Alberta has introduced new rules that will allow landowners to destroy broad categories of wetlands across the province without seeking government approval. It’s a move the province calls common sense and critics call worrying. 

“What I’m seeing is what I like to refer to as policy-based evidence making,” said Tracy Scott, who recently retired from his role as head of industry and government relations with Ducks Unlimited Canada, a wetland conservation organization.

The changes to the province’s Water Act will allow farmers to remove what are known as temporary and seasonal wetlands on private land to improve crop efficiency. Temporary wetlands are covered by water for a few weeks in spring or after a heavy rainfall, according to the government — they can be dips in the landscape where water naturally pools. Seasonal wetlands hold water for most of the growing season but dry out by the fall.

Previously, landowners had to pay for a detailed assessment of the impacts of such moves, and pay for wetland replacement costs. 

“Farmers should not have to spend thousands of dollars and wait on government approval to carry out routine work on their own land,” Grant Hunter, the minister of environment and protected areas, said in a news release. “We are restoring private property rights and getting government out of the way where it doesn’t need to be.”

That sort of language irks Kennedy Halvorson, a conservation specialist at the Alberta Wilderness Association.

“It’s a bit of deceptive messaging, kind of depicting these wetlands as if they have no value, they’re just a hindrance for our producers,” she said. 

“The reality is that these wetlands have a lot of ecological value. They’re basically the only other sort of water bodies that exist other than the rivers.”

Halvorson said there is plenty of scientific research to show wetlands help retain water in dry years, help prevent flooding, filter things like pesticides and herbicides, recharge groundwater and provide habitat. 

She says the changes put the vast majority of the remaining prairie wetlands at risk — approximately 94 per cent.

Wetland ‘benefits accrue to society’

Wetlands are among the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. They’re home to countless species of birds, bugs and animals. But rapid human development, including agriculture, has ravaged many wetlands.

Globally, experts estimate more than half the world’s wetlands are gone. In Canada, approximately 70 per cent of historic wetlands have been degraded or dried up. Three-quarters of what are known as prairie pothole wetlands have been lost to agricultural developments and some areas have lost 90 per cent of their wetland cover.

Alberta’s changes apply to a broad swath of wetlands classified as “non-permanent.”

“Whether wetlands are large or small, temporary or permanent, they all make a positive difference,” reads Alberta’s landowner guide to wetland policy. 

And they can be a nuisance for farmers trying to operate large machinery and increase crop yields.

“The changes will make it easier for farmers to cultivate, seed, spray, ditch, drain and infill on their own cropland without going through an unnecessary approval process,” the government said in a press release.

These types of wetlands cause “production inefficiencies,” Sarah Weigum, the chair of Alberta British Columbia Seed Growers Association, said in the government’s press release announcing the changes. “By managing these short-lived wet areas and reducing their impacts earlier in the season, it allows farmers to have greater efficiency in the field.” 

Scott, a farmer himself near Camrose, Alta., says working around wetlands is “not fun,” and he can understand some of the frustration for landowners. 

“The challenge here is that the benefits accrue to society, by and large,” he says. “The landowners bear the cost.”

Wetlands do provide agricultural benefits, too: they provide habitat for pollinators, nutrients for crops, pest control and contaminant filtering. They store carbon and help manage water flow during droughts and floods. Healthy wetlands absorb phosphorus and nitrogen, helping manage explosions of algal blooms.

In the past, provincial governments relied heavily on research and consultation to develop policy to protect wetlands, something Scott said this government has turned away from. 

“We do have a policy that I was heavily involved in, in 2013, that involved extensive consultation as well as review of the available science, of which there is a lot,” Scott said. 

“This change is, in my opinion, based on political favour.”

The office of the minister of Environment and Protected Areas and the office of the minister of Agriculture and Irrigation did not respond to questions from The Narwhal by publication time.

Halvorson said another element of the changes may mean wetlands that were established as part of the province’s wetland replacement program, which forced landowners or companies who wanted to destroy a wetland to pay to construct a new wetland in another location, could also now be destroyed without penalty.

“How do we ensure that those wetlands that have been funded to be restored or replaced aren’t now just also at risk of being lost or degraded?” she wonders. 

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John Pomeroy had only been back in Canmore, Alta., for two weeks, returning from a research trip in Tibet, when he heard the news of a glacier collapse in Nepal. 

The director of the University of Saskatchewan’s Centre for Hydrology has been working non-stop ever since, trying to make sense of what happened. 

“It’s just horrific,” Pomeroy said. 

When he saw the magnitude of the disaster, Pomeroy immediately made contact with his Nepalese colleagues to assist with analysis. 

As of Sept. 1, when The Narwhal last spoke with Pomeroy, he said the team believes that years of warm temperatures, a particularly warm, wet summer and thawing permafrost led rock to fracture. The rock combined with glacier ice to form an avalanche of debris, on top of releasing a large volume of meltwater which had been stored in the glacier. The torrent of debris immediately formed a wave of destruction.

More than 1,000 people are dead and thousands more are missing. 

“It was very, very fast,” said Pomeroy, who is also a UNESCO chair in mountain water sustainability. 

Early warning systems weren’t capable of giving enough time, Pomery explained. It wasn’t until later when officials could see water levels rising — a precursor to the tsunami that was coming, that a flood warning could be issued downstream. 

“It looks like a lot of the warnings came from the local communities,” Pomeroy said. “They got messages out that the wave was coming to the next [communities] downstream before communications were wiped out.”

The team was monitoring three lakes that had formed since the impact, which were at risk of breaking and causing further flooding. Pomeroy said the lower lake caused high flows on Friday, leading to evacuation.

While that flow has subsided, there’s still danger from the two remaining lakes, Pomeroy explained. 

“It’s not safe yet,” he said. “And this glacier is still very unstable and more could break apart.”

While Pomeroy has research collaborations in Tibet focused on the problems associated with a warming climate, much of his research is focused in Canada, which is home to more than 30,000 glaciers. 

Pomeroy and upwards of 20 students and technicians study mountain glaciers, snow and hydrology from the University of Saskatchewan’s Coldwater Laboratory in Canmore, Alta.

He wants people to know that what’s happening with glaciers in Canada, and globally, is about so much more. It’s about the cryosphere — everything that’s frozen, from permafrost, to glaciers, to snow and ice caps. 

The Narwhal spoke with Pomeroy over the phone to learn more about what’s happening with our glaciers and what, if anything, we can do about it. 

This conversation was edited for length and clarity.

Glaciers seem to fly under the radar here. There are events happening related to glaciers in Canada and they don’t really get a lot of attention.

I agree, we don’t tend to have communities right under a glacier in most places, like they do in Switzerland or Nepal or the Andes. But we do have many, many glaciers. We have more glaciers than any other country.

We’ve lost hundreds, maybe thousands of them, and we have many more to lose, unfortunately. In the Canadian Rockies, we’ve lost about a quarter of the glacier volume since the turn of the century and this is one of the highest rates of loss in the world.

Most of the glaciers are more remote. And because we’ve got these U-shaped valley bottoms, we tend to put our infrastructure pretty far away from those glaciers.

But even if our infrastructure is further away, would that mean that we shouldn’t worry about it?

Well there’s a massive casualty event that almost happened in the Canadian Rockies. It was in 2012 in the summer, and a piece of the [Ghost Glacier] capped off along with a rock fall and fell into the pond beneath it. It caused a tsunami type wave that washed out the trails, the picnic areas, the parking lot and the road around Mount Edith Cavell [in Jasper National Park]. This is a very, very busy area. It happened in the middle of the night and no one was hurt.

If that had happened at three o’clock in the afternoon we could have had casualties of hundreds of people in that area. 

So we do have places at risk. We have many tourism spots where you can go in and hike in and look up and see a glacier overhead. Those glaciers are falling apart, they’re disintegrating. We do have regions like Lake Louise [in Banff National Park], others in Jasper National Park and the Columbia Icefield area that are essentially risky. The risk varies and it changes rapidly over time.

I’d never thought about Lake Louise as a place of risk, but do you mean Mount Victoria and the glacier?

Yeah, Mount Victoria at the back, simply because the number of climbers and others go in that area. In our situation it’s more alpinists that are exposed to that sort of terrain. 

Then, you know, things that have happened at the Bugaboos mountain range and others. These things are happening. And then the debris flows associated with thawing ground and heavy rains, this is also loss of the cryosphere. These things wash out the Trans-Canada Highway and some of the connecting roads almost every year somewhere and at least cause a temporary closure.

Let’s define ‘cryosphere’ — which means the frozen parts of the Earth. Can you speak more about the big picture, beyond just glaciers?

So glaciers are, of course, fed by snow.

If we don’t get the snowfall we get a melting glacier. The deeper the snow, the slower the glacier melts; the shallower the snow, the faster it melts. So that glacier snowpack tie-in is really strong. But it’s also important for permafrost because frozen ground doesn’t begin to thaw until the snow melt has occurred.

In a year with a late snowpack in the mountains, all the ground stays frozen pretty late in the year. In a year like we had in 2023, where it melts a month early or a month and a half early, then the ground thaw starts immediately after the snow disappears. 

Ultimately it’s driven by rising temperatures. And those rising temperatures — we’ve shown that 1.5 C is too much warming to hold the cryosphere together in the Rockies.

Even if climate warming stopped tomorrow and temperatures didn’t increase anymore, we’d lose almost all of them by the time we got into the early part of the 22nd century. 

So this is already too warm for the frozen part of the planet, and we’re warming up more all the time and this is human driven.

Glacial meltwater ends up in the oceans and contributes to rising ocean levels which floods coastal cities and ports. The thawing sea ice in the Arctic Ocean results in greater coastal erosion, reduced populations of seals and polar bears and other issues for that ecosystem.

The declining lake ice in our big lakes in Canada contributes to algae blooms in the summer and greater coastal erosion. The loss of winter snowpack means the winter roads that supply remote Indigenous communities have to shut early and are not as effective.

The other thing that’s shown up in just the last few years is that streams draining the Arctic tundra have acidified rapidly since 2023. 

And these were pristine streams that have now turned orange and become acidic and are full of heavy metals and sulfuric acid. And this is leaching of minerals from thawing permafrost into the streams, making them toxic. So we’re getting these rapid, rapid changes everywhere. And it manifests differently in every environment across Canada.

Why do you think it is that the connection [with ice melt] is not necessarily made?

For glaciers it’s partly because Canada doesn’t view itself as a mountain country. Not in the way that Switzerland or Norway would, or Nepal. And that’s odd because we have more glaciers than any other country on the planet, and we have some of the most spectacular mountain landscapes. These are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, but we don’t see that at the heart of our country. It’s at the western or northern edge of our country.

Also, we tended to avoid the glaciated areas, the really colder areas, because of the harsh winters associated with them.

But we’re all going to be feeling the effects whether we see it or not

Yeah, we are. It’s already impoverishing us economically. It’s causing ecosystem changes, collapses in some areas, and it’s going to get far, far worse. It’s accelerating rapidly.

When you say it’s impoverishing us economically, are you referring to infrastructure?

Wildfires have a strong association with the winter snowpack and the timing of spring snow melt. And we’ve had low snowpacks and early melts in exactly the worst wildfire years in the last few years. So the trigger for those early season wildfires is the low early snowpack.

The lowest snowpack and earlier snowmelt on record in the Fort McMurray area was 2016, just before the massive fires that destroyed that city, as an example. The other is thawing permafrost.

There’s lots of talk now about expanding the use of Churchill as a port on Hudson Bay due to the shorter ice covered season there. But the problem remains the train line, which has flooded out from snowmelt events and collapsed due to the thawing permafrost, and that’s getting worse.

Then there’s the hydroelectricity and the algae blooms. And then drought. Snowpack primarily, and glaciers to a secondary degree, provide water supply for vast downstream areas. So the Saskatchewan River Basin across the prairie provinces, which supports irrigation districts in cities like Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Prince Albert, Medicine Hat and the Okanagan from snowmelt gas struggled in recent years with snow droughts, resulting in low water levels and restrictions in irrigation and even urban water consumption. It ties into hydroelectric droughts as well because if the stream flow’s not there hydroelectricity’s generation capacity is lower as well.

What do you think Canada can or should do about this? 

Well, the first thing is to have a strong greenhouse gas mitigation strategy. Achieving net zero at the earliest possible opportunity. By that I mean 2030, 2035. It shouldn’t be an option. It’s a necessity for survival.

And we need to do that in concert with other countries around the world. That’s gonna be incredibly difficult, but we have to push for that and make that case in our foreign policy. 

The second is a plan for adaptation. Understand that floods will be different, droughts will be different, more severe, these glacier and permafrost and snow hazards will be increasing in mountain and other cool regions and that means more monitoring. More observation stations, better satellite measurement of these things and better predictions of floods or droughts or extreme events that may ensue from them. 

And then also working with communities to ensure that those early warning systems are appropriate for those communities and that community knowledge is used to design these things. Often the most vulnerable communities are Indigenous. And so those systems need to be designed with Indigenous people, bringing in their understanding and their knowledge systems into this to make effective prediction systems.

It requires big changes, but if we don’t start now, we’re not going to get there.

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Records from the Alberta Energy Regulator show coal mines struggle to prevent discharges of potentially harmful sediments into waterways, raising questions about impacts on water and wildlife as the Alberta government pushes to open more land to coal mining along the Rockies.

The Narwhal analyzed data from the regulator from the past three years and found there have been 42 incidents since 2023 tied to existing coal mines located in west-central Alberta, along the foothills and eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. All of those incidents are related to impacts on water. Many of the incidents were related to the release of sediment into nearby lakes and streams, which can be toxic for fish and other aquatic wildlife.

Of the 42 incidents, only six — 14 per cent — resulted in enforcement actions by the provincial regulator.

Going back to 2013, there have been 23 provincial enforcement actions levied against coal mines in the province, with total fines of just under $1.1 million. 

Almost all of the fines were tied to one incident, the Obed mine disaster, which dumped 670 million litres of wastewater into the Athabasca River about an hour east of Jasper, Alta. The mine’s owner was ordered to pay $925,000 in provincial fines (and $3.5 million in federal penalties), and the mine is no longer operating. 

Of the existing mines, Coal Valley, owned by Westmoreland Coal, is tied to the most incidents — 16 in total — in the past three years. The Coal Valley mine, near Hinton, Alta., produces thermal coal, used to create electricity and primarily burned in Japanese factories. But the mine’s owners say numbers alone do not tell the whole story. 

“One should consider the number of reportable events alongside their causes, environmental significance, the company’s monitoring and reporting practices, its co-operation with regulators and the corrective actions taken,” a spokesperson said in response to questions from The Narwhal. “This provides a better context for what is really happening at our mine sites.”

Coal Valley does not produce high levels of selenium

Westmoreland was the only company to respond to questions about regulatory compliance in Alberta. It also invited The Narwhal to tour the Coal Valley mine to provide more context for some of the incidents.

A significant distinction the company was eager to highlight was the fact the coal produced at its mine does not contain high levels of selenium — a claim backed up by independent environmental assessments commissioned by the company and submitted to the regulator. Selenium is a key chemical pollutant concern for most existing and potential mines along the rocky spine of the province. 

Coal mining can produce selenium, which is harmful to human and fish health if it accumulates in high quantities, as well as toxins such as arsenic, a key concern in the ongoing debate about opening new mines in the headwaters that feed rivers, lakes and streams across Alberta, Saskatchewan and into Manitoba. 

Groundwater and surface water assessments submitted to the regulator appear to show most water at Coal Valley is within guidelines for a host of contaminants, including selenium. 

Almost all of the incidents tied to Coal Valley are for exceedances of “total suspended solids” — an overabundance of debris and sediment — including one infraction in April in which the company was almost triple the allowable limit. 

The company said it was hit with heavy snow-melt that overwhelmed its systems. It also said it conducts extensive testing to evaluate potential effects and that those results “remained within applicable regulatory parameters following the event.”

The regulator, in response to questions from The Narwhal, says it will conduct its own testing “when required for enforcement activities.”

Climate change could exacerbate run-off and have significant impacts: retired government scientists

The Alberta government has waffled on its coal policy since first reopening Alberta’s Rocky Mountains to coal mining in 2020, prompting immense public backlash. It has since reinstated the earlier ban, but not before some exploration projects were approved, then it suspended those approvals and finally rescinded those suspensions to allow them to go forward as it prepares a new coal policy — anticipated this fall. A committee sought input from Albertans on a new policy in 2021.

As part of that process, some experts rang alarm bells related to heavy snow-melt akin to that experienced at Coal Valley.

Weather events overwhelming mine infrastructure is something a group of retired provincial government scientists warned about in a submission to Alberta’s coal committee.

“High snowfall run-off and major rainfall events have happened on a regular basis, often causing flows that were well above the levels that regulatory agencies and companies anticipated, included in modelling and for which infrastructure was designed and built,” wrote the five scientists. “This will be exacerbated by climate change making historic rainfall, snowfall and streamflow data increasingly out of date for planning and engineering purposes.”

Those same scientists warn that sediment and the chemicals used to treat waste “can be toxic to fish.” Sediment-laden waterbodies can also impact fish spawning and rearing, as well as aquatic insect production — food for fish. 

Katie Morrison, the executive director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society in southern Alberta, says there’s a lot of focus on selenium because it has such a big impact and because no mine has ever successfully prevented it from entering waterbodies. 

“I don’t think there’s too much focus on selenium, but I do think the fact that there are many other contaminants that are released is sort of lost in that conversation a little bit,” she says. 

Westmoreland says it “conducts approximately 8,000 surface-water sampling events” each year at 47 different locations around the sprawling mine, as well as groundwater, wetland and biological health monitoring. 

“We also sample 20 additional locations upstream and downstream of the mine and exceed a number of the minimum monitoring requirements contained in approvals,” the company wrote after a tour of the mine site.

Coal Valley is not alone in releasing sediment into Alberta waterways. 

‘Enforcement action may not be required’

In 2023, CST Canada Coal Ltd., which operates the Grande Cache coal mine, released wastewater into the Smoky River for 17 hours and was ultimately fined $10,000 by the provincial regulator for the release and for failure to report it for more than seven hours. 

Again, the issue was total suspended solids, but the regulator makes it clear in its report about the incident that it’s not just a question of murky water. 

The run-off can release harmful chemicals even as it settles, and fine sediment can harm fish through gill abrasion and behavioural changes.

CST was also fined $23,000 in 2024 for dumping mine wastewater into the Smoky River after a sensor malfunctioned when a pond overflowed. The company did not report the incident for five days. 

The same company was fined $20,000 by the regulator in July for another incident in 2024, which dumped at least 1 million kilograms of sediment into Sheep Creek, although the exact quantity is not known. The total suspended solids were 1,920 times the regulatory limit on the day of the release. According to the regulator, the company didn’t report the incident for more than 22 hours and when it did, it withheld important details. 

The causes of the spill included high rainfall and “known drainage problems” at the mine. 

An inspection by the regulator showed “elevated levels of metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons” with potential risks to bull trout spawning habitat, although that risk was listed as “unlikely.” 

The Alberta Energy Regulator, in response to questions emailed by The Narwhal, said it takes into account several factors when determining whether to fine a coal company for violations. 

“If the operator is compliant and responsive in early stages to mitigate and address incidents, further action may not be required,” wrote an unnamed spokesperson. “Also, if there is no emergency phase and little or no impact to waterbodies or wildlife, enforcement action may not be required.”

The regulator will issue orders to companies to fix an existing issue or try to mitigate impacts, issue warning letters to force compliance or, as in one case involving the Obed mine disaster, prosecute a company in court. 

“The tools we use depend on the significance of the noncompliance,” the spokesperson wrote. “We keep a record of every company’s compliance and enforcement history. If a company purposely (or repeatedly) fails to follow the rules, our enforcement actions will escalate, and the consequences will become more severe.”

Morrison says it’s not about simply punishing companies for non-compliance. 

“I don’t think we’re saying, ‘Hey, we need to immediately close down the operating mines,’ but we do need to still hold those operating mines to standards,” she says, adding there also has to be a clear path from an incident to enforcement. 

“But I think more than that, we don’t want to just penalize companies for infractions, we want to prevent those things in the first place.”

The chemistry of coal

James C. Hower has been studying coal for more than 50 years and is a research professor at the University of Kentucky. He says there’s a lot to consider when assessing the impact of coal mining on the environment, including the type and grade of coal, as well as individual companies and the regulations in place. 

“We’ve got plenty of examples in the Appalachians of people who have mining companies that, in general, are good operators and seem to be doing things the right way, and then something goes wrong,” he says. 

He cites flooding as a major risk to a well-ordered mine operation. And while he doesn’t study Alberta in particular, he says concerns over water quality are legitimate, particularly for ranchers in the south of the province, where new mines are being proposed. 

A key factor, he says, is ensuring contamination does not get out of control so that reclamation is possible.

“If it’s done wrong in the first place and things get out of hand, you got a big problem,” Hower says.

Land-use planning is supposed to precede new coal policy: conservation advocate

The province is expected to unveil its new coal policy this fall, outlining new rules for where and when a new coal mine can operate. The policy is the outcome of years of on-again off-again restrictions on coal mining in the Rockies, particularly in sensitive areas to the south. 

The policy follows public consultations by a government commission that made numerous recommendations including the need for robust land-use planning, which considers cumulative impacts from other industries and users, ahead of any coal policy that could allow new mines to operate. 

“That hasn’t happened,” Morrison says. “So they are already going ahead with a coal policy without that land-use planning.”

She says the risks to the landscape, the environment and even to coal companies, is too great to allow new mines in the province. 

“It also doesn’t make sense from a company side to say to companies, ‘Yes, you can come and pitch a project here,’ knowing that it’s actually not going to be compatible down the road if our regulatory system was working as it should be.”

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In July, Lions Bay Search and Rescue responded to a call for help from hikers who had planned their hike of the Howe Sound Crest Trail using Google Maps. The 18-kilometre route they chose was Cypress Mountain to the West Lion peak, then descending to Lions Bay. According to Lions Bay Search and Rescue, the route has “well over 1,300 metres of elevation gain, sustained alpine terrain, route finding, scrambling sections, loose rock and countless ups and downs.”

Translation: it’s a big day out. But Google Maps showed the hikers their trip would take 5 hours and 13 minutes. (Inputting a similar itinerary into Google Maps produced a slightly longer route, and an estimated time of under six hours.) In fact, the hike can be an 8- to 14-hour trip and is often done as a two- or three-day backpacking adventure. The hikers were rescued successfully, but it’s not the first time this sort of incident has occurred. 

“We have this case where AI has given false information, false directions. It’s pulling from unknown sources, and those sources aren’t always correct,” Maria Masiar, search manager for Lions Bay Search and Rescue, tells The Narwhal. “Whether that’s imagery or weather alerts or fire hazards … as an online user, you have to be really prudent.” 

Masiar is also the training officer for Lions Bay Search and Rescue, a role that requires her to run weekly training sessions for team members, everything from medical simulations to helicopter operations. In her eight years of search and rescue, she’s responded to a number of calls that involved bad information.

One rescue was prompted by a group that wanted to write a song about climbing a mountain, and turned to AI for suggestions. “It recommended Mount Unnecessary, which is further along the Howe Sound Crest Trail,” she says, and also a pretty challenging hike for novices. “They get there, and they’re overwhelmed and it ends up precipitating a rescue.”

The trouble with relying on your phone for directions 

The issues with Google Maps directions for the outdoors are nothing new: in 2023, North Shore Rescue told CTV they believed people were regularly getting lost on Mount Fromme due to directions from Google Maps that showed a non-existent trail. By email, John Blown, air operations coordinator for North Shore Rescue, told The Narwhal the trail has since been removed, but not before prompting “quite a few rescues and a near fatality.” Blown says the volume of calls related to Google Maps has stayed fairly consistent, though “thankfully there are no trails in our area that don’t actually exist (anymore).”

The Narwhal reached out to Google to ask whether they are aware of these issues, and if they are making any changes as a result. By email, a spokesperson wrote: “Walking navigation on Google Maps is designed for streets — we calculate [estimated times] based on standard walking speeds and show clear warnings that conditions may vary. We encourage hikers to use trail maps and apps designed specifically for hiking.” 

So why do people rely on these tools? For one thing, they’re at your fingertips: if you enter a hiking route, Google Maps will probably generate one. (You won’t get a disclaimer telling you not to trust it.) 

But using AI also changes the way people think. A recent study by researchers from France and Italy found that “merely having access to AI nearly eliminated participants’ willingness to suspend judgment.” What’s more, even though AI information was incorrect as part of the study design, participants were more confident in their answers. This ignorant bravado is annoying when your friend is quoting ChatGPT at you; it can be downright dangerous when it guides people into the backcountry.

AI isn’t the only tool distorting perceptions of the outdoors. Masiar points to social media as another realm of inaccuracy. “We see a shortcut, oftentimes, on Facebook or Instagram, where people will just show one part of that journey,” she says. “They’ll show the big, beautiful summit with the dramatic views. But that’s not encapsulating what goes into a trip like that, right?” Regardless, many people are inspired by what they see to try to recreate it; just look at the endlessly repeating images of nearly any iconic summit in B.C. 

“People just go in so unprepared into these areas,” Masiar says, “and I do feel like a lot of it is fuelled by validation and these Instagram journeys.” 

Masiar, who has been hiking in one of B.C.’s most popular parks, Joffre Lakes, for 20 years, has seen that Instagram effect first hand. “There’s a lineup of people waiting to walk out onto this log,” she says. “And it’s not just a park-and-go. It’s a real hike. You can twist your ankle. … These are real mountains. There is real wildlife out there.” 

For Lions Bay Search and Rescue, that Instagram trap is Tunnel Bluffs, which Masiar says used to be a place “almost nobody knew about.” Now, thousands of visitors pass through each month, drawn by the picturesque west-facing lookout toward Bowen Island. It’s become, Masiar says, the number-one spot for twisted ankles. “The traffic and the incidents on that trail continue to increase because people want that cool sunset photo.” 

Ultimately, neither social media nor AI can provide what Masiar says is most important: hard-earned wisdom. “This is what I feel like a lot of people are lacking,” Masiar says. “Fitness does not equal judgment and experience.” 

Hiking apps and resources to use over of Google Maps

Masiar recommends BC AdventureSmart, an education project of B.C.’s Search and Rescue Association, to make a trip plan. The Alpine Club of Canada and the B.C. Mountaineering Club also help people access training, mentorship and resources for navigating the outdoors. 

“If people have the means, I always recommend guiding services as well,” she says, particularly if people want to attempt a challenging trail for the first time. “You know they’re going to keep you safe, and that’s something you should definitely consider. Your life is worth it.” 

For maps, she recommends AllTrails, which is regularly updated with current conditions and is accessible for beginners. (Though AllTrails raised concerns among many search-and-rescue teams when the company added a feature for users to customize routes using AI.) 

“If you’re a more advanced user, I’d say Gaia GPS or Outmap are the two really good ones,” she adds. Her search-and-rescue team uses CalTopo, which is geared toward backcountry travel. 

But the most helpful tips come from asking more experienced hikers. Local hiking groups on Facebook or in person are more reliable than Google search results. 

July and August are the busiest months for calls. “We usually have four or five calls in July,” Masiar says, when we speak in late July. “This year we’ve had 10.” Some are from dehydration, when temperatures are high and water is scarce; others are injuries from slipping or falling. “And it’s wasp season,” she adds. 

In other words, there are plenty of natural hazards, which even experienced hikers might not be able to control. AI-generated directions of dubious origin? That’s within even the most beginner hiker’s grasp.

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The smell of decomposing garbage hits before the building comes into view — a sour, earthy odour that stings your teeth. Hidden by a curving driveway, large bright green trees and a set of lawn chairs, the entrance almost makes you forget that beyond it lies a waste-burning facility that is set to become one of North America’s largest incinerators.

The Emerald Energy from Waste incinerator sits on roughly six hectares of industrial land, tucked between Bramalea Road and Highway 407 in Brampton, Ont. Behind its rusting metal walls and towering smokestacks, transport trucks arrive throughout the day carrying loads of non-hazardous waste from across Ontario. Inside, garbage is unloaded, sorted and fed into combustion units, where the waste is burned to generate electricity for neighbouring businesses and homes.

The facility began operating in spring 1992, on former agricultural land that had become home to a rapidly developing industrial sector. Today, warehouses, manufacturing plants and trucking dominate the area immediately around the incinerator. But beyond this industrial zone are neighbourhoods that have expanded alongside one of Canada’s fastest-growing cities. Just a few kilometres southwest of the plant, cricket and soccer matches fill Emancipation Park on summer evenings. Minutes away, homes, recreation centres and places of worship serve a population transformed by decades of immigration, particularly from South Asia. What was once a facility close to the edge of Brampton now sits near communities where tens of thousands of people live, work and raise families.

Last year, the province approved the Environmental Assessment Screening Report which clears the path to a major expansion of the Emerald incinerator. The facility would process up to 900,000 tonnes of waste annually — roughly six-fold what it’s processing today, bringing even more garbage from various Ontario municipalities to Brampton. The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks has not responded to The Local’s request for comment.

Emerald Energy from Waste argues that the expansion is needed to address Ontario’s looming landfill capacity crisis. According to Waste to Resource Ontario, an environmental services association, Ontario generated approximately 16.88 million tonnes of waste in 2024, with 12.75 million tonnes disposed in landfills; the province is projected to run out of landfill space by 2037.

“Ontario has a crisis in that we don’t have enough waste management capacity infrastructure in the province,” Joe Lyng, president of Emerald Energy from Waste, says. An expansion in Brampton, he argues, is the answer to multiple problems — diverting more garbage from landfills while also increasing the incinerator’s energy recovery rate, creating more power for an energy-starved province.

While that argument may be convincing for the province, locals feel differently. The incinerator expansion — which Emerald anticipates will begin in 2027 — has become one of Brampton’s most contentious environmental issues. Many residents question the province’s approval process. They worry about the potential health effects on nearby communities. And they wonder if anyone is looking out for the good of the people of Brampton, a city of racialized immigrants at the edge of Canada’s biggest metropolis.

“It’s a sacrifice zone,” Linda Gasser, co-founder of the advocacy group Zero Waste 4 Zero Burning, says. That’s the term for an area in which low-income and minority groups shoulder the environmental harms of clustered polluting industrial sites. For locals, the placement of the largest incinerator in Canada right in their community sends a message: that somewhere like Brampton won’t, or can’t, object to housing the region’s industry and waste. “One more polluting facility, what’s the big deal, right?” Gasser says. It’s a mindset that some residents are committed to fighting.

Incinerator’s English-only consultations create barriers in largely Punjabi-speaking neighbourhoods

There’s a misconception that Bramptonians don’t care about the environment. Once proudly known as The Flower City, Brampton is now grappling with a new online reputation as a “garbage city.” It’s a stereotype that has frustrated many residents — including those working to prove the opposite.

Born and raised in Brampton, Rajbalinder Ghatoura is an environmental activist dedicated to improving life in his community. When he was 12 years old, Ghatoura won an international environmental photography competition for a photo of a Tim Horton’s cup seemingly dissolving into its surroundings. It sparked a lifelong commitment to protecting the environment. Today, at 25, that commitment still shapes his activism. Environmental problems, Ghatoura says, often become hardest to confront when people can’t see them, which he believes goes beyond roadside litter.

In 2023, Ghatoura co-founded Kudrat Di Rakhia, a community organization based in Brampton. They’re members of the Brampton Environmental Alliance, and focus on advocacy and education.

To reach the South Asian population in Brampton, Ghatoura works with local gurdwaras. Raising awareness about environmental sustainability, starting with places of worship, Kudrat Di Rakhia has engaged with the Sikh community to participate in initiatives like tree planting and city cleanups.

Communicating directly with Punjabi-speaking residents is one of Kudrat Di Rakhia’s greatest strengths. By bridging the language barrier, the organization is able to connect with a broader diaspora of Brampton’s South Asian community that can be overlooked in environmental advocacy efforts. According to the 2021 census, Punjabi is the second most spoken language after English in Brampton. “It’s important for this information to be shared with the population, the demographics, and to be shared in a language that they understand,” says Ghatoura.

He says this wasn’t the case with the incinerator expansion. In 2022, the company took out a half-page ad in the Brampton Guardian, an English–only newspaper, to inform the public of their proposed expansion project. Informing the public of an undertaking like the proposed expansion is required under the Environmental Assessment Act. But despite the surrounding area being home to many immigrants and residents whose first language is not English, no information was provided in Punjabi or any other language.

Lyng says he looked into the demographics in Brampton and found that approximately 95 to 97 per cent were English-speaking residents. (While census data shows that approximately 95 per cent of Brampton residents have “knowledge” of English, it’s the mother tongue for roughly 42 per cent of the population.)

“We’re not going to reach out to, you know, the two or three per cent. It’s at our discretion and we didn’t see that as something that was necessary,” Lyng says.

Ghatoura himself only came to know of the proposed expansion a year ago, reading about it online, after much of the screening process had already been completed.

What he learned alarmed him.

Company president says incinerator expansion is safe, but won’t commit to publicly sharing real-time emission data

Energy-from-waste facilities, like the one in Brampton, are incinerators that recover energy during combustion. Heat is used to generate steam, powering a turbine to produce electricity. Although incinerators reduce the volume of garbage, they don’t completely eliminate it. After the waste is burned, the ash that remains in the stacks is typically disposed of in a landfill.

Expansion at the proposed scale would typically require a full environmental assessment. Because Emerald Energy from Waste has been a long-term operation, however, the project went through a streamlined environmental screening process. Lyng says that the process they conducted included technical studies as well as public consultations such as open houses and public liaison meetings. “We went above and beyond,” Lyng says.

For many — including anti-incineration activists, health officials, the region of Peel and concerned residents like Ghatoura — these assurances aren’t nearly enough. They insist that the incinerator do an individual environmental assessment, which would enable a public review of emission data and determine risks to the environment and public health.

Brampton resident Stacey Wilson has noticed an unsettling odour in the air for more than two decades. “When it’s a nice day, and I step out the door to go for a walk, and the first thing I notice is the smell of burning tires or burning plastic, that’s really upsetting to me,” she says. She’s filed multiple reports with the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks.

Wilson’s worried about the increased traffic that will come with the expansion. According to the incinerator’s website, the facility is currently licensed to process 500 metric tonnes of garbage per day, which Lyng says is unloaded by 30 to 35 trucks. The expanded incinerator, the website says, will process 2,500 tonnes a day, roughly five times the current amount. This could mean many more vehicles. But Wilson’s biggest concern is the uncertainty about what pollutants are being released: “How do we know what we’re breathing in now?” If there are any damaging health effects, she says, they won’t become apparent until years from now.

Lyng says that the incinerator’s emissions are carefully monitored. The facility’s annual stack tests, which measure air quality directly from the its exhaust stacks, show that every pollutant tested by the company remained within Ontario’s regulatory limits between 2020 to 2025. However, known pollutants, such as nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide and hydrogen chloride, have at times spiked to the edge of allowable limits.

“We have real-time emission monitoring,” Lyng says, referring to the meters that continuously monitor certain pollutants. If there are any issues with operations or emissions, they report it to the ministry and follow up with an action report.

Linda Gasser, of Zero Waste 4 Zero Burning, and Wendy Bracken, of the Durham Environment Watch, say that these monitoring efforts aren’t enough. Bracken says that while incinerator operators emphasize their continuous monitoring — with the implication being that if something is wrong they can shut things down — many pollutants are in fact only tested once a year.

Lyng confirms that the Emerald incinerator does not have a meter to continuously monitor all pollutants; instead, the facility conducts annual testing to measure their levels. He says the expansion will include a meter to conduct continuous monitoring for sulphur dioxide, unlike the current facility.

Since the emissions are self-monitored, the results cannot be viewed by residents remotely. Opponents of the incinerator contrast that with the monitoring done at the Durham York Energy Centre, an incinerator on the other side of the GTA owned by the Regions of Durham and York. There, emissions data is made public, through a real-time portal on their website. In addition to their continuous monitoring, the Durham York Energy Centre undergoes stack testing twice a year.

Lyng says that Emerald will not be publishing its emissions data online. “The public can come in and see the data at the plant,” Lyng says. “We can come and bring you up to the control room, show you this is what we do. It’s not some mystical process.”

It’s difficult to imagine members of the public taking Lyng up on his offer. The control room sits on the second floor of the facility, accessible by a narrow metal staircase. Operating data is displayed across multiple monitors running the facility’s original 1992 control system. During a recent tour, the room’s temperature exceeded 40 C.

Incinerator’s neighbourhood is populated by vulnerable communities, health unit says

Beyond data from the incinerator’s stacks, opponents of the expansion have another concern: how burning five times the waste it does today will affect a community that already grapples with pollution.

Last spring, Peel Public Health officials submitted a report to the regional council outlining their concerns about the incinerator project. Additional emissions from the expansion, they wrote, “results in an overall increase in cumulative exposure to air pollutants and can result in an increased risk of negative health effects to the surrounding community.”

The health unit found that some pollutants already exceed provincial and federal air quality limits, even before the expansion. In an email to The Local, Peel Public Health said they’d found that local background levels of benzo(a)pyrene — a toxic chemical that’s often the result of incomplete combustion of organic material — currently exceeds the air quality limits for both short and long-term exposures. Modeling under worst-case emission conditions, the health unit found that with the expansion, benzo(a)pyrene and nitrogen dioxide are estimated to exceed the short-term exposure limits set by the province by 115 per cent.

The proposed expansion is also predicated on collecting enough waste to generate profitable energy from incineration. That’s an approach that Peel Public Health’s report says is “counter to the promotion and sustainability of robust circular economy markets, which are crucial for minimizing waste, pollution and resource consumption.”

To fully understand the emissions and their impact on air quality in the surrounding community, Peel Public Health told The Local they need to know more about the pollution control technology at the expanded facility — information that will come in the next step of the approval process. Emerald Energy from Waste is required to include this information in their Environmental Compliance Approval application to the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks.

What’s clear is that the expanded incinerator will be surrounded by existing vulnerable communities. Peel Region health status data shows that roughly 70 per cent of the people in the data zone containing the incinerator are racialized individuals. According to the Peel Public Health report, compared to Peel as a whole, residents in the communities living closest to the facility have more one-parent families, and a higher percentage of residents who didn’t complete high-school and are unemployed. They also have “higher rates of certain health conditions … that may be worsened by exposure to increased air pollution.”

Peel Public Health noted in its report that it hasn’t heard directly from residents about the proposed expansion. But the lack of inquiry doesn’t necessarily mean a lack of concern. The socio-economic realities flagged in the report are the very same ones that make it unlikely for community members to step forward. In order to oppose the expansion, residents first need to know about it.

Municipal councillors call for more scrutiny of incinerator proposal

For long-time Brampton resident Susan Colbert Wright, the fight over the incinerator is about more than the impact of a single industrial project. She raises larger questions about who gets to shape the future of Brampton and who bears the costs of development decisions. As plans move ahead to create Canada’s largest waste incinerator, Wright keeps returning to the most basic question: “How is more pollution okay?”

Wright has lived in Brampton since the 1960s. She’s witnessed Brampton become Canada’s fastest growing, multicultural municipality — one she and her family call home. She’s also watched Brampton become home to a disproportionate share of the region’s industrial footprint, with power plants, warehouses and trucking hubs, among other facilities that are reshaping the city’s environmental future.

One of the major barriers to public engagement, as Wright sees it, is a lack of easily accessible information, with reports and correspondence scattered across government websites. To address this gap, she’s building a website that will consolidate all records and resources. “It’s the one place where you can go to get the history, the information, rather than having to search all over the place,” Wright says.

Her primary goal is for the website to act as a conduit between residents and elected officials, making it easier for concerned residents to directly email MPs, submit public feedback and participate in opposition action.

Although Emerald aimed to start construction this fall, Lyng told The Local that because they haven’t finalized the design of the project, they won’t be able to begin until spring or summer of 2027. In the meantime, the planned expansion has become a political issue for local councillors.

Wards nine and 10 councillor Gurpartap Singh Toor, who sits on Brampton’s Environment Advisory Committee, says he received an influx of calls after provincial approval was announced.

Those calls, Toor says, are almost entirely from people strongly opposing the incinerator expansion and voicing their concerns for public health. “Our communities here in the City of Brampton are heavily racialized communities that are typically more prone to heart and lung diseases,” Toor says. “A lot of them live in very close proximity to where this project is getting built, and those are the communities that will face the more immediate effect.”

In a recent regional council meeting, wards seven and eight councillor Pat Fortini and councillor Toor passed a motion to submit new technological research presented by a local resident to MPs, to emphasize that there needs to be further environmental compliance ahead of the construction of the expansion.

“I definitely don’t want the Region of Peel or the City of Brampton to be the garbage burning capital of Canada,” Toor said during that meeting. He requested the region submit the motion to both the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks and Health in order to push them to review the expansion proposal once again.

‘This is our home’: Bamptonians love their city, and say they’ll fight to keep it clean and healthy

As the incinerator expansion moves forward, Ghatoura is still dedicating himself to making sure his community isn’t seen as a “sacrifice zone.”

This April, he says his organization brought their message directly to residents, setting up booths at Earth Month and Sikh Heritage Month events across the city, to lead discussions about various environmental issues, including the proposed expansion of the incinerator. “It’s surprising that when we talk to people, they have no idea that a waste incinerator exists there, and that they have plans for expansion,” says Ghatoura. “That is very concerning, because this is going to impact them every single day.”

As Ghatoura and other organizers spark those conversations in Brampton, he’s been heartened to see different age groups advocating for their communities. “Especially this issue with the waste incinerator, we’re getting a lot more youth involvement, which is amazing, we haven’t really seen that before,” he says.

On a summer evening this July, Ghatoura led a group of senior citizens — all South Asian men over 70 — to participate in a community cleanup, picking up empty coffee cups, plastic wrappers and old weathered flyers. They met at Luongo Park in western Brampton, and walked through the neighbourhood with trash picks, garbage bags and latex gloves, picking up garbage from people’s driveways, lawns and the street.

“This is our home,” says Sri Bansilal Singh, a 70-year-old man who rode his bicycle for two kilometres to join his friends for the cleanup. “Brampton is very beautiful, and because we’re grateful to live here, we’re happy to contribute to the community and want to help maintain its beauty.”

As they went about the cleanup, residents came out to pay their respects to the seniors. “People really love these guys, and have great respect for what they’re doing,” Ghatoura says. It’s one of the many reasons he questions why the incinerator is being built in Brampton. Historically, he says, environmental racism has meant that the burden of development often falls on the shoulders of the marginalized. But this only motivates him more — to educate and mobilize his community, to prove that Brampton deserves better.

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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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For over a decade, Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 has been the centre of a political and environmental battle in Michigan. The legal conflict included state officials, federal agencies, tribal nations, environmental groups and the Canadian energy company fighting over what the future of the aging pipeline should look like.  

But, in recent weeks, that debate has only become more complicated. 

Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy issued a key environmental permit for a proposed tunnel on July 15, appearing to move the project closer to construction. 

Two weeks later, the construction timeline moved farther away after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the Michigan Public Service Commission did not adequately consider the tunnel’s environmental consequences when giving the project its own permit. The court sent the case back to the commission for further review.

The decision added another layer to a dispute that already involved state and federal courts, multiple government agencies and competing arguments about Michigan’s energy needs, the Great Lakes and tribal Treaty Rights.

“We’re still in a state of limbo,” Mike Shriberg, director of the University of Michigan Water Center, said. “The decisions in the last few weeks, rather than clarify, have probably muddied the waters more and extended the lifetime of the conversation and the decisions about the future of Line 5.”

And on Aug. 12, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a long-desired permit for Enbridge for the construction of the tunnel. The next steps are securing the remaining permits and approvals needed for construction.

A long history

In 1953, Line 5 was built running 1,038 kilometres from Superior, Wisconsin, through Lake Michigan and Sarnia, Ont. Initially, the pipeline’s lifespan was supposed to be around 50 years. Its 50th birthday was 23 years ago. 

Most of the pipe is about 75 centimetres, with the exception of the position beneath the Straits of Mackinac. There, the pipe splits into two 50-centimetre lines that sit on the lake-bed for about seven kilometres.

That section has become the main bearer of controversy, with the central focus being a possible rupture that could release oil into the Great Lakes.

Safety concerns heightened after an approximately two-metre rupture in another Enbridge line, near Marshall, Michigan, in July 2010. The break released more than three million litres of heavy Canadian crude oil into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River.

In 2018, due to human error, a ship’s anchor hit Line 5 causing minor dents, but no oil was spilled. 

The proposed Great Lakes Tunnel Project would run beneath the lake-bed. Enbridge says the pipeline would sit about 30 metres below the lake-bed, protecting it from ship anchors. 

But the tunnel has yet to be built.

Why the debate is still ongoing

The newly proposed tunnel is only one piece of the larger Line 5 dispute.

In 2019, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel sued Enbridge in hopes of shutting down the existing pipelines in the Mackinac straits. She argued that Enbridge did not have a valid agreement to operate the pipeline under the straits — mainly that Line 5 was violating Michigan environmental laws.

This year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Nessel’s lawsuit belongs in state court after Enbridge attempted to move it to federal court.

Separately, a federal judge ruled in December that Michigan could not enforce its 2020 order to shut down Line 5 — saying the federal pipeline safety laws overruled the state’s order. Since then, Michigan has appealed the decision.

The result is a series of overlapping cases moving through different courts.

“I think it’s mostly because the legal system that we have is set up to make it easier to delay than to move forward,” Shriberg said. “It’s pretty easy in our legal system to draw things out, to appeal, to stop things from happening.”

That’s why Line 5’s problems are difficult to summarize in a single legal storyline.

“It’s a complicated array of things going on that’s very hard to explain in a straightforward manner,” Shriberg said.

Enbridge’s case for keeping the pipeline

Through the last decade of controversy, Enbridge has maintained that Line 5 is an important part of the region’s energy infrastructure.

Ryan Duffy, an Enbridge spokesperson, said the pipeline carries light crude oil and natural gas liquids, with about 80 per cent of the products being light crude oil and 20 per cent natural gas liquids.

The company says Line 5 transports as much as 540,000 barrels of product each day, a figure also cited by the Michigan Public Service Commission. The company estimates that Line 5 supplies 65 per cent of propane demand in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and 55 per cent of the state’s overall propane needs.

“A lot of people still heat their homes with propane in [Michigan’s Upper Peninsula],” Duffy said.

Line 5 is “at or near capacity,” Duffy said, adding that the only other pipeline moving product toward Sarnia is Line 78 which is also at or near capacity.

“There is really no viable alternative to transporting the product that Line 5 carries,” Duffy said.

Enbridge’s proposed solution to safety concerns is the tunnel.

According to Duffy, the tunnel was determined to be the best solution for protecting Line 5 in the Straits. He said the project would eliminate the possibility of oil or other products escaping into the Straits. 

Enbridge also points to the pipeline’s operating history. 

The company says the straits crossing has never leaked during more than 65 years of operation and is subject to continuous monitoring and maintenance.

Yet, Line 5 has experienced spills elsewhere along its route. In 2017, a National Wildlife Federation analysis identified 29 known spills, busts and equipment failures along the pipeline since 1968. Between those spills, more than three million litres of oil and natural gas have been released.

Concerns beyond safety

“The tunnel is really the common-sense solution going forward because it both protects the environment and makes sure that the product that people need continues to be delivered safely and reliably and affordably,” Duffy said.

For Bay Mills Indian Community President Whitney Gravelle, located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Line 5 is not a question of safety or energy supply.

“For my tribal nation specifically, Line 5 is a threat to our way of life, to our tribal Treaty Rights, to our cultural resources,” Gravelle said.  

Line 5 crosses territory included in the 1836 Treaty of Washington, where tribal nations yielded millions of acres of property to the United States while retaining certain rights, including what the treaty describes as the “usual privileges of occupancy.”

Gravelle said those rights depend on the health of the natural resources around them.

“You can’t have a treaty right to fish without clean water for fish to spawn,” she said. “And you can’t have a treaty right to hunt if you’re cutting down forests and filling wetlands.”

Protecting the Great Lakes is inseparable from protecting the tribe’s culture for Bay Mills. 

“We cannot be Ojibwe, Anishinaabe, without the Great Lakes,” Gravelle said. “Our entire being, our culture, our language is interwoven into the Great Lakes.”

She says the tribe opposes the tunnel because it believes moving Line 5 underground would extend the pipeline’s operation rather than eliminate the threat. 

“We’re only focused on these four miles in the straits without looking at the 645 miles that Line 5 traverses and asking ourselves, 100 years from now, do we still want Line 5 in the state of Michigan?” Gravelle said. “Because that’s what the tunnel would do. It would cement Line 5’s existence for the rest of time.”

Others have raised similar concerns.

Jeffrey Insko, an English professor at Oakland University who writes a newsletter on Line 5, said the tunnel could lock in fossil fuel transportation for decades.

“What the tunnel really means is locking in fossil fuel transport for another 100 years,” Insko said.

For the tunnel, he said he is also concerned about whether the project would adequately protect the Great Lakes from environmental harm during construction.

“We need to be thinking about ways and investing in ways to reduce fossil fuel consumption rather than investing in prolonging the lives of fossil fuel consumption,” Insko said.

How needed is the pipeline?

At the heart of the disagreement is a key question: does Michigan need Line 5?

“The one thing that people haven’t looked into or covered enough is: What’s the need for Line 5?” said Shriberg of the University of Michigan. “There’s extremely good information out there that shows that Line 5 is not needed for use in the U.S.”

Enbridge says it is. Opponents say alternatives exist.

Gravelle said Enbridge should decommission Line 5 and instead use alternatives like using Line 78, which runs through southern Michigan from Indiana to Sarnia. She argues Michigan could continue getting energy supplies without Line 5. 

“This ultimately is about Enbridge’s profits. It’s not about energy infrastructure,” Gravelle said.

Over the years, the state should have used the time to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, she said. 

“What could we have done in those 10 years to actually reduce our reliance on those issues?” Gravelle said. 

Enbridge disputes any claims that there could be other ways to supply what the line holds, saying there are no viable alternatives capable of replacing everything Line 5 currently carries.

What’s next

The immediate future of the Great Lakes tunnel is uncertain.

The Michigan Supreme Court’s July 31 decision requires the Michigan Public Service Commission to revisit its analysis of Enbridge’s tunnel proposal — which includes the environmental impacts that the court said were not adequately considered.

“The Great Lakes tunnel is on sort of an indefinite hold right now,” Shriberg said. “There’s not going to be any dirt moving in the near future.”

Duffy said the decision is disappointing and delays a project the company has spent years planning and permitting.

“We view that as disappointing because that is going to be an additional delay,” Duffy said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has also issued a federal permit for the tunnel project, adding another approval to the project’s permitting process.

At the same time, the legal battle over whether the existing Line 5 pipelines can continue operating in the Straits remains separate from the tunnel permitting process.

“They’re on separate tracks,” Shriberg said.

The goal remains clear for Enbridge: keep Line 5 in operation and move the straits crossing into an underground tunnel.

After more than seven decades, the pipeline remains in operation. And after years of lawsuits, reviews and political battles, the question of what happens to Line 5 is still unsettled.

“I would not expect any final decisions on a Great Lakes tunnel until 2027 at the earliest,” Shriberg said.

For now, the pipeline continues to carry petroleum through the straits while the courts and regulators decide whether its future lies beneath the water, inside a tunnel, or somewhere else entirely.

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.

Alberta can issue grid alerts when electricity demand threatens to outstrip supply — i.e. there’s risk of a blackout. This can happen for a number of reasons. 

A warming planet, with warmer summer months, can have you reaching for the AC remote. Our phones need charging and fridges need to stay plugged in. Add to the grid the data centres Alberta wants to build so we can ask our AI agent of choice to respond to our emails. The list goes on and on. 

And as much as the province would like to say it’s because of renewable energy projects, the data tells a different story. Prairies reporter Drew Anderson breaks it down in our latest video.

Want to make sure you don’t miss our latest work? Subscribe to our channel on YouTube and follow us on TikTok.

Thanks for watching!

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.

When the fire came to the Okanagan Indian Band on Aug. 1, Sienna Belanger’s first instinct was to catch her horses.

Winds reached 115 kilometres per hour, with sustained speeds of 80 kilometres per hour, according to the BC Wildfire Service. Six-foot-tall flames ripped through the grassland, prompting evacuation orders for thousands of people.

“I only managed to get one of my horses,” she said. “Then we just opened up the gate and ran with them down to our bottom field. They got loose. All I could do was hope and pray.”

Sienna did not know the syilx word qwilmiʔst when the Bradley Creek wildfire came, but she lived it. The teaching describes a person who pulls together their physical skills, their sharpest thinking, their deepest intuition and their spiritual awareness and acts without hesitation. 

It is what the Old People call on when facing anything serious. To hold back part of yourself is to risk everything. To give your whole self is how you meet the unknown.

As the fire grew closer, the flames were everywhere. Sienna ran through the smoke, through the flames, to turn on the water at her mother’s barn. 

She started dousing the flames. She does not remember making the decision, but she remembers her body moving.

“It was just like that adrenaline moment where you do something or you freeze, and my loved ones froze, and I just couldn’t in that moment myself not do anything,” she said. 

“I just felt like a different switch turned on, and I was like, ‘Okay, there are things to do, things I need to organize.’ ”

She was not thinking or hesitating, she was qwilmiʔst. All of herself was in motion.

A land worker, a horsewoman, a dreamer

Sienna has remained at home on the Okanagan Indian Band since the fire came over the hill on Aug. 1. She and her neighbours at Abel Cove were under evacuation order, but with such a short time to leave, they chose to stay.

Her papa had always been intentional about who lived in this community.

“My papa did really good in picking his people for his community,” Sienna says. “He chose people that would be helpful, that would be a good contribution to his family and an extension. And so all of these families who have stayed have been people who I’ve known my whole life.”

Even though he’s gone, she says, his efforts are still here. The people he chose knew how to fight fire. They knew how to hold their ground.

So, with no time to flee, or to pack, it was just Sienna, the fire, the wind and her horses.

The Bradley Creek wildfire has destroyed or damaged an estimated 245 structures on Okanagan Indian Band land, according to a formal assessment by Canada Task Force 1, a specialized search and rescue team deployed in urban environments. The team examined 513 structures over three days. As of Aug. 19, the fire was classified as “being held,” with more than 100 firefighters and six helicopters still working the perimeter.

For at least two weeks, there was a constant presence of blades chopping, of shadows of helicopters crossing the sky, of the distant rumble of bombers dropping fire retardant on the hillside above Sienna’s mother’s place and her grandmother’s house at the beach.

Sienna, 25, is a syilx sqilx’w youth born and raised at the Okanagan Indian Band. Her nsyilxcen name is xixʷutm, a name she carries from her great-granny Mary.

Sienna and her mother, Mariel Belanger, own and operate Studio Síspl̓k on the Okanagan Indian Band reserve, welcoming community organizations, schools and wellness programs for workshops that bring together storytelling, visual arts, land-based learning, food forest knowledge sharing and n’syilxcen language. It’s the kind of work she’s been doing for years: creek rehabilitation, forest restoration, plant identification, seed harvesting — work that has always been about connection. 

That work is rooted in the nsisúlaʔxʷ Food Forest Project, a living, land-based classroom and gathering place where Sienna’s food plants, medicines and community are able to grow in kinship with one another. She’s also been on a language revitalization journey for six years, learning to speak the words her ancestors spoke.

She has been building a food forest on 10 acres of her family’s property, dreaming of a space where her people could harvest berries and medicines.

The fire took Sienna’s food forest. More than 100 plants, berries, medicines — the careful work of years— reduced to ash. It took her prospector tent and a platform she had built for outdoor education. It took her plans for a creative space.

Coyote is destroyed. Fox gathers the bits. Coyote comes back to life.

In the captikʷɬ, the syilx law story system, there is a pattern that repeats again and again. Coyote is destroyed through his own foolishness, through greed, through ignorance. And Fox always comes along to gather the bits, the hair, the bone, the fragments of what remains, and breathes them back to life. Something is lost. Something is gathered. Something is brought back. These stories are how knowledge is renewed. These stories are how people survive.

Sienna does not talk about the loss of her food forest with self-pity. She talks about it with survivor’s guilt.

“Even though my work burned, we survived compared to the rest of the community, who’ve totally lost everything,” she says.

And yet, just two weeks after the fire, she says, “There are some parts of my food forest coming back. I’ve been checking on it every day and am seeing new life already, little green shoots are starting to come up.”

Sienna is Fox. She is gathering the bits. She is watching for the green shoots. She is breathing new life into what remains.

Sienna’s grandmother has been staying with her through all of this, offering emotional support. She has watched Sienna work herself to exhaustion, caring for the horses, checking on the food forest, organizing supplies, making sure everyone else was okay before she ever stopped to breathe.

One day, she sat Sienna down and told her something Sienna is still trying to hold onto.

“My grandma recognized what I was going through and told me, you are allowed to accept kindness right now.”

Sienna’s grandmother has seen fire take what her people built. She has seen them rebuild. She knows survivor’s guilt is heavy, and that accepting help is part of the ceremony of healing.

Grief needs a witness

On the morning after the fire passed by her house, a chestnut stallion appeared at Sienna’s fence. She recognized him.

Her cousin Devyn McMillan runs Rewild Ranch, which provides equine-assisted therapy — workshops and events where people can connect with horses. 

“I sent my cousin a message,” Sienna says. “I was like, ‘Hey, your red stallion’s here. He’s okay. I hope you guys are okay.’ I had no idea at that time that her house was gone until my grandma told me that her family barely escaped.”

It was then that Sienna and her grandmother decided it was time to go look for her cousin Devyn’s horses and to finally go and acknowledge themselves what happened to her family’s homestead. 

As they passed what had been the family homestead, there was nothing left but chimneys standing against the sky. Her grandmother started crying.

“We wanted to look away, we didn’t want to see what happened,” Sienna says, tearing up.

But they looked together. That is what you do. In syilx teachings, you do not turn from grief. You face it and let it be witnessed.

Sienna cried too. She let the tears come down, but she did not stop; she knew she had work to do.

She drove to her cousin’s property and saw the horses standing there. 

“I got there and started counting, one, two, three, four, there were 12 of them, and I had one of the stallions at my house, it was 13, I was so happy, it was all of them,” she said.

Sienna grabbed a bucket and a lead rope and walked into the field. She caught one horse and led it into the sand arena. Then she went back for the rest.

“At that time, my heart just totally broke for my cousin because it’s such a hard thing to go through, to lose everything,” Sienna says. “She had built her hopes and dreams on those horses, and I understand because we both love horses in the same way.”

Sienna doesn’t see herself as the hero of this story. She didn’t know a convoy was already on its way; she just knew what needed to be done. She also noticed something that said everything about Devyn’s horses: they were still together, still standing in the place they knew. Scattered horses run. “That’s how you know they are well-trained horses,” Sienna says. “They know to stay together. They know home.”

Friends and family came together anyway. Neighbours organized a supply run with 16 bags of horse feed and a box of groceries. It was the Old Way. The people came together, and what one could not carry, many could.

“It was truly that moment when a village came together to help,” Sienna says. “I just felt so blessed and touched.”

Sienna is also quick to acknowledge the community that surrounded her. Mary’s Emerald Bay, she says, is where people stuck to the teachings her papa passed down about fire safety. They came together in their time of need, saving themselves, saving their neighbours and saving the animals. They even rescued a burnt kitty.

Of the 21 homes at Mary’s Emerald Bay, only one has minimal fire damage. The rest survived because of the people who knew what to do and did it together.

‘If I can fight flames, I can get on the back of a horse again’

As of mid-August, helicopters were still flying. Evacuation orders are slowly being lifted, but Sienna and her community are still under an evacuation order zone. They’ve been actively trying to get permits to leave, but technically, they’re still stuck, unable to leave for two weeks now. The waiting is the hardest part.

“Since being stuck here and being isolated, it’s been a little hard on our mental health,” Sienna says. “The land work was a way for me to keep busy and keep all my mental health issues at bay. Fire really has done a number on that.”

And yet, being isolated has also given her time to return to something she thought she had lost: horse training. Years ago, her horse Lily kicked her in the head, fracturing her skull and leaving her deaf in one ear. The accident left her with lingering brain damage, with issues that still follow her today. She has not been able to fully get back on Lily since.

But she says something changed in her after she walked through the flames.

“In my mind, if I can fight flames, I can get on the back of a horse again,” she says.

She has started slowly, partially sitting on Lily for brief moments. She has not been able to do that since the accident.

She is learning to trust her body again. To trust the horse, and to trust that she can survive what has already happened to her. The fire taught her that if she could face the flames, she could face her fear. She could get back on. “It’s been so rewarding,” she says. 

She is still planning: packaging seeds she harvested from the food forest, traditional sunflowers and vegetable garden varieties for a seed sale. A concert with music collective Kinfolk Nation that she is hoping will still happen in September. Black, Indigenous and queer artists, coming together on the land. Food harvested from the land, cooked on the land.

“My dream was to create a space that was organic for plant material, for berries, for harvesting, for all of our people’s traditional uses,” she says.

She has been sketching a new design for her food forest. Since her tractor survived, she has the ability to move soil, to transform her place again.

“I’ve been trying to step out of that guilt so I can get back to what I was doing,” Sienna says.

The fire could not take her, or her horses. It could not take the green shoots pushing through the ash of her food forest, and it could not take the teachings her grandmothers and papa passed down. It could not take the courage she found in the smoke, and it could not take her dream.

So she is still here, moving, and gathering the bits and breathing them back to life. And now, she is sitting on Lily’s back again, learning to trust herself and the horse, because if she could fight flames, she could get back on, so she did.

That is qwilmiʔst. That is Fox. And Sienna will still be here — breathing new life into what remains.

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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

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A major Canadian oil and gas company reported dozens of incidents at its pipelines after the provincial regulator exempted thousands of its pipelines from normal clean-up timelines. 

According to provincial data reviewed by the Investigative Journalism Foundation and The Narwhal, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., or CNRL, reported 45 incidents since 2020, many of them spills of unspecified amounts of natural gas and other toxic cargo caused by metal corrosion at aging pipelines. 

Those spills came after a 2020 decision from the BC Energy Regulator to exempt roughly 4,300 of the company’s pipelines from the usual requirement that inactive pipelines be fully decommissioned within 18 months. Decommissioning, or deactivating, a pipeline includes removing any fluid and disconnecting it from the system. The sealed-off pipeline will remain in the ground in perpetuity. 

A CNRL spokesperson did not directly respond to a question about whether the spills occurred at pipelines associated with the exemption. Neither did the BC Energy Regulator.

Most of the pipelines operated by CNRL are short, transporting fracked natural gas and other fuels from wells scattered across northeastern B.C. to larger pipelines which carry the products to consumers or exporters. But even after those wells have run dry, the pipelines associated with them can still leak leftover contaminants into the local environment.  

“If it’s not properly [decommissioned] after its end of life, you have a substantial risk of groundwater contamination,” Philip Gass, a director of the energy program at the Ottawa-based International Institute for Sustainable Development, said in an interview. 

Gass said such spills might go unnoticed.

“If it’s been sitting there for a long time, you have to be really careful about the monitoring because this isn’t an active pipeline where you would notice a spill right away,” Gass said.The BC Energy Regulator reports for the CNRL incidents include leaks of natural gas, liquid hydrocarbons and produced water — a byproduct of oil and gas extraction that often contains heavy metals and hydrocarbons. Of the 45 reported instances, 23 were due to metal loss, often internal corrosion that allowed toxic fluids to escape.The regulator said incidents don’t automatically mean spills, since they can also include “incidents with the potential to affect pipeline integrity.” But many of the CNRL incident reports explicitly indicate that they resulted in spills or pipeline failure.

The regulator did not say how much of each fluid leaked into the surrounding environment or if there was any ecological damage associated with those spills.

Critics argue the spills are further evidence the regulator erred in giving CNRL such a broad exemption, which they called a sign of the undue influence the oil and gas industry has on provincial regulators. 

“It doesn’t give us a lot of faith that the regulatory system is operating as it should,” BC Green Party MLA Jeremy Valeriote said. 

‘No impact to the environment’: CNRL

For comparison, in the six years prior to 2020, CNRL reported 25 incidents at its pipelines, 17 of which were due to metal loss. 

A CNRL spokesperson said the company operates 14,896 kilometres of pipelines in B.C. and that spills are dealt with properly and promptly. 

“Clean-up and remediation activities were completed, resulting in no impact to the environment,” the spokesperson said of the 45 incidents since 2020. “When events occur, such as equipment malfunction that results in an incident, we have safety and environmental management systems in place to quickly manage these events. To mitigate any impacts, incidents are quickly and effectively managed in accordance with our structured emergency management and spill preparedness programs.”

Daryl Foley, president of Group 10 Engineering, said producers like CNRL work hard to minimize incidents.

“Their intention is to do the right thing and to prevent spills because it costs them an enormous amount of money when they have a substantial spill,” he said in an interview. Foley’s Calgary-based company works with companies and producers on pipeline integrity issues and advises the Alberta and B.C. regulators on best practices. “I’m not claiming that everybody’s perfect — if perhaps they’re ignoring it and there is a residual risk of environmental impact, well, they need to pull up their socks and get after it and prioritize based on where the highest risks are.”

Foley said corrosion affecting pipelines has been an issue for decades, but fracking can exacerbate the problem.

“The challenges are real,” he said. “Northeast B.C. in particular, they’re fracking these wells to try to enhance production. The challenge is after fracking, they’ve run into issues where they can get some of these frac solids, and some of them can be really aggressive sulphur compounds.”

Frac solids are a mixture of silica sand, water and chemicals used in fracking to extract oil or gas trapped in underground rock formations. Those mixtures, if not properly removed from sections of pipeline that move material from wells to larger, safer transportation pipelines, can damage the metal and cause leaks or spills. Foley said any pipelines with potential or identified corrosion issues associated with active wells should be prioritized.

“Are these wells known to have been discontinued properly?” he wondered. “That’s really what they should be checking in on and making sure of. Any that hasn’t been discontinued properly, that needs to be dealt with immediately.”

CNRL pipelines exempt from clean-up timelines

The BC Energy Regulator said a 2020 audit identified thousands of CNRL pipelines that were either inactive or soon would be. The regulator said that’s what prompted it to strike a deal with the company, one of the largest oil and gas producers in the country.Under that deal — which was not publicly disclosed at the time — the regulator agreed to exempt thousands of CNRL pipelines from normal clean-up timelines in exchange for the company committing to deactivate all of them by 2028, with targets to meet every year until then. 

The regulator later found in 2023 that the company was not meeting those commitments, but reinstated the deal without penalizing CNRL.

A regulator spokesperson said the deal was “the most effective way to bring CNRL into compliance” and claimed the agreement “was not a removal of oversight.” 

As of this month, the regulator said only 474 pipelines remain to be deactivated out of an original total of 4,312.

“As such, CNRL continues to meet and exceed the required deactivation targets set out in the conditions of the exemption,” the spokesperson said.

Drew Yewchuk, an environmental lawyer and PhD student at the University of British Columbia, said it’s not clear what the regulator or the public gained from the deal with CNRL. 

“The regulator is getting less than what the legal requirements are, and the company only has to do less than what was the legal requirement. So what is the regulator getting from these deals?” Yewchuk said.

He said oil companies often argue meeting regulatory requirements would endanger their operations, putting pressure on politicians to intervene.

“They don’t want to cause job losses, and that’s the threat that companies always have in the background,” Yewchuk said. “They say, ‘Look, if you force us to invest too much here, we’re going to move out of this jurisdiction.’ ” 

But he said CNRL isn’t a struggling company. The Calgary-based company reported net earnings of $10.8 billion in 2025.

“CNRL is not out of money,” Yewchuk said. 

Regulator ‘way too tied to industry’

Gass said oil and gas remediation can become a public responsibility if the operating company goes bankrupt. Some provinces, including B.C. and Alberta, charge oil and gas companies an annual levy to clean and shut down so-called “orphan wells” left by defunct firms.

But if the company is still active and profitable, the regulator’s role should be to enforce the rules, Gass said.

“In an ideal situation you have a regulatory regime that assures the accountability and has the enforceability to level penalties for actors that don’t do the remediation as needed,” Gass said. 

The BC Energy Regulator, like other regulators in Canada, is funded by an annual levy charged to oil and gas companies.

While proponents argue an industry-funded regulator is sustainable, critics like the Green Party’s Valeriote argue it creates a dependence that gives energy companies undue leverage in negotiations.

Valeriote said granting exemptions like the one given to CNRL is unfair to other companies following the rules and is “erosive to the regulator’s reputation.”

“I think there’s probably a cultural and systemic issue there and that they’re way too tied to the industry,” Valeriote said. 

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.