It’s been a whirlwind year for tornado researchers in Manitoba. 

“It’s the busiest we’ve ever been, by far,” John Hanesiak, a professor in the department of environment and geography at the University of Manitoba, says. 

Hanesiak is a collaborator with the Northern Tornadoes Project, a national research program based at Western University that aims to better understand tornadoes in Canada.

Since late May, Hanesiak and his team have spent 43 days in the field surveying damage caused by tornadoes and severe weather events across Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Previous seasons have required a maximum of 19 days on the road. 

Fifteen tornadoes have touched down in Manitoba so far in 2026, including two within the city of Winnipeg — and that number could still rise as other storms are evaluated. It’s a substantial  jump from the six to eight that typically occur in the province each summer, but doesn’t surpass the record of 18 tornadoes set in 1991.

It’s been a similarly busy season nationally, with 121 tornadoes recorded from northern Alberta to Nova Scotia. According to the federal government, Canada records an average of 97 tornadoes annually. 

“This may end up being a year where we have the biggest tornado count overall,” David Sills, director of the Northern Tornadoes Project, says. 

And the season isn’t over yet. 

Why have there been so many tornadoes in Manitoba this year?

High levels of humidity and a series of particularly strong weather systems have resulted in the above-average tornado season, Hanesiak explains. 

A tornado is a rapidly rotating vortex of air that stretches from the base of a thunderstorm cloud to the ground. Four ingredients are needed to generate thunderstorms capable of producing tornadoes.

The first is high humidity, which acts as atmospheric fuel and can lead to more intense storms. Second is a high degree of instability in the upper atmosphere due to temperature changes. Third is a trigger that moves air upwards, such as a low-pressure trough or weather front that causes warm surface-level air to rise vertically like a hot air balloon. And fourth is wind shear, or sudden changes in wind speed and direction at higher altitudes.

After several years of drought conditions in Manitoba, these ingredients have been converging more frequently this summer thanks to a deluge of rain in June that led to widespread flash flooding. 

“That just helps humidity, so you have a lot of potential storm energy available,” Hanesiak says. “And we’ve had some pretty intense weather systems.” 

The tornado-producing storms in Manitoba and Saskatchewan in early June caused more than $840 million in insured damage, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

Why does it take so long to confirm if a tornado has touched down?

Tornadoes are small, fast-moving events that can’t be tracked in real time with existing weather radar technology. Suspected tornadoes can only be verified through damage surveys; as well as reports, photos and videos from witnesses — the analysis of which takes time. 

Researchers use the Enhanced Fujita scale to determine a tornado’s intensity based on the extent and degree of damage to foliage, vehicles and infrastructure. The weakest tornadoes are rated EF-0 and have a minimum estimated wind speed of 90 kilometres per hour, while the strongest are rated EF-5 and can reach wind speeds of 315 kilometres per hour or higher — about as fast as the top speed of a Formula 1 race car.

Most tornadoes fall on the weaker end of the spectrum. The strongest to hit Manitoba this year was an EF-3 near Rossburn, Man., which reached a maximum estimated wind speed of 230 kilometres per hour, destroyed two homes and levelled trees. Canada’s only recorded EF-5 tornado landed in Elie, Man., in 2007.  

Tornadoes that occur in remote, unpopulated areas are often confirmed well after they make landfall. At the end of the season, Northern Tornadoes Project staff spend hundreds of hours combing through satellite imagery of Canadian forests to find evidence of unreported tornadoes, which look like long narrow scars from above. 

“We usually find somewhere between 15 and 30 new tornadoes that we didn’t know about,” Sills says. 

The project also tracks downbursts, which can produce damaging winds when air drops rapidly toward the ground during a thunderstorm. There have been five confirmed downbursts in Manitoba, including in Selkirk and Caddy Lake, and 47 across the country this year.

When and where do tornadoes occur in Manitoba?

The severe storm season typically begins in May and ends in September. While most occur in southern Manitoba, tornadoes have been reported as far north as Churchill, according to historic data from Environment and Climate Change Canada.

The majority of tornadoes take place in rural areas because most of the province is rural — but they can happen anywhere. Case in point: two EF-1 tornadoes landed within the city of Winnipeg this year.

The first destroyed a home in the Whyte Ridge neighbourhood and travelled more than six kilometres through southwest Winnipeg in June. The second tore through the River Heights neighbourhood on Sunday with estimated wind speeds of 155 kilometres per hour. No one was injured, but the storm left thousands of residents without power.

It’s a common misconception cities are less likely to experience tornadoes due to their taller buildings or higher temperatures (a.k.a. the urban heat island effect). This is false, according to Hanesiak. Urban tornadoes are rarer simply because cities make up a smaller proportion of the map. 

“It certainly happens,” Hanesiak says, adding urban sprawl may affect this dynamic in the future. “As cities get larger there’s a higher probability of actually getting hit.”

Changing storm trends may also increase the likelihood of tornado activity more broadly, Sills adds.

How is climate change affecting tornadoes?

More research is needed to understand the complex relationship between tornadoes and climate change, but Canada’s warm-weather storm season appears to be starting earlier and ending later, according to Sills.

“We believe that the severe storm season is actually extending,” he says. “If you have a longer season, there’s more chances for tornadoes, more chances for the really big stuff.” 

A warming planet is likely to alter weather patterns in ways that both encourage and hinder the development of tornadoes.

Wildfires, for example, are becoming more frequent and can produce their own extreme weather events, such as lightning and tornadoes. At the same time, drifting smoke can cut down on the amount of sunlight that reaches the ground, Sills explains, creating cooler temperatures and reducing the amount of solar energy available for thunderstorms. 

“It’s really not just a case of climate change equals more tornadoes. It’s changing by region, changing by season,” he says.

North America’s “tornado alley” is also moving eastward. Over the past 40 years in Canada, the number of tornadoes in the Prairies has gone down, while the number of tornadoes in Ontario and Quebec has gone up. This trend carries into the United States, representing a subtle but significant continental shift, Sills says.

Is tornado forecasting improving in Canada?

Yes, gradually. 

Environment and Climate Change Canada is responsible for issuing tornado warnings and severe weather alerts across the country. In August, the department rolled out a new system called Convective Alert Modernization, which was designed to reduce “alert fatigue” by enabling forecasters to deliver more precise warnings to targeted areas.

The timeliness and accuracy of the department’s tornado warnings have improved from an F to a C since 2019, according to independent annual report cards issued by the Northern Tornadoes Project.

The project’s scope has grown since its founding in 2017. The project is now under the umbrella of the new Canadian Severe Storms Laboratory, which also collects data on hail storms. Flash flooding — a worsening phenomenon owing to climate change — is the lab’s next priority. 

“Anything we can do as a community to help improve community resilience, improve the way the prediction is done, it all helps us adapt to this new reality,” Sills says.

Days after Sills spoke with The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press, staff at the Northern Tornadoes Project were busy analyzing the aftermath of another Manitoba storm using ground and drone surveys.

The project confirmed two more tornadoes touched down in the province on Sunday — the one in River Heights, the second west of Elie — leaving swaths of splintered trees, toppled Hydro poles and damaged cars and homes in their wake.

Eva Wasney is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

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FortisBC is a familiar name to many British Columbians. The company’s yellow and blue logo appears on utility bills across the province, but people might not know the company operates one of B.C.’s longest-running liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities. And now it’s hoping to be able to produce 10 times more LNG at its plant in Delta, B.C., under a proposal dubbed Tilbury LNG Phase 2.

FortisBC’s Tilbury LNG plant has been operating for 55 years. It currently produces about 250,000 tonnes of LNG per year, which is used as fuel by some marine vessels and to heat homes and businesses. The Phase 2 expansion could allow the facility to produce up to 3.4 million tonnes each year, with roughly 2.5 million set aside for export. That’s slightly more than the 2.1 million tonnes Woodfibre LNG in Squamish expects to export once it begins operations.

FortisBC has been working on beefing up its operations at the Tilbury site for about a decade. In July, Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions Adrian Dix announced the government’s support of an earlier expansion proposal, known as Phase 1B, which will add a marine jetty to the site and increase production capacity to 650,000 tonnes of LNG per year. Once Phase 1B is completed, Tilbury LNG will be able to fuel more marine vessels with LNG, which is a lower-emission fuel than the diesel many ships use for power. 

A July cabinet order signed by Dix exempted Phase 1B from review by the B.C. Utilities Commission. That means the expansion will not undergo an independent assessment to examine whether it is necessary and serves the public interest. Last year, the B.C. government also exempted the North Coast transmission line from such a review.

The order also created the option for First Nations co-ownership of the project, which the Musqueam Indian Band has expressed interest in. 

Meanwhile, Tilbury LNG Phase 2, a separate proposal for the same site in Delta, is currently being evaluated by the Environmental Assessment Office. If approved, it would see the construction of a new LNG storage tank with a capacity of up to 142,400 cubic metres, about 57 Olympic swimming pools. There would also be new gas liquefaction facilities capable of producing up to 7,700 tonnes of LNG per day, along with other infrastructure needed to support the expanded operations.

B.C. is betting on major projects as Canada looks to open new markets and reduce its reliance on the U.S. Tilbury Phase 2 is among the 35 energy and mining projects the province has identified as a priority. 

Here’s what you need to know.

Table of Contents

• Why this project?
• What’s different about Tilbury LNG?
• How does this fit into a bigger conversation about shipping traffic?
• What exactly will the expansion look like?
• What are the possible health impacts for people living near the project?
• What are the next steps for the proposed expansion?

Why this project?

Tilbury’s Phase 2 expansion will boost the gas system in the Lower Mainland and help meet peak demand for heat during cold weather, according to the provincial government. Building the project will support 1,210 jobs, the province’s major projects site states — though how many people will be employed after the expansion is built is not yet known.

The project description does not mention the LNG export aspect of the expansion.

FortisBC’s website describes the Phase 2 expansion as a way to “continue reliably serving our customers in a lower-carbon energy future while providing economic growth and benefits to local and Indigenous communities.”

Increasing Tilbury’s LNG production capacity will allow the company to “respond to the growing demand for LNG as a lower-carbon fuel,” according to the site.

In an emailed statement, a FortisBC spokesperson highlighted that the Tilbury facility runs on electricity and therefore has “a lower carbon footprint compared to fossil fuel-based power sources commonly used in LNG production elsewhere.”

“The proposed Phase 2 expansion will be required to meet all applicable regulatory, environmental and permitting requirements, including those established by Metro Vancouver.”

What’s different about Tilbury LNG?

While the other LNG facilities operating or under construction in B.C. are located at some distance from nearby communities, Tilbury LNG is an urban facility.

It sits on the banks of the Fraser River, just across the water from Richmond and downstream from New Westminster, making it the only urban LNG facility in the province. Highway 17, one of the Lower Mainland’s major transportation corridors, runs right alongside it.

“It is a 10-minute walk … to the nearest brewery,” Anna Barford, oceans campaigner for Stand.earth, says in an interview. 

Loaded LNG tankers leaving the Tilbury facility will have to transit the south arm of the Fraser River mouth to make their way out into the Salish Sea, a busy shipping corridor that could become much more crowded over the next few years if and when a number of other projects come to fruition.

How does this fit into a bigger conversation about shipping traffic?

At Roberts Bank, just south of where LNG tankers from Tilbury would enter the Salish Sea, the Port of Vancouver is planning to expand its existing container port by 50 per cent. If that $3.5-billion proposed expansion goes ahead, the port location could handle an additional 2.4 million 20-foot (six-metre) shipping containers each year, adding hundreds of container ship transits to the Salish Sea’s waters.

Meanwhile, the completed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is expected to increase tanker traffic in the area by nearly 350 tankers per year.

And then there’s Alberta’s proposed pipeline to the Pacific coast, which would also terminate at Roberts Bank. The tanker terminal would be built to accommodate very large crude oil carriers, massive ships capable of carrying 2.2 million barrels of oil that are longer than three World Cup soccer pitches laid end to end.

“These are enormous vessels that the Tilbury tankers are going to navigate around — they will each need to sort of make way for each other,” Barford said. “This is also critical habitat for southern resident killer whales, who we know vessel traffic is a problem for.”

The Environmental Assessment Office will consider potential impacts on southern resident killer whales and other local species and their habitats as part of its evaluation of the Tilbury LNG Phase 2 proposal. Measures by FortisBC to mitigate those impacts will also be assessed.

What exactly will the expansion look like?

To enable the facility to process more gas, the Phase 2 expansion includes a ground flare — basically, an outlet to burn off excess gas when needed. Instead of a flare stack like the one high above the LNG Canada facility in Kitimat, B.C., Tilbury LNG will burn off excess gas at ground level. 

The ground flare option was chosen because it “limits the opportunity for wildlife interactions with flames and greatly reduces noise and flame-related visual effects,” a FortisBC spokesperson said in an email.

The expansion would increase Tilbury LNG’s emissions to one million tonnes per year, according to a report from the Pembina Institute. Most of those emissions — 0.7 million tonnes — would come from so-called upstream emissions, related to the fracked gas and its transportation to Tilbury LNG via pipelines. The other 0.3 million tonnes of emissions would come from the facility’s operations. 

However, the assessment excludes emissions during the start-up phase, a time when LNG facilities often flare more gas than they would once they are established. Flaring involves burning off gas as waste rather than shipping it or using it. LNG Canada, which has been operational for two years now, has been flaring up to 15 times more gas than it was expected to, due at least in part to an issue with the facility’s flare tip. LNG Canada reported flaring 350 million cubic metres of gas in 2025, according to figures reported to the BC Energy Regulator — 10 per cent of all the gas transported to the plant that year. 

What are the possible health impacts for people living near the project?

Experts say significantly expanding an LNG facility in an urban area raises a range of concerns, including possible impacts on human health.

Emissions from an expanded Tilbury LNG will be entering an airshed already permeated with pollution, Tim Takaro, a physician-scientist in environmental medicine, says. Exhaust from vehicles, including heavy trucks travelling to and from port facilities, mingle with emissions from industrial operations along the Fraser River. 

“There’s just no reason to build a new fossil energy facility in a populated area,” he says.

New Westminster and Richmond had some of the highest levels of nitrogen dioxide of any community in B.C. in 2024, according to a report from the BC Lung Foundation. Nitrogen dioxide is a product of high-temperature fossil fuel combustion and is pushed into the air from vehicle tailpipes and industrial smokestacks. Long-term exposure is linked to impaired lung growth in children and more frequent asthma attacks.

For Takaro, who is a member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, Tilbury LNG’s impact needs to be considered in the context of existing air quality conditions. 

“What does this facility add to the existing air quality?” he says. “Because that’s what people breathe — they don’t just breathe the new part.”

The Tilbury expansion’s ground flare is also a point of concern for Takaro.

“Their flare is going to be at ground level, which is, of course, where people live,” he says.

Ground flares are often about the height of a single-story building, says Tim Doty, a former employee of Texas’s environmental agency who spent years inspecting oil and gas facilities across the state.

“In theory, that’s going to bring the emissions closer to the community,” he says. 

“I would expect this facility, as it expands, to further impact the community and air quality around Delta and the Vancouver [area].”

Tilbury Phase 2’s environmental assessment takes into account current air quality and modelling of the expansion’s effects, according to an emailed statement from the assessment office. 

What are the next steps for the proposed expansion?

B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office is in the final stages of evaluating the Phase 2 expansion. The last public comment period ended in July and the office received 631 completed surveys about the project.One of the survey’s 18 questions asked respondents to select any issues they believed had not been appropriately assessed or that lacked information. A majority of respondents flagged greenhouse gas emissions as an area of concern. Impacts on wildlife, fish and habitat were also selected on a majority of surveys.

The assessment office received more than 4,400 written comments, many of which detail concerns about how the project could impact salmon and orca populations, as well as the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the face of global warming. Of the hundreds of comments reviewed by The Narwhal, the handful in support of the expansion focused on the global market for LNG and the importance of reducing market reliance on the United States.

Once the assessment office completes its evaluation, the ministers of energy and environment will receive a recommendation on whether to issue an environmental assessment certificate to the project. The ministers expect to make a decision by the end of the year, according to a July press release.

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Amid worsening U.S.-Canada relations, Ontario Premier Doug Ford is once again threatening to cut off electricity to 1.5 million homes and businesses across three neighbouring American states: Minnesota, Michigan and New York. 

The move comes as Canada tries to stave off the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to charge “far WORSE” tariffs after the federal government decided to walk away from trade negotiations on Aug. 21. Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced a “dollar-for-dollar” retaliation beginning September.

But Ford is pitching a more aggressive approach. “Everything’s on the table,” he told reporters on Aug. 24. “I’ll do whatever it takes.” 

On Ford’s table are critical minerals, uranium, potash, oil and, significantly, electricity. 

“We power 1.5 million homes and businesses,” Ford said. “What I find ironic about this is we’re actually giving electricity to companies that make products that compete against us. That needs to stop, and we’re going to address that.” 

Ford emphasized that Ontario isn’t the only province that sends electricity to the U.S. Others include New Brunswick, Quebec and British Columbia. “So we need to get together and decide if we’re going to put surcharges on the electricity,” he said. “How can we let them take really inexpensive electricity to make goods to compete and take jobs from Canadians? You can’t square that circle.” 

Ford’s plan wouldn’t just affect Ontario or its bordering states; it could have repercussions for affordable, reliable electricity across both countries.

Ontario has been trying to stave off these effects by proposing new and massive energy projects across the province — investments that Energy Minister Stephen Lecce deems “tariff-proof, recession-proof.” But these projects are far from being operational.

Here’s everything you need to know about this developing situation.

How did we get here?

For more than a century, America and Canada have bought and sold power between provinces and states. At any given moment, electricity is flowing in either direction across a shared and massive transmission grid, with the goal of keeping electricity affordable and available, especially when it’s most needed. Both countries have helped the other during cold snaps, heat waves, droughts and floods. 

While our shared systems have made us susceptible to each other’s energy failures — 50 million people lost power when overgrown trees in Cleveland caused North America’s largest blackout ever, in 2003 — for the most part, this relationship has been seamless. 

But for the second time in almost two years, all of this is under threat. 

The first major threat to the two countries’ shared electricity grid came in November 2024, when Trump threatened to impose a 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian and Mexican imports — unless the two countries improve security along their borders. 

In response, Ford imposed a 25 per cent tax on electricity exports and threatened to shut down electricity exports entirely should the tariffs remain on the table. The surcharge was in effect for one day last year and made the province $260,000.

Both options — which Ford once described as options of “last resort”— are being pitched once more. 

The federal government has not officially weighed in on Ford’s proposal yet. Neither have other provinces that send electricity south of the border. 

Which Canadian provinces send America electricity?

Canada began sending electricity to the U.S. in 1909, when the first transmission line was built connecting the two countries. Today — 117 years later — every Canadian province along the border is electrically interconnected with at least one U.S. state. There are more than 31 cross-border transmission lines across both countries. 

That means the countries can easily work together to balance out fluctuations in energy needs. For example, during extreme winter weather in the U.S. in 2021, Canadian electricity companies sent increased electricity to those that needed it — an act that wasn’t just friendly, but kept the heat on as temperatures plummeted to less than -20 C in most parts of the central and southern U.S. (That’s less than -4 F for any Americans reading this.)

Ontario is the largest electricity-exporting province, followed by Quebec, while Michigan, New York and Minnesota are the largest electricity importers.

Why has Canada integrated its electricity system with America’s? 

Simply put: we produce too much! And the U.S. population is much, much bigger. 

Ontario’s very large nuclear supply, hydro plants and renewable energy sources collectively produce more electricity than the province of less than 17 million people uses on a regular basis. Nuclear facilities aren’t easily turned on and off, so Ontario sells largely emissions-free electricity to the U.S. overnight for cheap. (The alternative is letting that surplus electricity go to waste.) 

Quebec also produces more hydroelectric power than it uses. That’s why it has long-term export contracts to supply electricity to New York state — home to 20 million people. It’s also a major source of revenue for the provincial government. 

In total, Canada exports enough electricity to power 4.5 million U.S. homes.

Does America sell electricity to Canada? 

Yes, and we might need more of it soon. 

Ontario’s nuclear production has shrunk as aging plants are shut down or refurbished, while drought conditions have made hydroelectricity less reliable in British Columbia and Quebec. Meanwhile, a growing population and energy-hungry technology has put greater demands on Canada’s supply. 

The Independent Electricity System Operator, which manages supply and demand in Ontario, reported in 2024 the province may have to consider increasing the amount of electricity it imports from the U.S., even as it rushes to build new power plants and find new sources of power. 

The balance is already shifting: by fall 2023, monthly average U.S. electricity exports to Canada increased by 70 per cent, and imports decreased by 36 per cent. 

British Columbia has been a net importer of electricity for three years in a row; 25 per cent of the province’s electricity came from America.

In the Prairies, imports and exports are minimal, and the one line connecting Alberta to Montana has been at the centre of a legal battle with Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway.

How has politics affected the Canada-U.S. electricity relationship before? 

On the whole, the shared grid has operated with relatively few discussions of tariffs or trade barriers. The disputes have more frequently been between jurisdictions or electricity producers and utilities. Communities have sometimes opposed electricity projects on the other side of the border when they fear it might affect their local environments. 

Premier Doug Ford has been threatening to cut American states like New York and Michigan off from Ontario’s power. Could he do that?

He could. 

The Ontario government has the power to instruct the Independent Electricity System Operator to limit electricity exports, which would theoretically impact the amount of energy neighbouring American states can access. 

There’s one snag. To both increase the price of electricity exports and shut them down, the government would need to table legislation directing Ontario’s electricity utilities and operators. The government is currently on an extended summer break until Oct. 27. Ford is resisting the Ontario NDP’s call to return sooner to pass emergency relief measures for workers in tariff-exposed sectors and business.

If Ontario reduced or eliminated electricity sales to American states, what would be the impact there and at home?

The electricity grid really is one big machine, so it won’t function nearly as well if we cut it in half. 

Two energy experts previously told The Narwhal the immediate impact would likely be marginal in American states, which could make up for lost Ontario electricity by tapping into local sources of power kept in reserve, mostly fossil fuels. The result would be a grid that was more expensive to operate, much dirtier and less reliable on both sides of the border. Plus, Ontario’s electricity producers would see a financial loss, which might increase costs for domestic users. 

If Ontario was in an emergency situation during a charged political battle, like a winter storm, it wouldn’t be able to rely immediately on U.S. electricity, as it can now. It would have to work more closely with Manitoba and Quebec.

All of this is hypothetical, though. Ford has yet to provide details of his plan.

How will Ontario mitigate the impacts of the trade war on electricity?

By building big, new energy projects — or so they say.

On Aug. 25, Energy Minister Stephen Lecce was in St. Clair Township, at the border between the U.S. and Canada, to announce his government is planning to revive the long-shuttered Lambton coal-generating station into either a new nuclear or gas facility. This proposal joins a long list of massive energy projects — including new generating facilities in Nanticoke and Port Hope — the Ford government believes will make the province and the country energy-independent.

“Energy independence has always been vital,” Lecce said. “Today, it’s more than just keeping the lights on. It is about our national security and sovereignty. It’s about making power and having the power to make our own decisions, build our own industries and fuel our economy right here at home.”

But these projects are far away from being built, let alone being operational. In the short term, a trade war with electricity caught in the centre will have some impact on residents across both countries.

—With files from Drew Anderson

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.

This story is part of a series called Shockwave: Rising energy demand and the future of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes region is in the midst of a seismic energy shakeup, from skyrocketing data centre demand and a nuclear energy boom, to expanding renewables and electrification. In 2026, the Great Lakes News Collaborative will explore how shifting supply and demand affect the region and its waters.

It’s the summer of data centre controversies in Ontario.

In a season where city council chambers are usually quiet, residents of Hamilton, Oakville, Mississauga, Burlington and Toronto have shown up to public meetings in droves. Many are there to resist proposals for massive new data centres in their backyards, worried about noise, water use and energy bills.

By mid-August, Oakville and Mississauga moved to freeze new data centre construction for a year. Hamilton came within an inch of doing the same.

On Aug. 13, Ontario Premier Doug Ford weighed in. 

Standing in front of a wall of servers at a government-owned data centre in Guelph, Ford unveiled the province’s new “data centre playbook” — and made clear he had little patience for local revolt against the boom he wants to usher in. 

“This is the way of the future,” he said. “Either we do it or Donald Trump’s going to do it, and I’m not giving Donald Trump nothing, absolutely nothing.”

Pushback is also happening in Fergus, Sault Ste. Marie and Armour Township, where a project was cancelled in June in the face of public opposition. Ford calls data centre skeptics “hypocritical,” suggesting residents fighting these projects were “misinformed.”“It just doesn’t add up,” he said, arguing that people can’t rely on artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud storage while also refusing the infrastructure that enables them. 

It was a blunt, campaign-style pitch for a $122-billion industry that has been lobbying hard to take root in Ontario, attracted by its clean electricity grid, temperate weather and proximity to the Great Lakes (four of the five count shorelines in the province). But the data centre push has sparked real concerns about the very few rules governing these massive facilities, and the resources needed to run them.

It’s a story with chapters being written across Canada — including Alberta, where more than 40 are proposed, and New Brunswick, stirring worries about the impacts on old-growth forests and wetlands. Around the world, communities are making it clear they view the centres and the technologies they enable with increasing caution.

And now Ontario is making moves. The province’s playbook has been posted online for public consultation until Sept. 12. It’s currently just a draft, not yet in force — and the legislature won’t be back to debate it until Oct. 27, after an extended summer break.

Here’s everything you need to know.

What are data centres — and why do they matter so much right now?

Strip away the technical jargon and a data centre is just a warehouse full of computers — racks and racks of servers that store and crunch the data behind everything from your email to chatbots to this very story. 

Whether you like them or not, data centres have become the backbone of the modern economy: cloud storage, artificial intelligence, banking systems, health care and government services all run on them. 

They’re not new — Ontario already has dozens — but artificial intelligence has supercharged their scale and size. Today’s data centres are requesting hundreds of megawatts of power, dwarfing older facilities that ran on less power and used less water to cool their servers. While artificial intelligence has its own tension points (which we won’t get into here, but feel free to check out our AI policy), resource use is the root cause of local concerns around the physical space occupied by data centres.

How does a data centre get built in Ontario?

Energy Minister Stephen Lecce has said the province “welcome[s] data centre entrants” — but that welcome comes with strings attached and an approval process that can take up to three years, maybe more. 

The groundwork for this process was laid out first in Bill 40, formally the Protect Ontario by Securing Affordable Energy for Generations Act — the first law governing data centres among provinces — and further in the new playbook.Between the two, it’s clear that data centres need to prove two things to be able to connect to Ontario’s grid.The first is to prove they will be able to cover the full cost of their own electricity connections and use — something other businesses aren’t required to do — so regular households aren’t stuck covering the cost. To enforce that, Ontario wants to create a new, higher electricity rate for any data centre over one megawatt. Quebec’s version of this rate kicks in at five megawatts, so Ontario’s lower bar would catch a lot more projects.

The second is to show the centre will be good for Ontario’s economy. The playbook lays out a three-part criteria to determine this: what jobs, investments and tax revenue it could bring to Ontario; whether it would keep local data in the province; and whether benefits to the host community outweigh the financial and environmental costs. If a data centre can’t satisfy these criteria, Bill 40 gives the energy minister the power to reject its grid connection request. 

“The bottom line is, if a data centre wants to come to Ontario, it is not your right,” Lecce said in a July press conference as the criteria were unveiled. “We now have the right to say no.”

Data centres also have to get approval from municipalities, which determine zoning and building permits. However, most Ontario municipalities don’t yet have zoning rules that specifically address data centres. This means projects can often move ahead on land already zoned for general industrial use, leaving councils with limited power to say no. 

Notably, data centres in Ontario do not have to go through a full environmental assessment, according to analysis from law firm McCarthy Tétrault. It’s also unclear if the province will enforce the constitutional duty to consult Indigenous communities on proposed data centre projects. 

But the province is ensuring other things. The playbook says the government will favour centres that use quieter equipment. It’s also encouraging companies to build their own power supply instead of relying entirely on the public grid, since that can get them running faster than waiting in line for a grid connection. Doing so would exempt a data centre from the process outlined in the playbook. It may also see data centre projects proposed with on-site natural gas plants, as we’re seeing in Alberta. 

One thing neither the playbook nor Bill 40 makes clear is what size of data centre the new process applies to.

How will data centres impact Ontario’s electricity demand?

Significantly — and the numbers keep increasing with every new forecast. 

In 2024, the system operator forecast Ontario’s overall electricity demand will grow 75 per cent by 2050 — a sharper jump than previously projected, driven largely by factories and data centres. The centres are expected to account for about 13 per cent of that new demand by 2035.

A more recent forecast suggested data centres could eventually make up close to nine per cent of all electricity used in Ontario by 2050.

What are data centres using all that electricity for? To stay running all the time; servers never sleep, constantly processing web traffic and requests. 

The province says it’s already fielding interest in data centre builds that would add up to roughly 30 per cent of Ontario’s current peak electricity demand. 

That’s a lot of energy demand — and brings us to the supply challenge ahead.

Will this increase in data centre energy demand result in Ontario using more natural gas?

Possibly, at least in the short-term future.Most of Ontario’s electricity comes from low-emissions sources like nuclear and hydro power. But when demand spikes, like during a heat wave when those who have air conditioners turn them on, natural gas plants are usually what fills the gap, since they can be switched on and off quickly.

That matters for data centres, which run around the clock. If a facility is drawing heavily during one of those peak moments, it could be leaning on gas power to do it. And that fossil fuel is primarily made up of methane, a potent greenhouse gas driving climate change and the worsened wildfire seasons, floods and other severe weather we’ve experienced as a result.

How will data centres impact Ontario’s water usage?

We don’t know yet. 

Existing large data centres use water-based cooling systems to keep servers from overheating. That means that all the water pulled into a centre absorbs the heat from the servers and evaporates into the air. Any water that doesn’t evaporate is reused and then sent to a local plant as wastewater. In closed-loop systems, water just circulates in pipes that cool the servers, so there is little lost to the air. 

According to one estimate, a single one-megawatt data centre can use up to 25.5 million litres of water a year just for cooling — about what all of the homes in the city of Mississauga use in a day. Many of the data centres being proposed in Ontario are larger than that, which means, depending on their cooling system, they could also be using a lot more water. 

Microsoft is building three data centres in Ontario, which share an estimated total demand of approximately 200 megawatts. One planned in Toronto’s Etobicoke area was approved to use up to about 40 litres of water every second for cooling — that’s about five bathtubs full every five seconds, and 1.2 billion litres a year. A separate Microsoft complex in Vaughan is expected to use about 730 million litres of municipal water a year.

The province’s playbook says Ontario will favour data centres that use water-free or closed-loop cooling and reuse waste heat — for instance, to help warm nearby buildings.

What are Ontario municipalities doing about data centres?

On Aug. 11, Oakville became the first Ontario municipality to pass a one-year pause on building new data centres. Mississauga is set to follow suit. Both were facing major AI data centre proposals, or at least land acquisitions that suggested them.

Other municipalities are taking different approaches. Hamilton voted down a proposed pause. Burlington and Waterloo Region have asked staff to review existing rules and impacts. Both, along with Toronto, have asked the province for clearer regulations. Centre Wellington and Sault Ste. Marie are sussing whether they can pass temporary bans.

Ford has resisted calls for a province-wide ban, saying local councils will still have a say and that he’d “rather go to a willing host.” While Ontario law requires municipalities to indicate their support before a wind or solar farm can be developed (usually through a council motion or resolution), no such formal rule was proposed in the data centre playbook.

What does Doug Ford mean when he says Ontario needs data centres to address ‘data sovereignty’?

Both Ford and various companies aspiring to build data centres in Ontario have framed this push as a matter of national security: keep the servers here or risk losing control of Canadians’ data to countries like the United States. 

But it’s harder said than done. Yes, building data centres would mean Ontarians’ data is kept in Ontario physically. But what actually determines control over data isn’t the building’s location — it’s who owns the company running it, and which country’s courts and laws they’re accountable to.

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.

Summary

• The 2026 wildfire season in Canada, which has been particularly severe in Ontario, has prompted significant interest on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
• Many of these posts contain misinformation, including AI-generated maps with incorrect details on the locations or severity of fires across Canada, or conspiracy theories linking wildfires to lasers, 15-minute city initiatives or eco-terrorism.
• Many posts focus on mismanagement and place blame on Canadian governments, which complicates valid critiques of wildfire response and funding with destabilizing misinformation.

Ontario is grappling with one of the worst wildfire seasons in recorded history, which has put thousands of people, especially those in the province’s north, at risk. Last month, two Indigenous communities — Namaygoosisagagun First Nation and Whitewater Lake First Nation — were burned to the ground. The scale of the crisis has made headlines around the world, and prompted a blaze of posts on social media.

But many of those posts contain misinformation, both AI-generated and hand-crafted: maps that purport to show Ontario wildfires labelled with communities that don’t exist; false information about air quality and evacuation alerts; captions with conspiracy theories about 15-minute cities and arson. 

Look closely and you might see clues about what’s real and what isn’t. One viral AI-generated graphic purports to show the location of Ontario wildfires, but directs people to a non-existent Ontario government website. Another, claiming 10,000 people in Alberta were under evacuation orders as of July 16 (not true), includes a map where Jasper National Park appears to cover most of the province. One map puts Ontario on the West Coast, Quebec over the southern United States and Alberta up around Alaska — and includes a province called “Onjebio,” where the wildfire situation looks pretty bad. 

But just as often, it’s hard to tell fact from fiction. And it’s getting harder: in May, Statistics Canada reported 43 per cent of Canadians find it more difficult to distinguish between facts and misinformation online, compared to three years ago. Those with less trust in news media reported even more difficulty. 

Each year, it seems, the onset of wildfire season in Canada is accompanied by the onset of wildfire misinformation season on social media. As AI-generated content becomes more ubiquitous — and often tougher to spot — across social media, it presents new challenges to Canadians looking for trustworthy information about unfolding crises across the country. Wildfires are getting worse because of climate change. But what’s driving the escalation of misinformation?

2023 marked a shift in online wildfire misinformation

Gwen Roley, a digital verification journalist covering Canada for the international outlet Agence France-Presse, recently reported on some of the AI-generated maps spreading across social media platforms. “The labels on it were really wonky, and the symbols for the wildfires didn’t make sense,” she says. Roley has covered wildfire misinformation extensively, and there are certain trends that pop each year — “eco-terrorists, directed energy weapons,” also known as lasers — but this year’s maps struck her as a new trend. 

Roley has been debunking wildfire misinformation since 2023 — a “really superlative year, as we all remember,” she says. In addition to being the worst year for wildfires in Canada so far, there were also devastating fires in Hawaii. “These were almost like never-before-seen events, very scary events, where people are looking for explanations,” she says. In some parts of Canada, wildfires are familiar, even if the scale of recent years is not. But when wildfires rage in New Brunswick or the Northwest Territories or Hawaii, they may prompt more fear — and more speculation — than usual. When something that feels extraordinary happens, people are inclined to look for extraordinary explanations: even back in 1954, residents of Bellingham, Wash., became convinced hydrogen bomb tests or space rays were responsible for a sudden rash of damage to car windshields. 

Climate change denial, likewise, is not a new phenomenon. Chris Russill is an associate professor in the school of journalism and communication at Carleton University, where he’s also an academic director of Re.Climate, a centre focused on public engagement and climate communication. He says denial or skepticism of climate science dates back decades. 

But he agrees 2023 was an inflection point for wildfire misinformation online. Some of that was because of what was happening in the real world, such as the impact of Canadian fires on American air quality. 

But many were linked to shifts happening on major social media platforms: “Elon Musk had just bought Twitter,” he recalls. The Canadian government had passed the Online News Act, an attempt to make foreign social platforms pay to share news. Instead, Russill remembers, “Meta was refusing to negotiate with journalists around the News Act and stripped out Canadian journalism [from its platforms Facebook and Instagram].” It was also the first wildfire season since the widespread adoption of generative artificial intelligence; within two months of its release in November 2022, ChatGPT had more than 100 million monthly active users.

That chain of events is definitely still reverberating today: though Canadian news has been banned by Meta since 2023, a majority of Canadian users still don’t know that, according to a June 2026 report by the Media Ecosystem Observatory at McGill University. Of 1,518 Canadians surveyed for the report, only one in four Instagram users knew that news outlets in Canada could not publish on Meta platforms. Many people believe they’re seeing news on Facebook and Instagram when what they’re seeing is misinformation and conspiracy theories. And users searching Google for wildfire updates are shown AI-generated summaries, which launched in Canada in October 2024, and may contain inaccuracies. (Over the August long weekend, a Narwhal editor looking for air quality information at a lake in the B.C. Interior was shown a summary that incorrectly stated the lake was closed — information pulled from social media posts about two different places that were closed.)

Russill also attributes the 2023 sea change to the post-pandemic atmosphere of suspicion. “There was a more adversarial, conspiratorial way that climate was being dragged into other culture-war type issues that were becoming more and more salient through the [COVID-19] period,” he says.

This year, once again, Canadian wildfire smoke is impacting the United States, triggering posts from President Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform and AI-generated graphics that distort the impact of smoke on Americans.

Who benefits from wildfire misinformation on social media? 

As much as they complain about it, Russill says American politicians are also finding an opportunity in the effects of wildfire smoke on air quality. 

“The U.S. politicians, MAGA politicians, definitely have an interest in leveraging narratives — misinformation, conspiracies, false and misleading content — around wildfires to pursue a narrative they have about Canada as a bad neighbour, and leveraging that for trade and security,” he says. In a post on July 17, Trump threatened that the “cost of this pollution must of necessity be added to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying.”

Researchers call this “participatory disinformation,” in which political leaders and influencers seed disinformation across platforms, and it’s then amplified and reproduced by ordinary users, in this case shaping online narratives about extreme weather events. (Disinformation is distinguished from misinformation by the intentions of the person sharing it. While people may unintentionally share misinformation, disinformation is false information shared on purpose.)

The McGill report on Canadian news notes, “When journalism loses visibility on social media, it is not replaced by nothing — it is replaced by content that serves a different function.” Conspiracy theories and images that distort the reality of wildfires get engagement, and a real crisis presents a fertile opportunity for content generation. 

Ad revenue from Google and other ad exchanges is another motivating factor, the Media Ecosystem Observatory also reported in June: the push behind a coordinated, international network of Facebook accounts pushing “news slop” — AI-fabricated stories — onto Canadian users. 

It’s easy for everyday users to get caught up in spreading untruths, too. Across social media, engagement is currency, which may provide an incentive to use the most dramatic or striking images without checking — or caring — about accuracy. “You can find a real map that you can very easily take a screenshot of that is using real data,” Roley says. But the real maps aren’t as dramatic as the AI-generated ones, “where it looks like all of Ontario has been burnt to a crisp, or one of the videos I saw where it looks like the wildfires are visible from space.” And lingering on those images — even if we’re skeptical of them — rewards the algorithm. 

As Russill points out, it’s “faster, easier and cheaper than ever before to generate fake and misleading content with AI.” It’s also easy to see what does well with your audience, and react accordingly, he says. “Like, let’s make the smoke bigger. Let’s put a fleeing polar bear in there. Who knows, right?” Some people may be diehard believers in climate conspiracies, and others might be deliberately seeding disinformation, but some are almost certainly agnostic to the culture wars; they just want the engagement. 

Whether users want to gain followers or further a political agenda, Russill says, they have “almost nothing to lose.” While AI posts may be flagged and removed on some platforms, it’s easy to replace them. “In these moments like wildfire evacuations and emergencies, this surges forward because it’s a real high engagement opportunity,” he says. 

This happened in 2025, he adds, prompting the BC Wildfire Service to warn of AI-generated images circulating on social media. And it’s happening this year, too.

From climate change denial to ‘mismanagement’: the narrative online has shifted

Misinformation typically downplays or denies the role of climate change in worsening wildfires, and displaces it onto other, implausible explanations. A few years ago, it was space lasers and 15-minute cities.

But no part of the world’s media ecosystem is free of Trump’s influence, including reporting on wildfires. After the 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles, which killed 31 people, the president blamed mismanagement of California forests. (Experts attributed the disaster to climate change, prolonged drought and southern California’s high winds, which spread the fire rapidly.)

“So the impacts people were seeing were a result of government mismanagement, not climate, not other types of things,” Russill says. The same argument is now being directed at Canada; in July, a Michigan senator posted on X, “Unless you want to become the 51st state, learn to manage your forests.” Such a task would be impossible in Canada, which has 369 million hectares of forest — covering more than a third of its landmass — 260 million of which is boreal forest in the sparsely populated north. Much of these forests have never been “managed,” but are experiencing more severe and frequent wildfires because the planet is getting hotter, a crisis that cannot be solved with rakes.

In part, this is a problem of our own making. In 2023, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith dodged a question about climate change and wildfire by pivoting to arsonists. And she’s not the only Canadian leader minimizing the severity of the climate crisis, while pushing more fossil fuel investments. “As politicians everywhere have gotten more quiet about climate, it becomes more difficult for people to understand why these [wildfire] situations are becoming much more unmanageable,” Russill says. 

The question of government responsibility is legitimate, he adds. There are valid criticisms of the Ontario government’s response to recent wildfires, or its habitual underfunding of emergency wildfire response. But in a news ecosystem rife with disinformation, it can be hard to balance valid criticism with simply undermining Canadian authorities. “It’s being leveraged as a frame in which to challenge and create distrust of authorities during these moments of crises in a more substantive way,” he says. 

Wildfire misinformation can bring real-world risk to Canadian firefighters — and everyone else

AI-generated images are annoying and possibly being weaponized to destabilize democracy. What researchers don’t know yet is if they are also putting individual lives at risk. 

“One of the things I would be curious to know is how it’s impacting people’s understanding of wildfires,” Roley says. “Like, is someone fleeing from their home because they saw this AI-generated map? I have no idea.” 

Wildfire agencies are now also spending precious time and resources combatting misinformation or pushing back on AI-generated images — especially when it targets them. Russill says that degrades trust that is already wearing thin. “In B.C., you know, BC Wildfire is not trusted by every rural community that experiences wildfire, so they already have that issue to deal with.” The effect of untruths and conspiracy theories on public trust is just one of the mental health stresses faced by frontline firefighters. 

Russill adds people might also be overly reliant on AI overviews to check for news on evacuation orders, park access or campfire guidelines. “But I think more likely it’s inducing a sort of widespread cynicism or distrust or confidence in people.” 

Online misinformation is a problem without a simple solution. Providing facts is important, but there is a depressingly robust body of research suggesting they’re not enough to change peoples’ minds or strongly-held beliefs.

“Certainly around moments of crisis like this, [providing fact checks] can introduce friction into the ways people are engaging with content,” Russill says. “Maybe they share a little less. Maybe they reset and ground-truth on something that’s happening, as opposed to letting their feelings start to overwhelm them.” 

Wildfires are still at their worst during hot, dry seasons; misinformation can burn all year long. At least for now, you can still limit your exposure to one of those risks by closing an app.

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.

Summary

• As polls suggest a majority of Canadians support building new pipelines, the Alberta government is proposing a new pipeline to the West Coast to help boost production in the oilsands.
• The terms of the pipeline proposal name Alberta and the Canadian government together as majority owners, suggesting taxpayers will foot much of the construction bill.
• Pipelines are very expensive to build. A recent analysis of the federal government’s Trans Mountain pipeline, which is already operational, showed that the pipeline’s revenues aren’t high enough to cover its construction and debt costs, making it a money-loser for taxpayers.

Pipelines, pipelines, pipelines. No matter how you feel about them, it’s hard to escape news of them lately. 

In July, the Alberta government announced it is formally proposing another pipeline to the West Coast. On the weekend, the federal government took another step towards designating the pipeline as a project in the national interest, meaning environmental assessments and other parts of the approval process could be fast-tracked.

Recent polling shows the majority of Canadians — 63 per cent according to the Angus Reid Institute in July — support that new pipeline from Alberta to B.C.

Why? Mostly for economic reasons. A majority told pollsters they were convinced by the argument that Canada needs to diversify its oil markets away from the U.S., while half said oil is just generally important to the economy. Forty-five per cent said the project would create jobs. 

The economic forecast, though, isn’t quite that simple. There’s still the question of who’s going to pay for it. A poll commissioned by the Pembina Institute and conducted by Probe Research in April found a majority of Albertans — 61 per cent — say they don’t want to spend taxpayer money on a new pipeline.

It’s increasingly clear: many Canadians say they do want a new pipeline, but they don’t want to pay for it. Companies aren’t exactly lining up to build new pipelines by themselves either. That raises a question: why?

So what are the economics of a pipeline in Canada? Do they make money? Here’s what you need to know.

How much do pipelines cost to build?

No one is going to build a pipeline on a shoestring. These are multibillion-dollar projects, often crossing multiple provinces. Even expanding an existing pipeline, or building along an existing pipeline route is a huge endeavour involving tens of thousands of people working on the project.

Take the Trans Mountain Expansion project, as an example. That increased the capacity of an existing pipeline, built in the 1950s, from Alberta to the West Coast. That expansion project ultimately cost taxpayers $34 billion — notably, that’s almost $30 billion more than initial estimates. 

The latest pipeline idea making headlines was proposed by the Alberta government, with an estimated cost pegged at between $35.2 billion and $43.7 billion. That proposal was brought forward alongside the federally owned Trans Mountain Corporation, which will lead the project, and Pembina Pipeline Corporation (which is not connected to the Pembina Institute that held the poll). 

Under the proposed partnership, Trans Mountain and the Government of Alberta — through the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission — would hold a majority interest. 

So who would actually own it? Well … taxpayers, in a way.

How much have taxpayers spent building pipelines in the past?

It varies. Canadian taxpayers have been on the hook for billions since the Government of Canada purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline in 2018.

And maybe that’s okay. Some would argue that pipelines are infrastructure, much like highways or railways. Others disagree that billions of dollars of public money should be put toward increasing oil and gas infrastructure.

Nonetheless, it continues to happen. TC Energy’s cancelled Keystone XL expansion was backstopped by Alberta taxpayers to the tune of $1.5 billion in 2021.

And it’s happening again. Alberta’s government has already contributed a little more than $18 million to its latest pipeline plan, saying the money went to early planning work “including preliminary engineering, cost estimates, economic modelling, early Indigenous engagement with communities and development of the proposal for federal consideration.”

The Alberta government calls it a “myth” that it will pay for the entirety of the pipeline, saying, “Now that this preliminary work is done, we will work alongside Trans Mountain and Pembina Pipeline to move this project ahead.” But Pembina Pipeline currently has only a 10 per cent stake in the project.

So, in the end, it appears if the West Coast pipeline project moves ahead, it will be governments — and taxpayers — who foot much of the bill.

“I am quite comfortable that this is a good investment for Canadian taxpayers,” federal Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson told CBC in July.

How does a pipeline operator make money?

Whether pipelines are owned by companies or governments (and taxpayers like you), they charge fees for companies to move their products. The fees paid to use pipelines by companies such as oil producers are called tolls or tariffs. 

The Canada Energy Regulator oversees pipeline tolls, saying it ensures “they are just and reasonable.”

According to the regulator, tolls “cover the company’s cost of service, including a fair and reasonable return to pipeline investors.” Rates vary based on many factors: whether there’s a long-term commitment to shipping, how far, what the product is and how much of it.

The Trans Mountain expansion ended up costing so much that the tolls it charges customers to move oil are higher than expected. Still, according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development, only $15.4 billion of the $34-billion cost of the pipeline is covered by the tolls it charges.

Does running a pipeline actually make money?

Let’s look at Trans Mountain Corporation as an example — that pipeline we all own together. 

The company says it is now profitable. It reported its net income for 2025 was $556 million — up from $5 million the year before.

It’s what Minister Hodgson described to CBC as “generating oodles of cash.” 

But that claim has raised some eyebrows. And untangling it is complicated. 

The Trans Mountain Corporation is a wholly owned entity of another company, Canada TMP Finance Ltd., which is itself a subsidiary of Canada Development Investment Corporation, the entity which holds the Government of Canada’s investment in Trans Mountain. Still following? 

Let’s do it in the opposite direction. The Government of Canada owns a Crown corporation. That corporation has a subsidiary, which then in turn owns Trans Mountain Corporation. Hopefully that helps.

The debt of the expansion, and the interest on that debt, isn’t paid off. But Hodgson can claim the pipeline is profitable because of the confusing corporate structure of which Crown corporation holds its construction debt and pays the interest, and which takes in the tariffs, according to a report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

The author of the report described Trans Mountain’s profit claims to The Tyee as a “misrepresentation of finances.”

Trans Mountain Corporation did not respond to questions from The Narwhal by publication time.

But a company’s balance books aren’t the only way of looking at it. Industry advocates argue pipelines generate money in other ways too, including tax and royalty revenues and making oil prices more competitive.

For example, a 2024 report from a group created for Alberta credit unions argued the Trans Mountain expansion project resulted in a significant increase in access to markets for Alberta oil and that access significantly narrowed the price difference between a type of Western Canadian oil called Western Canadian Select and a type sold out of Texas called West Texas Intermediate. The report estimated this had already increased revenues by about $10 billion in the first six months the pipeline expansion launched.

There’s little doubt that producing and exporting oil and gas makes money for Canada — and especially for oil and gas companies themselves. But many have argued a fuller accounting would include the significant costs of the health risks, environmental degradation and other damage that comes from increasing carbon pollution from the burning of fossil fuels.

What are the costs of carbon pollution from increasing oil production?

Fossil fuel production is driving climate change and the consequences 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.

As The Narwhal has reported, it’s possible, at least broadly speaking, to compare the economic output of fossil fuels with health costs. The federal energy regulator, for example, has reported the total value of crude oil exports from Canada was $138 billion in 2024. A Health Canada report that same year found the total cost of health impacts attributable to air pollution in 2018 was $146 billion. The cost of many foods produced here is also rising as farming becomes less predictable. 

Estimates vary, but the short answer is climate change is expensive. A 2022 report from Queen’s University projected trillions of dollars in losses in Canada due to climate change this century, with the greatest contributor to that change being the burning of fossil fuels.

Does Alberta produce enough oil to fill a new pipeline?

Trans Mountain is currently “Canada’s only pipeline system transporting oil products to the West Coast.” The company says its 1,200-kilometre pipeline network has room for 890,000 barrels of petroleum products to be shipped each and every day. 

The new pipeline proposed by the Alberta government would be capable of transporting one million barrels of crude oil per day from the Edmonton area to the West Coast.

If it goes ahead, that would significantly increase the network of pipelines leading from Alberta.

There are already several other pipeline systems in use — leading to other locations in the U.S. and eastern Canada — and according to the Alberta Energy Regulator, all of them together could carry 5.4 million barrels per day. 

Currently, Alberta produces an average of more than four million barrels of oil per day. That suggests Alberta’s oil production stands to increase substantially if a new pipeline is going to be filled each and every day. 

Meanwhile the International Energy Agency has predicted global demand for oil from combustible fossil fuels may peak as early as 2027 — raising questions about the long-term outlook for expanded oilsands production.

— With files from Drew Anderson and Carl Meyer

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.

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

• The World Cup prompted Vancouver to clear its False Creek harbour of abandoned boats, a sudden absence that highlights their usual presence in the city’s harbours.
• Abandoned boats are a jurisdictional challenge and environmental hazard across B.C. coastal communities, but in Vancouver they intersect with the city’s housing affordability crisis, as some rely on them for shelter.
• Provincial funding to support the removal of abandoned boats recently ended, but a new federal bill would prohibit the transfer of boats to people who cannot maintain them, offering another way to mitigate the issue.

Stephen Paetkau’s salvage boat, Lucky Dog, was built for the North Sea. When he bought the Norwegian-made vessel in 2021, the advertisement featured three giant moustached Norsemen on the deck, arms crossed and chests puffed out. Today, however, it is moored off Granville Island in Vancouver, on standby to recover abandoned boats in False Creek. It sits beside a black pirate ship that can be rented out for parties, where people don pirate hats and sail out into English Bay to drink and spray water cannons. Both vessels are designed for waters a little bigger than a narrow inlet in the heart of the city.  

Paetkau named it Lucky Dog after the Chinese zodiac year of his birth and because, he says, he’s “the luckiest man alive.” Ironically, much of Paetkau’s work begins when someone else’s luck has run out. 

Paetkau and his brother Jonathan run Skookum Yacht Services. Since 2020 the company has become the one most often called by Transport Canada when an abandoned boat sinks, washes up or breaks to pieces in the waters around Vancouver —  something that happens often enough the locals are used to seeing a boat on the beach or a half-submerged mast in the harbour. Paetkau says that since they began working with Transport Canada in 2020 they have lifted or removed close to 100 boats from the waterways, seabed and beaches of False Creek and English Bay. 

This June, the Paetkaus found themselves busier than usual. Transport Canada established an exclusion zone in False Creek for the duration of the FIFA World Cup — for which Vancouver is one of 16 host cities — forcing several boats normally anchored there to be moved elsewhere. 

Typically, if an abandoned vessel in False Creek — the inlet separating downtown Vancouver from the southern expanse of the city — is deemed hazardous to the public, infrastructure, navigation routes or to the environment, then the Canadian Coast Guard will act swiftly and have it removed. If it is not a hazard but, as Paetkau calls it, merely “offensive junk,” the issue is passed to Transport Canada, who try to find the owner of the vessel. 

In a statement to The Narwhal, Transport Canada stated the exclusion zone was created to “support marine safety and security during FIFA events at the request of RCMP and VPD.” Boats that were anchored in the restricted area were relocated to nearby waters, including off of Kitsilano and Jericho beach, which Paetkau says are difficult places to anchor. 

Though the boats will eventually return to False Creek, their temporary relocation brings attention to an issue coastal community harbours across British Columbia have been facing for years: the risks abandoned boats pose to navigation, public safety and marine ecosystems. But as housing costs continue to rise in Vancouver, some abandoned boats are also becoming makeshift homes, complicating efforts to remove them. 

Abandoned boats have environmental and cultural impacts

When I arrive at his office on Granville Island, Paetkau is on the phone with the Jericho Sailing Centre. After he hangs up, I ask him what has happened to the boats that have been relocated. 

“Well,” he says, gesturing to his phone, “one of them is crashing into the Jericho breakwater.”

Five minutes later, Jonathan walks in with more news.

“Another is on Kits Beach.” 

They don’t sound an alarm bell or take off running to their boat, but instead sigh and shake their heads. A lot more steps and phone calls are required first, a reminder of one of the more persistent issues facing abandoned boats in False Creek: jurisdiction. 

In an emailed statement, Transport Canada told The Narwhal the time required to address a vessel varies, but “in almost all cases, there is a minimum 30-day public notice period” to allow someone to claim ownership. The Vancouver Police Department puts up a notice and assists in monitoring the boat during this time.

If the abandoned boat is not claimed within the time period, a company like Paetkau’s is called in, and the removal is completed on the taxpayer’s dime. The process of moving the boats is slow and the water does not wait. Changing tides, strong winds and storms often blow the boats onto rocks or smash them into thousands of fibreglass fragments before Paetkau’s crew can get to them. 

According to Transport Canada, abandoned vessels start to become environmental hazards as they deteriorate, as they begin to leak oils, fuels and other toxic substances while releasing debris such as fibreglass and microplastics into fragile marine ecosystems.

In certain areas of Canada, these effects have been significant enough to have reached Parliament. In October 2024, John White, director of lands and natural resources for the Snuneymuxw First Nation, appeared before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans alongside Chief Lenora Joe of the shíshálh First Nation, a councillor from the Snaw-naw-as First Nation and an elected chief councillor of the Tseshaht First Nation. Together, they described the environmental and cultural impacts abandoned vessels are having on Indigenous coastal communities. 

Chief Joe told Parliament how abandoned vessels contaminate marine food sources that are central to life for the shíshálh Nation. “Our food is part of our culture,” she said. “The way we collect food, the way we gather it, the way we celebrate — everything that we do depends on the food that we can gather.” 

White pointed to impacts on Pacific salmon in Snuneymuxw territory, describing what he said was a historic decline in salmon on the Fraser River. According to White, sockeye runs that once numbered tens of millions dropped to approximately 500,000 in 2024. 

Two years later, White says the problem persists for the Snuneymuxw Nation, where abandoned boats continue to impact their clam beds and shellfish. “Until we change regulations or change acts and we change regulations on a higher level, we’re still going to fight this problem,” he says.

White also acknowledges opportunities for Indigenous communities to be part of the solution: “How can the First Nations be included in this and develop business around breaking down ships and being part of that process?”

Abandoned boats a symptom of the housing crisis in Vancouver

In False Creek, environmental damage is only part of what Paetkau encounters. When storms drive abandoned boats onto rocks, Paetkau says what he and his crew find inside looks like “desperation.” 

One call in particular has stayed with Paetkau. He boarded a boat that had crashed onto rocks in False Creek, with a hole ripped in the side. His job was to assess the damage and determine a responsible bid for its removal. But, when he climbed inside, he found a woman. 

It was February, and the boat was sitting in an area that would soon fill with seawater when the tide came in. She was wrapped in three flotation jackets and was insisting she could repair the boat that Paetkau knew was beyond saving. She told him she had nowhere else to go. What looked like a wreck had become to her a “paradise,” Paetkau says, even as the boat broke apart around her. 

Housing in Vancouver is among the most expensive in Canada. In a city where the average one-bedroom or studio apartment can cost thousands of dollars a month, even a broken-down boat begins to look like a viable alternative. 

To see how these boats become a symptom of the housing crisis, it helps to first understand how they often become abandoned. 

In B.C., cars must be registered and insured. But according to Paetkau, boats are typically bought and sold privately, often without any formal record of transfer. When a boat reaches the end of its life, both disposal and repairs can cost thousands. At that point, there is a clear incentive to pass it along. 

“I’ve known of boats that we charged the Canadian taxpayer seven or eight thousand dollars to get rid of,” he says, “that probably changed hands over nothing more than a handshake and a six-pack.”

Because of this, Paetkau says, there is little to no paper trail, ownership becomes unclear and the boats tend to drift between hands.

While they can provide shelter, many of the boats stay broken-down in the hands of people who don’t know how to operate or maintain them. As a result, these boats can become harmful for the people on board and for the environment.

Provincial funding ends, but other solutions emerging for abandoned boats

Between April 2025 and May 2026, Transport Canada removed 19 vessels in False Creek. But while Vancouver’s housing crisis may intensify the problem, abandoned boats are not confined to the city’s shoreline. “What I hear from Transport Canada is there are other harbours [in B.C.] where the problem of abandoned boats is worse,” Paetkau says. 

On the west coast of Vancouver Island, in towns such as Tofino and Ucluelet, and the First Nations communities Opitsaht, Tla-o-qui-aht and Ahousaht, the problem is familiar. Until recently, the removal of abandoned boats in their harbours was funded through the provincial Clean Coast, Clean Waters Initiative.

That funding ended this year, as planned, raising concerns in communities where a lack of infrastructure, such as boat lifts, can make vessel removals particularly costly. In an emailed statement, the B.C. Ministry of Environment and Parks told The Narwhal that at this time “there is no funding identified beyond this.” 

There are still signs of efforts to address the problem before the boats become wrecks. Bill C-244, also known as the Clean Coasts Act, was introduced in 2025 and would prohibit owners from transferring vessels to people they know (or ought to know) cannot safely maintain or dispose of them. The bill has passed second reading and is currently under committee review. 

Down the coast, Washington State has taken a similar preventative approach with its Vessel Turn-In Program that allows owners to surrender boats free of charge that are likely to become abandoned before they reach that point, reducing both environmental damage and cleanup costs. 

In Vancouver, preparations for the World Cup pushed many of the boats elsewhere, but it is unclear what changes will outlast the tournament. The version of False Creek projected to the world looked a little different than what locals were used to seeing, and yet the issues beneath the surface remain the same. 

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Summary

• On Wednesday, Toronto’s air quality was the worst in the world, as wildfire smoke from northern Ontario blanketed the city. 
• Research suggests even moderate levels of wildfire smoke can pose significant health risks.
• The federal government uses the Air Quality Health Index to communicate the severity of air pollution. The higher the index score, the more precautions people — especially those with health conditions — should take to stay safe and comfortable.

On Tuesday, Sol Mamakwa was driving to Thunder Bay, Ont., sunshine behind him, darkness ahead. 

The Ontario NDP MPP represents the large, remote northwestern Ontario region that is currently burning at extreme rates. More than 100 active wildfires in his riding have displaced six communities so far, and put dozens more under threat as temperatures reached close to 40 C on July 15.”

Meanwhile, choking smoke from these fires has spread more than 1,000 kilometres away, making Toronto’s air quality one of the worst in the world. (On Wednesday, it was even the worst in the world and hospital visits are on the rise.) 

Ontario is not the only province burning. Per the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System, 858 active forest fires across the country have impacted 2.4 million hectares to date; 111 of these fires are considered out of control. Such wildfires are fuelled by warmer-than-average temperatures and drier conditions which make forests more prone to burning and lead to fires spreading faster and further. 

This year, there have already been 483 wildfires recorded inside Ontario’s fire region, compared to 351 last year and the 10-year average of 320. The number of fires has been climbing sharply, with 31 new fires discovered in a single day earlier this week.

“It’s eerie to be in my part of Ontario right now,” Mamakwa told The Narwhal. “The situation is unprecedented, and it’s getting worse.”

As the number of wildfires grows, so do the health risks of smoke, which is more toxic than normal pollution as it can linger in the air for weeks and travel thousands of kilometres. 

“Wildfires in my region have gotten worse and are getting worse,” Mamakwa said. “It needs to be treated like the emergency it is. Every possible measure needs to be taken to keep our communities safe.” 

Here are some things you need to know.

Wildfire smoke may increase health risks

Wildfire smoke continues to cloud much of Ontario, forcing people to stay inside as much as possible. 

This kind of smoke has three main ingredients. There are gases, such as carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide, and volatile organic compounds, like benzene, toluene and butene. There is also particulate matter, which can include soot, dust, pollen and spores, as well as chemical particles. The particles are classified according to size and fine particulates — the really tiny ones, less than 2.5 microns in diameter and typically referred to as PM2.5 — pose the greatest threats to human health because they can travel deeper into the lungs than larger ones.

The more particulates in the air, the hazier it becomes. Extremely poor air quality due to wildfire smoke is hard to ignore, often resulting in new reports and public health warnings to stay indoors and take precautions.

Research suggests even moderate levels of wildfire smoke can pose significant health risks, especially for people with chronic lung diseases like asthma or emphysema that make them more vulnerable to negative health impacts. Fine particulates found in smoke and other types of air pollution have been linked to damage in several organ systems, including the heart, brain and reproductive system.According to a study by the Canadian Climate Institute, long-term exposure to increased toxic wildfire smoke is associated with an estimated 2,500 premature deaths annually in Canada. The study found wildfire smoke caused an estimated total of $5.3 billion in acute health damages between 2014 and 2025.

Most air quality advisories in Canada are now the result of wildfires, not other pollution

Wildfires are now the most common reason for air quality advisories, which are issued when concentrations of particulate matter and hazardous gases rise to levels that can negatively impact human health.

To help Canadians understand the health risks stemming from current air conditions, authorities use the Air Quality Health Index (AQHI), a colour-coded scale of one to 10 (with a plus sign if it’s off the charts), based on concentrations of ozone, particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide — the pollutants found to have the greatest health impacts. 

The higher the health index score, the greater the risk and the more precautions people — especially those with health conditions that make them vulnerable to poor air quality — may need to take to stay safe and comfortable. Avoiding polluted air by staying inside and using air purifiers is the most effective protection but avoiding strenuous outdoor activity and wearing a respirator can also help.

Small amounts of wildfire smoke also come with long-term health risks

At the University of British Columbia, physician Chris Carlsten is leading an effort to shed light on how wildfire smoke affects human health over the short and long term. His team was recently awarded a federal grant to support its work.

Carlsten said the team is focusing on chronic exposure to any amount of wildfire smoke versus acute exposure to high levels, even though the short-term peaks are “problematic.” 

“There may be more health effects, ultimately, from the more common but lower-concentration exposures,” Carlsten said in an interview. The team will also explore how wildfire smoke affects people differently based on age, sex, genetics, exercise habits and socio-economic status.

Better data will help improve public health policy and planning when wildfires flare, allowing people to make more informed choices about how to reduce their risk.

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Table of Contents

• Fast-tracking development: how Ontario is changing the rules for development through Bill 5
• Climate action is no longer at the centre of Ontario’s environmental agenda
• Drivers continue to see cost reductions in Ford’s Ontario
• Water protections and wetlands face new pressures in Ontario
• Why Ontario municipalities are losing environmental powers
• The next chapter in Ontario’s battle over conservation and protected lands
• Ontario is betting big on critical minerals and energy growth
• Carbon capture and storage is also on Ontario’s agenda
• Transparency and public oversight are disappearing

In the summer of 2025, wildfires burned nearly 600,000 hectares across Ontario — an area more than twice the size of Ottawa. Thousands of people were displaced. This summer’s wildfire evacuations have already begun in the northern part of the province, while intense heat waves blanket southern Ontario, with temperatures reaching above 40 C at times. 

These extreme weather events are made more likely because of human influence on the climate, according to federal scientists. Yet as Ontario faces the growing effects of climate change, the Doug Ford government appears to be largely moving away from mitigation and adaptation in its most recent term, focusing on economic growth over environmental safeguards.

The Ford government expanded parks, invested in electricity generation, funded Indigenous participation in mining reviews and created Ontario’s first standalone Ministry of Emergency Preparedness and Response. 

But many critics, and lawsuits, still make the case that the environment is being sidelined in a bid to build.

Most notable was a proposal buried within the province’s 2025 fall economic statement to eliminate legal requirements for Ontario to maintain a climate plan and publicly report on its progress. Across Queen’s Park, ministers were advancing changes affecting everything from environmental assessments to municipal green building standards to conservation authorities. 

These changes followed Premier Ford’s third consecutive majority victory on Feb. 27, 2025, after a snap winter election dominated by concerns about affordability, economic uncertainty and the threat of U.S. tariffs. 

Since returning to office, Ford’s government has increasingly argued Ontario must move faster, building more homes, approving more mines, generating more electricity and cutting what it sees as unnecessary barriers to economic growth.

More than a year after Ford’s re-election and Bill 5’s march through the legislature, the question is no longer whether the province’s environmental agenda is changing. It is what the changes will mean for the land, water and communities.

Fast-tracking development: how Ontario is changing the rules for development through Bill 5

When the Ford government introduced Bill 5 in April 2025, it pitched the legislation as a way to speed up development, cut red tape and strengthen Ontario’s economy. Called the Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, Bill 5 received royal assent in June 2025.

Changes under the bill affect everything from who signs off on major developments to how a habitat is defined for endangered species and when the public gets a chance to weigh in.

At the centre of that shift is a belief repeatedly expressed by the government: Ontario’s approval system takes too long.

The legislation created a new system, called One Project, One Process, designed to move projects through approvals faster. It gave cabinet new powers to designate special economic zones, where certain provincial and municipal rules won’t apply to projects deemed strategically important to Ontario’s economy.

Under the One Project, One Process framework, the Ministry of Energy and Mines became the central coordinator for designated mining projects. The province says the approach will cut review timelines in half by creating a single approval pathway and reducing duplication between ministries.

Several mining projects have already been designated under the system, including the Crawford Nickel project near Timmins and Frontier Lithium’s project near Red Lake.

For some First Nations leaders, however, the question is whether consultation can keep pace with faster approvals.

The Chiefs of Ontario has warned that speeding up development should not come at the expense of Treaty Rights and consent processes. Similar concerns have surfaced around the government’s special economic zone framework.

The Ford government’s 2025 budget included a commitment of $70 million over four years for an Indigenous Participation Fund, intended to help communities and organizations in areas of significant mineral development engage in regulatory processes related to mineral exploration and mine development.

But the debate has already moved into the courts.

Environmental groups have launched a constitutional challenge against Ontario’s Special Economic Zones Act, arguing the legislation is undemocratic, putting unchecked power in the hands of the cabinet. Several First Nations have also joined legal efforts challenging the law, arguing it threatens Indigenous Rights and weakens environmental protections.

There is no hearing scheduled yet but the law firm representing the case, Woodward & Company LLP, told The Narwhal it hopes for one to be scheduled in early 2027. 

One of the most consequential changes under Bill 5 involved Ontario’s approach to protecting species at risk.

For nearly two decades, the Endangered Species Act governed how threatened and endangered plants and animals were protected in the province. That changed with Bill 5, which proposed repealing and replacing the Endangered Species Act with the Species Conservation Act, a shift that happened on March 30, 2026, marking the most significant overhaul of Ontario’s species-at-risk framework in nearly two decades.

The new legislation narrows how a habitat is defined. Previously, habitat included the broader areas species relied on for feeding, migration and mating, among other things. The new definition focuses primarily on occupied dens, nests and similar dwelling places for animals, and immediately surroundings trees and plants. 

The government says the changes will create a more efficient and predictable system for project proponents, while continuing to protect species. But the narrower definition could leave important parts of ecosystems without protection, particularly for wide-ranging species-at-risk such as woodland caribou that depend on large connected landscapes to survive.

Climate action is no longer at the centre of Ontario’s environmental agenda

Climate policy has not disappeared altogether, but several decisions made since the Ford government’s re-election suggest it is not a driving force behind many of the province’s major policy choices.

One of the clearest examples arrived with the province’s 2025 fall economic statement.

Buried within the omnibus budget bill was a proposal to repeal portions of Ontario’s Cap and Trade Cancellation Act, legislation introduced by the Ford government in 2018 to eliminate the provincial carbon pricing system. The act had required the government to prepare a climate plan and publicly report on its progress — a law that, by the beginning of Ford’s third term, was one of the province’s few remaining climate accountability mechanisms.

The repeal came as Ontario and the rest of Canada continue to experience increasingly severe weather linked to climate change, including longer wildfire seasons, extreme heat and flooding. It also arrived at a time when national emissions reductions have largely stalled.

In its independent assessment released last year, the Canadian Climate Institute warned that Canada’s 2030 emissions-reduction target is now out of reach. While emissions have fallen since 2005, progress has slowed significantly in recent years. 

Ontario’s decision to repeal climate accountability legislation was part of a weakening of climate policies across the country, the institute noted, which is one factor making national targets more difficult to meet.

Ontario did elevate climate risk to cabinet level following the 2025 election, by creating a standalone Ministry of Emergency Preparedness and Response. It comes as Ontario experiences increasingly severe wildfire seasons linked to hotter and drier conditions. Last year, 643 fires burned nearly 600,000 hectares across the province, prompting evacuations in several northern and First Nations communities. 

It’s a necessary step, but questions remain about whether funding is keeping pace with growing climate risks. In March 2026, the government projected 2025 costs for the ministry to be $292 million, including emergency evacuations of Indigenous communities on behalf of Indigenous Services Canada. But the ministry’s operating budget was projected to rise to just $66.8 million in 2026, up $3.7 million from the previous year.

The Narwhal reached out to the Ministry of Emergency Preparedness and Response, but did not receive a response before publication.

Drivers continue to see cost reductions in Ford’s Ontario

Throughout his time in government, Ford’s Conservatives have regularly worked to reduce costs for motorists, including for fossil fuels like gasoline that emit heat-trapping gasses into the atmosphere. Transportation is the largest contributor to the province’s overall emissions.

The 2025 provincial budget permanently cut Ontario’s gasoline and diesel taxes to nine cents per litre, a move the government said would save households an average of $115 annually. The move made permanent gas tax cuts first introduced in 2022, which were extended four times. The province also permanently removed tolls on the publicly owned portion of Highway 407 East and introduced legislation preventing municipalities from implementing programs that disincentivize driving, such as road tolls or congestion pricing.

Ford’s Progressive Conservatives have consistently framed the measures as affordability initiatives, arguing they put money back into drivers’ pockets at a time of economic uncertainty. 

All of this came after a previous term punctuated with battles over bike lanes.

Water protections and wetlands face new pressures in Ontario

Twenty-five years after a fatal tragedy in Walkerton, Ont., transformed how the province protects drinking water, the Ford government is once again rewriting some of the rules governing water oversight.

One of the most significant changes came through Bill 56, the Building a More Competitive Economy Act, which received royal assent in November 2025.

Among its many provisions are amendments to Ontario’s Clean Water Act, legislation introduced in response to the 2000 Walkerton tragedy, when E. coli contamination in a municipal water supply killed seven people and sickened more than 2,300 others. The public inquiry that followed led to a layered approach to drinking water protection, including locally developed source protection plans designed to identify and manage risks before they could affect municipal water supplies.

In amending the act, the Ford government said lengthy approval processes and overlapping consultations on development projects had become cumbersome.

Under the new framework, the province standardized some drinking water protection policies and introduced changes intended to speed up plan amendments to allow for development. Government documents say the reforms could shorten approval timelines by as much as six months while providing greater certainty for municipalities, regulators and project proponents. The province has also argued the changes would maintain key protections while making the system more efficient.

But some observers see the reforms differently.

Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner has argued the changes transfer authority away from independent experts and local source protection committees. Currently, there are 19 committees — made up of conservation authorities, municipal representatives, agricultural interests and community members — that oversee 38 drinking water protection plans across the province. Schreiner told The Narwhal the local knowledge embedded in those plans was one of the central lessons of Walkerton and worried greater ministerial control could weaken that approach.

The debate over water governance extends beyond drinking water protection.

Another source of controversy has been the Water and Wastewater Public Corporations Act, first introduced in late 2025.

The legislation would allow the province to restructure municipal water and wastewater services through newly created public corporations. The government has said the changes are intended to modernize service delivery and improve efficiency.

But the proposal has sparked concerns among environmental organizations, labour groups and some academics, who argue it could open the door to greater private-sector involvement in public water systems. 

Some critics, like advocacy group Environmental Defence, have pointed to provisions that would allow water and wastewater services to be moved out of direct municipal control and governed through corporate structures, raising questions about accountability, transparency and public oversight.

The Ford government has rejected suggestions it intends to privatize water systems. After pushback, it introduced amendments to the act limiting ownership of the corporations to governments and government agencies. It says there are no plans to privatize water systems and emphasized that ownership of the proposed corporations would remain in public hands.

For many critics, the debate is informed by Ontario’s own history.

In 1994, the City of Hamilton transferred operation of its water and wastewater system to a private company as part of an effort to create what city leaders hoped would become a model for private water management. 

Just over a year after the deal was signed, roughly 180 million litres of untreated sewage spilled into Hamilton Harbour and Lake Ontario. More than 100 homes and businesses were flooded. In the years that followed, experts pointed to staffing cuts, cost overruns and repeated changes in ownership as evidence that private management, with its focus on profit over service, had failed to deliver on its promises.

Why Ontario municipalities are losing environmental powers

For years, Ontario municipalities have tested environmental policies that go beyond provincial requirements. Cities encouraged electric vehicle infrastructure, required tree planting and experimented with ways to reduce emissions from new development, including through green building standards. 

In Toronto, green roofs became mandatory on many new buildings. Other municipalities began developing their own climate-focused standards as they prepared for rapid population growth.

Over the past year, however, the Ford government has increasingly moved to limit how far municipalities can go.

One of the first major changes came through Bill 17, the Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act, which received royal assent in June 2025, days after the Ford government was re-elected.

The legislation targeted municipal green building standards that exceed the Ontario Building Code. In Toronto, that raised questions about the future of the Toronto Green Standard, a framework that has shaped development in Canada’s largest city for more than 15 years.

The standard required developers to incorporate features to reduce emissions and improve resilience to climate change. It included requirements for bicycle parking and electric vehicle charging stations in new buildings over four storeys. Developers also had to take steps to mitigate flooding and extreme heat, for instance, by building rooftop gardens and planting trees. 

There are also financial incentives to take on even more ambitious climate-friendly features. 

The province concluded Toronto’s mandatory requirements could exceed what municipalities are permitted to require under its new law. It also argued that creating a consistent set of provincial rules will help accelerate housing development and increase housing supply. 

The Toronto Environmental Alliance, a not-for-profit advocacy organization, countered that municipalities are often better positioned to understand local environmental challenges and should retain the flexibility to address them.

That debate intensified in 2026 with Bill 98, the Building Homes and Improving Transportation Infrastructure Act.

The legislation prevented municipalities from requiring a range of environmental features in new developments, including electric vehicle parking infrastructure, bird-friendly design standards and tree planting on residential properties. Provincial analysis of the legislation acknowledged the possibility of “unintended environmental impacts” and noted that the changes could shift sustainability-related costs from developers to municipalities.

The implications extend well beyond Toronto.

Municipalities including Hamilton, Ottawa, Waterloo Region, Oshawa, Clarington and Guelph have either implemented or begun developing their own green building standards. In Durham Region, local governments have been working toward a goal of net-zero emissions for new housing by 2030. Ottawa officials have warned the legislation could prevent them from requiring electric vehicle infrastructure in developments, even where local planning work has already been completed.

Some municipal officials worry the changes could create new costs in the future.

Buildings account for roughly one-quarter of Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions, largely because of fossil fuels used for heating. If new developments are built to lower environmental standards today, municipalities may ultimately face higher costs retrofitting those buildings in the decades ahead.

The next chapter in Ontario’s battle over conservation and protected lands

Over the past year, the Ford government has expanded park access, announced new protected lands and invested millions in outdoor recreation. In May 2026, Ontario announced plans to expand Uxbridge Urban Provincial Park by 23 acres, adding ecologically significant lands within the Oak Ridges Moraine. The government has also committed nearly $60 million toward what it describes as the largest expansion of Ontario Parks campgrounds in more than 50 years, including dozens of new campsites at MacGregor Point, Killarney and Driftwood provincial parks.

But the Ford government has also moved ahead with major development projects that cut through environmentally sensitive areas and launched the most significant restructuring of Ontario’s conservation authorities in their 80-year history.

Perhaps no project better illustrates that tension than Highway 413.

A cornerstone of Doug Ford’s re-election campaigns, the proposed highway would connect York, Peel and Halton regions and, according to the province, reduce travel times — by 30 minutes for those driving the entire stretch.

Critics have long argued the slight time savings come at a significant environmental cost.

Environmental assessments have identified impacts on Greenbelt lands, prime farmland, waterways and habitat used by species at risk, while environmental groups argue mitigation measures remain insufficient for several threatened species.

In August 2025, Ontario awarded its first construction contracts for the project, marking the beginning of a development the government says would contribute more than $1 billion annually to the provincial economy.

In Wasaga Beach, the province has removed roughly 60 hectares of Wasaga Beach Provincial Park, handing the land over to the municipality, which is making an effort to redevelop the waterfront and boost tourism. The government says the project would improve public access and support economic activity while maintaining public use of the beach.

Conservation groups and local residents have questioned whether lifting these protections sets a precedent for future development on provincially protected lands. Some have also raised concerns about piping plovers, as Wasaga Beach is one of the most important nesting sites for the endangered bird.

Similar concerns surfaced in Port Hope.

In 2025, the Ministry of Natural Resources altered the boundary of the Garden Hill Area of Natural and Scientific Interest, a designation that recognizes the unique qualities of an area, removing land that had previously been protected. The boundary change meant a planned subdivision could move ahead.

The biggest change, however, may be taking place behind the scenes.

In 2026, the Ford government formally launched plans to consolidate Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities into nine larger organizations overseen by a new provincial agency. Conservation authorities were created over 50 years ago in response to flooding disasters and the environmental impacts of a growing population.

Officials say consolidation would improve efficiency and ensure resources are distributed more evenly across the province. 

Jonathan Scott, a councillor for the town of Bradford West Gwillimbury and chair of the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority board, previously told The Narwhal the local environmental expertise in each individual authority is essential. “Merger of that scale could create a larger, more distant bureaucracy that is less responsive to local municipalities, developers and farmers,” he said about the move to consolidate. 

The province has already directed conservation authorities to pause major staffing, land acquisition and governance decisions while the transition unfolds. The restrictions are expected to remain in place until at least early 2027.

Ontario is betting big on critical minerals and energy growth

If the Ford government’s environmental agenda has one clear area of investment, it is energy and resource development.

In December 2025, the province officially launched its $500-million Critical Minerals Processing Fund. The fund is designed to help expand mineral processing capacity in Ontario, so that what’s mined here is also refined and processed within the province, rather than shipped elsewhere.

The government has described critical minerals as essential to Ontario’s economic future, pointing to growing demand from electric vehicle manufacturing, battery production, aerospace and defence.

At the same time, Ontario is preparing for a dramatic increase in electricity demand.

The province estimates electricity consumption could rise by as much as 90 per cent by 2050 as new homes, manufacturing facilities, electric vehicles and data centres place greater pressure on the grid. In response, the government has launched some of the largest electricity procurements in Ontario’s history.

Over the past year, the Independent Electricity System Operator, the Crown agency charged with balancing supply on the grid, has approved more than a dozen new energy projects, securing massive amounts of additional supply and storage capacity. The province says the projects would provide enough electricity to power hundreds of thousands of homes while helping maintain reliability as demand grows. Many of the projects also include First Nations partners that hold more than 50 per cent ownership stakes.

The government continues to pursue new nuclear generation, including small modular reactors and potential large-scale nuclear generation facilities. In April, the operator awarded contracts to a dozen wind and solar power generating projects, a major departure from the Ford government’s 2018 move to cancel a slew of renewables projects.

At the same time, officials have repeatedly emphasized the role natural gas will continue to play in maintaining reliability and cost efficiency as electricity demand increases.

Carbon capture and storage is also on Ontario’s agenda

The government has opened the door to commercial-scale carbon storage through Bill 27, legislation that allows companies to pursue projects that capture carbon dioxide emissions from industrial facilities and store them underground. The Ford government argues the technology could help reduce emissions from sectors such as cement manufacturing, steel production and power generation. 

But critics argue carbon storage allows for the continued burning of fossil fuels, rather than transitioning away from them. 

There are other pressing concerns — carbon storage is proposed for southwestern Ontario, where there are an unknown number of old gas wells that Ontario can’t afford to properly plug. As The Narwhal reporter in September, some worry carbon storage could heighten the risk of leaks from these wells of poisonous hydrogen sulfide and planet-warming methane.

In June 2026, the province announced additional funding to help municipalities address abandoned oil and gas wells scattered across southwestern Ontario. 

Transparency and public oversight are disappearing

Alongside environmental changes at Queen’s Park, another debate has emerged — one focused not on what decisions are being made, but how they are being made, who gets to know about it and who gets a say.

In 2025, the Ford government exempted aspects of the redevelopment of Ontario Place from consultation requirements under Ontario’s Environmental Bill of Rights, a move that reduced opportunities for public input on one of the province’s most controversial redevelopment projects. Similarly, the Species Conservation Act eliminated the requirement that property owners, developers or industry whose actions could harm threatened species make a posting on the public environmental registry, as was previously required under the Environmental Bill of Rights.

The most recent flashpoint came in April 2026, when the province passed Bill 97.

Among its many provisions were significant changes to Ontario’s freedom of information laws. Now, records held by cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants and the premier’s office are exempt from public access requests. The changes were made retroactively, applying to records dating back decades.

The Canadian Association of Journalists and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression warned the amendments could significantly reduce the public’s ability to understand how government decisions are made. They argued the changes would shield records such as emails, phone logs and other communications that have historically been used to uncover information about government decision-making and public spending.

For environmental reporting, freedom of information requests have often provided a rare window into internal government discussions.

The Narwhal’s investigations into the Greenbelt scandal and Ontario’s relationship with Enbridge Gas relied, at least in part, on records obtained through freedom of information laws. 

As opportunities for public participation and access to government decisions degrade, it limits who gets a hand in shaping the future of Ontario’s environment and the people who depend on it.

Rajpreet Sahota is a community and policy reporting fellow. Her position is generously funded by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, the foundation has no editorial input.

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.

Summary

• The Department of National Defence and City of North Bay have been working to clean up decades-old per- and polyfluoroalkyl, or PFAS, contamination, first announced to the public in 2017. 
• Residents have proposed a class-action lawsuit over the contamination and consequent loss of property value — though environmental and health hazards of the contamination aren’t a part of the case.
• An international company called Industrial Plastics Canada is among the 10 major importers of a Teflon-like subgroup of PFAS to Canada, and they opened a factory in North Bay in 2023.

Gathered in an arena in North Bay, Ont., in summer 2024, federal officials told hundreds of concerned citizens how they planned to remediate longstanding contamination of the city’s waterways left behind by the Department of National Defence. A few months later, officials gave a similar presentation to a packed hotel conference room.

For nearly a decade now, residents have known about the contamination. Some have been told not to drink the water from their own wells, and everyone in the city has been warned not to drink water or eat fish from a creek outside town.

The creek is part of a system of waterways where carcinogenic “forever chemicals” run downstream from a military base, emptying into Trout Lake, the source of the city’s drinking water. It sits at nearly double Health Canada’s guideline for PFAS in drinking water, measured in nanograms per litre. 

Health Canada published an “objective” level of 30 nanograms per litre in August 2024 for 25 chemicals in the PFAS family. That’s less than half of what Ontario currently recommends: 70 nanograms per litre, pertaining to just 11 PFAS chemicals. And that’s just a suggestion, not a binding regulation. 

The city did not reply to The Narwhal’s detailed questions regarding the current state of the drinking water supply, but CBC reported in February 2026 that Trout Lake contained around 58 nanograms of PFAS per litre of water.  

Thousands of substances classified as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, are used to make everything from medical equipment to waterproof clothing. They can generate hazardous waste which, if not disposed of carefully, contaminates air, water and soil — where it can remain for 1,000 years, hence their other nickname, “forever chemicals.”

Statistics Canada reports almost all Canadians already have PFAS in their bodies, including in remote regions such as the Arctic and subarctic. 

In North Bay, the issue is top of mind, with a class-action lawsuit, a lengthy and expensive remediation plan and a new factory importing chemicals from the Teflon-like subgroup of PFAS, called PTFE. And the company behind that factory, Industrial Plastics Canada, is one of the 10 major importers of PTFE in Canada.

While PFAS have been making global headlines for years as an emerging threat to the environment and our bodies, North Bay knows the issue intimately; citizens fear for their water as politicians try to clean up the mess.

Here’s everything you need to know about PFAS in North Bay.

1. North Bay’s PFAS contamination comes from firefighting foam 

From the early 1970s to the mid-1990s, the Department of National Defence used a fire suppression foam containing PFAS to train firefighters across Canada, including near the North Bay Jack Garland Airport. In 2016, after the North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit learned PFAS had been identified by the Department of National Defence in waterways around the city, it commissioned consulting firm Stantec to assess the impacts on soil and groundwater.

It’s the invisible nature of these chemicals that are part of what makes them so insidious; you can’t see them or smell them, so you don’t know they’re there without testing. 

“When you look at a mine, for example, you can see it and say, ‘That’s obviously disruptive to our ecosystem.’” North Bay-based environmental anthropologist Carly Dokis previously told The Narwhal. “But these things are invisible pollutants, which then tend to attract less public awareness.”

Stantec found PFAS from the foam had contaminated soil, bedrock, groundwater, private wells and several waterways in the region including Trout Lake, Lake Nipissing and Lees, Dorlan, Chippewa and La Vase creeks and surrounding areas.

In 2025, reporting by the Investigative Journalism Bureau surfaced a report by the Royal Military College showing the Department of National Defence found elevated PFAS levels around the base as far back as 2012. That means the department knew about the contamination for five years before revealing it to the City of North Bay in 2016, and the public in 2017.

2.  PFAS impacts health, environment and property values. Residents are seeking recompense

In late 2025, North Bay citizens filed a proposed class-action lawsuit asking for remediation, safe drinking water and $105 million in damages for residents living within a three-kilometre radius of the 22 Wing Canadian Forces Base and Jack Garland Airport. Some of the people who live closest to the contamination have been receiving bottled water from the government for years, but have had no other opportunity for recourse.

The proposed lawsuit, if certified by the court, would be against the City of North Bay and the Attorney General of Canada, on behalf of the Department of National Defence, focusing on the loss of property value and remediation costs. The case is also seeking punitive damages, contending that National Defence was aware of the contamination long before warning residents.

Not mentioned in the suit is the long list of health concerns associated with “forever chemicals.”

The United States Environmental Protection Agency lists potential health risks of exposure to PFAS, including reproductive problems like infertility, developmental effects in children, increased risk of certain cancers and weakening of the body’s immune system, including reduced vaccine response. The Canadian government says PFAS can be transferred through the placenta during pregnancy, and infants can be exposed through human milk. 

Ecosystems are affected, too. Studies have shown exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances can stunt plant growth and cause reduced seed germination and ability to photosynthesize. The chemicals can build up in the organs of living creatures throughout the food chain. In the district of Nipissing, that poses a risk to people who hunt, fish and harvest from the land.

“These industrial areas are often surrounded by lower-income buildings and peoples and communities,” Curtis Avery, environment department manager with Nipissing First Nation, told The Narwhal in summer 2023. “We’re the most vulnerable group of people that utilize our lands — the lands are our grocery stores. … If these are being impacted, we need to know.”

3. Cost of North Bay clean-up grew five-fold, to more than $100 million

In 2021, the City of North Bay announced plans to begin remediation under a “shared responsibility” agreement between the Department of National Defence and the city. The federal department would cover 97 per cent of the costs, or $19.4 million, and the city would cover the remaining three per cent, at $600,000. But costs have ballooned since then; in December 2025, National Defence announced it would contribute another nearly $100 million to the remediation, with the city’s share rising to more than $3.6 million. The total for the cleanup project has risen to more than $122 million.

The remediation, which began on the ground in 2024, includes excavating and disposing of about 26,000 tonnes of PFAS-impacted soil; injecting activated carbon material into particularly dense patches of PFAS to stop the underground plume from spreading; and installing a filtration system to treat water leaving the site.

“We remain committed to addressing and managing the operational legacy of the Canadian Armed Forces responsibly,” Minister of National Defence David J. McGuinty said in a news release.

As part of the process, a notice went up on the federal Impact Assessment Agency registry on April 28, inviting the public to comment up until June 5 on a proposal to install a 250-metre permeable barrier in the ground to help filter impacted groundwater. A spokesperson for the agency said its role in the project is to offer advice on determining its environmental effects, as well as providing the opportunity to post the project on the registry.

Local organizations, including the environmental group Northwatch, said in a press release that they were concerned about “very limited public engagement over the last ten years since the public disclosure of the contamination,” counting only the two forums in 2024 and 2025, where there was “limited opportunities for the public to ask questions.” 

Northwatch’s project coordinator Brennain Lloyd told The Narwhal about the public notice period, which she said her organization only learned of in a daily bulletin from the Impact Assessment Agency listing multiple assessment notices from across the country.

“To the best of our knowledge there were no local announcements or invitations to comment issued to the many residents and organizations who have identified their interest in this program,” a release from Northwatch reads.

The Department of National Defence did not respond to questions from The Narwhal. 

4. North Bay’s not alone: contaminated military bases affect communities across Canada

Contamination on federal sites is an issue across Canada. There are thousands of contaminated sites listed on the federal contaminated sites inventory, and PFAS are found on more than 100 of them. These include at least 26 National Defence sites including bases in Trenton, Ont., Gagetown, N.B., and Moose Jaw, Sask.

And contaminants don’t stop at the fenceline. Health Canada says some contaminants can travel long distances through soil, water and air: “PFAS can be found in fresh water and drinking water in areas that are far away from where they entered the environment,” according to the department’s website.

5. Industry is still importing PFAS-class chemicals into North Bay

While the Canadian government no longer uses firefighting foam that contains PFAS, industry continues to bring these substances into the country. In 2023, The Narwhal reported on an international plastics conglomerate that opened its first Canadian location, Industrial Plastics Canada, in North Bay. The company has a presence across Europe as well as in India and China, billing itself as one of the “largest worldwide manufacturers of PTFE products.” 

PTFE, or polytetrafluoroethylene, is a Teflon-like product in a subgroup of PFAS known as fluoropolymers, or fluoroplastics. A company spokesperson previously told The Narwhal the use of PTFE at the factory will not produce waste and poses “no risk.” The company also says fluoropolymers aren’t as dangerous as other PFAS and are “considered safe, non-bioaccumulative and non-toxic.” 

But fluoropolymers have been found to be dangerous to human health, according to research published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology and others.

In 2023, Health Canada released a draft assessment of the state of PFAS in Canada to help decide how to regulate the class of chemicals. In it, the agency cited an industry-funded study that said fluoropolymers should be considered separately from other PFAS as “polymers of low concern.” A Health Canada spokesperson said the agency, along with Environment and Climate Change Canada, “examined information from a wide range of sources,” including scientific journals and reports while preparing the state of PFAS report.

The substances were ultimately excluded from the final report, released in March 2025, in which Health Canada proposed classifying the remaining PFAS chemicals as toxic substances under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

The Health Canada spokesperson said in an email that fluoropolymers “have specific properties that differentiates them from other PFAS,” which led to their exclusion from the final report. They added that the exclusion “should not be interpreted as meaning they are or are not of concern,” and that a separate fluoropolymer assessment is currently underway.

The exclusion of PTFE from that classification was a major priority for industry, Rémy Alexandre, toxics project lead at environmental law non-profit EcoJustice, told The Narwhal.

According to data collected by Alexandre, who studied Industrial Plastics Canada’s imports to North Bay, the company brought in almost 207,000 kilograms of PTFE from India and China from July 2025 to May 2026.

This puts the facility on the list of the 10 major importers of PTFE in Canada, alongside U.S.-based chemicals company Chemours, a spinoff of Dupont that has been arguing that the European Union should exempt fluoropolymers from their regulations, too. 

“The decision to site this plant in a community that is an existing hotspot for PFAS raises concerns,” Alexandre told The Narwhal. “And so does the selection of a jurisdiction that isn’t regulating fluoropolymers.”

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.