Editor’s note: This story is a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Foundation and The Narwhal. A Canadian oil and gas firm successfully pressed Canada’s spy agency to start sharing government intelligence with the country’s wealthiest companies, something advocates say will protect critical infrastructure but that critics worry could infringe on civil rights. 

TC Energy, a major North American pipeline company, asked the former head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to set up regular “information-sharing” meetings between the agency, RCMP and representatives of major Canadian companies, according to internal government documents. TC Energy said the meetings would allow for “private, high-level discussions about security threats facing Canadian industry.”

The Canadian government has since passed legislation allowing CSIS to more easily share intelligence with outside organizations, including other governments and private companies. 

TC Energy’s proposal, detailed in documents the Investigative Journalism Foundation and The Narwhal obtained via access to information legislation, argued the creation of a “Canadian Security Alliance Council” would let CSIS share “unclassified but sensitive” intelligence it collects on behalf of the government with select major corporations. The company proposed the council would include corporations with annual revenues of $500 million or more.

In a February 2024 email, TC Energy argued it needed access to this kind of information because of unspecified “acute risks from foreign adversaries” seeking to sabotage critical infrastructure. 

“[G]iven the severity of the present threat, we support immediate action as current law permits,” the company’s proposal noted. 

That pitch was seemingly well received by then-CSIS director David Vigneault, who told an executive assistant of TC Energy’s CEO, François Poirier, that he would help “advance our shared interests.” The names of TC Energy employees in those emails are redacted but their titles are not.TC Energy did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story.“While the implementation of a formal program like this is a project involving multiple private and Government of Canada stakeholders, we’re seized with the issue and we appreciate your support,” Vigneault wrote to TC Energy in May 2024.

Nicole Giles, a senior assistant deputy minister at CSIS, told attendees at the Vancouver International Security Summit on Oct. 16 that the agency has given such briefings to members of the Business Council of Canada, which was involved in TC Energy’s proposal to Vigneault. Poirier is on the council’s board of directors.The result is that large Canadian corporations have unprecedented access to intelligence collected by Canada’s spy agency. 

Magali Hébert, a spokesperson with CSIS, said the agency and the business council, which represents the country’s wealthiest and most powerful companies, “have enjoyed a productive relationship that has advanced the interests of Canadians and of Canada’s economic security” since 2022.

“CSIS is considering formal mechanisms for enhancing information sharing with those outside government to help increase their resiliency to national security threats, such as foreign interference,” Hébert wrote in an emailed statement, adding the Canada Security Alliance Council is “conceptual.”Hébert said CSIS made 28 disclosures in 2024 to governments, “ethnic, cultural and religious communities” and businesses, but would not say which ones. 

Sharing intelligence the spy agency gathers with industry “can serve to protect Canada’s research ecosystem and economic prosperity from foreign interference, espionage and unwanted knowledge transfer that could pose a threat to Canada and Canada’s national security interests,” Hébert said.

‘A chilling effect’

The Business Council of Canada says information sharing is crucial to foil increasingly frequent cyberattacks from criminal networks and hostile states which aim to steal Canadian data and intellectual property, hamstring the country’s economy and even disrupt public utilities. Some hackers have even targeted smaller government entities like cities and hospitals. 

Council president Goldy Hyder told the audience at the same Vancouver summit on Oct. 16 that Canadian companies “can’t be boy scouts” in a world where such attacks are routine.“We’re being honest with people that businesses are under attack. Our economy is under attack. Our way of life is under attack,” Hyder said. 

Hyder added he considers Vigneault, who now works in the private security intelligence sector, a “dear friend,” and said they communicate regularly.The Investigative Journalism Foundation and The Narwhal approached Vigneault in person to ask about his relationship with the council and the friendly language in his emails.He referred reporters to his employer Strider, an American private intelligence company, which declined to comment.Business Council of Canada spokesperson Michèle-Jamali Paquette said the flow of information from CSIS to businesses was “tightly limited” and that it could only be used to “strengthen resilience against security threats.”But some critics and observers worry information sharing between CSIS and private companies could chill legitimate political protest, particularly demonstrations against oil and gas projects led by companies like TC Energy.

CSIS said its legislation prohibits investigating lawful protest and dissent. Hébert said the spy agency “would only investigate individuals if there was reasonable suspicion that said they were planning activities that fit within the scope of our mandate (threats to the security of Canada), such as violent extremism.”

But Vibert Jack, the litigation director of the BC Civil Liberties Association, argues the existence of such an information-sharing agreement could still discourage people from expressing their views.

“I think the overall prospect it raises is a chilling effect on overall dissent and protest,” Jack said. 

“The more data is being collected about people who are voicing dissent and the more that data gets shared between different parties, the more consequences can flow for all those people.”

TC Energy, Business Council of Canada said spy intelligence needed to ward off threats

TC Energy has long sought to increase corporate access to CSIS intelligence, which historically has rarely been shared even with other governments.

The Calgary-based energy company retained former staffers from the office of U.S. President Donald Trump to lobby CSIS for such changes, including at an October 2023 security summit in Palo Alto, Calif. 

The Narwhal previously obtained recordings of internal TC Energy meetings including one where Michael Evanoff, a former assistant secretary of state in the Trump administration who went on to work for TC Energy, said he had directly approached Vigneault about making it easier to share classified intelligence with companies. 

TC Energy, in its February 2024 proposal, described the agency’s information-sharing rules as “archaic.”

The pipeline company pitched the security working group as an “interim” solution, saying it could be used to distribute intelligence that was unclassified but still sensitive. The proposal suggested the group would be composed of CSIS, RCMP, the federal Ministry of Public Safety and representatives from a select group of Canadian companies.

TC Energy suggested the “convenor” of those meetings could be the Business Council of Canada, which represents banks, telecommunications firms, automakers, energy companies and accounting offices. 

But TC Energy and the Business Council of Canada also appear to have lobbied to loosen CSIS rules around sharing more sensitive information, which may have helped ultimately change Canada’s legislation. 

In November 2023, a month after the Palo Alto conference, Vigneault wrote an email to a TC Energy representative, saying its participation was “widely recognized by our partners as an important sign of Canada’s commitment to broadening and deepening relationships and cooperation with governments and private sector partners on national security matters.”

Vigneault later wrote in May 2024, encouraging TC Energy and the business council to bring its concerns about CSIS information sharing to Parliament.

The business council went on to support legislation — Bill C-70 — which included amendments to the CSIS Act allowing the agency to share classified information outside of government with the permission of the minister of public safety. 

The bill also created new criminal offences for sabotaging critical infrastructure and made it a criminal offence to distribute material that can be used to sabotage such infrastructure.Paquette, the council’s spokesperson, said CSIS previously “lacked the legal authority to proactively share threat intelligence with the private sector for the purpose of building economy-wide resilience.” She contrasted that to the United States and the United Kingdom, which have long had programs allowing intelligence agencies to more easily share information with private businesses.

“This gap left Canadian companies often fending for themselves despite CSIS possessing the knowledge and expertise to help them withstand such threats,” Paquette wrote in an email to the Investigative Journalism Foundation and The Narwhal. “By limiting CSIS’s ability to meaningfully engage with businesses, it also left CSIS, and the broader Canadian government, without a more complete understanding of the national security threats facing the Canadian economy.”

Paquette did not explain the nature of security threats the council is concerned its members face. 

Experts warn corporate access to government intelligence could be used to quash protests, advance projects

Many in the intelligence community see such partnerships as universally beneficial. 

Nitin Natarajan, a consultant who previously served as the deputy director for the American Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said sharing intelligence with private partners and local governments can help spur needed spending on things like cybersecurity.“We’re asking state-level jurisdictions and small cities to use taxpayer dollars to increase their cyber defences. We’re asking water utilities that have no money … we need to be able to do a good job of saying why,” Natarajan said.Natarajan, who helped start up multiple intelligence-sharing programs in his prior role, said such collaborations are “more critical today than [they’ve] ever been because hackers are targeting organizations like public utilities, municipalities and even small and medium-sized businesses.”

Natarajan said the goal of those attacks is to “disrupt the day-to day-lives” of citizens. “That’s a very different tactic,” he added.

Other observers, though, see risks in spy agencies partnering with the private sector.

Tia Dafnos, an associate professor of sociology at the University of New Brunswick, said the informal relationships between corporate executives and intelligence agencies add a layer of secrecy the public should be concerned about.

“One of the key concerns here is around the lack of transparency — and therefore accountability — when you have these discussions happening in spaces that are outside of public access.”

Dafnos said formalizing a group where powerful companies can discuss security issues with the likes of CSIS and the RCMP opens opportunities for corporations to advance their interests. 

“Creating these venues is sort of creating space for the blurring of interests.”

Companies like TC Energy employ extensive in-house security personnel and also contract out to third parties, which “engage proactively in forms of information collection and monitoring related to threats, which includes protests and opposition, the political climate surrounding their company and proposed projects and so forth,” Dafnos said.

“Those informal kinds of relationships are also significant, whether or not it’s having an impact in sort of directing the gaze or focus, or leading the RCMP, for example, to spend more time looking at a certain group or certain issue,” she explained, noting it is uncertain to what degree this takes place. “But those resources are there and they can be capitalized on.” 

The BC Civil Liberties Association previously filed complaints against CSIS, alleging the agency spied on environmental groups opposed to a pipeline project in northern B.C. 

Jack, who works for the organization, worries allowing CSIS to share such intelligence with companies — even unclassified information — could be used to quash similar protests in the future. 

“I think it’s fair to assume that part of the goal here for TC Energy is to find ways to prevent protest or lessen their impact at least on their operations,” Jack said. 

He is also perturbed by the tone of the emails between Vigneault and TC Energy. 

“It really seems as though CSIS views oil and gas companies as their partners, and when we see what they say about protestors and Indigenous land defenders, it’s clear they don’t see them as having shared interests,” Jack said.

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This investigation is a collaboration between The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation.

One of Canada’s largest oil and gas companies violated a deal it struck with B.C.’s energy regulator to address thousands of inactive pipelines in the province — and faced no financial penalties for doing so. 

Internal government documents obtained by The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation reveal Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (commonly called CNRL) failed to meet targets it proposed to the BC Energy Regulator to gradually deactivate more than 4,300 pipelines it operated across the province. 

Companies like CNRL operate thousands of short pipelines which connect natural gas wells — including fracking operations — to major pipeline networks. When the wells no longer produce gas, companies operating in B.C. are required to decommission pipelines within 18 months. The legal timeline is aimed at protecting the environment from leaks and damage as pipelines gradually decay. Deactivating a pipeline includes removing any fluid and disconnecting it from the system. The sealed-off pipeline will remain in the ground in perpetuity.

In 2020, the BC Energy Regulator found CNRL hadn’t deactivated thousands of pipelines and set out to get the company back into compliance with the law. CNRL proposed a detailed, multi-year plan for decommissioning its pipelines as part of an exemption from B.C.’s normal environmental regulations.Under that plan, CNRL was to deactivate a targeted number of pipelines each year until 2028, with exact annual targets ranging from 398 to 544.The regulator agreed and gave CNRL the extra eight years to get the work done. 

But in 2023, the regulator revoked CNRL’s exemption after learning the company “failed to deactivate the pipelines in accordance with the timelines set out in the plan,” according to the documents obtained under freedom of information legislation. The regulator later said in a statement that CNRL had failed to meet targets for three years in a row.

That led to the regulator issuing an order demanding CNRL clean up some of its pipelines. The company complied. The BC Energy Regulator then approved a second exemption for CNRL in 2024 and says the company is exceeding targets under that plan.

The regulator told The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation in an emailed statement it did not fine CNRL (which posted gross revenues of more than $41 billion last year, according to its 2024 financial statements) because it did not deem it necessary to ensure the company got back into compliance. The regulator added it could still “pursue a contravention and the issuance of an administrative monetary penalty in the event CNRL does not meet its remaining deactivation requirements.” In early March, CNRL still had 865 pipelines to decommission, according to a previous statement from the regulator. 

It is unclear why the company failed to meet the requirements for deactivating its pipelines, including failing to follow its own plan. The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment made via email and over the phone. 

CNRL’s failure to deactivate pipelines is ‘consistent with a pattern’: legal expert 

The documents obtained by The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation provide an inside look at the regulator’s approach to working with companies when they fail to follow the rules.

In March 2024, BC Energy Regulator vice-president Nicole Koosmann wrote to CNRL expressing concern that the company “failed to to complete the deactivation requirements under the initial plan” but said complying with the normal rules was “not reasonably practicable” given the thousands of pipelines that had to be shut down. 

“I am further satisfied that adherence to the targets and commitments set out in the updated plan remains the most effective and efficient way to achieve compliance with regulatory requirements and to minimize the risk associated with the remaining pipelines,” she wrote at the time. 

Koosmann’s letter to CNRL came after government officials discovered the company had “not met the targets for any of the years 2020, 2021 or 2022,” according to an unattributed statement from the regulator.

That led the regulator to invoke a clause in the agreement that rendered it null and void if the company failed to meet its end of the bargain. The regulator then issued a general order, forcing the company to deactivate hundreds of pipelines, and renewed the pipeline exemption. The spokesperson said it struck the second deal with CNRL in part because of the “public interest in having the pipelines brought into compliance more quickly with less land disturbance.”

(Until previous reporting by The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation, exemptions like this were not publicly disclosed — the regulator has since started developing a publicly available database.)

Martin Olszynski, the chair in energy, resources and sustainability at the University of Calgary’s law school, said CNRL has a track record of being slow to clean up and deactivate its assets. As of June 2, the Alberta Energy Regulator reported CNRL holds more than 20,000 inactive wells in that province — or more than 25 per cent of Alberta’s inactive wells. 

“It’s consistent with a pattern that I’ve seen that this is a company that has a really hard time dealing with the backends of its assets,” Olszynski said.

‘What teeth does the regulator have?’

CNRL is now “exceeding their targets for pipeline deactivation” under the new plan, which would see the company shut down all of the pipelines by 2028, according to the regulator.

Olszynski said the BC Energy Regulator’s approach — ordering the company to comply but stopping short of a fine — could be perceived as soft. But he also pointed out it seemed to produce the desired effect of jolting the company into compliance. 

“The regulator has been pushing and pulling. It has used the power that it has to force these guys to do the work,” he said. 

The regulator also has a vested interest in maintaining a good relationship with the company, he added. 

“As a regulator, they’re not about bringing down the man,” Olszynski said. “Capitalism, that’s beyond their wheelhouse.” 

Jeremy Valeriote, the interim leader of the BC Green Party, said the lack of penalties highlights a cultural problem of the province’s regulators being too lenient with oil and gas companies.

“It begs the question, what teeth does the regulator have?” he said. 

The BC Energy Regulator, formerly the BC Oil and Gas Commission, is mostly funded by levies on companies that run oil and gas projects. The sector has been expanding in recent years as B.C. gears up to become a major exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). 

Valeriote said he worries the regulator is unwilling to confront companies that break the rules, and what that means as it takes on additional responsibilities. The B.C. government has been allocating extra powers to the BC Energy Regulator, including responsibility for overseeing renewable energy projects such as wind farms. 

“They need to prove to the public that they can fill the role, especially if they’re going into new areas and new sectors and they’re looking to build public trust,” he said.

Updated on July 7, 2025, at 12:40 p.m. PT: This story was updated to correct the spelling of Nicole Koosmann’s name.

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The acting leader of the Green Party of British Columbia says the provincial agency that regulates oil and gas projects has been “captured” by special interests and should become an independent agency.

Jeremy Valeriote was reacting to an investigation by The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation that found the BC Energy Regulator quietly exempted oil and gas giant Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) from environmental regulations for more than 4,300 pipelines the company operates across the province. 

The investigation found CNRL had not deactivated and cleaned up those pipelines within the legal timeframe. The exemption, which was granted in 2020 and lasts until 2028, was never publicly disclosed.

The regulator previously said it “does not post publicly when exemptions to regulation are granted.” But after The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation revealed the existence of the CNRL exemption, the regulator sent a second statement, saying it was “currently working on a process for posting regulatory exemptions publicly on our website.” It declined to explain why this information is not already public.  

Valeriote, whose party has signed an agreement to help the BC NDP hold its slim majority in the legislature, said keeping the exemption secret was “completely unacceptable.” 

“I think regulators work in the public interest and that information should be made public,” Valeriote, MLA for West Vancouver-Sea to Sky, said in an interview. “There’s no question that shouldn’t be done behind closed doors.”

Such exemptions for pipelines are fairly rare. The regulator said it had granted only three since 2019 — and one was an amendment to an existing exemption. 

But during the same period, the regulator said it granted 90 exemptions for drilling projects like oil wells, none of which were publicly disclosed. Valeriote said the exemption is part of a larger pattern where the regulator is beholden to oil and gas companies, something he speculated was due to political pressure to advance natural resource projects.

B.C. Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions Adrian Dix did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Conservative Party of British Columbia Leader John Rustad, Larry Neufeld, the natural gas and LNG critic for the BC Conservatives, and Trevor Halford, the environment critic for the BC Conservatives, also did not respond to requests for comment.

‘Political rhetoric’ restricts regulator’s work: BC Greens 

Industry groups say B.C.’s oil and gas sector employs around 12,000 people, a number expected to grow as the province’s burgeoning liquefied natural gas (LNG) export sector gets underway this year.

Recent reporting by The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation detailed how, in many cases, the BC Energy Regulator did not fine or reprimand companies when they apparently broke regulations intended to protect the environment and public health and safety. Inspectors with the regulator identified more than 1,000 apparent infractions while inspecting oil and gas sites, but did not fine the companies operating the sites or mark them as non-compliant with government regulations. 

“I think there’s a tremendous amount of economic influence and … maybe what we would call groupthink and political rhetoric around overregulation,” Valeriote said. “I think that gets some traction in the political realm and it can lead to regulators being hampered in their ability to do their work.” 

The BC Energy Regulator, formerly known as the BC Oil and Gas Commission, is funded by levies charged to industry and overseen by a government-appointed board that reports to Dix’s office. 

In a statement to The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation, the regulator said it does not “advocate for industry nor solicit economic development.”

But Valeriote said he is worried political pressure is influencing regulator decisions. He argued the regulator should either be an independent government entity outside a minister’s direct purview or it should have additional layers of insulation from elected officials, whom he argued might have reasons to rush environmental approvals to appease influential industry groups. 

“There’s too much money at stake and, quite frankly, large profits at stake to deny that there is political influence here,” Valeriote said. 

“We have a lot of legislation. We have a lot of regulations. But we don’t enforce it consistently and that undermines the whole purpose.”

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Fewer than two dozen BC Energy Regulator inspectors are responsible for monitoring nearly 200 fossil fuel companies operating 6,594 — and counting — active oil and gas wells, pipelines, processing plants and other related infrastructure in British Columbia. 

During inspections conducted between 2017 and 2023, regulator inspectors quietly noted thousands of potential violations of laws and regulations, according to records released through freedom of information legislation. 

In more than 1,000 instances, inspectors documented apparent environmental infractions, such as emissions leaks, fuel and chemical spills and more, yet the sites were marked as compliant. In many cases, the inspectors noted multiple apparent infractions during one inspection. Thousands of additional inspections were similarly given a pass, despite potential violations of regulations, ranging from inaccurate record-keeping to outdated equipment to illegible and missing signage at sites. In some instances, inspectors noted longstanding issues, such as companies failing to fix problems government officials had flagged years earlier. In total, inspectors flagged more than 9,000 potential violations. 

The following table contains all records of inspections that were provided through freedom of information legislation. Not all companies included in the table have had apparent infractions that were given a pass during inspection.

(The original records released through freedom of information legislation are also available here.)

The Narwhal and Investigative Journalism Foundation requested comments from 146 companies, sharing inspection reports associated with each company’s implicated infrastructure. An additional 13 companies in the records are either bankrupt or in receivership and therefore could not comment, according to publicly available information, and a further 11 were unreachable or unidentifiable from the regulator records.

Only 14 companies responded. They described having a working or “collaborative” relationship with the provincial regulator.

“AltaGas works closely with the BC Energy Regulator (BCER) across its B.C. operations.” 

“At Pacific Canbriam Energy, we are committed to responsible energy development and continuous improvement in our operations. We maintain a collaborative relationship with the BC Energy Regulator (BCER), working closely to uphold the highest standards of safety, environmental stewardship and regulatory compliance.”

“… Trans Mountain welcomed regulator inspections to ensure it was meeting standards expected by regulators and [the] public. We took immediate corrective action for any deficiencies noted by our regulators to ensure the project remained in compliance.”

This table contains all company responses received by publication time.

The BC Energy Regulator — largely funded by the oil and gas industry — is a provincial agency mandated to protect public safety and the environment from infractions by energy industry stakeholders in a range of activities, including pipelines and major projects in oil, gas, fracking, liquefied natural gas, geothermal and hydrogen.

Some companies said apparent violations in inspector notes that were not marked in the regulator’s records as violations had since been corrected. One company, Catapult Environmental Inc., stressed the apparent issues were all “addressed immediately” and it did not receive any official non-compliances “due to our commitment to address this issue in a timely manner.”

The BC Energy Regulator declined an interview request and did not directly answer many questions about the apparent infractions. In an emailed response, the regulator said compliance and enforcement officers use a “graduated enforcement model” to address situations where a company is failing to meet government regulations.

The email said the regulator’s role is to provide “sound regulatory oversight” of industry and to “ensure companies comply” with provincial laws and their permit conditions.

“We do not advocate for industry or solicit economic development.”  

— With files from Kate Schneider

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The British Columbia government quietly granted one of Canada’s biggest oil and gas companies an exemption for thousands of pipelines that should have been deactivated before a legal deadline, according to documents obtained under freedom of information legislation.

In 2020, the BC Energy Regulator — then called the BC Oil and Gas Commission — exempted more than 4,300 of those pipelines operated by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (commonly known as CNRL) from the 18-month decommissioning requirements, according to documents unearthed by The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation.

Major gas producers often operate hundreds or thousands of short pipelines that connect wells — including fracking wells — to larger pipeline networks that transport natural gas to buyers. When the wells dry up, those pipelines are no longer needed. B.C. law requires inactive pipelines to be fully decommissioned 18 months after they become inactive — a measure to prevent environmental damage and leaks as pipelines gradually decay.

The exemption given to CNRL is valid until 2028 and applied both to inactive pipelines that had not been decommissioned and proactively to pipelines that would become inactive during that period. The regulator’s decision was never made public.

According to the documents, in October 2022, a BC Energy Regulator official flagged an apparent problem with a CNRL pipeline while inspecting oil and gas sites in northeast B.C., noting, “This pipeline may fall under the exemption given to CNRL for over 4,000 pipelines that are not compliant in regard to deactivation.”

The regulator, a provincial agency largely funded by the oil and gas industry, declined an interview request. In an unsigned email in response to questions, the regulator said the exemption is part of an agreement it made with CNRL to gradually decommission the 4,300 pipelines across the province. 

The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation tried to reach Canadian Natural Resources over a period of five weeks to discuss the exemption. Attempts to contact the company included emailing detailed questions to three company executives — among them CEO Scott Stauth and the company’s director of corporate communications. Journalists also spoke to the company’s investor relations team, who confirmed receipt of the questions but did not respond.

Exemptions to pipeline regulations ‘should be public’: policy expert

Calgary-based CNRL has decommissioned or confirmed compliance for more than three-quarters of the 4,300 pipelines, according to the regulator. 

But policy experts say the scale of the exemption raises questions about how the regulator oversees B.C.’s oil and gas sector, as well as about the influence wielded by large companies like CNRL, which posted revenues of more than $35 billion last year. 

Kathryn Harrison, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia who studies climate and energy policy, said she was shocked to learn about the exemption. 

“If a company, whether large scale or small, is being given a formal exemption from a binding law, that should be public,” Harrison said in an interview. “Because otherwise, how are citizens to know that laws are being evenhandedly and faithfully executed?”

B.C. Energy Minister Adrian Dix did not respond to an interview request or provide answers to emailed questions.

In its email, the regulator said it became aware of the inactive CNRL pipelines after an audit found the company “had a large number of pipelines that were non-compliant” with B.C. law.

The regulator said contravening those rules could normally result in a fine as high as $500,000. 

But instead of fining CNRL, the regulator said it agreed to the company’s proposal to exempt the pipelines from the rules while CNRL gradually decommissioned them. 

The regulator said it granted a similar exemption in 2020 for 54 pipelines operated by TAQA North Ltd., a United Arab Emirates company with Canadian headquarters in Calgary. It also said it does not publicly disclose those exemptions, and there is no mechanism for members of the public to comment or object to them. 

In a separate email, the regulator said it could still issue an “administrative monetary penalty” if CNRL did not meet the requirements supporting the exemption. 

The BC Energy Regulator said the exemption applied to 2,266 CNRL pipelines that “were identified as potentially inactive at the time of the exemption,” as well as a further 2,046 pipelines “projected to become inactive over the duration of the exemption.” 

In its response to questions, the regulator said it made the decision “based on the impracticality of CNRL achieving compliance of the pipelines with the [regulation] timeline requirements and the public interest in having the pipelines brought into compliance more quickly with less land disturbance.” 

The regulator said CNRL had decommissioned all but 865 pipelines as of March 7, or nearly 80 per cent of the pipelines exempted from oversight.

Relationship between regulator and companies like a ‘forced marriage’: law professor

Martin Olszynski, a professor at the University of Calgary’s faculty of law who specializes in environmental law, called the company’s progress “laudable.” But he said the lack of any penalties speaks to a larger problem: Canadian regulators are playing soft with oil and gas companies that break the rules. 

“If you’re never caught, if you have no fear of getting a speeding ticket, then people will speed,” Olszynski said. 

The relationship between regulators and companies often resembles a “forced marriage,” where both parties prefer compromise over conflict, he explained. That dynamic means regulators may be hesitant to crack down on companies out of a fear they will be seen as heavy-handed, he said.

“Sometimes there are concerns that these companies have significant political clout, and if they start complaining about the working environment the regulator is going to hear about that,” Olszynski said. He said regulators can also be influenced in more subtle ways as they develop relationships with the companies they oversee. 

“I do think it is a problem in Canada generally that our regulators are too timid, and they allow industry to get away with things that they shouldn’t.” 

Harrison said granting exemptions runs contrary to the spirit of the law, arguing transparency would keep the regulator and companies accountable. 

“If the company is taking the actions that might need to be taken anyway, it might be a better use of the government’s resources and the firm’s resources to get the thing done and not spend their time and their money on lawyers,” she explained. 

But the public can only decide if that is reasonable when people have information about non-compliance with regulations and decisions to grant exemptions, she said.

“I think people need to know if companies are not following the law and they need to know that they are being brought into compliance with the law,” Harrison said.

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Oil and gas companies operating in British Columbia have reported 44 “serious” leaks at wellsites over the past year, according to publicly available BC Energy Regulator records. 

The leaks are all from surface casing vents, which are “an integral part of the safety system of a natural gas well,” the regulator said in an emailed statement.

Part of the exterior infrastructure built around a gas well. Surface casing vent flows, or SCVF, are common problems at fracking wells.

A leak is designated serious if it releases more than 300 cubic metres per day of methane or includes hydrogen sulphide — a gas that can cause symptoms like headaches, nausea and dizziness at relatively low concentrations. A leak is also considered serious if it leaches contaminated water or oil into the surrounding environment, according to the regulator’s oil and gas operations manual.

Leaks of methane and other gases were among those reported. At seven sites, hydrogen sulfide leaks were also recorded, including at one well emitting the gas at a concentration of 5,000 parts per million. Hydrogen sulfide emissions can be deadly. At levels above 1,000 parts per million, they can result in “unconsciousness, cessation of respiration and death in a few minutes,” according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control.

Amanda Bryant, a senior oil and gas analyst at the Pembina Institute, said the conditions that qualify a leak as serious “mean a significant risk to environment and health could be present.” 

“Groundwater contamination is also clearly a serious concern,” she explained in an emailed response to questions. “When it comes to potential emissions, based on average Canadian residential gas consumption, 300 cubic metres of gas per day … could power 43 Canadian homes per day.”

The documented leaks highlight some of the potential environmental risks of B.C.’s burgeoning oil and gas sector, which is poised to expand significantly to supply new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects. The majority of B.C.’s gas is extracted through hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking.

All the wells reporting serious leaks since March 2024 “have mitigations in place to control the identified hazards,” according to the regulator. In its emailed statement, the regulator said the numbers in the database “do not necessarily indicate an ongoing release, but rather capability of flow.” The regulator did not specify which, if any, of the reported leaks are ongoing.

Over the past three years, oil and gas companies reported 160 serious leaks, while 252 were reported over the past five years. The BC Energy Regulator database, which includes a handful of reports from the late 1990s and early 2000s, records 659 leaks deemed serious. Of those, 340 were from active wells, 55 from suspended wells and 127 from abandoned (the industry term for permanently sealing a well.)

Of 252 ‘serious’ leaks reported in five years, BC Energy Regulator issued four orders and one fine

The regulator has a variety of enforcement tools it can use to bring companies into compliance, including issuing safety orders and imposing financial penalties. In an emailed response to follow-up questions, the regulator said it had issued four enforcement orders and one administrative penalty related to surface casing leaks at two wells in the past five years. 

A $10,000 penalty was issued to Petronas In October 2024 after the regulator determined the company’s history of non-compliance and the seriousness of the issue — gas emissions exceeding the allowable amount — warranted the fine. The other leaking well, owned by Pavilion Energy, within one kilometre of a private residence, was found in 2020 to be leaking at a rate of more than 4,700 cubic metres of gas per day. After numerous problems with the well, a connected pipeline and related infrastructure, the regulator issued three orders in 2024. Pavilion “complied with the provisions” of each order and is currently in compliance, according to the regulator.

According to the database, companies also reported nearly 7,000 smaller leaks over the same time period the regulator deemed “non serious,” as well as 164 leaks whose severity was listed as “unknown.”

“Leaks like this underline the importance of good regulation and enforcement of that regulation that prompts operators to fix these leaks as quickly as possible,” Bryant said.The regulator estimates B.C.’s oil and gas production has grown nearly 29 per cent in the past five years. In 2023 — the last year for which the regulator provides public data — 524 new well applications were approved, compared to 378 the previous year. 

“Each data entry is a point in time and may not reflect the current state of emissions, if any, from the well,” the regulator said, adding companies are required to check for evidence of leaks as part of routine maintenance and submit the results.

An investigation by The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation revealed the regulator’s inspectors frequently spotted infractions at oil and gas sites but did not take enforcement action. In its emailed responses, the regulator said it is striving to be more transparent and recently made new data public.

Close to 290 oil and gas companies currently operate 6,596 facilities in B.C. Those companies produced nearly 15 billion cubic metres of gas between December 2024 and February 2025, according to regulator records. When Canada’s first major LNG export facility, LNG Canada, starts production this year, gas extraction in the northeast is expected to skyrocket.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.