empty rhetoric on the environment is over.”— Stephen Harper, prime minister, Library and Archives Canada
• April 4, 2008 “Our government is ensuring that Canada is at the leading edge of clean technologies to reduce emissions and adapt to environmental change. That is why in Budget 2008, we announced $5 million … [to] address outstanding issues in the deployment of carbon capture and storage technologies.”— Gary Lunn, natural resources minister, press release
• Oct. 14, 2008: Harper Conservatives win minority government
• Oct. 18, 2009 “Carbon capture and storage is the most viable technology for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Our government’s recent investment in large-scale demonstration projects further advances Canada’s leadership in this technology, while building a knowledge base to share this expertise with our global partners.”— Lisa Raitt, natural resources minister, press release
• March 16, 2010 “The $1-billion fund relating to green technology investments, including carbon capture and storage, which was set up in the 2009 budget, is not a research investment. These are demonstration projects investments. … The only known technology to abate carbon emissions from thermal coal plants is carbon capture and storage. It is the only technology that has ever been discovered that can actually abate emissions.”— Jim Prentice, environment minister, at committee
• May 2, 2011: Harper Conservatives win majority government
• June 24, 2011 “Canada is a world leader in carbon capture and storage and we are in an excellent position to use this technology on a wide scale.”— Joe Oliver, natural resources minister, press release
• March 27, 2012 “Canada is in an excellent position to lead the world in the development, implementation and deployment of carbon capture and storage technology.”— Joe Oliver, natural resources minister, at committee
• May 21, 2013 “We are devoting significant amounts of money to carbon capture and storage, and we are doing that in co-operation with companies, because that is the way to do it. Our government is a world leader in carbon capture and storage.”— Joe Oliver, natural resources minister, in Parliament
• Oct. 6, 2014 “We were proud to support the research and development of carbon capture and sequestration, and see the technology developed through commercialization at the Boundary Dam project, a technology that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions at that facility by 90 per cent. We remain committed to growing the economy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions with world-leading technologies.”—Greg Rickford, natural resources minister, in Parliament
• Feb. 19, 2015 “Since 2006, our government has made investments of over $10 billion to transition Canada toward a clean energy economy and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the long term. … These funds have helped establish Canada as a global leader in the research, development and demonstration of carbon capture and storage technologies.”— Colin Carrie, parliamentary secretary to the minister of the environment, in Parliament
• Oct. 19, 2015: Trudeau Liberals win majority government
• April 4, 2016 On a North American memorandum of understanding on climate and energy: “It’s an aspirational agreement that focuses our three countries on the most pressing issues of the day … [including] advancing the competitiveness of carbon capture, use and storage.”— Jim Carr, natural resources minister, prepared remarks for a speech
• Sep. 14, 2017 “Carbon capture and utilization technology creates new products and business revenue stream opportunities while improving our environmental performance, creating jobs and driving clean growth in the process.”— Jim Carr, natural resources minister, press release
• Nov. 9, 2018 About a $2-million investment in a carbon capture project: “This project leverages today’s traditional resources to deliver tomorrow’s clean energy solutions. Developing and adopting clean technologies will help Canada meet its domestic and international climate change commitments and help maintain our natural resource advantage for years to come.”— Amarjeet Sohi, natural resources minister, press release
• June 17, 2019 On signing two memorandums of understanding: “The second commits Natural Resources Canada and the Japan Coal Energy Center to work together on clean energy, including carbon capture utilization and storage technologies.”“Canada is taking a leadership role in the clean growth century by balancing the environment and economy both domestically and internationally.”— Paul Lefebvre, parliamentary secretary to the minister of natural resources, press release
• Oct. 21, 2019: Trudeau Liberals win minority government 
• June 15, 2020 “We see carbon capture and sequestration as an integral part of lowering emissions and making emissions more competitive, making our oil and gas industry more competitive.”— Seamus O’Regan, natural resources minister, at committee
• March 9, 2021 “Carbon capture technology creates jobs, lowers emissions and increases our competitiveness. This is how we get to net zero.”— Seamus O’Regan, natural resources minister, press release
• April 21, 2021 “I lead a department of scientists who are looking at things like carbon capture and storage, both onshore and offshore. … We are on the cusp of doing a lot of these things.”— Seamus O’Regan, natural resources minister, interview
• Sept. 20, 2021: Trudeau Liberals win minority government
• March 28, 2022 “We are taking bold action on climate change. … We see carbon capture and underground storage as part of the solution.”— Terry Duguid, parliamentary secretary to the minister of environment and climate change, in Parliament
• Feb. 7, 2023 “We are investing billions of dollars in climate action and into the new economy. We have eliminated six fossil fuel subsidies and are on our way to eliminating nine. We need to use every tool in the toolbox to reduce our emissions, including carbon capture.”— Terry Duguid, parliamentary secretary to the minister of environment and climate change, in Parliament
• May 8, 2024 “My colleagues are well aware that Canadian companies are world leaders in carbon capture and hydrogen fuel cell technology. That’s why we will continue to support the adoption of made-in-Canada clean-tech solutions for the net-zero economy.”— François-Philippe Champagne, industry minister, at committee
• April 28, 2025: Carney Liberals win minority government
• May 23, 2025 “We will invest in carbon capture, methane reduction and other technologies to ensure Canadian oil and gas is not only produced responsibly, but is the most competitive in the world. All of us — governments and industry — need to get the Pathways project done.”— Tim Hodgson, natural resources minister, prepared remarks for a speech
• April 13, 2026: Carney Liberals achieve majority government
• June 25, 2026 “We will deepen co-operative federalism with initiatives [like] Alberta’s proposed carbon capture and pipeline to the West Coast. … With the implementation agreement around carbon capture, [the government is] working together, getting results for the citizens.”— Mark Carney, prime minister, news conference (not online)

The Trudeau government’s emissions cap proposal came together after the Oil Sands Alliance, a group of major producers formerly known as the Pathways Alliance, had publicized a project they originally claimed could cut 22 million tonnes of oilsands emissions by 2030, with carbon capture being a central element of their plans.

The natural resources minister at the time, Jonathan Wilkinson, portrayed the emissions cap as a way to ensure the industry did what it said it could do.

Oilsands companies fought the proposal. A group of them pushed the government to delay and weaken the emissions cap’s rules, saying they needed “flexible and cost-effective” rules and a “long lead time” to prepare. By 2024, the boss of one of the country’s largest oil and gas companies was openly calling for the idea to be abandoned. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith also came out against the proposal.

Last year, after Carney won power, Canadian oil and gas executives and lobby groups called on him to “unwind the past decade” of Trudeau-era policy altogether, killing not only the emissions cap but also other environmental rules. The prime minister has ticked off several boxes on their wishlist.

The Narwhal reached out to more than a dozen current and former government officials to ask them if they stood behind their comments about carbon capture today, knowing what they know now.

Minister Hodgson’s spokesperson forwarded the questions to Natural Resources Canada. A spokesperson for his department responded that technologies like carbon capture are “important tools in Canada’s broader climate toolbox of measures to reduce or remove emissions, while strengthening growth and security.”

Carbon capture and storage “holds great opportunity to advance climate competitiveness, and is an area where Canada can lead internationally and sell components and expertise in global markets,” they said in an email to The Narwhal. It offers a “practical path to reduce emissions, protect and create jobs, sustain economic growth and keep Canadian industries globally competitive.”

A spokesperson for Champagne declined to comment. The others did not respond.

The Narwhal also sent separate questions to Natural Resources Canada directly. Another spokesperson claimed Canada’s industrial carbon capture rates will rise in the coming years.

“While Canada has already captured and stored or used significant volumes of [carbon dioxide] the sector is growing, with new projects and infrastructure expected to come online as technology improves and evolves,” the spokesperson said in an email.

There’s a “growing list of potential projects across multiple industrial sectors” today, they said, and “these projects are expected to increase capture volumes over time.”

Canada doesn’t publish an official forward-looking estimate of carbon capture potential, the department said. And the spokesperson pointed to a number of challenges with carbon capture adoption. For one, the projects are “large, capital‑intensive and technically complex.”

Carbon capture is expensive. The Pathways proposal was initially estimated at $16.5 billion and is now pegged at between $20 billion and $30 billion, despite lowering the amount of emissions it is intended to capture. At times it has seemed like it could struggle to break even, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

The government is offering federal financial incentives for carbon capture, and Carney reversed a Trudeau-era ban on companies from accessing that incentive when they pump the captured carbon into wells to loosen up more oil for extraction.

Despite hitting record profits in recent years, oil companies have in the past largely resisted spending the billions of dollars necessary to build out carbon capture equipment across their large properties. Instead the industry spent years lobbying the government for lucrative public subsidies to install and run carbon capture systems.

Scaling up carbon capture and storage also requires building new pipelines and storage hubs. A Natural Resources Canada spokesperson said the technology continues to “evolve” and investors are looking for enough “market demand for low‑carbon products,” which the government believes has been bolstered with the Alberta deal.

Globally, the technology has underperformed, according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development. One of Canada’s own flagship projects captured less carbon than initially thought. In 2022, more than 400 academics wrote an open letter to Canada saying carbon capture was “neither economically sound nor proven at scale,” despite decades of research.

Carbon capture used to secure social licence for pumping more oil

When it comes to techniques for keeping carbon out of the atmosphere, using carbon capture technology on industrial sources is only one approach.

Other types of technologies, collectively called carbon removal, can draw existing emissions from the atmosphere or store carbon permanently in other forms like rock.

There are 11 million tonnes worth of annual permanent carbon removal capacity in the planning stages in the country, according to Carbon Removal Canada, an independent non-profit. Those plans are for new projects such as direct air capture or carbon mineralization, but not industrial carbon capture.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations body that provides governments with climate science, has said carbon capture and carbon removal technologies will have to be part of the mix of techniques that countries use to slow the rise in planetary temperatures causing climate change.

It’s a point Steven Guilbeault, who served as another environment minister under Trudeau and helped develop the emissions cap proposal with Wilkinson, raised several times in Parliament. Canada needed to look at every possible technology that could help reduce emissions, he argued.

But the United Nations panel was also clear these kinds of technologies are not a substitute for a “substantial reduction in fossil fuel use,” rather something to be used alongside those efforts.

In an interview with The Narwhal, Guilbeault said Canadian politicians have often misunderstood the difference, seeing carbon capture as “a way to continue pumping oil and gas in Canada.”

“It’s a technology we will need, but it’s not in lieu of reducing emissions, and unfortunately it seems that a lot of people haven’t understood that,” he said.

The technology “is a very convenient, theoretical, technical fix to a larger problem,” Guilbeault said. “We humans tend to look for easy fixes, sometimes, to complex problems.”

Evidence also suggests carbon capture has been popularized by the oil and gas industry to shield itself from criticism. In 2022, a U.S. Congressional probe found oil companies were talking about carbon capture publicly as a way to mitigate their climate impact, but internally were discussing it as a way to secure “social licence” to continue producing fossil fuels.

In June, the investigative outlets ProPublica and Drilled published evidence the oil company BP helped shape an academic paper that oversold carbon capture’s readiness, while the oil and gas industry funded research at universities that boosted the technology.

Guilbeault said he has “always been skeptical” of the oil industry’s carbon capture proposal in Alberta.

His skepticism is shared by former oilsands executive and former member of Parliament Martha Hall Findlay, who helped develop the industry’s initial Pathways carbon capture proposal. She now argues Canada should “postpone” the project and focus on other priorities.

Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is also skeptical of Carney’s plan.

A former Harper government minister of democratic reform, and employment and social development, Poilievre has supported subsidizing carbon capture in the oil and gas industry in the past. In 2022, shortly after becoming leader, he said the Canadian energy industry was “leading in the world” on carbon capture, and accused the Trudeau government of being “slow to support it and insufficient in that support.”

In 2023 he asked, “Why do we not use technology instead of taxes to fight climate change? Why do we not support our energy sector in pumping the carbon back into the ground through carbon capture and storage?”

More recently, Poilievre has criticized Carney’s deal with Alberta for committing billions of dollars to a “money-losing carbon capture project that has never been proven anywhere.”

Asked by The Narwhal why he’s soured on support for carbon capture, Poilievre said he only sees value if it’s used to extract more oil.

“When you pump carbon back in the ground and pressurize the geology, and you can bring up more oil, they can then go out and make the world a better place,” he said.

“The other is just pumping air into the ground and getting nothing in return. … How’s it going to make money?”

Updated on July 22, 2026, at 11:48 a.m. ET: This story was updated to include the latest figure for 2007 oilsands emissions from the national inventory report. While a report from Alberta published in 2008 put the figure at 26 million tonnes, the national inventory report has recalculated historical emissions figures with updated methodology and additional data, putting it at 41 million tonnes of emissions.

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Federal Minister of Indigenous Services Mandy Gull-Masty has unveiled a new and long-awaited bill to provide safe drinking water to First Nations, which she says was written to ensure “we have provincial partners at the table.” Ontario chiefs say they were shut out and their right to clean water was not recognized. 

Gull-Masty denied her government caved to provincial pressure in Bill C-37, or An Act respecting water, source water, drinking water, wastewater and related infrastructure on First Nation lands, that sets out principles to provide safe drinking water and disposal of wastewater for First Nations.

“My conversations with leadership and the chiefs that have spoken to me understand that we are trying to pass a bill that is going to be protected and stand the test of time,” the minister said at a press conference on Parliament Hill on June 16.

“I’m not trying to put a bill forward that is going to be challenged,” she said. “I’m trying to put a bill forward that partners, provinces and territories feel can advance, that they can work with us.”

The Chiefs of Ontario, however, say First Nations were not consulted in the process. The group is “cautiously optimistic” but remains concerned about the approach to this issue by the government of Prime Minister Mark Carney.“Unlike previous legislative efforts, which were developed through meaningful dialogue and partnerships with First Nations Knowledge Keepers [and] technicians, Bill C-37 was introduced without broad or meaningful input from First Nations,” Linda Debassige, Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief, and a member of the Chiefs of Ontario leadership council, said in a Tuesday press conference in Rama, Ont. 

“Our letters of advocacy have been met with a deafening silence, to be honest. We do not have access to parliamentary privileged dialogue or cabinet discussions in relation to this.”

It’s been over a year since the Liberal Party promised in their election platform to “immediately introduce and pass legislation affirming that First Nations have a human right to clean drinking water.” In the last six months, two First Nations in northern Ontario have declared severely worsening water crises due to failed infrastructure; one of the communities, Kashechewan, remains entirely evacuated.

The bill released this week states that the quality of water on First Nations lands must at minimum meet either federal guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality and for wastewater, or the standards in place in the province or territory where the lands are located. It’s backed by $4.6 billion for First Nations communities to build, operate and maintain water and wastewater systems, according to the press release, which adds to the $9.4 billion committed to these projects over the past decade.

The minister will still have to come out with regulations for a “protection zone,” which the bill leaves undefined. The use of these zones would hand First Nations jurisdiction over water sources adjacent to their lands — that is, if the nation and the federal and provincial governments have all agreed on the rules in force. 

“We have to acknowledge that [water] is not stagnant, it moves around,” Gull-Masty said. “For water that is adjacent or flowing in and out, I think that the important part of the work that we’re undertaking is that partners and territories understand that they also have a role to play.”

In addition to defining “protection zones,” the bill empowers the minister to come out with regulations on a dozen different aspects of water services, including source water protections, training and certification, occupational health and safety, monitoring and inspections, emergency planning, permitting and more. The government can even design regulations to govern the disclosure of information.

But the bill doesn’t commit to the same kind of rights language that the Liberals promised in their platform. Instead, it declares that the government’s policy is to “further the progressive realization, for individuals on First Nation lands, of the human right to safe drinking water as protected by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.” That covenant is a multilateral treaty adopted by the United Nations that came into force in the 1970s.

“To me, [this] is insane,” Debassige told reporters. “It’s been a progressive realization for many of our nations for decades.”

Debassige has been working on First Nations water issues for more than a decade and has been involved in negotiations over previous federal bills on the matter. She said that by excluding language like “in collaboration with First Nations” in Gull-Masty’s new legislation, the Carney government is “hiding from their obligations.” 

“We must remember that most of the drafters of Bill C-37 have never spent time in our community,” she said, citing the speedy passage of the federal Bill C-5 and the provincial Bill 5, both of which aim to “fast-track” infrastructure and mining approvals and construction. “And we’ve seen the pushback on the previous iteration of this bill. And now we see the results of that weakening of our inherent rights to pave way for economic development.” 

“I think it’s a deflection of responsibility, a fear of provinces, a fear of nation-building projects not coming through because our nations want to protect water.” 

The bill comes as tensions grow over these issues between the federal government, provincial governments and First Nations. 

Some chiefs, particularly in Treaty 8 territory, which spans northern B.C., Alberta and parts of Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories, asked the federal government to rethink its approach. Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation’s chief said the bill didn’t meaningfully incorporate inherent and Treaty Rights to water while Mikisew Cree First Nation’s chief said the bill didn’t do enough to deal with the potential release of oilsands wastewater into rivers.

Last July, the environment ministers from Ontario and Alberta asked the federal government to “refrain” from introducing a new First Nations water bill, claiming it would “undermine competitiveness, delay project development and disproportionately harm specific provinces and territories without any quantifiable benefits to the natural environment.” 

Ontario’s Environment Minister Todd McCarthy apologized for any “confusion” the request may have caused First Nations. But First Nations have not been convinced by the apology. The Ontario government has skirted meaningful consultation with First Nations in its push to open the Ring of Fire region in northern Ontario, with significant implications for water use and sources, and broadly speed up mining approvals and development. It has also signalled its own plans to make broad changes to provincial clean water rules.

As Canada and Ontario rush to expedite major projects, including in the mining sector, First Nations have long been asking for the same expediency to pass laws to protect drinking water before shovels hit the ground. With a few days left before MPs are scheduled to rise for the summer, this bill is unlikely to become law before the fall. 

“I wish one of Canada’s major projects were to provide us clean drinking water,” Knowledge Keeper Sally Gaikezheyongai said, as she offered a prayer to begin the Tuesday press conference by the Chiefs of Ontario. “I ask the Creator to make sure that happens hopefully within my lifetime.” 

Why does Canada need a law to protect access to clean drinking water on First Nations? 

Indigenous Services Canada reports that there are 36 Indigenous communities that have been under orders for more than a year to boil their drinking water for one minute. Most of these communities are in Ontario. The longest-standing boil water advisory is for Neskantaga First Nation in northern Ontario, just south of the Ring of Fire region. It hasn’t had clean drinking water since 1995. (The federal count is not comprehensive, as some jurisdictions, such as B.C., track their own boil-water advisories in Indigenous communities.)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to end all these boil-water advisories by March 31, 2021, but did not succeed. Post-colonization, and as stated in the Indian Act, the federal government has a fiduciary obligation to ensure safe, potable drinking water for First Nations. Instead, there is a regulatory black hole for and chronic underinvestment in on-reserve water and wastewater services.

A month before Trudeau’s deadline, a government audit found that Indigenous Services Canada “did not provide the support necessary to ensure that First Nations communities have ongoing access to safe drinking water,” thus prolonging boil water advisories. 

The impacts of these failures are severe, including preventable illnesses, costly reliance on bottled water and long-term evacuations. 

Kashechewan First Nation, a community of 2,000 residents, has been entirely evacuated since January due to a catastrophic sewage pump failure. There is still no access to safe drinking water on their reserve. 

In May, Pikangikum First Nation declared a second state of emergency, a year after the original declaration, due to collapsing water and wastewater systems. The community’s only water treatment plant is operating beyond capacity, even as more than 300 homes remain without direct water service. The community’s reservoir is also at critically low levels and is losing water at a rate roughly four times greater than it can be filled.As a result, the nearly 4,000 on-reserve residents are dealing with daily water rationing and forced evening shutdowns. As wildfire season looms, Pikangikum is now suing the federal government. 

“It’s so important that we take action as a country, as First Nations leadership, to ensure that there are no more Kashechewans, that there are no more Pikangikums,” Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler of Nishnawbe Aski Nation, told reporters. 

“It’s unacceptable that this is a reality that many of our communities are being put in: to try to negotiate on big, major nation-building projects while they’re trying to make sure that their children and their youth can have access to water to drink.”

Why is the federal law to protect clean drinking water on First Nations so delayed?

There have been different iterations of this legislation, Kathleen Padulo, director of environment for the Chiefs of Ontario, told The Narwhal in a conversation before Bill C-37 was released, but none have proved durable.

Since the 1970s, the federal government has been promising to provide Indigenous communities with water and wastewater systems equal to those enjoyed by most Canadians, but no matter which party is in power, it has continuously fallen short of that goal. 

In 2013, the Stephen Harper government passed the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act. This law created a regulatory regime to govern water infrastructure on First Nations lands, but without any financial backing or centring Indigenous decision-making or rights. It also didn’t protect the sources of water flowing onto First Nation lands.

“It had no teeth, and it was really watered down,” Padulo said. “It was a piece of paper just floating around for years.” 

As a result, this law was met with widespread disapproval from First Nations. Several, including Neskantaga, launched a class action lawsuit in 2019, claiming “Canada has been negligent, breached its fiduciary duties, breached the honour of the Crown and breached various rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

Ottawa settled that lawsuit in 2021, agreeing to provide $1.8 billion in compensation and spend $6 billion on water infrastructure over nine years. The federal government also promised to repeal and replace the Conservative law. 

That didn’t happen until 2023 when the Trudeau government introduced Bill C-61, or the First Nations Clean Drinking Water Act. The landmark bill involved First Nations in its creation, doing so over a two-year-long consultation and co-development process. This bill established clean drinking water as a human right, set minimum standards for drinking water and wastewater on reserves and pledged funding for water-related infrastructure. This bill also created an Indigenous-led First Nations Water Commission to help implement the law and monitor its impact. 

After weeks of consultation with First Nations, the bill did not pass before Parliament was prorogued in January 2025. Then-Indigenous services minister Patty Hajdu said the delay was the fault of opposition parties. 

Padulo said they’ve been waiting for this bill to re-emerge and be passed “with the speed of light like Bill C-5” and then put it in place in communities right away. 

“What is happening here is colonization at the end of the day, that’s what it is,” Padulo said. “And Canadians not understanding that not everybody has basic human rights.”

What happens next?

Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Debassige is asking the government to ensure “sufficient engagement” with First Nations as this bill goes through the parliamentary process, urging the government to move quickly from legislation to action. 

“We’re cautiously optimistic,” she said, but with the Liberals holding a majority government, “It’s going to be a difficult process.”

“Water is a human right. Full stop,” Debassige said. “We are looking to Canada to help us champion a shift from the outdated and colonial perspectives of First Nations being viewed as second-class citizens to ensuring our people can enjoy the same clean and safe drinking water guaranteed to non-First Nations across this country.” 

Gull-Masty said the government supports consultations with First Nations governing bodies to develop the many regulations that the bill authorizes. 

Ontario Regional Chief Abram Benedict told reporters that the government needs to focus on accountability to ensure First Nations communities have “confidence in the drinking water.”  

“We are calling on the federal government to move swiftly from legislation to action. The goal must not only be to eliminate advisories, but to prevent new ones from coming on,” he continued. “Legislation is only the beginning of ending these challenges.”

“Our communities have waited long enough.” 

Updated on June 16, 2026, at 8:40 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to include the amount of federal funding dedicated to building, maintaining and operating water and wastewater infrastructure in First Nations communities as part of Bill C-37.

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Summary

• After leaving cabinet late last year, former environment minister Steven Guilbeault will vacate his seat in Parliament altogether this summer.
• He sees a fundamental difference in his approach to addressing climate change and that of Prime Minister Mark Carney.
• Despite his exit, Guilbeault says he made great strides during his time in government and encourages young people to consider politics.

Steven Guilbeault says if he were asked again to leave activism for politics, “I would do it in a heartbeat.”

As he prepares to resign his seat, the former Liberal environment minister has been called the most ambitious the country has ever had. He believes his time in government was worth it — that, by being on the inside, one can achieve great things. His message to young people interested in climate action: consider the political arena.

Still, Guilbeault leaves as several major environmental policies he had a hand in developing are being rolled back or brushed aside by the government of Prime Minister Mark Carney. Guilbeault believes the prime minister thinks global markets will take care of things largely on their own. He disagrees.

Last week, two former members of Canada’s legislated advisory body on climate said Carney needs to be honest about how his policies have made the promise to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 impossible. Guilbeault says the government is now facing two choices: keep its federal net-zero law in place and likely get sued by stakeholders for violating it, or repeal it and send a “powerful message” about how the prime minister sees the world.

Guilbeault spoke to The Narwhal for more than half an hour by phone on June 15. Reached for comment, Carney’s office said it is still committed to maintaining a path to net-zero emissions by 2050, but can’t rely solely on “restrictions and prohibitions.”

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

I want to start with an interview you gave in 2022 in The Guardian. You said, ‘I came into politics so I could continue to be an activist.’ In your recent speech in Parliament you said, ‘I fully intend to keep fighting.’ So if you needed to go in to be an activist, and now you’re coming out to be an activist, where does that leave things — is it better to be on the inside or the outside?

I think we need people both on the outside and on the inside. I would like to think that I have shown that by being on the inside, you can achieve things, you can set goals for yourself or as a party — like we, for the first time in our history, under the previous administration, have shown that through public policies, we can fight pollution and grow the economy. This has never been done before in the history of our country. 

We’ve shown that we can do great things when it comes to conservation, to improving environmental rights issues and environmental justice issues, including the right to a healthy environment in The Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Some of the work we have done using emergency orders, namely in Sarnia, Ont., with Aamjiwnaang First Nation, what we did on nature in 2022 at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity conference in Montreal — I think it is absolutely possible to be an activist inside.

My decision to leave politics is that I feel that, certainly when it comes to climate change … I can no longer continue to have an impact. That’s my own personal assessment, and obviously different people will come to different conclusions. But I can no longer have an impact inside, and it’s time for me to go back on the outside.

People in the climate space have expressed a sense of betrayal with Prime Minister Mark Carney on climate and the environment. They say, ‘What happened to the UN climate guy?’ and ‘What happened to the guy who wrote the book on values?’ Is that a feeling you share?

I’m not sure I would put it in those words. But if you look at the work he did with the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, it was largely based on voluntary commitments by companies, investors and financial institutions. There was really no transparency or accountability. I’m not saying it has no value, it certainly has value. We’re seeing how, globally right now, the markets are playing a really important role. Renewables are driving two times more investment than fossil fuels are, globally. One in four cars sold globally was an electric vehicle — not Europe, not Sweden or Norway, but globally. 

I could be wrong about this, but I think where the prime minister and I differ in terms of our views of what needs to be done on climate change, is that I have come to the conclusion that he thinks that the markets are going to do it. And that governments don’t have an important role to play, if only to put in place measures to attract investors and tax credits. 

I think we’re going to make some progress in Canada on taxonomy and disclosure, because the prime minister sees this as an important element to attract investment for decarbonization. But I don’t think he sees an important role for public policy, for regulations. I think we need markets to achieve what we want to achieve, but markets alone won’t get us there.

I think that’s perhaps something I had not understood before — and I suspect I’m not the only one — about his vision for change. I guess you could call it his theory of change, when it comes to fighting climate change.

It took several years for environment and climate policies to be dreamed up, consulted on, put into legislation or regulations and enacted. Relatively speaking, it’s been lightspeed to tear many of them down again over the past year. Why haven’t they proved more durable?

Well, it’s always easier to destroy than it is to build. That’s true of regulations, it’s unfortunately true of many things. [That’s] number one.

Number two: many of these things, despite what has been said publicly, are still in force. The clean electricity regulations are still in place. Many of the changes we said we would make on methane [emission reductions], the regulations that apply right now in Canada, are still the federal methane regulations that have been approved. So the [methane allowances] in the agreement with Alberta, they will need to go through the process of making regulatory changes, which is more complicated than switching something on and off.

But you’re right, by the looks of it, this is where we’re heading. And yes, you’re right, it was long and painstakingly difficult at times to put these things in place. But that’s the price to pay to live in a democracy. A duly elected government in a democracy can change things that previous governments have done, and that’s something we have to accept.

Do you think the days of Canada’s net-zero law — committing us to negating greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and setting increasingly stringent targets to get there — are numbered?

I think a lot of people don’t realize that our 2030 and 2035 targets are not voluntary targets in Canada, they’re legally binding, and there will be consequences if Canada doesn’t meet those targets. It’s going to become painfully clear in the very near future that we won’t be able to achieve those targets, regardless of what the government continues to say. I mean, you can be committed to those targets and not have any chance of meeting them, so it’s a bit disingenuous to say that we are committed. 

I think they’re going to be faced with two difficult choices: either they keep the climate accountability act in place, and then what is likely going to happen is that the federal government is going to get sued by different stakeholders for not abiding by federal law. Or they have to repeal it, which would send a pretty powerful message to Canadians about how little this government is concerned with climate change.

If they did decide to repeal the law, to what would you compare that?

Well, with the United States, we would become one of a handful of countries in the world to basically turn our back on the Paris Agreement. That’s in effect what it would mean. And I suspect that you know it’s true that, right now, when you look at public opinion research, Canadians care more about other things than they care about climate, but they still care about climate change.

You talked about the prime minister putting faith in a market-based solution to climate action. Do you think that idea extends to his position on international agreements like the Paris Agreement, to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius?

That’s a good question. I mean, it is interesting that when you look at the spring economic statement, Canada renewed its climate finance commitment under the Paris Agreement, [committing billions toward climate change adaptation and climate-related businesses in “vulnerable countries”]. That is one area where Canada is still doing pretty good. We’ve slightly increased our climate finance package for the first time ever, we’ve set a goal of mobilizing funds with the private sector. The UK has reduced their climate fund, France has, the United States has. From that context, the fact that Canada would slightly increase theirs is, in and of itself, a small victory. And we’ll take all the victories we can take right now, right? 

The honest answer to your question right now is, I don’t know what his views are on that. But we may infer from our climate finance commitment that it is still something that’s important to him.

At the environment committee recently, Catherine Abreu and Simon Donner said the government didn’t want to hear from the net-zero advisory body. Does the Carney government not listen to experts?

We can still see that scientists and experts have a voice, and they can still express their opinion, which was a big difference from the Stephen Harper years.

I do think that there is a negative bias by this government towards regulations, and regulations are perceived by many as being some form of impediment to free markets and impeding investment. I would disagree with that analysis. You go back to 2024, for example, Canada came in second in the G20 for foreign direct investment in comparison to the size of our economy, while we were full-speed ahead deploying our climate change plan. So it seems that foreign investors didn’t have a problem with coming to Canada to invest, despite the fact that we had an aggressive plan to fight climate change. This idea that these two things are in opposition to one another doesn’t seem to stand the test of facts.

When you say the government holds a negative bias, are you talking about Prime Minister Carney specifically, or members of his cabinet, or senior officials or all of the above?

From what I’ve been able to observe, I think it’s the case that there are many people who feel this way, some on the political side, some on the bureaucracy side. I’m not saying everyone agrees with that idea, but certainly around the prime minister there are many, which is why we’re seeing such a push towards deregulation, because many people in positions of influence are pushing for this agenda. 

Unfortunately, we’re putting at risk the health of Canadians with some of the changes that are being proposed — whether it’s on impact assessment reform or pesticides management. I think we will likely quickly come to the conclusion that we’re doing so at a greater risk for Canadians.

Is there someone in particular you’re thinking of around the prime minister who is pushing for that deregulation?

I think it’s larger than one or two people. At least with people who have important portfolios on the economic side, I think it is a general perception.

What’s your message to young people now, who are just being introduced to the climate movement? They see you deciding to quit politics, talking about the backsliding that’s going on. They see you talking about getting into it in the 1990s. Maybe they’re a bit skeptical that there is the same sort of urgency and hope as there was in that decade. What’s your message to them?

My first message would be that we need good people in politics. I was there for almost seven years. In working with many others, I was able to achieve many things. There’s no way I could have helped to convince 196 countries to protect 30 per cent of the planet in Montreal in 2022 if I had stayed at Équiterre. Just not possible. 

The single-use plastics ban. My first bill in parliament was the creation of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. I was talking about the inclusion of a right to a healthy environment in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, new regulations on [toxic effluent from] the oilsands — we were able to do a lot of things. If I have to do it all over again, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I have colleagues who have, despite what is happening, decided to stay and fight the good fight from the inside. I think it’s a highly personal call. 

I was coming to the conclusion that by staying inside, I was becoming a tool to justify some of the things the government is doing, which I find to be unjustifiable. I was hearing from some people, ‘Well, if Steven is still there, then it’s probably not so bad.’ That’s one of the reasons I feel that it was time for me to leave. 

But what I would tell those young folks is, go into politics. If this is something you’re interested in, it’s an incredibly important arena to push for change.

What’s next for you?

I have not figured that out. I’m going with [the Students on Ice Foundation] in the Arctic this summer, 40 young Canadians, for almost two weeks. After that I’m going to start looking at what my options are. But I know that I’m going to keep working on issues of climate change and sustainability and nature, one way or the other.

After this story was published, a spokesperson in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office sent a statement to The Narwhal that said the government is “pairing smart regulation with major investment, partnership and market-based solutions” to deliver emissions reductions and tackle affordability, but added “we cannot rely on restrictions and prohibitions alone.” The spokesperson also highlighted the government’s methane reduction agreement with Alberta, $4-billion nature strategy and electricity strategy.

“As he has throughout his career, Prime Minister Carney will continue to take a pragmatic and balanced approach to climate action. One that cuts emissions, achieves Canada’s climate goals and strengthens the Canadian economy. Canada has been consistent in our commitment to maintain a path to net-zero by 2050, and we are taking practical steps to achieve real results,” the spokesperson said.

Updated on June 17, 2026, at 9:18 a.m. ET: This story was updated to add a statement from the prime minister’s office that was sent to The Narwhal after publication.

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Summary

• The government under Prime Minister Mark Carney has “repealed or weakened virtually every climate policy and regulation that Canada had developed in the last decade,” a former member of Canada’s Net-Zero Advisory Body told MPs.
• Two former members of the body said last week they were left uninformed of new policy directions on fossil fuel development and emissions reductions while their previous advice was ignored.
• Canada’s goal of reaching net-zero emissions — and helping to slow the effects of climate change — by 2050 is now “out of reach,” they said.

The consequences of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s methodical cuts to Canada’s environmental rules are not being communicated honestly to the public, two former government advisors say. 

Climate scientist Simon Donner and environmental advocate Catherine Abreu are both former members of a legislated advisory body of climate scientists and policy experts. Last week, they shared their experience on that body with MPs, saying Carney’s government repeatedly kept them in the dark while it gutted one rule after another — from scrapping the consumer carbon price to setting aside clean electricity rules, ditching the oil and gas emissions cap, pausing electric vehicle mandates and signing a deal with Alberta that delayed rules for methane gas leakage and weakened requirements for industry to pay for its carbon emissions.

The government refused offers to hear their advice and cancelled a high-level meeting at the last minute, Donner, the former co-chair of the Net-Zero Advisory Body and a University of British Columbia professor who runs a Climate and Coastal Ecosystem Laboratory, told the House of Commons environment committee on June 9. 

Donner and Abreu, the former executive director of Climate Action Network Canada and now the executive director of the International Climate Politics Hub, were there to brief MPs from multiple parties on the state of the advisory body.

“We were not informed of policy decisions underway, nor asked to provide advice on those decisions,” Donner said about the government’s myriad changes while he was co-chair.

That included their assessment that the Carney government’s actions were trashing any chance of Canada reaching its goal of negating its planet-heating carbon pollution, which would slow its contribution to the climate crisis that is wreaking havoc on Canadians’ health. That judgment has since been echoed by the Canadian Climate Institute.

Abreu also felt Carney’s enthusiastic support for the oil and gas industry is being downplayed. The industry is the economic sector with the highest amount of emissions and despite Canada’s climate commitments, those emissions are climbing ever higher, offsetting declines in other economic sectors. 

“The shredding of environmental policy that this government has undertaken means that Canada is now on track to violate its own law and to fail to attain net-zero emissions by 2050,” Abreu said.

Carbon pollution worsens climate change, which is fuelling floods and wildfires that can lead to evacuations, toxic smoke and heat waves that smother cities and trigger asthma and mental health issues. Fumes and exhaust from fossil fuel-powered vehicles, power plants and gas appliances are connected with heart disease, strokes, chronic lung diseases, cancer and tens of thousands of premature deaths a year.

Abreu said the government didn’t consult the advisory body before releasing its Climate Competitiveness Strategy, which focused on protecting the global competitiveness of Canada’s oil and gas sector. That strategy “unwound much of the policies that we had advised on in previous years,” Abreu said.

And, she said, because the government designed that document to be a “strategy” and not a formal “plan,” it sidestepped a legal requirement to consider submissions from the advisory body on the plan’s merits.

Canadian oil producers are expected to make as much as $100 billion in profits this year as a result of the Iran war, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The government is not contemplating a windfall tax on those profits, Abreu noted, which would require companies to hand over a portion of that excess profit to public coffers. Instead, the government is moving to further subsidize the industry. 

This spring, Carney formalized a tax credit for companies that use technology to capture carbon dioxide for the purposes of pumping more oil out of the ground. Former environment minister Steven Guilbeault, who announced he would resign his seat last month over the government’s policies, initially quit cabinet in part over the government’s plan to offer this new subsidy.

“Transparently communicating to Canadians, ‘This is a decision we’re making, here’s why and here are the protections that you’re going to lose as a result,’ is critical, and we’re not having that kind of open conversation,” Abreu told the MPs.

“Instead, things are being obfuscated with misleading language, including claims that we will continue to meet our net-zero goal, when clearly that has been put out of reach with recent decisions, and with misleading language like ‘decarbonized’ oil and gas, which is something that I hear this government say regularly, and is actually just a complete contradiction in terms.”

Environment and Climate Change Minister Julie Dabrusin’s spokesperson Keean Nembhard said the Climate Competitiveness Strategy contained measures to drive down emissions, including methane rules, carbon pricing, tax credits, critical minerals support and efforts to mobilize capital for the low-carbon transition. He said the government’s nature, electricity, and auto strategies are also meant to help cut carbon pollution.

“Our government has been clear that fighting climate change, protecting communities and building Canada are top priorities. Climate change is one of the defining challenges of our time and Canadians expect us to meet this challenge head-on,” he said.

The Narwhal also reached out to the prime minister’s office for comment but did not receive a response before publication.

Government ignored research, cancelled meetings with experts

The Net-Zero Advisory Body is authorized to include up to 15 people, but dropped to just six members last summer following Carney’s election, Donner said.

“It became very difficult for us to produce any work of value,” he said. 

The advisory body’s website currently lists five members. In April, Minister Dabrusin issued a statement that the government would be “implementing a series of updates” to the advisory body, as a result of “last year’s departures” as well as a “shift in focus” to “investment and growth in a low-carbon economy.”

The June briefing on the Net-Zero Advisory Body was the first that the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development has held. The committee’s job is to study and report on matters relating to a range of different environmental departments, agencies and laws, and has recently examined things like single-use plastics, carbon pricing and fresh water.

It’s one of several parliamentary committees in the House of Commons and Senate and is made up of MPs from parties with official status, which is based on the number of seats they hold. Although the Green Party and NDP aren’t committee members, Conservative MPs offered time for those parties’ questions. 

The former advisory body members gave opening statements and then answered questions for roughly an hour. Their testimony focused on the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, a federal law passed in 2021, which mandates that Canada reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The law requires the government to set increasingly stringent targets for lowering emissions and publish its plans to achieve them.

The law also establishes the Net-Zero Advisory Body of which Donner and Abreu were formerly members. It’s a kind of government climate council that provides independent advice to the environment minister on how to achieve net-zero emissions. The United Kingdom, South Korea and Australia have similar legislated climate councils. 

Under Canada’s law, the government is required to take into account “submissions provided by the advisory body” when coming up with an emissions reduction plan.

Abreu and Donner both joined the advisory body in 2021, but resigned last December after becoming frustrated with the cold shoulder they said they were receiving from Carney’s government. 

Last summer, the advisory board volunteered to brief the government on industrial carbon pricing and equivalency agreements with the provinces, Donner said, but he received “no response” from Carney’s office, and an acknowledgement but no appointment from Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson’s office.

The last straw was when the government proposed a deal with Alberta that weakens industrial carbon pricing, delays restrictions on industrial methane gas and significantly lowers the ambition of a carbon capture proposal from industry, while paving the way for a million-barrel-per-day oil pipeline to the west coast. 

Donner said the environment minister’s office cancelled a briefing with the advisory body scheduled for the day after the Canada-Alberta Memorandum of Understanding was released in November. 

After that, he said, he concluded the group’s work “had become performative.”

“You can’t be saying these deals are still compatible with net-zero by 2050. They’re not. The [Alberta] deal is not compatible with it,” he said.

“Just be honest with Canadians about this. If you’re going to pass deals like this, be honest about the implications.”

‘The oldest, most boring conversation I can possibly imagine’ about pipelines

Abreu told MPs the government has “repealed or weakened virtually every climate policy and regulation that Canada had developed in the last decade,” but with “no alternative policies or pathways being put in place.” 

She argued Carney’s killing of the consumer carbon tax on his first day in office was a decision based on “irresponsible and inaccurate rhetorical politics.” 

The prime minister’s decision to ditch the proposed oil and gas emissions cap opens the door for the government to help build projects, she argued, which will grow the sector’s emissions. 

And delaying the zero-emissions vehicle mandates has coincided with a drop in sales of new electric vehicles, she pointed out, “right at the moment when soaring gas prices are hurting Canadians who are struggling to fuel their gas guzzlers.”

The government’s proposal this spring to overhaul fossil fuel and nuclear project oversight, habitat preservation and species at risk protection and create “federal economic zones” where certain developments can be “pre-approved,” also undermines some of Canada’s longest-standing environmental protections, Abreu said.

She also called out Carney’s “national electricity strategy,” which sets aside clean electricity regulations and allows for new gas-fuelled power plants — which “makes a mockery of the abundant clean energy resources that should be a very celebrated economic advantage in this country.”

Instead, the country is stuck once again “having the oldest, most boring conversation I can possibly imagine, about how we’re going to build another pipeline,” she said.

“We’ve been having the same conversation the entire time that I’ve been in my professional career. It’s sad.”

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Summary

• Canada’s updated national building code puts limits on new buildings’ greenhouse gas emissions, though provinces can choose whether or not to implement them.
• The new rules could reduce the use of natural gas, a fossil fuel, to heat Canadian buildings.
• Documents obtained by The Narwhal reveal an effort by the Canadian Gas Association to lobby against the changes.

Natural gas companies lobbied against federal building guidelines that could help weaken the fossil fuel industry’s iron grip on Canadian communities, according to documents obtained by The Narwhal. 

In December 2025, a federal-provincial body published a new national building code that, for the first time, limits the volume of greenhouse gases that can be emitted by a building, whether from a gas-burning stove, heating system or hot-water tank. As they developed the code, officials held years of consultations with groups including the gas industry, to hear thoughts on changes that could set a precedent that limits natural gas use in new builds.

These limits are called “operational greenhouse gas emissions provisions.” In practice, they mean builders have to consider whether the heating, cooling and cooking systems they outfit a home with will produce emissions that push it beyond that threshold.

Natural gas, a fossil fuel mostly made up of the greenhouse gas methane, represents almost half the energy used in residential buildings in Canada — and almost two-thirds of their carbon pollution. Burning natural gas to heat Canadian homes and water is a big reason why buildings here are the third-largest climate polluter by economic sector, after other fossil fuel-dependent industries like transportation and oil and gas production.

Natural gas also poses threats to public health. While the industry takes steps to limit human exposure, research shows oil and gas fracking can impact birth and respiratory outcomes. When gas is used in the house, it exposes the occupants to air pollutants. When it’s liquefied for export, that’s often done at a facility that flares off excess gas, which also releases pollutants that affect human health. Methane itself, which traps heat in the atmosphere and drives climate change, is on Canada’s toxic substances list.

Coupled with the government’s push to fast-track large-scale housing projects nationwide, the new code could represent a big change in how many Canadians rely on fossil fuels in their homes. That is, if provincial governments play along. The new guidelines aren’t likely to be enforced nationwide anytime soon. It’s up to the provinces to pick and choose what parts to implement, if any; Ontario’s building code, for example, hasn’t been updated in years. 

What’s more, the new limits may not even impact new gas hookups for buildings at all: the code offers a range of standards, and the least restrictive still accommodate “current construction practices using natural gas for space and water heating,” according to the documents, which were obtained through access to information law.

None of that, however, stopped the lobby group Canadian Gas Association from complaining about the new rules.

The industry group has a board of directors made up of executives at companies in the business of distributing gas. During the consultations, it “raised concerns about newly introduced operational greenhouse gas emissions provisions and their potential impacts on housing affordability and energy costs,” according to a January 2026 briefing note for Canada’s deputy minister of housing, infrastructure and communities.

According to the industry group, the rules “could effectively ban natural gas, increase housing and energy costs and favour electrification without considering affordability or infrastructure feasibility,” the briefing note continued. 

The building code development process is governed by a federal-provincial body called the Canadian Board for Harmonized Construction Codes, while the National Research Council provides support once the codes are developed. Both of those organizations were “aware” of the gas lobby group’s concerns and were “working to address them,” the briefing note said.

The Narwhal asked the office of federal Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson how the government planned on addressing the industry’s lobbying. A spokesperson for the ministry responded that it “is one of several government institutions that have been lobbied on the issue of building codes, as per private groups’ and individuals’ right to communicate with elected or appointed government officials,” adding that records of that lobbying are publicly available. The department “will continue to work with its partners at all levels of government and all industries to help ensure that Canadian infrastructure and housing reflect the diverse needs of communities across the country, while continuing to support Canada’s commitments on climate mitigation and resilience.”

The Canadian Gas Association did not respond to a request for comment.

Cities and provinces say natural gas limits will hinder homebuilding

If provinces enforce the highest performance levels in the building code, it’s possible natural gas hookups wouldn’t pass muster, according to Kevin Lockhart, the director of the Pembina Institute’s buildings program.

But it was a “mischaracterization to call it a ban,” he said, since builders have different options in the code to help them meet different aspects and building requirements.

The difficulty of reducing emissions in older buildings is a key reason limiting natural gas in new buildings is important, Betsy Agar, director of buildings policy at Efficiency Canada at Carleton University, said. 

New builds are a tiny portion of Canada’s overall building stock, she said, “less than two per cent of square floor area every year, and 80 per cent of our buildings that exist today will still exist in 2050. Those are the ones that are hard to electrify.”

The enormous task of retrofitting older buildings is one reason it’s difficult to justify rules that would let brand-new construction continue to install natural gas, when other options are available, Agar said. Especially since infrastructure and agreements that allow gas companies to access land and customers are proving hard to dislodge.

B.C. has previously strived for ambitious building code standards. But in Vancouver, where an estimated three-fifths of carbon pollution comes from burning gas for heat, city council voted in May to pause rules that tracked emissions and limited natural gas heating in new homes. 

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim argued that allowing gas heating in new homes would catalyze new home construction, but critics say the city is rolling back climate action.

In Ontario, the Doug Ford government has also been a strong defender of natural gas as an energy source delivered to both buildings for heating, and to power plants to generate electricity. Early in its tenure, the Progressive Conservatives cancelled hundreds of renewable energy contracts and then awarded new contracts to natural gas plants in 2022.

In late 2023, the province’s energy regulator found gas hookups in new builds may not be the most economical option for the ratepayers that foot the bill for those connections. The regulator ruled developers should pick up that cost, urging them towards cleaner and more cost-effective systems. 

Within days, and after much communication with Enbridge Gas, the Ford government vowed to overturn the ruling, and made good on that promise in August 2024.

Agar said in most cases, industry is “really resistant to strict regulations.” Building codes that drive toward electrification, she said, have particularly been in industry’s crosshairs.

“There’s just been this visceral response to it,” Agar said. But, she added, “the sooner that you adopt these codes, it means that people are living in better, more efficient, more comfortable homes, then all those new builds that we’re building don’t need to be retrofitted years down the line.”

Build Canada Homes will ‘encourage’ energy efficiency — but feds still support natural gas

The January briefing note was prepared for a meeting scheduled between the deputy minister of housing, infrastructure and communities and two members of the Canadian Gas Association, documents show. At that meeting, the deputy minister was expected to ask gas companies about their alternative proposals to the building code rules.

None of the lobby group’s proposals listed in the briefing note were focused on eliminating gas access in new builds. They included “reducing emissions from the gas supply stream,” meaning reducing methane escaping from pipelines that deliver the gas to markets. Another was “hybrid heating,” or pairing an electric heat pump with a natural gas furnace. 

There was also a proposal to blend more “renewable natural gas” — methane captured from food waste and compost, for example — into the system, which may reduce underground extraction of natural gas, but won’t necessarily make a big dent in emissions. And there was mention of blending in hydrogen, which is commonly produced with fossil fuels. There was no comment in the briefing notes about how the government received these proposals.

Build Canada Homes, the federal agency meant to respond to the housing crisis, has said it will “favour projects that demonstrate energy efficiency and climate performance.” The briefing note said Build Canada Homes “will encourage proponents to meet higher energy efficiency tiers” of the building code, but only “where practical and cost-effective.”

Lockhart, at the Pembina Institute, said the federal government could try harder to “drive higher performance in buildings.” That could include making emissions standards in the building code a formal prerequisite for any new homes that receive Build Canada funding.

It’s difficult to predict how Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government will respond to industry’s displeasure with the code. His election platform promised to phase out fossil fuel use in government-owned buildings by 2030, as well as ensure “new federal buildings” would adopt the top performance tiers for energy efficiency and emissions reductions. 

His platform also committed to “reforming and simplifying national building codes,” a promise reiterated in his spring economic update as a way to speed up construction. 

The spring also saw the release of the Carney government’s electricity strategy, which predicts at least a doubling of electricity demand, in part to address the electrification of buildings.

At the same time, the electricity strategy has an entire page devoted to “Natural gas’ strategic role,” where it describes the fossil fuel’s use for electricity generation in glowing terms like “reliable,” “affordable,” “secure,” “flexible” and “abundant.”

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