Summary

• Canadian law requires provinces to implement a carbon pricing system for major industrial polluters as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
• But Alberta’s carbon pricing system isn’t producing the intended results, in part because its effective carbon price is too low to incentivise companies to reduce their emissions.
• It’s a sticking point in Alberta’s and Canada’s negotiations over whether and how to build a new pipeline to the West Coast. The two jurisdictions missed an April 1, 2026, deadline they set for themselves for agreeing on a new carbon pricing framework in Alberta.

Alberta and the federal government have been negotiating for months in an attempt to finalize a memorandum of understanding meant to pave the way for two key projects: a new pipeline to the West Coast and a massive carbon capture and utilization project in the oilsands.

Some elements of that deal have been hammered out, but one issue has proven tricky — an agreement on the industrial carbon price (once again, it’s not a tax).

The deal signed by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney last year called for a new framework on industrial carbon pricing by April 1, a deadline that came and went. 

So what exactly are they talking about and what could we expect to see?Here’s a primer on what it all means, from who pays for what to why oil companies really don’t want to spend their own piles of cash.

What is the industrial carbon price?

The consumer carbon price (RIP) is what most people think about when they hear about a carbon tax or a carbon price (it’s truly not a tax, but we’ll call it that, if you insist). That since-deceased mechanism was designed to impose a cost on people to incentivize change. Think about “sin taxes” on cigarettes as one example. Make a tank of gas more expensive and maybe people will drive less.

The industrial price, snappily named the “output-based pricing system” in federal lingo, targets large industrial emitters. Like the consumer version, the price is meant to incentivize emissions reductions. The more efficient a company, the bigger the savings. 

Each province manages its own industrial carbon price scheme. They can design their own, as long as its reduction potential is considered equivalent to the federal version, or they can simply use the federal system.In Alberta, it’s known as the Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction Regulation, but everyone just calls it TIER.

Okay, but how does the industrial carbon price work, exactly?

This stuff can get tricky, but let’s start easy.The premise is simple: large-scale industrial emitters (think steel, oil and gas and concrete) create the highest amounts of emissions. To reduce this, the government has put a price per tonne of carbon pollution on a small percentage of emissions these companies produce to incentivize them to adopt cleaner processes that emit less carbon. The money collected from these charges is pooled and distributed back to companies for investments that support this shift in emissions-reduction technologies, like carbon capture and storage.

The government sets a specific price for a tonne of emissions from a company. It also sets a threshold — if you pollute under that threshold, you don’t pay the carbon price, but if you pollute more than that threshold, each extra tonne is priced.

Companies, especially ones with a lot of emissions such as oilsands mines or concrete plants, want to reduce emissions as much as possible to avoid paying too much.

It’s also important to note the price applies to large emitters, with more than 100,000 tonnes of emissions in a year (equivalent to the annual emissions from approximately 22,000 cars).

The federal rules also call for incremental increases to the price to add an extra nudge. Over time, that makes the price of pollution more and more expensive, which is the entire point.

This is a policy designed to reduce pollution. Without it, pollution is free for the polluter, despite its costs to society and the environment. 

Carbon pricing is considered by many experts to be the most efficient and least disruptive way to reduce emissions. It’s a conclusion Carney himself came to both in 2015 and 2021.

Recent estimates from the Canadian Climate Institute peg the cost of the carbon price on oil and gas producers at 50 cents per barrel, with low, or non-existent, impacts for consumers across a range of products. 

Is carbon pricing all stick? Where’s the carrot?

Glad you asked.

While the carbon price encourages companies to strive to be more efficient to avoid the cost of pollution, they can also reap benefits from going that extra mile.

If a company reduces its emissions below the threshold set by the government, it earns credits. Those credits can then be sold to other companies to bring in real-world revenue.

Specifically, say one company reduces its emissions below the threshold and gathers credits. Another company that is still exceeding the threshold can come along and buy those credits and use them to cover its carbon pricing costs.

Money generated from the carbon price is also reinvested back into research and new technology development.

Win win, right?

Well, this is where things get messy. Especially in Alberta. Because the price is not really the price. 

Sorry, the price is not actually the price? What?

The memorandum of understanding between Alberta and Ottawa explicitly calls for an “effective price” of $130 per tonne of emissions. That’s because the price most people know, known as the headline price, isn’t necessarily what a credit will trade for between those two companies we imagined earlier.

The issue is that the Alberta government made changes to its industrial carbon pricing system one week after signing the memorandum that, when announced, flooded the market with credits and undermined their value. It also now allows companies to invest directly in technologies at their facilities instead of paying the carbon price. Those technologies may or may not actually reduce emissions.

Those changes could allow companies to essentially double dip — avoiding the carbon price by investing in technologies directly, and then collecting credits if their emissions drop.

Alberta also froze its headline price at $95 per tonne last year, rather than increasing the price as dictated by the federal equivalency rules. Not only is that a violation, it undermines the stability of the credit market and reduces confidence in the system for companies making decisions based on projected costs and benefits.

There was also a flood of credits from the rapid expansion of renewable power generation.

The end result is that carbon credits were trading as low as $17 per tonne last year. So while the headline price, which everyone understands as the price of carbon per tonne, might be $95, the effective price was, and is, well below. It’s currently trading between $20 and $40 per tonne.

As it stands, it’s very cheap for a facility to buy $20 or $40 credits compared to paying $95, but that’s less good for the efficient facilities selling the credits. And removes the whole point of the carbon price — making it expensive to pollute.

So what’s the plan for the carbon tax?

The agreement between Alberta and Ottawa signed last November called for a framework to increase the effective price to $130 per tonne by 2030 to be finalized on April 1. That didn’t happen.

Both governments say they continue to negotiate a plan, and rumours suggest something coming soon, but there are still no details. Last week, The Globe and Mail reported the speed at which the price will climb is the main sticking point.

One interesting aspect of the memorandum calls for “a financial mechanism to ensure both parties maintain their respective commitments over the long term to provide certainty to industry, and to achieve the intended emissions reductions.”

Translation: that means the agreement could include some sort of financial backstop for the credit market. That could mean the province would guarantee a credit price by offering to buy credits at, say, $130 per tonne.

That would help to stabilize the price and, hopefully, discourage the province from eroding the carbon pricing scheme (again). 

So we’re cool then?

The memorandum was framed around building both a new pipeline to the West Coast and the giant carbon capture and utilization project tied to the oilsands, known as the Pathways project.

The Pathways project would get carbon credits, which in turn would make that project more viable and could reduce the amount of public dollars used to build it.

However, the five largest oilsands producers behind the plan have dramatically walked back some of their enthusiasm for investing in emissions reductions.

On May 4, the group, which recently changed its name from the Pathways Alliance to the Oilsands Alliance, said it was still interested in carbon capture and storage.

“However, a project of this size requires supportive regulatory and fiscal frameworks, not an uncompetitive industrial carbon tax that no other major heavy oil producing jurisdiction faces, which would limit our industry’s ability to attract investment and grow,” reads the statement.

Jon McKenzie, the CEO of Cenovus, told investors in May the debate around oilsands development has been “myopically focused on the climate agenda,” according to the Canadian Press.

“The result of this myopic dialogue … is that we have created a set of national policies and regulations that make resource development and investment in Canada uncompetitive with the rest of the world,” he said, at the same time he announced an 83 per cent increase in the company’s profits. He also said increasing the carbon price would negatively impact the sector.

Cenovus reported $1.6 billion in earnings in the first three months of this year (McKenzie himself made $10.4 million in salary, stock options and bonuses in 2024). Suncor, another alliance company, reported earnings of $2.1 billion in the same time frame — 50 per cent higher than the same period last year.

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Summary

• Ranchers in some parts of Alberta can earn six figures from oil and gas sites on public land they lease from the government for below-market value — and when companies don’t pay, taxpayers foot the bill.
• The system is legal, but has been criticized by the auditor general, who called on the province in 2015 to stop allowing “personal financial benefit” from leasing public land.
• An investigation by The Narwhal reveals that one of those ranchers is Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner, whose family has a long history in politics — and in lobbying against reforms to the grazing lease system.

Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner’s ranching business likely receives between $100,000 to $124,000 per year through contracts with oil and gas companies that operate on public land which he leases to graze his cattle, according to estimates compiled by The Narwhal. 

And when those oil and gas companies fail to pay their bills, taxpayers have been paying the finance minister on the delinquent companies’ behalf, The Narwhal has learned.

Data from the Land and Property Rights Tribunal, which pays landowners — and ranchers who lease government land — when companies fail to do so, shows Horner’s ranching business has received $87,246 in compensation from the province since 2021 for wells on his private property and on grazing leases, according to The Narwhal’s analysis. Of that, $47,200 was paid for oil and gas sites on his grazing leases — in other words, he’s receiving public money for oil and gas wells on public land. 

The payments to Horner’s ranching business are all legal under current Alberta legislation, but the ability of ranchers leasing land from the government to collect all of the oil and gas compensation was criticized by the auditor general in 2015.

Nate Horner Ranches Ltd., located east of Calgary, holds vast stretches of grazing leases — public land that is rented to ranchers for what critics say are bargain prices. Horner’s family has operated in the area, and leased land from the province, for generations. 

The family is also a political dynasty, counting MPs and MLAs — including both provincial and federal cabinet ministers — in its tree. His cousin, Doug Horner, is a former provincial finance minister.

In Alberta, oil and gas companies must compensate landowners for the adverse impacts of their activity. The province’s current rules also allow leaseholders to retain all such money companies pay to operate on those publicly owned grazing leases.

It’s a controversial framework that, in 2015, the auditor general said was allowing some ranchers to derive undue “personal financial benefit” off public land.

The Narwhal set out to understand the scope of the problem, focusing on three regions east of Calgary with many ranchers grazing their cattle on public land. The Narwhal’s analysis found taxpayers have footed the bill for millions of dollars in payments on behalf of oil and gas companies to ranchers leasing public land at below-market rates. 

And one of the recipients of those payments is the finance minister’s ranching business.

His press secretary, Marisa Warner, said Horner’s compensation is above board. 

“All of Minister Horner’s agricultural business holdings have been put in a blind trust since entering cabinet,” she said by email, adding the “minister’s assets, property and business holdings have all been properly disclosed, and placed in a management arrangement, approved by the ethics commissioner.”

Each oil and gas well brings in an estimated $1,856. Horner’s business has 67

The Narwhal estimated how much Minister Horner’s ranching business receives from oil and gas companies by looking at property maps that list both grazing leaseholders and oil and gas sites and counting the number of oil and gas sites on leases he holds. Nate Horner Ranches Ltd. had 67 sites.

That number was multiplied by $1,500, a per site figure cited by the auditor general in 2015 as an average compensation amount. By this calculation, Nate Horner Ranches Ltd. could receive an estimated $100,500 per year.

Figures from Land and Property Rights compensation decisions, however, show that Horner’s ranching business might receive a higher price. Based on the 21 claims he has filed since 2021 for unpaid compensation, the average cost per site is $1,856, meaning he could be earning as much as $124,386.

It’s unclear if Horner has any other stakes in operations owned by family members near his own holdings. The minister’s office did not respond to specific questions sent by The Narwhal. 

Warner directed questions about the government’s position on the current system to the Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas, which oversees grazing leases.

The minister of environment and protected areas office did not respond to a list of emailed questions.

The finance minister’s grandfather was among the loud advocates against reforming the system that benefits ranchers

The issue of oil and gas compensation for grazing leaseholders has been controversial for decades, and includes a failed attempt by the Ralph Klein government to cap payments. 

That legislation was passed quickly in 1999, but was never proclaimed into law after intense backlash from ranchers and advocacy organizations. Among them was the Alberta Grazing Leaseholders Association, which was led by Horner’s grandfather, Jack Horner, at the time.

The association formed to push back against the Klein government “directly attacking property rights of leaseholders.”

Those opposed to changing the system point out that while grazing leaseholders pay less than market price to use public land, the lease comes with responsibilities and costs. Ranchers using public land pay for all improvements and maintenance of the land, as well as paying property taxes.

“The leaseholder has purchased the right from the province to be the occupant of that land,” Lindsye Murfin, the manager for the Alberta Grazing Leaseholders Association and the general manager of the Western Stock Grower’s Assocation, said in an interview. “And with those rights come a lot of responsibilities.”

Her organizations argue against a cap on the amount of money a leaseholder can earn from oil and gas sites on their leases. As Murfin points out, the more wells there are in a grazing area, the more problems a rancher has to manage. 

The Land and Property Rights Tribunal payments are part of a grand bargain with Albertans. No one is allowed to deny access to an oil and gas company that wants to drill, and in exchange the government will cover compensation if a delinquent company stops paying. 

Those payments have exploded in recent years, as more and more companies walk away from their financial obligations — even as some continue to operate.

The total in 2024 was $30 million, which represents a 4,500 per cent increase in the amount of money the government is paying for these missed payments since 2010. The government says it works to recoup those costs from companies, but previous reporting from The Narwhal shows only a small fraction of tribunal payments, less than one per cent, is ever recovered.

Horner’s experience is a striking example of the impact of regulatory failure in the province.

Almost all of the tribunal payments to Nate Horner Ranches Ltd. cover unpaid leases by AlphaBow Energy, a company that was allowed to snap up thousands of wells it did not have the resources to manage or clean up.

Five years after the company was created through a complex series of transactions, the Alberta Energy Regulator suspended its licences. The regulator transferred supervision of the sites to the Orphan Well Association — a largely industry-funded organization that cleans up sites without a solvent owner.

This left thousands of wells without a viable owner. It also meant millions of taxpayer dollars were directed to landowners and leaseholders to cover unpaid compensation — Horner among them.

That’s just one example. The orphan well inventory increased more than 29 per cent in 2025, but the levy imposed on companies to cover those costs only increased by seven per cent this year.

In the past month, the orphan inventory nearly doubled with the transfer of wells from another troubled company, Long Run Exploration. Those wells are estimated to have added another $476 million in liabilities to the association’s expenses.

Methodology

The Narwhal’s Prairies reporter Drew Anderson and web developer Andrew Munroe created estimates for this story from data gathered from a public government database of decisions regarding compensation oil and gas companies are supposed to pay to landowners when they put infrastructure on their land. The database is called the Land and Property Rights Tribunal database and contains tens of thousands of records of rulings. Each ruling contains information on the oil and gas company that failed to pay its bill, the land or leaseholder to whom the debt was owed, the amount owed and more. It is an extensive database, with each individual ruling page containing data on company names and grazing leaseholders or landowners, the amount paid and whether or not the site is located on a grazing lease.

Information regarding well sites located on grazing leases was obtained by purchasing municipal land maps on an app named iHunter, which provides the names of grazing leaseholders, contact information and outlines oil and gas sites on those lands.

To estimate the average compensation for a site on Finance Minister Nate Horner’s land, each tribunal decision was cross-referenced with the number of years for which compensation was owed, and the number of sites tied to each claim. The number of sites was retrieved from albertawellfinder.com and based on the licence number attached to the tribunal decision.

Updated on Apr. 30, 2026, at 10:33 a.m. MT: This story has been updated to reflect that Lindsye Murfin is both the general manager of the Western Stock Growers’ Association as well as the manager of the Alberta Grazing Leaseholders Association.

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

Summary

• Ranchers in some parts of Alberta are earning six figures from oil and gas sites on public land they lease from the government for below market value. 
• An analysis by The Narwhal shows millions in tax dollars are going to the ranchers to cover debts owed by delinquent oil and gas companies. 
• Ranchers argue the money is fair compensation for impacts from oil and gas operations; the auditor general has criticized the “personal financial benefit” for ranchers as being too high.

Some ranchers leasing public land from the Alberta government are receiving windfalls from oil and gas wells drilled on that land, according to a new analysis from The Narwhal. In some cases, taxpayers are on the hook for those payments. 

Though successive governments have long known of the multi-million dollar issue, none have acted to stop it. 

An auditor general report in 2015 castigated the province for allowing ranchers to earn undue profit off of public land. “Personal financial benefits are being derived from public assets,” the auditor general wrote. The auditor general pointed to examples at the time where ranchers were receiving five times in oil and gas compensation compared to what they paid in rent.

In other jurisdictions, like Saskatchewan, compensation from oil and gas companies does not go to ranchers using public land to graze cattle. It goes to the government.

Yet, to this day in Alberta, the system remains and problems have only increased as more and more oil and gas companies walk away from wells, or stop paying the compensation they owe to use the land, leaving the bills to taxpayers and languishing well sites to ranchers. It’s the result of decades of regulatory failure. 

Compensation from oil and gas companies, similar to a surface lease on private land, is for impact and damage from those operations, including everything from chasing cattle after gates are left open, to weed control, loss of access to land as well as pollution and noise. 

There are approximately 5,700 grazing leases across Alberta, covering roughly 5.2 million acres, or about five per cent of the province’s land base. To get a clearer picture of the issues in 2026, The Narwhal focused on Cypress County, the County of Newell and what are called the Special Areas in southeastern Alberta. We sourced public records, including leaseholder maps and government payments to landowners when oil and gas companies fail to pay what’s owed.

An analysis of data from the Land and Property Rights Tribunal, a government body that directs tax dollars to landowners and leaseholders when oil and gas companies don’t pay their rent, found that since 2021, $5 million in taxpayer money has been paid to grazing leaseholders in the region to cover company debts.

The Narwhal tried to verify the total with the tribunal. Executive director Mike Hartfield said the tribunal’s database is “designed to be self-service in nature.”

“Given the nature of this request and the time and staff resources it would take, we’re unable to verify this figure,” he said by email. 

The issue is political, and particularly acute in the deeply conservative ridings of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and federal Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre. Here, a significant percentage of the land is public and rented to ranchers to graze their cattle — although some plots are so thick with wells it’s difficult to imagine enough room to graze. It’s a potential boon, but also a significant headache, for ranchers.

“[Grazing leaseholders] are rich and influential in their communities, and not just a little bit on either point,” Shannon Phillips, the NDP environment minister at the time of the auditor general’s report in 2015, said in a recent interview. “Historically, it’s an area of Alberta that has flexed its muscles within conservative movements. And, once again, not just a little bit.”

The Narwhal contacted seven Alberta ranchers with grazing leases in southern Alberta, all of whom either didn’t reply, or declined interviews, but did speak with Lindsye Murfin, who represents both a leaseholder and stock grower association.

The office of Grant Hunter, the minister of environment and protected areas who is responsible for the grazing leases, did not respond to questions from The Narwhal.

“I don’t know why anybody in their right mind would touch this topic,” one leaseholder, who declined to be interviewed, said over the phone. 

Cheap land, free money — and government bailouts

Across Alberta, landowners are struggling with increasing numbers of inactive and orphan wells on their land, or active wells owned by oil and gas companies that do not pay what’s owed to operate on their land. When an oil and gas company doesn’t pay, the tribunal can order the government to pay on their behalf. Those payouts have dramatically increased in recent years.

Previous reporting from The Narwhal has shown only a small fraction of payments made by the government on behalf of delinquent companies, less than one per cent, is ever recovered from the companies. 

Ranchers who lease public land from the government can face the same troubles getting the money they’re owed from oil and gas companies. But the financial rewards can also be significant. 

The current system in place across the province allows ranchers to rent public land from the government for a fluctuating yearly price based on a complex formula that includes how much land is needed to feed a cow, as well as market prices and costs. In return, the rancher is expected to maintain the land and pay for upgrades such as fencing, as well as cover property taxes. 

Those ranchers also have to deal with oil and gas companies, including signing contracts when the companies come knocking. In Alberta, no one can deny access to an oil and gas company that wants to drill, even if the land is public land earmarked for grazing.

It’s impossible to know the exact cost of a particular grazing lease without seeing the private contract between the government and the rancher, but estimates are possible. A report by the University of Alberta’s Alberta Land Institute estimated in 2014 that the average lease in southern Alberta was $850 per year. 

Those statistics, however, can be misleading, according to Murfin, the manager of the Alberta Grazing Leaseholders Association, which advocates for ranchers grazing cattle on public land, as well as the general manager of the Western Stock Grower’s Association, which advocates for ranchers. Murfin said, in general, grazing leases can range from 14 acres to 14 sections of land (one section is 640 acres), although she’s not sure of the exact range. In the north, they tend to be smaller, while in the south, they sprawl. A grazing lease at $850 per year would represent a smaller plot, with a 14-section stretch costing an estimated $6,000 or more in 2014. 

Between 2015 and 2026, the government’s rates have gone up three and a half times, meaning that same average would be $3,024 today, or approximately $22,000 for a 14-section lease. 

It’s also difficult to pinpoint the compensation paid by oil and gas companies to ranchers, as each is negotiated in a private contract. However, tribunal payments covering delinquent companies offer some insight, where yearly payouts of $1,500 per well per site are the norm. That’s also the price the auditor general determined was the average price per oil and gas site back in 2015.

The number of wells on leases can range from zero to hundreds, with a select few grazing areas, particularly in southern Alberta, hosting huge numbers of oil and gas wells. And that means reaping significant financial rewards. 

Critics of the system say grazing lease rates are too low, even after recent increases, and say some ranchers are making too much profit off oil and gas operations on public land. 

Phillips, the former NDP environment minister, said the oil and gas companies are “a pain in the ass” and that ranchers should be compensated for impacts, but said there should be limits.“It shouldn’t just be a free for all,” she said. 

Phillips said it’s a classic example of socializing the risk and privatizing the reward. 

“It is socialism at its finest, but only for rich people — for a smaller and smaller sliver of people — and it is our public land base that gives those gifts.” 

Some ranchers are earning six figures from oil and gas on public land: analysis

The Narwhal looked specifically at data from Cypress County, the Country of Newell and the large and sparsely populated Special Areas region that stretches across a wide swath of the province approximately 200 kilometres east of Calgary. The Special Areas have a unique government structure, represented by an elected board which reports to the province. 

The Alberta Land Institute report noted that while almost half of all provincial grazing leases do not have oil and gas sites, most are located in the south of the province. Meanwhile, 61.2 per cent of all wells on provincial grazing lands are located in the South Saskatchewan region.

That was particularly true in the Special Areas, where the density of wells was slightly higher than the rest of the province, with 5.24 wells per lease, according to the report.

The Narwhal examined public land maps that show who controls specific grazing leases, as well as which oil and gas sites on those plots. 

Assuming an average price of $1,500 per oil and gas well site, The Narwhal’s analysis finds some ranchers are earning well over $100,000 per year from oil and gas payments. According to The Narwhal’s analysis, one rancher with 233 wells spread across a grazing area is earning an estimated $349,500 each year in oil and gas leases alone. Another rancher, with 164 oil and gas wells, is earning an estimated $250,000.

In some instances, it’s difficult to know who is benefitting from oil and gas compensation, with some ranchers tied to several corporations, according to corporate registry documents obtained by The Narwhal. 

The Alberta Land Institute tracked down one leaseholder in 2014 with the “largest estimated amount of annual compensation paid on a single lease” — $1,218,000. The lease contained 812 wells.

Grazing associations can earn even more, although that money is distributed to members. The auditor general found one grazing association in 2013 “paid the province $68,875 in rent for its multiple leases and collected $348,068 in payments from industry operators for activity on its leased land.” That’s five times more in oil and gas compensation payments than they paid in rent.

Beyond what oil and gas companies pay to leaseholders, there are also millions of dollars paid to ranchers by the government. The Narwhal scraped data on payouts in the areas in question between 2021 and 2026 from the Land and Property Rights Tribunal website.

There were 3,263 decisions in total when the analysis was done at the beginning of April.

Since 2021, $5 million has been paid to grazing leaseholders to cover the debt owed by oil and gas companies for sites on public land, including significant individual payments. That estimate is based on the tribunal data. 

One leaseholder received almost $600,000 in tribunal payments over that period. One grazing association was paid almost $1 million.

Big payouts, but also big disparities

Murfin takes issue with the idea that leaseholders are unduly benefiting from the current system and said the compensation is fair considering the impacts of oil and gas operations and the costs incurred by ranchers. 

A grazing lease, she said, is similar to any other lease of public land, from oil and gas to gravel pits to forestry. 

“The leaseholder has purchased the right from the province to be the occupant of that land,” she said. “And with those rights come a lot of responsibilities.”

She also says the impacts from oil and gas operations can be significant. “I know a guy who has to have someone hired, not for ranch work, but to manage the oil and gas companies,” she said.That ranch has extensive native grassland and without someone “managing the damage, it would be much worse.” 

“The beef industry in Alberta is a multi-billion-dollar contributor to the economics of the province, instrumental in the maintenance and survival of rural communities and the singular reason we have large tracts of contiguous native grassland in this province,” she said.

When asked about leases where the density of wells would seem to make it impossible to actually ranch, Murfin said that just makes the job of the leaseholder more challenging and that compensation should be paid. She rejects the notion of capping the amount of money a rancher should receive from oil and gas sites on public land. 

“Their management of grazing is hard,” she said. “The grazing lease system is a stewardship-based system, so the grazing leases are inspected to make sure that the forage resource is kept healthy and productive.”

Successive governments have declined to reform the system

The Alberta Grazing Leaseholder Association was founded in 1998 in response to efforts to revamp the system by Ralph Klein’s Progressive Conservative government. 

That year, a government report called for caps on payments to leaseholders. A year later, the government introduced legislation that was quickly passed, but never proclaimed into law. 

Bill 31 would have set rates per well for leaseholders that started at $300 per well, gradually dropping to $100 per well if there were ten or more sites on a grazing lease. The bill would have capped the amount of money that could be earned from surface leases on public grazing land at $5,000 annually.

The reforms received fierce pushback from ranchers and their advocacy organizations. The Alberta Grazing Leaseholders Association’s purpose was to resist the Klein government “directly attacking property rights of leaseholders.”

Phillips, the former environment minister under Premier Rachel Notley, said her government also faced pressure when the auditor general’s report came out in 2015 and said there simply wasn’t enough time, or political will, to change the system. 

“People who have never governed will hear it as an excuse, but I’m sorry it’s just not,” she said in an interview. “You only have so much bandwidth to do so many controversial things in a four-year term.”

The NDP government was already mired in controversy with ranchers and farmers for legislating workplace insurance and safety standards for their operations. The government also faced the impacts of an oil price crash. 

“Some elements within the grazing leaseholders certainly signalled a willingness to be less than cooperative on re-examining some of the large asks that they benefited from,” Phillips said.

That sort of pressure and the complexities of reforming the system aren’t new in Alberta and the provincial debate isn’t the only example. 

Just to the east of Cypress County, the Municipal District of Taber recently brought in reforms that have split the community. 

The municipality manages its own portfolio of grazing leases and already charged ranchers higher rates than the province, as well as restricting the amount of money a rancher on public land can receive in oil and gas compensation. Those rules were tightened even further in April: among the changes, rates were raised even more and now, after the 10-year grazing leases expire, ranchers must bid for them competitively. 

The decisions have been contentious. Among other reasons, provincial grazing leases also exist within the Municipal District of Taber, meaning neighbouring leases could have drastically different costs and returns. 

Tamara Miyanaga, the reeve of the municipal district, said balancing the wishes of long-time leaseholders against those that want to bid on that land is the most challenging thing she’s done during her time at the municipality. 

“Unfortunately, I think it will still create a divide in the community,” she said in an interview. “But council has made their decision, and now we will go forward to continue serving the residents of the [Municipal District] of Taber the best we can.”

As wells age, more public dollars could flow

In the area of southern Alberta where grazing leases sprawl and wells are dense on the landscape, the oil and gas industry is changing. 

Reservoirs that once fuelled Alberta booms, filling pockets and government coffers alike, are dwindling. More and more companies are failing to live up to their end of the bargain and the costs of cleanup continue to rise. It’s a region with some of the highest concentrations of orphan wells.

That means more public dollars will flow, even as revenues from wells in the area diminish or disappear. 

Murfin said her organization is also concerned about the issue of aging wells and delinquent operators, but it’s not something that only impacts her members. “It’s going to fall on every taxpayer in Alberta to pay for that,” she said.She’s not convinced the government will be able to fix the problem, and takes issue with its plan to deal with old oil and gas wells. 

The government’s plan, she said, is “just a scheme that has been cooked up by somebody who has been in oil and gas his whole life.”

For Murfin, the government is moving even further away from the polluter pays principle, which would see oil and gas companies pay to clean up their messes. 

Instead, she believes the government is “downloading all the costs of reclamation on landowners and municipalities and taxpayers.”

Methodology

The Narwhal’s Prairies reporter Drew Anderson and web developer Andrew Munroe created estimates for this story from data gathered from a public government database of decisions regarding compensation oil and gas companies are supposed to pay to landowners when they put infrastructure on their land. The database is called the Land and Property Rights Tribunal database and contains tens of thousands of records of rulings. Each ruling contains information on the oil and gas company that failed to pay its bill, the land or leaseholder to whom the debt was owed, the amount owed and more. It is an extensive database, with each individual ruling page containing data on company names and grazing leaseholders or landowners, the amount paid and whether or not the site is located on a grazing lease.

Information regarding well sites located on grazing leases was obtained by purchasing municipal land maps on an app named iHunter, which provides the names of grazing leaseholders, contact information and outlines oil and gas sites on those lands.

Updated on Apr. 30, 2026, at 10:19 a.m. MT: An earlier version of this story said there was no response from the Western Stock Growers’ Association. However, after publication The Narwhal was told Lindsye Murfin is both the general manager of that association as well as the manager of the Alberta Grazing Leaseholders Association.

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2026 has already had its fair share of geopolitical chaos: Alberta separatists meeting with U.S. officials, everything happening in the U.S., global retreat from emissions reductions, Greenland. The list goes on.

But that’s not all that’s ringing in the new year. There are plenty of real things happening within the confines of Alberta, from the government’s continued pushback against emissions reductions to continued promotion of hunting and, of course, the seemingly unending conversations about pipelines. 

Let’s dig into what’s been happening in Alberta since the start of this year.

Alberta is looking to borrow big money

Why does an Alberta government agency need to borrow nearly $1 billion?That’s a very good question — one even the former head of that provincial agency is asking.Last year, the government announced it would allow oilsands producers to pay their royalties with barrels of bitumen, instead of cold, hard cash — known as Bitumen Royalty In Kind, or BRIK. 

It’s something the government has done on the conventional oil and gas side for years. 

When a company opts to pay with barrels, the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission sells those barrels on the open market. That money then goes to the government. 

Last week, however, the government quietly authorized the commission to borrow as much as $900,000,000 for “hydrocarbon marketing activities.” 

It also (and apologies in advance, because this is long and boring — but important!) “approves the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission purchasing shares, making loans, entering into joint ventures or partnerships or providing guarantees for hydrocarbon marketing activities,” and “authorizes the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission to incorporate or acquire one or more subsidiary corporations for hydrocarbon marketing activities.”

That means the commission can borrow almost $1 billion to shore up companies, provide financial security and more. Why should the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission have to borrow money if all they’re doing is getting oil for free (instead of royalties) and then selling it? And why do it now? 

Richard Masson, a fellow at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy and former head of the commission, came right out and said this could be a way for the Alberta government to either backstop a new pipeline project, or try to buy more oil to spur more production because there’s not actually enough oil to fill all these new pipelines and expansions. 

Either way, the government is still amped to push for a new pipeline through B.C., unveiling a new website to act as a central hub of (questionably objective) information on the project, which, if you remember, still doesn’t have a company that wants to build it. 

Perhaps $1 billion will help change some minds. Also, reminder, the province burned $1.3 billion backstopping the failed Keystone XL project. 

An Alberta minister travelled to Montana to talk about electricity

In Alberta, there’s never a shortage of things to talk about when it comes to keeping the lights on. 

Minister of Affordability and Utilities Nathan Neudorf travelled to Montana in January to talk about grid reliability and working with neighbours. 

“Meeting rising electricity demands means looking beyond our borders,” he said in a news release. “Powering up our electrical ties with Montana is about building a strong foundation for shared energy security, while ensuring that the electricity Albertans depend on remains reliable and affordable for generations.”

Unfortunately, Montana is a wee bit miffed at Alberta at the moment and it’s all because the province isn’t working with its neighbours. 

The state says Alberta is restricting the flow of power on its cross-border connection (known as interties) and the company which owns the line has filed a complaint against the province with the Alberta Utilities Commission. 

The issue has also been raised by the Trump administration as a trade irritant. 

Alberta denies the claims, but it is facing similar complaints from B.C. Meanwhile, on its eastern border, the intertie with Saskatchewan was down for about a year, but has now resumed operations. 

And another Alberta minister went to Nevada to auction off a hunting licence

Todd Loewen, the minister of forestry and parks, and a hunting enthusiast, returned to Nevada for the Wild Sheep Foundation Sheep Show in January for the third time to hype his annual auction of a special licence to hunt bighorn sheep in Alberta. (Yes, lots of sheep in that sentence.) 

Last year, the auction raised $400,000 to ensure there’s at least one less sheep in the world. 

Alberta is (again) musing about nuclear power

The provincial government, whose policies have effectively killed the most robust renewable electricity market in Canada, wants to hear what Albertans think about building nuclear power in the province to help, uh, generate clean electricity. 

A panel, which includes a United Conservative Party MLA and a former NDP MLA, will listen to public feedback and prepare a report of the government at the end of March. The last panel hosted by the province resulted in the executive director of the Alberta premier’s office telling a high school student he should be spanked. So, you know, I guess these things are never boring?

Albertans are still mad about coal mining

Alberta musician Corb Lund has successfully submitted a citizen’s petition against coal mining on the eastern slopes, after his previous petition was scuttled by the province changing the rules. 

Lund has been an outspoken critic of the government’s plans to reopen a stretch of the Rocky Mountains to new coal mines, warning it threatens the water supply and the livelihood of ranchers. 

The petition calls for the province to legislate against all “coal exploration and mining activities” on the eastern slopes for mines that aren’t already producing coal as of Jan. 1, 2026, and any mine expansions.

The petition still has some bureaucratic hoops to jump through before Lund can rally canvassers to collect signatures.

Alberta is full-steam ahead on data centre proposals

The largest data centre in Canada could be built in Olds, Alta., which the company, Synapse Data Centre, says will involve a $10-billion investment, including its own gas power plant and promises of a closed-loop water system that will reduce the plant’s thirst. 

That’s different from the one you might recall that was announced by Kevin O’Leary in December 2024 — a data centre more than 32 times the size of the largest data centre in the world — which is still nowhere to be found.

Data centres consume huge amounts of energy and water. The Alberta government thinks they’re great and wants to see $100-billion worth of them across the province. 

Of course, there’s that little issue of not having enough electricity to actually power all those centres, so the province introduced legislation to allow developers to build their own supply, like the on-site natural gas plant in Olds. 

“We see this enormous opportunity to grow our tax base, to grow domestic demand for our natural resources,” Nate Glubish, the minister of technology and innovation, said while announcing the changes. 

Updated on Feb. 5, 2026, at 11:10 a.m. MT: This story has been updated to correct an error. The nuclear power consultation panel includes one United Conservative Party MLA (Chantelle de Jonge), not two. It also includes a former NDP MLA, Deron Bilous.

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You may have noticed Canadians are in a bit of a mood ever since a certain somebody threatened our sovereignty and economic well-being. The impact has spread to the highest levels of government policy. 

The federal government, industry and provinces are seizing the crisis to try and build more stuff more quickly — “build, baby, build” in the words of our prime minister — under the premise that it will help reduce our dependency on an increasingly unpredictable neighbour. 

Bill C-5, or the One Canadian Economy Act, aims to break down interprovincial barriers to trade and employment, but also to allow projects deemed by the government to be in the national interest to bypass certain regulations, in order to speed up construction. It passed the Senate, its last parliamentary hurdle, on June 26. 

It’s been labelled a threat to democracy, an insult to Indigenous communities, and a rejection of environmental stewardship. Others say it’s a necessary response to U.S. hostility and a long-needed jolt to stimulate an economy that is being strangled by overly bureaucratic regulations.

So what is the One Canadian Economy Act? How has such a controversial bill been able to sail through the House of Commons and Senate on its way to being law? What exactly can it do (and not do)? And why should we care?

Here’s a breakdown of what we know.

So, okay, what is Bill C-5?

There are two parts to Bill C-5. One deals with removing barriers to trade and employment between provinces, which really hasn’t provoked any controversy. Significant hurdles sometimes make it easier to sell to the U.S. than to a provincial neighbour, and the legislation tries to fix that. 

Likewise, the bill aims to allow more freedom of movement for workers within the country. 

Where the controversy starts is in the second part of the bill, the so-called Building Canada Act. 

According to the bill, the purpose of the act is “to enhance Canada’s prosperity, national security, economic security, national defence and national autonomy by ensuring that projects that are in the national interest are advanced through an accelerated process that enhances regulatory certainty and investor confidence, while protecting the environment and respecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples.”

Sounds promising. But there’s more. 

To sum up without parroting the dense legalese of the bill, the act essentially says that if a project is determined to be in the national interest (definition TBD), then anything the project needs to do in order to be approved is considered to have been done.

Only then will the minister in charge outline the specific conditions that have to be met by the proponent of a project. The government can also bypass regulations and legislation to expedite the process. 

That has raised concerns (more to come). 

The act specifically says those national-interest projects should strengthen autonomy and security, provide economic “or other” benefits, have a high likelihood of success, advance the interests of Indigenous Peoples and “contribute to clean growth and to meeting Canada’s objectives with respect to climate change.”

Opposition parties did manage to include amendments before the bill passed the House of Commons and headed to the Senate, including a list of legislation projects cannot bypass, including the Indian Act, the Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act and the Criminal Code.  

But it still leaves the door open to the government picking projects and then allowing them to skip over any number of other regulations, including those dealing with environmental impacts. Indigenous leaders also say it allows the government to ignore its legal and moral obligations for projects within their territory. 

What kinds of projects could be fast-tracked under Bill C-5?

This bill could impact everything from mines and pipelines to electricity grids. 

The focus is on economic corridors, getting goods to market and developing natural resources and energy infrastructure. 

A policy brief from the Pembina Institute calls for a focus on projects that prioritize environmental improvement, including renewable energy projects, and avoiding projects that could result in stranded assets (including fossil fuel developments) or that do not have Indigenous support. 

In reality, the legislation would put decision-making in the hands of politicians, specifically the federal cabinet, when it comes to which projects should be fast-tracked. 

Why are we doing this?

Given that the U.S. president has overtly threatened Canada’s economic and political security, it makes sense to consider some changes in the relationship, as Canada’s economy has long been deeply entwined with that of our neighbour. 

But there are also pressures on the homefront, including seething frustration in Alberta stoked by a provincial government intent on more sovereignty, or independence, for the home of Canada’s oil patch. 

There is also frustration within the nebulous “business community,” or at least the natural resource sectors, with what’s perceived as overly stringent regulations and long timelines for building big projects. 

The reality, however, can be more complicated. The federal government and its policies aren’t always what holds a project up, according to a recent analysis of 10 projects by The Narwhal. 

That analysis showed delays are sometimes from the companies themselves, mulling whether to make an investment in the project or asking for extensions and not submitting required documentation.

All of those national and international pressures are coming as a new federal government settles into Ottawa under the direction of Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose experience comes from central banks and boardrooms — and who is viewed as a CEO-style leader who wants to get things done. 

Okay, but are regulations bad?

There is no doubt regulations on everything from emissions to wildlife to health and safety can add to the complexity and costs of a project. That can delay things. 

Those regulations also ensure protection for wildlife, the environment and human health. A recent report from West Coast Environmental Law outlines the lasting harms that can result from weak or poorly enforced regulations, and the risks of fast-tracking projects. 

Examples include Imperial Oil’s leaking Kearl oilsands mine, or mercury contamination from the Dryden Chemical plant in Ontario that continues to impact the waters of the English-Wabigoon River system, Winnipeg River and Lake Winnipeg, according to the report.

One paradox of the current conversation is the argument that Canada should be trusted to build more and supply more energy because it has more stringent environmental, legal and social practices than other countries, while also arguing the regulations that make it more ethical should be pared back. 

All that said, it should be noted this legislation doesn’t completely disregard oversight. There are requirements for the government to publish details on the specific conditions attached to national interest projects and why certain requirements were waived. 

Do provinces and Indigenous communities have a say in Bill C-5?

The Bloc Québécois managed to insert an amendment to the bill that requires a province to provide written consent for a designated project if it falls “within areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction,” but that would not apply to every project. 

A pipeline that crosses provincial borders, for example, falls under federal jurisdiction, but could cause tension between neighbouring provinces. Specifically, getting a pipeline from Alberta to coastal waters could be politically challenging. 

Recently, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been suggesting an announcement on a new pipeline proposal could be right around the corner, although there doesn’t appear to be a company or industry group that wants to build one. 

The federal government also pledges to work directly with provinces and to consult with them when a project falls within their territory. 

Politically, it would be counterproductive to ram through projects that upset a particular province — when the argument for the act is to unite Canada in its fight with the U.S. 

When it comes to Indigenous communities, the process is less clear and more fraught  and has been met with considerable backlash. 

While the opposition parties did include the Indian Act as a piece of legislation that cannot be bypassed, the bill ignores the more stringent requirements of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

The bill calls for consultation with affected Indigenous communities, but appears to avoid the need for “free, prior and informed consent,” as outlined in the United Nations declaration.

Many First Nations and Indigenous organizations are also upset with the process leading up to the bill, arguing they were not consulted ahead of time and feel betrayed. There has been widespread condemnation of the bill — including from 50 Prairie First Nations in Treaty 6 territory — and vows of protest and disruption in response. 

In the wake of outrage from Indigenous leaders, Carney called a First Nations summit in Ottawa, which did little to temper the anger. Atikameksheng Anishnawbek First Nation Chief Craig Nootchtai called it a “subjugation session — not a consultation session.”

In Alberta, Mikisew Cree First Nation Chief Billy-Joe Tuccaro, told the prime minister that if he wants consent, he first has to protect the health of his community, downstream of the oilsands.

Any word on what Canadians think about Bill C-5?

Again, Canadians as a whole are in a mood. But recent polling from the Angus Reid Institute shows there’s nuance in support for building big projects quickly. 

While almost three-quarters of respondents said they support fast-tracking major projects, nearly half don’t want environmental reviews bypassed to do so. There is also majority support for not allowing provinces to get in the way of a national-interest decision.

What now?

Now that the Senate has passed the bill, the government will have to list projects it considers in the national interest that should be prioritized. Those projects would then be fast-tracked, but depending on how far advanced they are, it could still take months or years before shovels are in the ground.In the case of a pipeline as envisioned by Alberta’s Smith, it would take years to develop. 

Smith has also said she’s giving Carney mere months to move on a list of unilateral demands from her government, all geared at drastically increasing support for the oil and gas sector. 

Some Indigenous organizations have promised a summer of resistance, and there will be significant pushback from environmental groups, among others. 

Thanks to an amendment before the bill passed the House of Commons, the clock will also start ticking on a review of the act and the actions of the federal government, the first of which is set to take place after 180 days. 

The act will be reviewed by the government in five years to establish whether it is meeting its objectives “relating to shared jurisdiction, public safety, national and international security, the quality of the environment, public health, transparency, public participation and the protection of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and linguistic communities.”And in between it all, there will be lingering questions about whether the government is able to get projects moving while also balancing social, political, health and environmental concerns.

Oh, and there’s still a trade war going on.

Updated on July 31, 2025, at 3:25 p.m. MT: This story has been updated to include reaction to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s two-day summit with First Nations leaders to discuss the One Canadian Economy Act.

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In early June, the smoke outside the Warburg Community Hall, one hour west of Edmonton, hangs thick, a blanket that stretches the length of the white-knuckle highway between Edmonton and Calgary. Inside the hall, where a shuffleboard floor leads to a small stage, there are doughnuts in plastic containers and Maxwell House instant coffee on offer past rows of plastic folding tables and chairs. Help yourself.

A crowd trickles in — approximately 30 by the time things get underway — made up of landowners and rural councillors gathered to hear Kara Westerlund, the president of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta, a coalition of 69 counties and municipal districts. She’s speaking at this meeting of the Warburg Pembina Surface Rights Group about companies not paying their taxes owed to local governments and about the province’s new plan to deal with old wells. 

The organizer, Karl Zajes, is a tireless man sporting a black cap emblazoned with a maple leaf and the word “Canada” — itself a political statement at this time and place in Alberta. 

Frustration, unlike the coffee, percolates. 

The small crowd talks of the double standards they see between how they’re treated compared to oil and gas companies — the lack of regulations or enforcement, the ability of companies to withhold taxes or lease payments, to let weeds bloom or to leave wells leaking and rusting for years on end. 

“I want to be clear, $100 million [in taxes] right now is outstanding by companies that continue to operate on our landscape,” Westerlund tells the gathering, referencing her organization’s latest report. “They’re just simply choosing not to pay us because there’s no recourse.”

The morning after the meeting in Warburg, the smoke keeps closing in, thickening. Children are kept inside, the haze giving a weight to the world, a strange hardness despite the gauzy air obscuring the fields. 

The ambience is starkly different in Calgary that day, within the cavernous ballroom of the new BMO Centre. There, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith stands on a stage flanked by giant screens projecting her image, speaking to the well-heeled international crowd at the Global Energy Show — an annual conference of hundreds of industry leaders, from the head of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to engineers pitching new devices to help extract oil. 

High-powered beams of light shine from the stage to the ceiling dozens of meters overhead and a bank of news cameras fill a riser at the back of the room. There are no doughnuts. A lounge on the second floor is restricted to VIPs.

“Obviously, Alberta benefits tremendously from developing its energy to the fullest, but the rewards aren’t limited to our province or a handful of companies, far from it,” Smith says. “Everybody wins when Alberta realizes the full potential of its energy.”

Smith speaks of global power and conflict and emissions, on national priorities and a willingness of her government to incentivize building pipelines. 

She doesn’t talk about residents in places like Warburg, who don’t feel like everyone is winning. 

It’s hard not to see the lines that have been drawn across Alberta. The policies and priorities that fuelled a compact between energy and landowners are disintegrating. The cities are rising, with their glimmering towers built by oil, while rural communities deal with the consequences. Companies maximize revenue and limit costs — even if that means ignoring well cleanup, dodging taxes or lease payments.

It’s a line that often appears to have the government on one side, and residents on the other. In Warburg, Westerlund pointed out that there were no provincial politicians in the room, though the town is just an hour from the provincial capital.

“What I want to point out is we’re all friends in this room,” Westerlund tells those gathered in Warburg. “We’re all here for the same reasons and for the right reasons. Where’s your MLA?”

Alberta, always an energy booster, has increased its support

Oil and gas drives the politics of this place. The budget sinks or swims on the price of a barrel, premiers outdo each other in showing just how much they heart oil and gas. 

In 2024-25, the government posted a budget surplus of $5.8 billion, driven by larger than anticipated resources revenues. That plunged this year, to a forecasted $5.2 billion deficit. It’s the kind of roller coaster long-time Albertans are used to. Boom and bust, swaying to global market forces. 

But there is a tangible shift towards even more support of the energy sector, after years of serious talk about emissions reductions and a transition away from fossil fuels. 

The United Conservative Party under Danielle Smith took a sledgehammer to the province’s surging renewable energy sector, while aggressively pushing back against net-zero targets and throwing its full political and economic weight behind the oil and gas sector. 

The government is deliberating a report into how to tackle the immense issue of inactive and orphan wells that sit polluting the land, using public dollars instead of ensuring companies pay to clean up their own mess. Where there is will, there is a way and there is plenty of money. 

But the forces at play aren’t just economic or environmental, they’re tearing at the very social fabric of confederation.

Smith, while claiming not to be a separatist, has set the future of Canada on the table unless the federal government adheres to a list of demands, all tied to vastly increasing support for the oil and gas sector. 

Onstage at the Global Energy Show, Smith is interviewed by former CBC News anchor Peter Mansbridge, who asks whether she thinks the future of confederation depends on Ottawa ensuring development of oil and gas infrastructure. In short, she does, and she’s giving Prime Minister Mark Carney, who is pushing controversial legislation that would bypass regulations to get projects built faster, a few months to meet her demands. 

“I think a lot of it is related to how Ottawa treats us, particularly around energy,” she says. “It’s not ideological. And it’s not symbolic. It matters to people.”

Smith says federal support for the Pathways Alliance plan to capture and store millions of tonnes of carbon from the oilsands — a massive project running through rural communities that will require billions in public funds to become reality — is critical. That, despite the residents along its path who worry about the potential risks of contaminated groundwater, explosion and more.

“It is this kind of nation-building project that will deliver thousands of new jobs, billions in royalties and taxes that support our vital social fabric while delivering responsible and lower emissions to the world,” Smith says. 

The struggle to make companies pay and make Alberta listen

In Warburg, the crowd wonders where those taxes that support the vital social fabric are. 

The Rural Municipalities of Alberta says as of Dec. 31, 2024, $254 million in property taxes from oil and gas companies was outstanding, while another $200 million has been written off, never to be collected. 

Westerlund says $100 million of the outstanding taxes are owed by approximately 200 companies that are still operating. 

Then there’s the issue of inactive and orphaned wells — old wells that have not been reclaimed or wells without solvent owners — and an estimated $36 billion in liabilities littered across the province with almost no security in place to clean it all up. That figure is likely a conservative estimate, and it doesn’t include the oilsands, which balloons the total well above $100 billion. 

Several in the crowd ask why the government or the Alberta Energy Regulator doesn’t just force companies to pay what they owe. It’s a frustration Westerlund shares, especially since, she says, the province will step in and seize assets if the government doesn’t get its royalty payments, forecast to be $21.5 billion in 2024-25.

“Funny, they have the power if [companies] stop paying their royalties to go in and go for the money, but property taxes we can’t touch,” she says.

Westerlund says pushing struggling companies into bankruptcy is a risk, but so is putting fiscal pressure on municipalities and taxpayers to “subsidize non-bankrupt companies.”

“Unfortunately, on this issue, the government has chosen to put industry’s interest above public interest and above the residents of this province,” she says.

Westerlund is not impressed with the recently released Mature Asset Strategy report, the government’s latest attempt to tackle the ongoing problem of well cleanup. She says the process of writing it was “not credible” from the beginning. 

“There was very little non-industry and non-governmental representation, this resulted in an echo chamber in which success was defined narrowly and through industry lens only,” she says.

The head of the Rural Municipalities Association says there was little understanding of what towns and other small municipalities need, including how much they rely on property taxes to operate. There was also, to her mind, an almost complete lack of data to back up the argument that lease payments and taxes are too heavy of a burden for companies. There wasn’t even a proper definition of what a mature asset actually is. 

The report calls for government entities to take over operations of aging oil and gas wells as a means to fund cleanup, shifting the risk to the government and using public dollars to tackle a problem private companies are legally required to solve. 

Westerlund is glad more radical ideas did not end up in the final report, including tying taxes and leases to the price of a barrel of oil, so that companies pay less when their revenue is down. But she believes industry and its allies in government will continue to push for them.

Alberta’s government has eagerly embraced the oil industry. The impacts are growing

Westerlund says the province doesn’t really seem to care what her organization thinks. It’s political calculus. The association represents 85 per cent of the land mass of Alberta, she says, but only 15 per cent of the population. 

Alberta has changed and the priorities of the government have changed with it. 

So too has the national debate around building Canada into an energy powerhouse. The trade war with the U.S. and international tensions are being used by the federal government as an argument to bypass environmental, social and Indigenous concerns to build more, faster. 

It’s something Smith, a perennial critic of Ottawa, has eagerly embraced.  

Closer to home, tailings ponds continue to swell at the great oilsands mines, emissions are up. There are more than 70,000 inactive wells, some of which have languished for decades. 

“Our government is not enforcing the regulations, what they’re doing is sucking every nickel that they get out of the oil that’s being produced for as long as they can and then you and everybody else is going to be paying for reclamation,” Zajes, the tireless organizer in Warburg, says. 

“The oil companies are making millions, laughing all the way to the bank and tell you, ‘kiss my butt.’ ” 

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Since the election of Prime Minister Mark Carney in April, Alberta and the federal government have been talking about a “grand bargain” to balance rapid industrial development with emissions reductions. But at the same time, the province is considering ways to weaken its industrial carbon tax, The Narwhal has learned. 

According to a consultation document sent to stakeholders and obtained by The Narwhal, the province is asking for input on how to structure its carbon credit market going forward. It’s also asking for feedback on its proposal to allow companies to avoid the carbon price by investing in their own projects, as well as the best way to allow some companies to opt-out of the carbon price altogether.

Alberta’s industrial carbon price — the first of its kind in North America when it was introduced in 2007 — is separate from the federal consumer carbon tax that Prime Minister Carney ended when he took office in April.

The province says the consultations are an opportunity to share insights on “how specific elements of the … system can provide greater certainty and accelerate investments that reduce emissions” and will help further enhance “Alberta’s global competitiveness.”

The province unilaterally froze the price of carbon in May, a price that is supposed to rise each year. 

“Alberta’s claims that they need to do take a bunch of steps to substantially weaken [its industrial carbon price system] in order to protect the competitiveness of their industry just doesn’t make any sense,” Scott MacDougall, the head of Pembina Institutes electricity program who has a long history with carbon pricing, said in an interview. 

The move would appear to contradict statements in Parliament this week by Tim Hodgson, the federal minister of energy and natural resources, in relation to his Liberal government’s plans for a rapid build-up of infrastructure in response to the U.S. trade war.

“Mr. Speaker,” he said on June 3, “if Conservatives were listening yesterday, they would know there is a grand bargain. There is a bargain that the premier of Alberta has signed on to. We will build. We will do it responsibly, and we will do it in conjunction with Indigenous partners.”

Alberta government wants to allow more companies to opt out of carbon tax: documents

Currently, Alberta companies pay their carbon tax into what’s known as the Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) fund. That fund is managed by the province and distributes grants toward emissions reduction projects.

Part of Alberta’s consultation document shows the province is eyeing ways for companies to offset their commitments to the Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction Regulation by investing money directly in facilities for emissions reduction projects instead, which could include operating costs. 

The consultation document also says companies can avoid the carbon price for investing in “technical studies, financial studies, studies that support an eligible capital-based project, etc.”

That would mean companies could avoid the industrial carbon tax, all but nixing the incentive inherent in the carbon tax plan: pollute less carbon, pay less tax.

“The fact that there wasn’t really any discussion of whether or not the companies may also be able to generate emission performance credits from those projects is another thing I’m concerned about,” MacDougall said. Companies can collect credits for emissions below certain thresholds and then trade those to other companies trying to offset higher emissions. 

“It opens up the potential for an emission reduction project to get double credited, basically, which is kind of one of those things that you wouldn’t want to do.”

It’s also unclear how — and if — companies’ individual projects will be evaluated when it comes to real-world emissions reductions. 

Weakening the carbon price system in Alberta could have a profound and negative effect on emissions reduction technology investments, including renewable energy. The Canadian Renewable Energy Association told The Narwhal in March that approximately half of the 8,000 gigawatts or power generated by renewables in the province are supported through carbon pricing.

Industrial carbon pricing systems are the single biggest policy reducing emissions nationally, according to the Canadian Climate Institute, responsible for between 20 and 48 per cent of Canada’s emissions reductions in 2030. Emissions reductions are necessary to address climate change, which is caused by heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane, leading to more frequent and more intense extreme weather such as wildfires and floods. 

Money collected through Alberta’s fund goes to everything from clean electricity to new uses for waste carbon.

The end of the federal carbon tax could mean thousands of oil and gas facilities no longer need to join Alberta’s carbon system

In a twist that directly involves the federal government, the province points out Alberta’s industrial carbon price had an opt-in clause for smaller emitters to join the program, even if they weren’t covered by the regulation, to avoid the federal consumer carbon tax.

Now the federal consumer levy is gone, and Alberta wants to speed up the opt-out process.

“With removal of the federal fuel charge, there may no longer be an economic benefit for opted-in or aggregate facilities to be regulated under [the Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction Regulation],” reads the document. 

Aggregate facilities refers to oil and gas operations that producers will cobble together for emissions reporting to be submitted for pricing. 

It’s unclear how many facilities could now operate without any price on carbon in Alberta and what their emissions are, but MacDougall said it could include thousands of facilities. Those facilities, he added, could be responsible for as much as 20 per cent of the emissions regulated under the current system, mostly in the oil and gas sector. 

Prime Minister Carney’s office did not respond to a request for comment, asking if the government foresaw this impact when it eliminated the consumer carbon tax.

The offices of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, Environment and Protected Areas Minister Rebecca Schulz and Energy and Minerals Minister Brian Jean did not respond to a request for interviews or to emailed questions.

Alberta’s plan will further weaken the carbon credit market: expert

Allowing companies to opt out of the carbon pricing program will further undermine what MacDougall says is already a weak carbon credit market.

MacDougall said the solution is to reduce supply of carbon credits and increase demand for them, but the province appears to be moving in the opposite direction — further disincentivizing emissions reductions. 

He also points out that the federal government requires provincial systems to comply with guidelines, including a stipulation that there is more demand than supply in carbon credits markets. 

“It’s mostly going to reduce demand,” he says. “So that’s going to exacerbate the market balance problem in your credit market.”

The government has imposed a June 16 deadline for stakeholder feedback on its changes.

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Despite weeks of growing opposition from First Nations, municipal governments and environmental organizations, B.C.’s controversial Bill 15 is now law. A tie vote in the legislature on the evening of May 28 — all 46 NDP MLAs supported the bill while 46 Conservative, Green and Independent MLAs voted against it — resulted in Speaker Raj Chouhan casting the deciding vote to pass the bill.

As debate on Bill 15 drew to a close, Premier David Eby’s office welcomed representatives from the Nisga’a Lisims Government to the legislature to witness the wind down. Nisga’a Lisims President Eva Clayton met with Eby to discuss Bill 15, the Infrastructure Projects Act, and Bill 14, the Renewable Energy Projects Streamlining Act, according to a letter from Clayton released by the premier’s office.

Clayton’s letter is one of few statements of support for Bill 15. Former NDP MLA Melanie Mark — B.C.’s first First Nations woman to serve as an MLA and cabinet minister — condemned the legislation for “bypassing constitutionally protected and inherent First Nations/Indigenous Rights.”

“What is most astounding and disheartening is why David Eby and his cabinet are turning their backs on such a diverse group of leaders and allies like the First Nations Leadership Council, local governments, environmentalists and business leaders,” Mark wrote in a statement posted on social media minutes after the bill became law.

“All we are advocating for is more time.”

For weeks, First Nations leaders warned that B.C. Premier David Eby’s push to pass Bill 15 is deeply damaging the province’s relationship with Indigenous Peoples.

“The BC NDP are wrong. Premier Eby is wrong. We are united in our call that they must immediately withdraw the bill,” Don Tom, Chief of the Tsartlip First Nation and vice-president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, said during a Monday press conference in Victoria. 

“They are willing to look past any sort of environmental assessment, they’re willing to walk all over First Nations Rights, all under the guise of efficiency.”

Bill 15, the Infrastructure Projects Act, grants the provincial government broad powers to expedite pretty much any major infrastructure project, whether publicly or privately owned. Eby and his government contend those powers are needed to ramp up the delivery of community infrastructure — such as hospitals, schools, community centres and seniors’ homes — and to seize the economic opportunity in the growing global demand for low-carbon electricity. Eby has argued the push for clean energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel use requires the rapid development of critical minerals mines, ports and other trade corridors.

Critics say the government is using buzz about a low-carbon future and U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to Canada’s economy and sovereignty to centralize power and deprioritize environmental considerations and Indigenous Rights.

B.C. doesn’t need Bill 15 to pursue critical minerals: Eby

As Tom and other First Nations leaders were in Victoria calling for Bill 15 to be scrapped, Eby was in Vancouver, announcing his government’s intent to bring billions of dollars of mining investment to northwest B.C. The press conference featured few details as to when and how the province plans to achieve that goal — or even what, exactly, it hopes to achieve — but Eby emphasized mining projects will be developed with the support of First Nations on whose territories the sought-after metals and minerals are located. 

He also made clear the government does not need the powers Bill 15 would provide to make its mining dream a reality. 

“There is no connection between Bill 15 and today’s announcement,” Eby told reporters. 

He said the government intends to work together with First Nations and mining companies to find mutually agreeable ways to extract critical minerals and protect traditional territories in northwest B.C. 

Eby did acknowledge that “in theory” his government could use Bill 15’s powers to fast-track mining projects in northwest B.C. — something he said would only happen after securing an agreement with First Nations.

“That’s quite speculative,” he said. 

If the B.C. government doesn’t need Bill 15 to realize its critical minerals goals or to turn the province into an electricity powerhouse — something another new law empowers the government to do — it’s hard to see why it pushed so hard to pass the controversial legislation; especially as it draws condemnation from First Nations, local governments, environmental organizations and opposition parties.

Conservative Party Leader John Rustad — who campaigned on repealing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act during the 2024 election — condemned Eby’s response to concerns voiced by First Nations.

“I find it quite offensive that Mr. Eby would respond to First Nation leaders saying, ‘Just trust us,’ ” Rustad told reporters. “He has done nothing to earn that trust from the people of British Columbia.”

Eby’s assurances about his government’s intentions for Bill 15 do appear to be too little, too late for some.

“How can we believe a premier who told us during the [election] campaign that he would respect First Nations Rights and who then ignored them and turned around and showed us his back when it was time to implement the First Nations Rights?” Hugh Braker, a member of the

First Nations Summit’s political executive, asked at the Victoria press conference. 

“The NDP government has purposefully chosen to paint themselves with a brush filled with the paint of hypocrisy,” he added. “All the promises they made during the campaign last fall have gone out the window. They say, ‘Damn the environment, full speed ahead.’ ”

First Nations concerns must be addressed, supporters say

The backlash to Bill 15 has been building steadily since it was introduced in the legislature on May 1. The bill makes changes that “reduce delays for urgently needed projects,” according to the provincial government press release, which included supportive quotes from seven leaders of municipal governments, public service agencies, post-secondary institutions and corporations.

New Westminster Mayor Patrick Johnstone was one of the people quoted in the press release. He told The Narwhal he was asked by Infrastructure Minister Bowinn Ma to endorse the bill after the pair spoke about the difficulty of building schools in New Westminster. 

“I expected that the focus on accelerating those approval processes on the provincial side would be welcomed by the Union of BC Municipalities,” Johnstone said. “Every time that we approve new housing in my community, the only question people ask me is, ‘Where are the schools? Where are the hospitals?’ ”

While he supports the parts of the bill that apply to public sector projects, Johnstone said it has become evident the provincial government has work to do to address the criticisms raised by Indigenous leaders.“I do hear that concern from First Nations and that is something for the government to address. For a government who has expressed, repeatedly, its commitment to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, I think that needs to be an important part of this legislation.”

Colleen Giroux-Schmidt, vice-president of Innergex, was also quoted in the Bill 15 press release. The company is partnering with First Nations on three of the wind power projects selected by the province to be exempted from environmental assessments and approved under a new process to be developed by the BC Energy Regulator.

She said she believes B.C.’s project permitting and approvals processes could use some streamlining but that consultation and communication with First Nations, local governments and communities impacted by developments are key.

“What we’ve seen is that time doesn’t always equal rigour and the [permitting] process doesn’t always lead us to the best options,” she said in an interview. “What does is early and ongoing consultation and engagement with the Indigenous nations whose territory the project is in or who are co-proponents and partners in the project.”

Actions, not words, demanded on B.C.’s Bill 15

In the weeks before Bill 15’s passage, many First Nations leaders have criticized the B.C. government’s handling of the bill, while emphasizing that they are not necessarily opposed to development.

“We get that there are some projects that perhaps will get the green light and will get the blessing for development and certainly we’re not against the development of hospitals and schools,” Terry Teegee, regional Chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, said in a May 21 press conference. “However, First Nations and other local governments need more consultation and discussions in terms of how decisions are made within our traditional territories and how this legislation is overreaching.”

First Nations Leadership Council member Robert Phillips called the introduction of Bill 15 “an unfortunate yet avoidable moment” in B.C.’s history.

“The province of B.C. has chosen to abandon decades of … intensive, collective work to build principled pathways and tools to advance reconciliation for the benefit of not only First Nations, but all British Columbians,” Phillips told reporters on May 21.

Eby has acknowledged his government’s consultations with First Nations about Bill 15 fell short of its obligations under B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. Critics say that lack of consultation means the legislation needs to be withdrawn, rewritten and reintroduced when the legislature resumes in the fall.

However, the premier insists the lack of advance consultation on Bill 15 can be remedied when the regulations to put meat on the bones of the bill are developed — a process that won’t begin until Bill 15 becomes law.His entreaties have left many First Nations leaders unconvinced.

“The era of trust between Premier Eby and First Nations chiefs is over,” Tsartlip Chief Tom told reporters on Monday. “The era of trust is over and now it’s based on results. And based on results, he has shown that we are not a partner here in B.C. — that he makes the decisions unilaterally, whether it be environmental assessments or the Declaration Act.”

Expect lawsuits , First Nations leaders warn

Strident criticism notwithstanding, Eby made clear he sees Bill 15’s passage as an inflection point for the province.

“Every NDP MLA understands that this is a fork in the road, and that is a fork in the road between court and litigation and fighting and between co-operation and shared prosperity,” he told reporters Monday.

First Nations leaders have stated repeatedly that they intend to challenge the bill in court.

At one swipe of the pen, the premier can put all of this off to the fall, and that’s what we’re calling for — to kill the bill,” Phillips, of the First Nations Leadership Council, said. 

Phillips and other First Nations leaders demanded the B.C. government withdraw Bill 15 and reintroduce a new bill that addresses the identified concerns when the legislature resumes in the fall.Updated May 29, 2025, at 12:50 p.m. PT: This story was updated with details about Bill 15’s passage in the B.C. legislature, as well as reaction from Nisga’a Lisims President Eva Clayton and former BC NDP MLA Melanie Mark.

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Editor’s note: Bill 15 became law on May 28. Read our latest coverage here.

Premier David Eby leaned heavily on nostalgia for B.C.’s legendary building booms as he spoke Tuesday about controversial new legislation that would give his government sweeping powers to push ahead with infrastructure projects, regardless of their environmental impact.  

Bill 15, the Infrastructure Projects Act, may be blandly named but it has First Nations, local governments, legal experts, environmental advocates and opposition MLAs warning of troubling government overreach. One critic described it as a blank cheque that would give the current government — and all those to come — the power to pick priority projects and exempt them from “any type of permitting or environmental assessment requirement that it deems is slowing down the project.”

Speaking in the legislature, Eby invoked the construction of massive hydro dams, highways carved through treacherous terrain and the Second World War, when North Vancouver’s shipyards built many of the cargo ships that supplied the Allied forces. 

“This history of building, of meeting the moment, doesn’t have to be a tale that our grandparents talk about,” Eby said. “This can be the story of British Columbia today and it needs to be, because British Columbia right now is going to be the economic engine of the new Canada that we all know we need.”

Infrastructure Minister Bowinn Ma, who was tapped last November to lead the new, standalone ministry, maintained Bill 15’s aim is to make it possible for the government to support projects British Columbians want to see in their communities.

“We need to get the schools built,” Ma told The Narwhal. “We need to get the hospitals built. We need to bring economic opportunity into communities that desperately need it.”

But while Bill 15 gives the Ministry of Infrastructure the authority to manage the kinds of public sector projects governments routinely commission, it also contains clauses that could give the provincial government the power to deem pretty much any kind of public or private project — from mines to ports to clean energy and disaster recovery — “provincially significant.” 

Any project so anointed would be pushed to the front of the queue for provincial permits and potentially exempted from a fulsome and transparent environmental assessment, potentially avoiding scrutiny from the public, scientists, local governments and First Nations.

Jeremy Valeriote, interim leader of the BC Green Party, said Bill 15 would grant the NDP cabinet sweeping powers “under the guise of fast-tracking major infrastructure projects,” including bypassing the jurisdiction of First Nations.

In a statement, Terry Teegee, regional Chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, warned the government may be breaching federal and provincial requirements to consult with First Nations on matters that impact Indigenous Rights and Title by “ramming through Bill 15 without any First Nations input.”

Eby has acknowledged his government failed to meet the consultation standard set in B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act but insists his government is not backsliding on its commitments to reconciliation and Indigenous Rights.

“You cannot fast-track a project in Canada unless you have the support of First Nations,” Eby said in the legislature, citing federal and provincial commitments to recognizing Indigenous Rights and Title.“This isn’t about abandoning reconciliation — this is about delivering on the commitments to work in partnership with First Nations and ensure that we’re responding to the challenge of our time, which is climate change,” he added.

Eby promised Bill 15 will help the government secure “clean, affordable energy in every corner of this province with projects that deliver the cleanest metals, minerals and resources that the world needs.” 

Bill 15’s powers are both sweeping and vague, with little definition included in the bill, making it difficult to understand the true scope of its potential impacts. But critics warn it could give the B.C. cabinet unprecedented power to make closed-door decisions that could sidestep environmental impacts and Indigenous Rights.

So what exactly is Bill 15? And why are people so concerned? 

What powers will Bill 15 give the government? 

For months, the B.C. government has been repeating the refrain that fast-tracking projects — from major power lines to mines, wind farms and liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities — is essential to support economic development and protect the province from the impacts of U.S. tariffs.

Before Ma introduced Bill 15, Energy Minister Adrian Dix put forward Bill 14, the Renewable Energy Projects (Streamlined Permitting) Act. That legislation would exempt renewable energy projects and major power lines from environmental assessments and put the BC Energy Regulator — largely funded by the oil and gas industry — in charge of issuing permits.

Ma’s bill is much, much broader. It would empower the B.C. cabinet to decide that any infrastructure project deemed to have major economic, social or environmental benefits is “provincially significant.”

The government says it has not yet developed the criteria for the “provincially significant” designation. However, the list of 13 criteria under consideration covers a wide range including critical minerals, food, water, energy or supply chain security, post-disaster recovery and the province’s climate goals. 

Once cabinet decrees a project “provincially significant,” the infrastructure minister would have broad powers to speed up the permitting process.For example, the minister could allow a project to bypass the usual environmental assessment process in favour of an “expedited” assessment. But Bill 15 doesn’t specify what an expedited environmental assessment process would look like; those details will be decided by the minister.

Andhra Azevedo, a staff lawyer with environmental law charity Ecojustice, said the minister would have the power to determine the scope of an environmental assessment, including its timelines and methods and if there will be any public input.

Ma told The Narwhal she objected to the “serious allegations” that Bill 15 could allow projects to bypass existing environmental assessment requirements. She said the Environmental Assessment Act already gives the government authority to streamline the assessment process for projects it considers less complex or impactful.

Ma said Bill 15 provides a similar pathway that could be chosen in “certain circumstances where a project has the conditions necessary to be successful under a streamlined process” — such as support from local First Nations and communities.

“The point of Bill 15 is to get to a yes or no decision more quickly,” Ma said. 

Bill 15 will also give the infrastructure minister the power to push a designated project to the front of the permitting queue. If permits still prove too time-consuming to obtain under existing regulations, the minister can initiate a process to streamline requirements that are holding up a project. If that fails to move things along, the minister would have the power to recommend cabinet replace the requirements with new regulations. 

The Union of BC Municipalities raised concerns about the bill, saying the province did not meaningfully consult with local governments before tabling legislation that would “give the cabinet extraordinary powers” to bypass local and provincial regulations and approval processes.

Azevedo said the government has set up multiple processes for negotiation, “but at the end of the day, if those fall through, then the minister and cabinet have given themselves the power to just step in and push it through anyway.” 

“How much power do these regulators and authorities even continue to have with any of these designated projects if, for whatever reason, they can’t either come to an agreement or don’t agree to the measures that would sufficiently prioritize or expedite a project?” she asked.

Could Bill 15 be used to expedite LNG and pipeline projects? 

Ma insisted the “vast, vast majority” of projects affected by Bill 15 will be public infrastructure projects.

“This is about ensuring that growing communities have the infrastructure that they need,” she told reporters, adding that community amenities, such as new pools or community centres, could be deemed “provincially significant” and sped along.

Ma also mentioned economic development opportunities — a vague term politicians use to refer to almost any project that creates jobs — as potential candidates for Bill 15’s powers.

“We recognize in this moment that provincial infrastructure is not the only type of infrastructure that communities desperately need to see get built,” Ma said.

Eby said Bill 15 won’t be used to expedite LNG facilities or pipelines, but Valeriote, with the BC Greens, said that provision “needs to be in black and white” in the bill.

Ma said the government plans to bar LNG facilities and pipelines from being designated as “provincially significant” projects even though it’s not in the text of the bill. She said the exclusion will be included in the definitions released after Bill 15 becomes law.

Azevedo worries Bill 15’s lack of detail could make it easy for future governments to keep adding to the types of projects that can be fast-tracked.

“There is this potential for greater and greater expansion of what these classes of designated projects could be, if they’re not willing to be upfront and just put it in the actual language of the bill,” she pointed out.

Eby attempted to allay some of those concerns during his speech in the legislature.

“I know, given the history of this province, why there is anxiety from some corners about an abandoning of commitments around reconciliation, around the environment — but that is not where we’re going with this,” he said, adding that his government is committed to environmental protection, climate action and reconciliation with First Nations.

But Azevedo pointed out the law does not explicitly require other processes aimed at upholding Indigenous Rights — such as allowing Indigenous governments to request dispute resolution or conduct an independent environmental assessment — to be part of the expedited assessment.

How could Bill 15 impact First Nations? 

Bill 15 bars any fast-tracked project from evading consultation obligations with First Nations, as required by B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act — a fact Ma and Eby have repeatedly emphasized. 

However, both acknowledged the legislation was drafted without the usual level of input from First Nations, a misstep that drew stern condemnation from the First Nations Leadership Council.

“We are deeply alarmed by the province’s continued backsliding on reconciliation,” Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, said in a statement.

Robert Phillips, a long-serving member of the First Nations Leadership Council, told The Narwhal he has made it clear to B.C. cabinet ministers that they are “playing with fire” by pushing Bill 15 through. 

“Reconciliation and economic growth are not incompatible, they go hand in hand,” he said. “If the province chooses to neglect the former in a misguided attempt to advance the latter, it will quickly find itself mired in legal proceedings that benefit absolutely no one.”

Phillips attended a First Nations Leadership Council meeting with Eby just after Bill 15’s introduction in early May and said the government’s lack of consultation on the legislation featured prominently in discussions.

“I think they want to move some of these projects ahead right away and they’re going to do it, it seems, at all cost,” Phillips told The Narwhal. “In my words, there will be dire consequences to this.”

Ma said the meeting she and the premier had with the council was productive. 

“Our commitment to working with them through regulations, which is really where the rubber hits the road, was made very clear,” she told reporters.

“That’s backwards,” Phillips countered. “They’re going to implement laws and then we’re going to be fiddling around with policies and procedures and regulations? No, that’s not the way.”

Green Party house leader Rob Botterell said lack of consultation with First Nations could mean Bill 15 does not achieve its goal of fast-tracking projects.

“We all know what’s going to happen; it’s just going to line the pockets of lawyers with a whole bunch of litigation,” Botterell, a lawyer, told reporters. “You’ve got to take the time to get it right, and you’ve got to respect the democratic process.”

Former Canadian justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould predicted on social media that Bill 15 will result in “more lawsuits [from project proponents and First Nations], more uncertainty and poorer economic and environmental outcomes.”

Why is the government rushing to pass Bill 15? 

The government appears dead set on making Bill 15 law before the legislature pauses for the summer on May 29. In addition to making it a confidence vote — meaning the government could fall if Bill 15 fails to pass — the government ordered debate on the legislation to conclude on May 28. At that point — regardless of where Bill 15 is in the legislative process — it is set to go to a final vote, which the NDP has the seats to win even if all opposition MLAs vote against it.

Conservative Party of BC Leader John Rustad condemned the government’s move to curtail debate on Bill 15 and five other pieces of legislation.

“They want to use closure, an undemocratic process, to move forward bills … that give unlimited ability to government and to override the actual democratic process,” Rustad told reporters.

When the final vote on Bill 15 is called, Azevedo said many MLAs will have little understanding of what it is they are voting on because many of the consequential definitions will not be made public until after the bill becomes law.

“This government is giving a blank cheque to itself and using all the processes it can to answer the fewest number of questions about how its powers are actually going to be limited in any effective way,” she said. “I think that should be a concern to anyone who wants to know that [the] government is going to follow the normal rules and be accountable.”

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The day after the federal election that saw Mark Carney installed as prime minister, Alberta’s premier, Danielle Smith, introduced sweeping changes to democracy in Alberta. 

Among those changes was a relaxation of the rules around referendums, paving the way for a separation vote. All of it is driven by a perception that Alberta’s prosperity is under attack by a hostile force. According to the premier, that hostile force is not the U.S. and its tariffs or threats of annexation. It’s Ottawa. 

Underlying it all? “Alberta’s prosperity” is shorthand for the oil and gas industry.

And the move to relax referendum rules is not a reaction to the current state of affairs — it’s the Smith government seizing a moment to institute a long-held and oil-rooted plan called the Free Alberta Strategy. 

Smith swept into power with her long-time political ally Rob Anderson at her side as her chief of staff, and tucked neatly under his arm was a strategy to pull Alberta from confederation — partially if possible, entirely if need be. 

“Alberta’s treatment within Canada has become intolerable,” Anderson and his co-authors wrote in the Free Alberta Strategy in 2021, adding the federal government had undertaken an “assault” on “Alberta’s largest and most critical industry,” meaning, of course, the oil and gas sector.

Throughout her short reign, Smith and Anderson have followed that plan closely, and appear to be capitalizing on both an international crisis and an election that didn’t go their way to pave the way for more extreme aspects of the plan. 

Smith is not wrong that the oil and gas sector is of huge economic importance in Alberta — a one-dollar swing in the price of a barrel can mean $750 million more (or less) in the provincial budget. The sector is also not disappearing anytime soon. 

But while blaming the industry’s fortunes squarely on Ottawa, and pushing the narrative of a shared enemy might be good for amping up vitriol, the strategy does little to help her lead the province through an era of intense uncertainty. It’s an era that will have a profound effect on Alberta’s future and on the future of its oil and gas industry. 

Free Alberta Strategy is the backbone of Smith’s rhetoric, and centred on oil and gas woes

The Free Alberta Strategy, written by Anderson, along with University of Calgary political science professor Barry Cooper and lawyer Derek From, calls for the province to institute several measures in response to what it calls “sustained federal attacks on Alberta” — attacks, it says, that are largely centred on the oil and gas industry, from the consumer carbon tax (which has since been eliminated) to federal environmental assessment legislation to a ban on oil tankers off the B.C. coast.

The first order of business to fight back, according to the strategy, is to enact the Alberta Sovereignty Act, which Smith did as her first order of business. The next steps the strategy outlines include the creation of an Alberta police force, and pulling the province out of the Canada Pension Plan. The strategy also says Alberta should opt out of all federal programs that it sees as interfering with provincial jurisdiction, including education, resource development, environmental regulation, property rights and health.  

While attempts at creating a provincial pension plan have faltered, and the creation of a police force carries on piecemeal following clear public disinterest, the provincial government has leaned into the argument of economic carnage and the need to protect Alberta’s energy sector from Ottawa.

In the strategy, this would prohibit “attempts by federal agencies to regulate our province’s energy sector in any manner.” In practice, the Smith government has introduced amendments to its Critical Infrastructure Defence Act that would attempt to bar federal employees from facilities that track and compile emissions data — even private facilities that are not operated by the Alberta government. 

The province is also challenging draft federal clean electricity legislation in court and making demands of the Liberal government all tied to opening more oil and gas exploration, which Alberta wants to double. 

If those demands are not met, there could be a “national unity crisis,” Smith said prior to Carney’s election. 

In a list of demands the Alberta government presented to Prime Minister Carney on May 5, only one wasn’t directly linked to oil and gas — a call to completely overhaul equalization payments, in which funds are redistributed across the country from wealthier regions. In Alberta, those payouts are inseparably linked to the fortunes wrought from the oil and gas sector. 

Now, days after the federal vote, Smith is echoing the Free Alberta Strategy, saying Ottawa’s treatment of Alberta has “become unbearable” and separatists in the province are not a fringe minority, but loyal Albertans “who’ve just had enough of having their livelihoods and prosperity attacked by a hostile federal government.”

That’s almost word for word from the Free Alberta Strategy written four years ago. 

Albertan anger at Ottawa is as old as confederation

Directing anger at Ottawa isn’t new in Alberta, it’s a time-honoured tradition as old as the province itself, when it entered confederation without the same ownership of its resources as other provinces (a slight that was later rectified). 

Every government in the province has used the federal government as a foil to rally the troops and shore up political support. That’s usually a conservative government, but even the NDP stirred the federal pot during its four-year reign. 

Talk of separation isn’t new either. It ebbs and flows depending on who’s in power in Ottawa and the federal policies they’re enacting. 

Those outbursts usually burn brightly for a moment and then flame out, but there historically hasn’t been the same level of tacit support from the provincial government as there is today. 

Smith rose to power after Jason Kenney, a staunch federalist who was shown the door by the party he helped found. Despite the merger of two right-wing parties to form the United Conservatives, the movement was strained between factions, including separatists and sovereigntists on its outer flank. 

Smith owes her victory to some of those outer flanks. She is from those outer flanks, and so is her chief advisor, Anderson. It’s a flank that views the province’s oil and gas industry as under assault from “hostile and unreliable federal governments” — and one that’s willing to go to increasingly extreme measures to defend it.

Smith government has been laser focused on promoting Alberta oil and gas, including in anti-Ottawa rhetoric

Smith’s government has been focused almost entirely on expanding and promoting Alberta’s oil and gas sector in a way that exceeds past governments — a notable feat  where the sector has long padded provincial budgets. 

The United Conservative Party under Smith has not only pushed back against federal policies, but worked to reshape Alberta’s electricity grid to all but block renewables and encourage more natural gas consumption. It’s also considering elimination of its industrial carbon levy. 

Where past separatist or western alienation movements have focused on political principles, including increased representation and senate reform alongside resource development, Smith’s focus is on making more money.

The main driver behind the Free Alberta Strategy, and the main rhetorical assault from the premier, isn’t about identity or about politics, it is centred on climate policies and the energy sector.

“The federal government has taken hostile actions … against our right to develop our resources,” Smith said the day after the election. She also demanded the federal government rescind “nine offensive pieces of legislation and policy that prevent us from being able to exercise our constitutional jurisdiction to develop our resources.” 

Her list includes asking for the establishment of guaranteed economic corridors (think: pipelines), the repealing of federal environmental assessment legislation, the lifting of a tanker ban off the coast of B.C., the elimination of the proposed oil and gas emissions cap, scrapping federal clean electricity regulations, ending “treatment of plastics as toxic,” abandoning net-zero vehicle mandates, returning oversight of industrial carbon taxes fully to provinces and halting “the federal censorship of energy companies.”

Every one of those demands relates to the oil and gas industry.

Lisa Young, a political scientist at the University of Calgary, writes in a post about the separation issue that there appear to be two types of Alberta separatists these days, the true believers who imagine a free Alberta “as some kind of conservative utopia (like, well, Trump’s America)” and “instrumentalists” who want to use the threat to get concessions (think Quebec). 

The Free Alberta Strategy adds a third group, those who would never separate. It labels them as “well-meaning and sincere,” but says they “have not learned from history.”

It’s clear Smith isn’t in the last group, but it’s not clear precisely where her true feelings lie. If her intent is to use threats to wrangle concessions for the oil sector, it comes at a dangerous time to play such games — or providential, depending on your view. 

Separation rhetoric could have unintended effects for pipelines and more

If Alberta were to vote to separate, some of the issues raised in the Free Alberta Strategy and the still minority separatist movement, would only be exacerbated. 

“The world looks at us like we’ve lost our minds,” Smith said in her address to Albertans on May 5.  “We have the most abundant and accessible natural resources of any country on Earth, and yet we landlock them, sell what we do produce to a single customer, to the south of us, while enabling polluting dictatorships to eat our lunch.”

The strategy, too, rails against landlocked resources and lays the blame at the federal government. 

Secession would sever its official ties to neighbours the province would need to help industry get its products overseas or across borders. And it would face the once-unlikely, and now all-too-real, prospect of being consumed by that single customer Smith highlighted in her speech. 

If Smith really is using the threats as a means to coerce changes to legislation her government does not like, she may awaken forces well beyond her control, which ends well outside her intentions. 

And as University of Alberta political scientist Jared Wesley notes, the demands she has raised in her address aren’t based on national consensus, and will “face significant constitutional and political hurdles that, if not overcome, could end up inflaming frustrations among her base rather than resolving them.”

Providing a wedge as Canada faces a threat from the United States, and requires a united front in order to hold off the worst of the trade war, raises some serious questions about motivation.

In her address, Smith warned Albertans to stand unified against forces, inside and outside of the province, that would try to instill fear and distrust, before lashing out at those who would disagree with her views, and those of her government. 

“They will seek to divide us into different camps for the purposes of marginalizing and vilifying one another based on differing opinions, effectively pitting neighbour against neighbour and Albertan against Albertan,” she said, without irony.

Smith’s government is making it clear that there is one vision of Alberta, and it is centred on a specific politics and a specific industry. Anything else is un-Albertan and won’t be tolerated. She will break up the country to ensure that’s so. 

But perhaps it shouldn’t be her words that we listen to. 

“Albertans,” she said in her address, “are more of an ‘actions speak louder than words, kind of people.’ ” 

The actions of her government, and of her inner circle, speak volumes. 

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It was only six years ago, but 2019 feels worlds away. 

Justin Trudeau was living at 24 Sussex, still floppy-haired and fun-socked; there hadn’t yet been a global pandemic to grind the gears of the status quo to a halt. Canada and the United States were on solid ground as neighbours and trade partners, having successfully renegotiated a North American trade deal. And every Friday, inspired by Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, students across the country walked out of classes to demand their governments take the climate crisis seriously. The Fridays for Future protests were complemented by widespread climate strikes and marches; more than 10,000 Winnipeggers joined a global demonstration in late September that year. More than a million Canadians took to the streets that day.

One thing was clear: climate change was top of mind going into that fall’s federal election. For the first time, it ranked among voters’ top issues as they headed to the ballot boxes. 

Two years later, during the 2021 election, though dominated by debate over the federal pandemic response, climate change still took a starring role. A string of environmental emergencies — a deadly heat dome in British Columbia, a devastating wildfire season and a two-week long deep freeze on the Prairies — helped prompt Canadians to rank climate change as a top issue influencing their votes. 

This time around, things are a little different. 

It’s an election dominated by anxiety: anxiety over the economy, American politics, the cost of living and the security of the future. In all that turmoil, climate anxiety seems to have fallen by the wayside: polling suggests voters aren’t thinking about the environment as they prepare to head to the ballot box; leaders have hardly mentioned climate action on the campaign trail. 

But those watching this election closely say it’s not so clear cut. Canadians still care about the environment — it’s just being packaged a little differently.

“It’s not because Canadians don’t care about climate,” Abacus Data vice-president Eddie Sheppard said in an interview. “It’s just being out-shouted by louder and more immediate concerns.”

Polls show climate change low on voter priority lists in 2025

At face value, the polls paint a grim picture for the fate of climate policy. 

In 2021, Abacus polling found “dealing with climate change” ranked third behind cost of living and health-care concerns as a top election issue in the month leading up to election day, with about 20 per cent of Canadians ranking climate change as their No. 1 election concern.

This year, the deck has shuffled considerably. An Abacus survey of 2,000 Canadians conducted in late March found cost of living still topped the election-issue list, but climate change had fallen to eighth in the rankings, with just three per cent of respondents picking the environment as their most important voting issue. Similar results appeared in February and March polls from Ipsos, Nanos and Angus Reid, with the share of voters ranking climate change as a top-three election issue even lower among Prairie voters.

Here’s how Canadians — particularly Prairie voters — have ranked climate change in 2025 election polls: 

A February Ipsos poll saw voters rank threats to the environment as the ninth most important election issue. Less than five per cent of Manitoba and Saskatchewan voters ranked it among their top three.  

A Nanos poll commissioned by CTV in early March came to similar conclusions: the environment ranked seventh among voters’ concerns nationwide and sixth among prairie voters, but just three per cent of prairie residents named it as their top election priority.

In an April poll from Angus Reid, Canadians put environment and climate issues sixth overall on the list of key election issues, but Manitobans were less likely to consider climate change a priority. Just 11 per cent of Manitobans ranked it among their top three concerns, meaning it did not even rank among the province’s top-10 issues.

Instead, Canada’s relationship with the United States and the threats of annexation and tariffs posed by President Donald Trump have dominated news cycles — and voter priorities. Housing affordability, jobs and taxes have jumped to the forefront of Canadians’ concerns. 

“I think what that shows us is that there are very immediate, pressing concerns that are really capturing the headlines, capturing Canadian’s attention and shaping how they’re viewing this election,” Sheppard said. “Climate change has gradually been pushed down the list.”

Typically, he explained, polls tend to reflect more concern about climate change around severe weather events, like the heat waves and forest fires in summer 2021. Canadians’ attention to climate change peaked last July, coinciding with the forest fires that devastated Jasper, Alta., but “since then it hasn’t been as top of mind,” he said. 

In 2023, an Abacus poll found more than three-quarters of Canadians were concerned about climate change and its potential impact on their future. Last year, that share fell 14 points to just 62 per cent. 

Respondents said immediate issues like the cost of living and housing were more important. 

It echoes findings from the Consortium on Electoral Democracy, an election research network that collects voter opinions on climate change as part of annual democracy surveys. For the last five years, the survey has asked Canadians to agree or disagree with the statement: “When there is a conflict between protecting the environment and creating jobs, jobs should come first.”

Respondents were deadlocked in 2020, but more than half prioritized climate impacts in 2021 and 2022. Sentiments have flipped since 2023, with steadily more voters choosing jobs over the environment, reaching a 60-40 split in this year’s poll. 

“Canadians need more immediate relief and they need that certainty and stability in their lives before they can look to things like long-term environmental strategy,” Sheppard said. “If people can’t manage their lives today, it makes it hard to be concerned about climate five years down the road from now.”

Ryan Bullock, a professor of environmental studies and co-lead of the environment and society research group at the University of Winnipeg, has studied the rise of social movements like environmentalism. He sees the current deprioritization of climate issues as part of a familiar trend: people are generally better at dealing with short-term emergencies.

“Things like climate change are a slow-onset problem,” Bullock said. “Those things fly under our radar or get downgraded on the list of priorities. Even when informed people are sounding the alarm we tend to look past climate change and environmental issues because Donald Trump is the immediate threat we need to focus on.” 

Voters still want accountability on climate issues

Six months ago, Sheppard would have said this year was, in some respect, another climate election. 

Carbon taxes headlined the pre-campaign build up as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre built his party’s platform around opposition to the consumer price on carbon pollution — once the Liberal Party’s flagship climate policy — and secured widespread public support in the process. 

And then the political landscape turned upside down: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigned in early January, Trump was sworn in as president and began levelling tariff and annexation threats; Mark Carney won the Liberal leadership race and immediately nixed the consumer carbon price, effectively nullifying Poilievere’s plan to frame the election as a referendum on climate policy.

“The carbon tax and Bill C-69 [2019 legislation mandating impact assessments for energy projects] are the only two things that have really received attention from a climate policy side,” Sheppard said. 

While voters might not be as focused on climate change this year, they still expect their leaders to make progress. 

An Abacus poll conducted in September 2024 asked respondents whether the next prime minister should take dealing with climate change seriously. Nearly 80 per cent said yes. 

“Canadians are going to hold whoever wins the election accountable because it’s something that’s very important to them,” Sheppard said.

Last week, more than 120 Canadian municipal politicians, including Winnipeg city councillor Sherri Rollins, signed an open letter urging federal leaders to take an “elbows up” approach to climate action. The “Elbows Up For Climate Action” letter called on leaders to implement a national clean energy grid, build high-speed rail and electric transit infrastructure, build energy efficient homes, retrofit home-energy systems and invest in a national disaster response and recovery strategy.

“There’s an urgent need to shine a light on policy work that works for local government as it relates to climate action,” Rollins said in an interview. “It’s absent from the dialogue and the narrative of the election and it’s a really critical omission.”

Rollins understands there are a long list of pressing issues, affordability and housing in particular, facing her constituents. She believes the policies pitched in the open letter, for example building energy efficient housing or supporting home-energy retrofits, can create jobs, lower energy bills, provide a sense of long-term stability — and still reduce emissions. 

“The social and economic challenge is the climate resiliency, climate justice challenge,” she said. “I believe the work is the same.”

‘Savvy’ campaign tactics shroud climate policy in economic framing

Sheppard believes federal leadership hopefuls are still talking about climate change — just not in so many words. 

“We’re hearing things like energy independence, resilient infrastructure and the critical mineral strategy — that’s all climate related, but they’re not discussing it very explicitly as climate policy or an environmental strategy,” he said. 

Platforms still include programs like electric-vehicle incentives, home-energy retrofits and heat-pump incentives, but Sheppard said they’re being communicated as “cost-saving strategies rather than climate-saving strategies.” 

Similarly, when Carney announced plans to “protect Canada’s natural environment” last week, he only mentioned climate change once, instead framing his climate policies as a response to Trump threatening Canadian resources and an opportunity to bolster national identity around a shared love of nature. 

Part of the reason, Sheppard suggests, is because climate change is still a divisive topic. As the race has shifted from near-certain Conservative victory to a nail-biting sprint for the line, candidates are being careful to avoid messaging that could alienate undecided voters.

“Parties are strategically staying away from the explicit discussion around climate and focusing more on how this impacts the top issues, while still getting at those climate policies.” 

For Bullock, the University of Winnipeg professor, the “savvy” campaign strategies to reframe environmental issues aren’t as important as the policies themselves. 

Even as Canadians prepare to vote with economic and national security concerns top of mind, he said: “What’s at the base of our economic system? Our environment.”

Julia-Simone Rutgers is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

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.