What a week. Amidst the blur of World Cup shenanigans and Canada Day festivities, politicians dropped not one, not two, but three massive pipeline announcements. 

First, there was the multibillion-dollar federal commitment for infrastructure projects in B.C. What does this have to do with pipelines, you ask? Well, the agreement also included a promise to maintain the federal oil tanker ban off B.C.’s North Coast and $10 billion to upgrade the Roberts Bank export terminal (that’s the huge shipping terminal you can see from BC Ferries as you approach Tsawwassen, FYI). 

That brings us to the second announcement, which came just a few hours later when Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced a plan for a southern route for a new oil pipeline to the West Coast that would largely follow the right-of-way for the Trans Mountain pipeline, except — surprise, surprise! — it would end at Roberts Bank. This theoretical pipeline would be planned and built by the federally owned Trans Mountain Corp., with Pembina Pipeline Corp. taking a 10 per cent stake in construction. Oh, and it would cost between $35 billion and $44 billion (mostly in taxpayer money).

As if that wasn’t enough to process, on Monday Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Smith proposed another pipeline called Northern Shield, which would take oilsands bitumen to refineries in Sarnia, Ont. There’s also no private backer for this pipeline and, notably, no formal federal support. The chief of Aamjiwnaang First Nation, meanwhile, says the nation hasn’t been consulted on the proposal thus far and notes it’s still in the midst of a benzene crisis and dealing with the fallout of a March 2026 pipeline spill.

The headlines have been coming so fast and furious, it’s been tough to keep up. I spent the week scouring the internet, trying to get my head around it all. Some of the most insightful commentary I came across was from Amy Janzwood, an assistant professor in political science and environment at McGill University — so I called her up to pick her brain on, well, all of it. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

What have you noticed about the pipeline discussion in the media over the last week? 

All the media coverage I saw has been stenography, basically. Just regurgitating all of the talking points of [Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Tim] Hodgson, Carney and Smith. It’s been extremely uncritical coverage. The kind of making of a pipeline out of literally nothing other than taxpayer dollars has been quite dizzying and shocking to see. 

The questions I was asked a year ago about pipeline politics are very different than the questions I get now. Before I’d get asked: “What’s the prospect of another major oil pipeline? Is this a political fantasy?” But now there’s a slippage into engaging on the terms of the Smith government. The lack of context I’ve seen in the reporting on this is in part because of the firehose of announcements, and media outlets are just not able to keep up.

You have noted before that legacy media often uncritically repeat the narratives of the oil industry. It sounds like you’re still seeing that? Are any particular examples coming to mind? 

Hodgson has basically become the voice of the industry and I see that repeated verbatim, without any kind of interrogation. One very clear example I see over and over again is the profitability narrative around the Trans Mountain pipeline when we know this is actually not a profitable pipeline. You could argue there are good reasons to have it and we can have that debate, but [federal politicians] like to say that this is a profitable pipeline, which is straight up not true, so that’s one example of things that I see kind of repeated very uncritically.

Given that it’s not a profitable pipeline, what are the real reasons you think we’re seeing such broad political support for it in this moment?

There has been incredibly powerful messaging from the Carney government that we can have it all. We’ve seen this misconstrual of economic anxiety, sort of pinned on the hopes of another pipeline, which couldn’t be further from the reality. 

Pipelines have become kind of a stand-in for the future of oil and gas. It’s become a stand-in for a lot of really difficult conversations.

Canadians are still broadly supportive of climate action and renewable energy, but they’re also more supportive of pipelines now than they have been for at least the last decade. What do you make of that contradiction? 

As political scientists, we’ve long known that public opinion can largely be shaped by our political elites. I’m not surprised when I hear things from our prime minister and minister of natural resources around the need to build more pipelines, that there is this slippage or confusion that this is going to reduce our reliance in any way on the U.S. If you’re not following this closely, then that sounds great, if you’re being told this is what we need to keep Canada prosperous and strong. 

But as someone who has studied pipelines for over 10 years, those are promises new pipelines will not be able to deliver on. I think the public has largely forgotten the cost and divisiveness about Energy East, about Northern Gateway, about Trans Mountain. Unless you’re directly affected and witnessing and experiencing the impacts of these projects, those costs to you, those environmental risks are not salient. It has long been difficult for folks to make that connection when we’re told this is necessary for our economy, and when the economic benefits are as overstated as they often are.

Canadians are repeatedly told that pipelines are what’s needed to keep Canada prosperous and strong. What are political leaders misrepresenting when they say that? 

Fundamentally when we’re talking about major new pipelines, you’re going to need significant greenfield oilsands expansion to fill it. [A greenfield project is a new project built on undeveloped land.] We’ve seen the economics of the oilsands have not been trending towards that for the last several years to decades. Investors in the oilsands were really pressuring companies to deliver on their dividends. There was not an appetite for massive new expansions; it was not economic and it still is not. It would actually harm the industry if they can’t fill the pipeline. 

If we’re now talking about a hypothetical West Coast pipeline, the volatility and the reliance on global oil prices and very uncertain demand … there is not a long-term case to be made for increasing oil expansion to the degree that would be required for a major new pipeline.

This is not economic for the industry, so this will be taxpayer-funded. And there’s no certainty about demand for this hypothetical oil that the industry does not seem willing to produce, although Smith has alluded to doing whatever she can to stimulate further oilsands production with additional provincial support. 

It’s quite misleading to suggest we would need a new pipeline to diversify away from the U.S. I do think we do need to have important conversations about how to become more resilient in light of having the Trump administration. But spending billions of dollars for a pipeline that we don’t think the industry can fill is not the way to do it. 

Politicians also increasingly claim that Canada can indefinitely expand oil and gas production while meeting our climate commitments. Is that actually possible?

The short answer is no. This myth was alive and well under the Trudeau government. The Trudeau government really pioneered this narrative that we can have Trans Mountain and the oil expansion that comes with it and meet our climate targets and use the money from Trans Mountain to pay for the clean energy transition.

The latest iteration of this argument is this promise of carbon capture and storage. My take is that this is something the industry has never really been serious about doing.

Since Pathways Alliance [now called Oil Sands Alliance] announced its carbon capture and storage project in 2022, we’ve seen absolutely no significant investment of any kind in this project. And we know that they’ve just quietly stepped back from the amount of emissions reductions they’re promising.

It’s been quite troubling to see the Carney government so unquestioningly provide this narrative that we can have decarbonized oil — which is, of course, a contradiction.

You have described expanding fossil fuel exports as like saving for retirement by doubling down at the casino. Can you explain why that is?

Let’s not forget that oil and gas is a relatively small part of Canada’s GDP … but looking at the media coverage, you would not know that. 

The conversation we’re having right now is a federal government that has continuously found new and ever-creative ways to subsidize fossil fuel expansions, whether that’s LNG [liquefied natural gas], oilsands or carbon capture and storage, and telling the public that this is necessary. 

Let’s set aside LNG for now (the economics of LNG are a bit different), but about oil specifically, this is an industry that’s had record profits that’s been unwilling to pay for its own pollution — it is a cost the industry has very successfully avoided, whether that’s orphan wells and cleanup or carbon. 

We’re told we need to double down and it’s necessary for economic prosperity. But what we’re seeing is the bill that’s racking up that taxpayers are on the hook for — when there’s an industry that can very well pay for it, and is unwilling to because they know they have a government that will backstop it. They now have a government that will buy a pipeline and that now has a state-owned pipeline company that is promising to be a backer for another new pipeline, which honestly, if you had told me that even 12 months ago, I would not believe you. It is absolutely mind-boggling. 

The Narwhal is going to be following all of these issues closely. If you have thoughts or a story tip email editor@thenarwhal.ca

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What happens next?

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Our communities have waited long enough.” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What’s next for you?

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

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

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

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

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

Summary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Government ignored research, cancelled meetings with experts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cities and provinces say natural gas limits will hinder homebuilding

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Steven Guilbeault has had enough. 

Yesterday, the former Liberal environment minister announced his plan to resign his seat this summer after seven years in government. 

It wasn’t a surprise. Rumours of Guilbeault’s resignation began almost as soon as Mark Carney won the Liberal leadership — and immediately killed the consumer carbon price. It’s seemed inevitable since November, when Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith formally announced they were trying for a new pipeline and Guilbeault left cabinet. Now, some seven months later, Guilbeault is resigning altogether, with a letter including a long list of killed or threatened climate policies. 

His exit marks the end of an era for Canadian environmental aspirations. It’s a sign that big government promises to protect the planet are no longer being made, let alone fulfilled — but not that the battle is over.

Turning Guilbeault from a grassroots activist into a politician was a Liberal score back in 2019. The Justin Trudeau government was taking heat for buying the Trans Mountain pipeline, and Guilbeault was a Quebecois environmental hero who had spent years at Greenpeace before co-founding Équiterre. As Guilbeault recalled during his House of Commons farewell, it was hard to believe such a fierce fossil fuel foe would be happy in the most mainstream of parties.

Guilbeault and Trudeau agreed to disagree on Trans Mountain, and to work together on emissions reduction and environmental protections everywhere else. At the time, The Narwhal called him a “radical pragmatist” having a go at changing the system from the inside. He had some success and said, “I’m not angry,” as he walked down Parliament Hill yesterday. Still, it’s been clear for a while that he gave up more idealism than he intended.

Another Canadian voice for the environment also just decided that — to paraphrase feminist philosopher Audre Lorde — the master’s tools will never reduce the master’s emissions. On May 21, the activist group Investors for Paris Compliance announced it was winding down, after five years testing “whether investor pressure could meaningfully enforce corporate net-zero commitments” in Canada. 

The group’s sincere, nerdy goal was to use financial levers to influence banks, insurers and fossil fuel companies to pursue emissions reduction. It argued companies were failing clients by not accurately disclosing the risks climate change posed to their investments. Using tactics like shareholder proposals, regulatory complaints and old-fashioned engagement, the group encouraged its targets to make those risks public, then work to minimize them.

The pitch was that reducing greenhouse gases in order to limit global warming and its exacerbation of extreme weather events would protect not just people and the planet, but profits.

The sad takeaway is, as Investors for Paris Compliance said this week, “This approach only works at the margins.” It also had wins, including a $20-billion commitment made by National Bank to finance renewables projects. The immensity of the climate crisis means such small victories aren’t enough. 

“Investor accountability, in the absence of regulatory change or legal consequences, is not sufficient to deliver net-zero outcomes or to manage climate risk at the system level,” its final report concluded. 

But Guilbeault’s departure shows tougher regulation or enforcement aren’t just unlikely in Canada right now — they’re off the table. Prime Minister Carney’s words might say he’s “moving forward on climate action,” but his actual actions include weakening environmental assessment laws to pave the way for souped-up resource extraction. 

The landscape looks bleak for those dreaming of systemic emissions reductions efforts in Canada, but Guilbeault says he’s not done with his life’s environmental work. And whether he’s into it or not, Carney’s environmental efforts can’t be over, either.

Guilbeault wasn’t alone in criticism of Carney’s climate policy

Criticism of Carney’s approach to environmental policy is easy to find. Indigenous leaders were vocally opposed to fast-tracking legislation from the get-go. Last month, 14 Liberals sent a letter to the prime minister stating they were “deeply concerned” that pursuing a pipeline to appease Alberta means “the government’s credibility will be seriously compromised.”

Investors for Paris Compliance called Carney out, too. Its sunsetting report invoked his dramatic 2015 speech as Bank of England head, the one where he labelled markets’ short-term focus a “tragedy of the horizon” that failed to properly consider the long-term financial risks posed by climate-fuelled disasters.

For over a decade, this was hailed as a succinct and clear-eyed take, palatable to both people that love coldwater salmon and people that love cold, hard cash. It became a tent pole for the motley coalition that awarded Carney with Canada’s highest elected office after his very first political race. Now, many who put their faith in the money guy promising both climate action and profit are accusing him of dumping his Values the first time he hit a resource extraction road block.

A more generous reading is that Carney also attempted to save the planet from inside the system. When that didn’t go as planned, he found himself out of ideas. Before reading the Investors for Paris Compliance report I had already forgotten about Carney’s pre-politics pet project, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, a brief romance between the global banking system and efforts to slow global warming that kicked off in 2021.

At the time, Carney was UN Special Envoy for Climate, as well as head of “transition investing” at Brookfield. His star power helped grow the alliance to more than 120 banks. It was a hopeful time. It also met immediate, organized resistance. In the U.S., the activist investors recount, “Republican Attorneys General threatened members of the alliance with ‘collusion,’ complete with boycott lists for bidding on state business.” 

Membership plummeted after the 2024 U.S. election, including the January 2025 exodus of Canada’s five biggest banks. Last August, the alliance “paused” its activities. Within months, Carney was a pipeline guy. Unlike, say, Audre Lorde, he hasn’t shown the grit for genuine struggle. 

This bird’s eye perspective puts Canada’s environmental regression in context. Our fast-tracking, dealmaking and Treaty Rights-ignoring is part of a global backslide of climate policy and environmental action. And these violations of our right to clean air, water, land and food are part of a bigger wave of official and unofficial violations of human rights.

We are at the crest of a backlash, one crashing toward a literally scorched earth. 

During Guilbeault’s goodbye, both supporters and detractors recalled his 30-year environmental career, including his youthful radicalism. A Bloc MP reminisced about his 2001 unfurling of the Greenpeace banner after a renegade CN Tower climb, before calling him the “best, most ambitious environment minister this country had ever known.” A Conservative MP invoked his 2002 arrest for scaling the Alberta premier’s house to install solar panels, before denouncing policies Guilbeault supported. 

The CPC MP’s list included criticism for Carney for the policies still standing. At least one — the carbon price for industry — is already endangered by Carney and Smith’s dealmaking. The others, including the oil tanker ban in coastal B.C. waters and the limits on single-use plastics, are clearly in the crosshairs of the industries in question, as well as those who want their donations and votes. 

For Carney, realizing the strength of the forces aligned against systemic change has led him to abandon efforts to bank environmental cred, lest someone lose actual money. But he’s not Canada’s CEO, he’s the prime minister and that’s a more complicated job — abdicating his climate responsibilities is not acceptable. 

After a wave crashes, the ocean rises again. While the most pragmatic radicals are abandoning money guy visions for the environment, the soon-to-be-former Montreal MP and Investors for Paris Compliance also promised to keep swimming. After “a little break,” the investor activists aim to come back with “accountability mechanisms that match the scale of the challenge.” Reading between the syllables, that sounds a little spicy. 

As for Guilbeault, “I will continue my battle for a greener, safer planet — outside of this House, but I will continue,” he said yesterday. 

It’s one thing to put down the master’s tools and another to leave the master’s house. Neither is a promise to stop trying to dismantle it.

— With files from Carl Meyer

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

Summary

• Last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government proposed major changes to the federal assessment process for mining, oil and gas and other infrastructure projects.
• The proposed changes include shifting assessments from an agency under the federal environment minister to regulators that report to the natural resources minister.
• Former ministers, First Nations and environmental advocates are criticizing the proposal, some calling it a more significant rollback of environmental law than was seen under former prime minister Stephen Harper.

Last year, Prime Minister Mark Carney established an office tasked with fast-tracking handpicked major industrial projects. Now, he says that’s not enough. He has a new proposal on the table meant to roll out the red carpet for all projects requiring federal approval, including pipelines, mines, transmission lines and other infrastructure.

The proposal, unveiled last week, would create “federal economic zones” where certain developments can be “pre-approved,” and provide exceptions to several rules governing fossil fuel and nuclear oversight, habitat preservation, species at risk protection and major project reviews.

It would fundamentally change the way the country scrutinizes industrial development and consults with Indigenous Peoples, in some cases shifting reviews at an agency under the purview of the environment minister over to federal bodies that report to the natural resources minister.

The government outlined its plan in two discussion papers, but it will need to flesh out the details and formally introduce them as part of new legislation, before they can be implemented in law. The Liberals are now able to pass legislation much easier, after they secured a Parliamentary majority following April’s byelections and the addition of five floor-crossing MPs to their caucus.

The House of Commons is on a two-week break, scheduled to return May 25. Meanwhile, the proposal is open for public comment through June 7. 

Here’s what you need to know.

Who wanted this change? Who didn’t?

The government says the alterations are necessary so Canada can better compete with other countries for investment dollars, and strengthen the Indigenous consultation process. It said the process to build things is “often slow, expensive and confusing” and the government must “go further to streamline review and approvals processes.”

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which represents businesses across the country, also believes the government’s fast-tracking regime has “not gone far enough” and is hoping Carney continues to “peel back some of the red tape layers that have been holding back business success.”

Canada’s oil and gas industry has consistently advocated since Carney took office for his government to overhaul environmental assessments to turbocharge fossil fuel growth. Industry executives have personally pushed this position despite the industry enjoying big profits off the war in Iran, and despite the scientific conclusion that carbon pollution, of which the oil and gas industry is the largest contributor in Canada, is furthering destructive climate change that is leading to myriad health problems and premature death for Canadians.

Two former Liberal environment ministers have harshly criticized Carney’s proposal. Liberal MP Steven Guilbeault, who was the federal environment minister from 2021 to 2025, told the Toronto Star Carney’s plan is “worse” than the changes under former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, which resulted in some high-profile legal challenges. Former Liberal MP Catherine McKenna, who held the same post from 2015 to 2019, told the Canadian Press Carney’s proposal will lead to a “lack of trust” and lawsuits, ultimately making the project approval process slower, not faster.

Ecojustice, an environmental law charity, has described the changes as potentially ushering in “the biggest rollback of environmental protections in a generation.” The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, which represents 63 First Nations in that province, said it raises “serious concerns that Canada is moving toward a system where speed takes precedence over Treaty obligations, environmental stewardship and First Nations consent.”

The government wants to create ‘federal economic zones’ where developments are ‘pre-approved’

Carney’s government wants to legalize “federal economic zones” which it says could include areas designated for energy production and transmission, industrial regions, transportation and telecommunications. 

Inside these zones, the government would “pre-approve” certain developments, subject to conditions, and exempt projects from requiring individual environmental reviews — instead just requiring one overarching assessment.

It said the zones, and the activities allowed in them, would be “clearly defined.” Consultation with Indigenous Peoples would be a “key part” of the process, it added, including on determining the conditions for development inside the zones. The agreement of provinces is also “essential,” it said.

“This co-operation between federal and provincial governments would allow projects to be fast-tracked under both federal and provincial regimes,” reads the discussion paper. 

Sound familiar? Ontario passed similar legislation last year

A provincial regime is already in place in Ontario, after Premier Doug Ford’s government passed Bill 5 last year. The bill established the similar-sounding Special Economic Zones Act. Inside Ontario’s economic zones, the government can select certain proponents and projects, and exempt them from some municipal by-laws and provincial laws, including environmental protections. 

Critics have said Ontario’s law threatens wetlands, watersheds, peatlands and endangered species, and the Indigenous communities who rely on them. It’s subject to a court challenge from First Nations, asking for the law to be found unconstitutional.

The federal economic zones would be enabled through regional assessments, which are already an approach used by the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada to examine the cumulative effects of development in a given area. 

There is currently an ongoing federal regional assessment in the Ring of Fire, the mineral-rich area in the James Bay Lowlands known as Bakitanaamowin Aki, or “the Breathing Lands,” and Mammamattawa, or “many rivers coming together,” by the First Nations that call it home. 

Days after passing Bill 5, Ford said he would designate the Ring of Fire a special economic zone under Ontario law “as quickly as possible.” But in March this year, in a sudden shift in tone, Ford said he didn’t “need” to use these powers anymore to develop the area due to partnerships with several, but not all, First Nations communities in the region.

The Ontario government has long spoken about the region becoming a major mining hub. But an interim Ring of Fire regional assessment report has pointed to the need for environmental monitoring in the area’s boreal forest and peatlands, and the need for communities to urgently access health care. 

The provincial government, meanwhile, has been withholding scientific data and funding as part of the assessment process, and is not at the table with the First Nations and federal government representatives seeing it through, The Narwhal has reported.

New rules would change the role of the federal environmental review agency

Carney’s proposal would remove the ability of the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada to examine any pipeline projects that cross provincial or national borders, as well as any transmission lines or “offshore renewable energy projects.”

The agency, accountable to Environment, Climate Change and Nature Minister Julie Dabrusin, examines projects for sustainability, environmental protection and Indigenous Rights. It carries out its assessments “grounded in sound science, rigorous process and due diligence,” according to its website.

“Does Canada need to weaken its environmental laws to allow projects to proceed? No,” the agency declares on a frequently asked questions page. “Do federal policies prevent LNG, oil or pipeline projects from moving forward in Canada? No.”

Carney’s government is now of the opinion that issues like “poor coordination between government departments” are slowing down projects like pipelines. The government is proposing to shift assessments of certain projects away from the agency and over to two regulators that report to Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson. 

The job of reviewing all cross-border pipelines, transmission lines and offshore renewables would go to the Canada Energy Regulator, while the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission would handle project reviews related to nuclear and uranium projects.

The government would also have the power to declare major pipelines “in the public interest,” before the energy regulator is required to complete its review of the project’s conditions or where the pipe would actually be laid.

At the same time, the government is proposing that the Impact Assessment Agency become the home of a new “Crown consultation hub” that would “ensure that each Indigenous group affected by a major project goes through one clear and coordinated consultation process for each project.” 

It is also proposing to assign the federal review coordinator at the agency the job of ensuring project assessments and federal permits “stay on track.” The government said it would change the law to ensure project reviews and permit reviews “happen at the same time” and that a federal decision would take no longer than one year.

Sound familiar again? Carney isn’t the first leader to try to fast-track industrial projects

Carney’s proposal is reminiscent of a shift that happened under Harper’s government, which tried to accelerate environmental assessments by moving more oil and gas oversight to the energy regulator’s predecessor, the National Energy Board, in 2012.

Years later, the National Energy Board came under scrutiny after the Federal Court of Appeal quashed the government’s approval of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion project, saying the board’s review of the project was flawed. The former Northern Gateway pipeline proposal also had its federal permits overturned by the Federal Court.

Former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government passed the Impact Assessment Act and Canadian Energy Regulator Act, collectively through Bill C-69, allowing the government to consider the impact of natural resource projects on issues like climate change. But a Supreme Court of Canada decision in 2023 found the assessment scheme “largely unconstitutional,” forcing Trudeau’s government to introduce a revised version of the law in 2024.

There will be new exemptions to Canada’s species at risk law and fish permits

Carney’s government wants to change “some federal laws” that it argued can make the regulatory process “slow, repetitive and less flexible.” One of these appears to be the Species At Risk Act, a federal law passed in 2002 that is meant to prevent species extinction and help with population recovery. 

The law has a clause known as the “jeopardy test,” that restricts permits for an activity affecting a species or its critical habitat, unless the government believes the activity “will not jeopardize the survival or recovery of the species.”

Carney’s proposal would give the government the power to exempt projects from the application of this test. It said the power would be “limited” and have a “high threshold to be met,” would have to be in the “public interest” and would have to come after the proponent has made “all reasonable efforts” to avoid impacts.

The government also wants to offer more flexibility for permits that impact fish and fish habitat, when it comes to compensating for environmental harm. And it would allow “some early construction activities to start” before the government decides on the merits of a project, “if necessary permits are approved.”

Carney’s proposal also allows ministers to adjust certain conditions of a project assessment “in exceptional circumstances” and “adjust environmental conditions for projects of national interest, when needed.”

And it would hand the environment minister the power to issue a single federal document for certain projects that would include all federal decisions “required for a project to move forward.” It said experts in different departments would still review the project and provide advice, and enforcement would still be handled by the departments responsible. 

The changes come after Ford’s government in Ontario also removed the province’s Endangered Species Act and replaced it with the Species Conservation Act this year. That has had the effect of removing protection from many species.

After Ontario’s change, some threatened fish and birds are now only protected by federal laws. 

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

• 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.

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.

Canada’s vast landscape, which boasts 20 per cent of the world’s fresh water, a quarter of global wetlands and 28 per cent of its boreal forests, is critical to its economy. Natural resource industries — forests, farms, fisheries, mining and oil and gas — together make up approximately seven per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. 

Tension exists between expanding these industrialized sectors and protecting the ecosystems on which they depend. In Manitoba, some worry protecting the Seal River Watershed, which spans more than 50,000 square kilometres in the province’s north, will hinder opportunities in mineral resources and hydro; to the east, critical mineral mining ambitions in Ontario’s Ring of Fire clash with the protection of the Hudson and James Bay Lowlands, the second-largest carbon sink on earth; and in B.C., Coastal First Nations have protested that lifting the large tanker ban through their waters will endanger the protected Great Bear Rainforest.

These tensions make it easy to frame nature as the antithesis of economic activity, if it’s always put in opposition to projects that are described as growing Canada’s wealth, sovereignty and security. But a growing chorus of economic and policy leaders, alongside conservation groups, are making the case for nature to be seen as a critical financial asset — not a barrier, but another opportunity for economic growth. 

The federal government’s vision for conservation, laid out in its 2026 nature strategy, is of a nation that “protects, restores, and values nature as a foundation of our economy, sovereignty, and well-being.” 

One of the pillars to achieving that vision is “valuing nature and mobilizing capital,” according to the strategy. It estimated the value of “ecosystem services” — the direct and indirect contributions of nature to well-being and quality of life — to be $3.6 trillion, or “more than double our 2018 GDP.” In other words, the government is looking to spur more private sector investment in conservation by showing businesses how valuable nature is to their bottom lines.

The numbers show conservation is comparable with many of Canada’s major industries. While it may not produce the same scale of economic value as major resource extraction sectors like oil and gas — which does not approach the value of sectors like health care or education — it is a significant contributor to Canada’s economy. And the return on investment is high: a recent analysis by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) found every dollar spent on protected areas generated more than $3.50 in visitor spending, helping fuel local economies and generate government revenues. 

Like the oil and gas sector, Canada can choose to invest in the potential of conservation and champion it as a cornerstone of our country’s economic future. And as Canadians grapple with the increasingly severe impacts of the climate crisis, the role of intact ecosystems becomes even more valuable. 

These nine charts capture some of the value of Canada’s natural environments, and the economic potential of conservation.

Economic contributions from protected areas — by province

Gross domestic product (GDP) contributions of selected Canadian industries

How are the industries defined?+

Statistics Canada tracks economic activity indicators for a wide range of sectors using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), which assigns a code to specific activities and sectors. Industries and government agencies tally these statistics in different ways to determine overall sector impacts. 

This analysis uses Statistics Canada’s data, and defines each industry as follows:

Agriculture: Crop and animal production (farming), related support activities and food manufacturing, including mills, bakeries, meat and dairy production.

Fisheries: Aquaculture, fishing, hunting and trapping and seafood product preparation.

Forestry: Forestry and logging, related support activities, wood and paper product manufacturing. 

Mining: Mineral mining (ore, non-metals, potash) and quarrying activities, including related support. Also includes mineral product manufacturing and metal manufacturing. 

Oil and gas: Oil and gas extraction and related support activities, petroleum and coal product manufacturing, natural gas distribution and pipelines.

Transportation: Air, rail, water, truck and transit and ground transportation (including public transit and taxis). 

Utilities: Electric power generation, transmission and distribution and water and sewage systems.

Jobs and compensation

More than 150,000 people work in protected and conserved areas — not far behind the oil and gas and forestry sectors. As the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society points out, many of these jobs are in Indigenous, rural and remote communities, where unemployment rates are high compared to urban areas. In parts of Canada where other economic opportunities are scarce, protected and conserved areas offer the opportunity to create long-term stable employment. 

Conservation provides value, but how are conservation workers valued? Compensation for the approximately 150,000 Canadians who work in protected areas is low, compared to other sectors; on average, an oil and gas worker makes nearly four times as much annually. 

Tax revenues and subsidies

Governments collected more than $1.4 billion in tax revenues from parks and protected areas in 2024, most of which stemmed from visitor spending, according to the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s analysis. That’s comparable to government tax revenues from the forestry industry, at $1.2 billion. Major resource industries like forestry and oil and gas also create government revenue through royalties and other fees. 

But for many of these industries, government revenues can be offset by tax breaks, grants and other subsidies.

Governments invested $2.3 billion in parks and protected spaces in 2024, generating $0.62 in revenue for every dollar invested. By comparison, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates the federal government spent $3.17 billion USD (or $4.34 billion CAD) on fossil fuel subsidies — almost $1 billion USD more than the United States spent on subsidies, despite their industry’s far greater output. That number is likely an underestimate, as a lack of clear data and complex incentive structures make it difficult to track how much governments give out to industry. 

Environmental Defence, which releases an annual report tracking Canadian fossil fuel subsidies, estimates the government doled out more than $30 billion in subsidies and financing to fossil fuel companies in 2024. Most of that funding came in the form of a $20-billion loan for the Trans Mountain Expansion project. 

Carbon storage

The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society estimated the carbon stocks stored in Canada’s existing protected areas by comparing protected area boundaries to data showing the carbon concentration in soil, vegetated areas and seabed sediments. 

It found a total 51.4 gigatons of carbon stored in the country’s protected forests, peatlands, wetlands, soil and seabeds. 

If this carbon was all emitted as carbon dioxide, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society estimates, it would equate to 188.4 gigatons of emissions. 

By protecting these regions from industrial disturbances like mining, logging or draining, that carbon stays in the ground. If released, that carbon comes at a cost. 

Canada’s industrial carbon price, which charges businesses for emissions that exceed a predetermined limit, is $110 per tonne as of 2026. A carbon credit — doled out for activities that remove or avoid carbon emissions — is worth the same.

At that price, the carbon stored in Canada’s protected areas is worth $20.7 trillion. 

That’s about 10 times the value of Canada’s global mining assets ($352.6 billion), global energy assets ($827 billion) and domestic farm sector assets ($992.4 billion) combined.

Annual carbon capture

Protected and conserved areas remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, a process known as “carbon capture.” Manitoba’s Riding Mountain National Park, for example, removed an average of 108,328 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from the atmosphere between 1990 and 2020. This is significantly less than Shell’s Quest carbon capture and storage project, but it’s also just one of hundreds of parks and protected areas across Canada.

Most parks, like the ones included in this chart, are sequestering carbon each year. However, when parks or protected areas are hit by wildfires, they can become carbon emitters.

– With files from Michelle Cyca

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

• In briefing notes, officials with Canada’s natural resources department compared a federal office to a White House council tasked with stewarding energy projects forward.
• Canada’s Major Projects Office is meant to speed up developments including natural gas and mining.
• A First Nations leader noted Canada’s different constitutional framework, while environmental experts and advocates cautioned against following Trump’s push for “energy dominance.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s special office for speeding up major projects “operates similarly” to U.S. President Donald Trump’s energy “tiger team,” according to internal Canadian government records.

The comparison between Carney’s Major Projects Office and the president’s National Energy Dominance Council, or NEDC, are contained in a briefing note for Canadian Energy Minister Tim Hodgson that was obtained by The Narwhal through an access to information request.

“The NEDC operates similarly to the Major Projects Office,” the briefing note from Natural Resources Canada reads, “providing support to advance projects efficiently and address issues that may impede progress. It is a small group of officials working at the centre of government to facilitate decision-making.”

According to a description by one of its senior advisers, the U.S. council, which was created within the Executive Office of the president, is conceived as a “tiger team,” or a group of specialists hired to solve a specific problem. It offers “concierge, white glove service” to get mining and fossil fuel projects approved fast, the advisor said.

It’s chaired by U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who has close ties to oil and gas producers, and the team has been involved in promoting mining, natural gas and a pipeline in Alaska. The briefing note shows Hodgson was scheduled to meet with Burgum last October.

Six months after Trump’s council was formed, Carney launched the Major Projects Office with a mandate to “streamline and accelerate” regulatory approvals for “nation-building” projects. The office is backed by the Privy Council Office, the department that supports the prime minister and cabinet.

So far, the prime minister has referred five mining projects and two natural gas projects to the office, as well as others in nuclear, electricity, ports and roads. He put Dawn Farrell, the former CEO of the oil pipeline company Trans Mountain, in charge.

During a visit to an energy conference in Houston in March, Hodgson remarked on the closeness of his office’s relationship with Burgum, and said, “the U.S. wants to achieve energy dominance. We support you in that view.”

The Narwhal approached Hodgson after he gave a speech at a First Nations Major Projects Coalition conference in Toronto on April 30, to ask about the comparison his department made with Trump’s team. The minister, while walking through the conference and chatting with an attendee, twice avoided taking questions, saying he was too busy. Another official suggested contacting his office.

A spokesperson for Natural Resources Canada said the comparison between the Major Projects Office and the U.S. council “was intended as a high-level description of function — not a statement of equivalence in mandate, governance or approach.”

The department also noted Canada’s “distinct constitutional, legal and policy framework that reflects our values and obligations” and said Canada’s office is “not limited to a single industry or sector.”

Treaty 8 Grand Chief says comparisons between Canada and U.S. approaches to development should be ‘treated very carefully’

Carney has pitched the Major Projects Office as working “in partnership” with Indigenous Peoples. He held summits last year with First Nations, Inuit and Métis rights holders. The office’s Indigenous Advisory Council is meant to help guide its work.

Grand Chief Trevor Mercredi, of Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta, sits on the Major Projects Office’s Indigenous Advisory Council. He reacted to the comparison by noting that Canada’s different constitutional framework, including the Crown’s obligations to First Nations, means “speed cannot come at the expense of Treaty Rights.”

“What I can say is that any comparison between the Major Projects Office and a U.S. energy permitting model has to be treated very carefully. Canada operates within a different constitutional framework,” Mercredi said, including Treaty Rights, land claims and the duty to consult. “The Crown’s obligations to First Nations cannot be treated as permitting issues or obstacles to be managed around.”

He said there is value in the Major Projects Office if it improves government transparency and coordination and ensures First Nations are meaningfully involved in decisions that affect their lands, waters and Treaty Rights.

“But if the purpose is to simply move projects faster by narrowing, bypassing or compressing Crown obligations, that would be a serious concern,” he said.

Mercredi said his role on the Indigenous Advisory Council does not replace direct consultation with rights-holding nations and doesn’t satisfy the Crown’s legal obligations.

For Treaty 8 nations, he said, the issue isn’t whether Canada can build major projects — it’s whether Canada will honour treaties, respect First Nations jurisdiction and ensure decisions are made with “proper consultation, accommodation, environmental protection and real participation by the nations whose territories are affected.”

Canada’s Bill C-5 faces strong opposition, and a lawsuit

The government passed the Building Canada Act, part of Bill C-5, in June 2025, cementing a process in law to name projects in the “national interest.”

It has seen strong opposition from some Indigenous communities, as well as public interest groups, who argue it paves the way for the government to circumvent oversight that’s meant to protect the environment, public health and scientific integrity.

The Quebec Environmental Law Centre has launched a legal action asking the courts to strike down the law. The group announced April 27 it had gathered 11 other organizations who seek to intervene in the lawsuit.

The law centre’s executive director Geneviève Paul, reacting to the documents from the natural resources department, said decisions made behind closed doors are not in the interest of Canadians.

“The government of Canada needs to act responsibly and defend our institutions, not follow authoritarian trends and copy the jurisdictions which are dismantling the protections we need to move forward safely,” she said.

Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist at Greenpeace Canada, said it was “telling” that the federal department itself was comparing the two offices.

“I think many Canadians who voted for an ‘elbows up’ agenda would be surprised to learn that our natural resources minister went to Houston [in March] to tell Americans that he wants to help the Trump administration achieve energy dominance, which is code for expanding fossil fuels at any cost,” Stewart said.

Updated on May 5, 2026, at 11:30 a.m. ET: This story has been updated to include a statement from Natural Resources Canada that was sent after the given deadline.

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.

Avi Bryant grew up in a middle-class neighbourhood in Vancouver. By the time he was 30, he was well on his way to becoming a millionaire. 

He calls his path “sheer luck” — but it’s more nuanced than that. Bryant got lucky, sure, meeting the right kinds of friends and acquaintances (executives at Twitter, for example) at the right times. He also made good business and financial choices, including taking stock options in lieu of some of his pay while at Stripe, that eventually propelled him into the so-called one per cent.

Now, instead of kicking back and sipping martinis with the economic elite, he’s joined a growing chorus of wealthy individuals calling for nations to stop catering to the ultra-rich. In fact, he says, Canada needs to tax the rich more — a lot more.

Doing so could change the lives of all Canadians, he says, and help the country accelerate its transition away from fossil fuels. With more tax dollars at its disposal, the federal government would be in a position to make major investments in electrification, solar projects and more. 

Enter the Patriotic Millionaires, a newly registered federal lobbying group that Bryant belongs to, which is advocating for changes to the country’s tax regime. 

From his home on Galiano Island, B.C., Bryant told The Narwhal why he believes Canada needs to target its wealthiest citizens, and some of what it can do with the proceeds.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you tell us about yourself? Did you grow up wealthy?

We were kind of typical middle class. I certainly did not grow up in a wealthy household. At the same time, I grew up in what felt like a very privileged household where there was lots of education, lots of books around, lots of support, a very safe neighbourhood with lots of resources. I didn’t grow up in anything that felt like poverty or lack of privilege, but it certainly was not wealth. 

I ended up doing a computer science degree at [the University of British Columbia] and got into the tech world after graduating, starting a small company in Vancouver. We’re talking early 2000s, kind of post dot-com bust. I made a lot of connections with a lot of people who turned out to be useful people to know. In 2010, we ended up selling the company to Twitter, which was starting out at that time. That considerably changed our financial situation. It also meant that we moved down to San Francisco for a couple of years and made a lot more connections.

Someone who I had met in Vancouver, in those early startup days, I got to know a lot better when we were in San Francisco: Patrick Collison, who started a company called Stripe. I joined Stripe in early 2013, when that company was still, again, very small. I mean, it was 40 people or something at that point. That company then grew to be thousands of people and worth hundreds of billions of dollars. As an early employee, I had effectively been an early investor and that was just sheer luck. There was no way to predict that my tiny percentage of Stripe was going to end up being worth a large amount of money. 

I left Stripe in 2019, feeling like [my wife and I] had this responsibility to do something with our time and resources that was not just motivated by profit and commerce, that was more about having an impact on the world.

Why do you want to be taxed more?

Society is better off if everyone has their basic needs met and I see that as a function of government. Obviously, Canada has lots of social services … but I believe the government can and should be doing more — and that’s going to require more money. I think the obvious place to get that money is from taxing people who have a lot of it. 

[It’s] about the marginal utility of money: if you’re living on $20,000 a year and you lose 10 per cent of that, you’re losing $2,000 — that’s a big deal. If you’re living on $3 million a year and you lose 10 per cent of that, you’re down $300,000. So what? It’s not going to change your lifestyle. 

We do have progressive taxation. We increase the percentage you’re taxed as you make more, but the top bracket starts at around $260,000. So we don’t distinguish between someone who’s making a quarter-million a year and someone making $2.5 million a year, or $25 million a year. Those situations are very different.

From my point of view, there’s an obvious opportunity to increase taxes on the people who are making millions of dollars a year. There’s also an opportunity to increase taxes on people who hold scarce, valuable resources. Land is the obvious one here. If we’re using land so someone can have a beautiful, 200-acre waterfront estate … I mean, fine, but let’s tax the shit out of it.

I think we have an opportunity to do that without particularly changing people’s lifestyles. It’s not going to make them move out of the country. That’s just not going to happen. They’re here because they want to be here. I’m here because I want to be here. I can afford to pay a lot more in tax than I do without changing my lifestyle and that money can be used to improve the lives of other Canadians.

You touched on the typical argument against this idea: if Canada puts those things into place — vacation home taxes and other types of taxes targeting the wealthy — then those people will just take their money and go elsewhere. What would you say to that?

The only other thing I would say is good riddance. Ultimately, for the handful of people who’d say, “If you raise taxes on the wealthy, I’m going to move to Barbados,” — it’s like, okay, fine. Like: bye Felicia.

Canada is a wonderful place to live. I could live anywhere I want. This is where my family chooses to live, because we truly believe that this is the best place to be living. And that’s true whatever the tax rate is.

Do you think this proposition, that the government adjust its tax systems, would create benefits for climate and ecosystem health?

One of the functions of government is to do large-scale investment, often infrastructure investment. I think climate is one area we can and should be making large-scale investments. We should be taking a page from China’s book and building very large-scale solar power plants to shift load away from fossil fuel plants. We should be investing in more efficient transportation, like train networks. We should be electrifying as quickly as we can — because we have to.

The key climate fight here is we know how to transition our electrical production off of fossil fuels. But we also need to shift the demand for things that are currently not electric to electric — and transportation is a big piece of that. Obviously, electric cars have been successful. But trucking, marine, aviation … These are all things that currently depend heavily on fossil fuels. I very much see that as a government function, making investments in shifting those loads from fossil fuel to electricity.

So by taxing the rich, you add more money into the government’s capability to invest in infrastructure — which it can allocate as subsidies and investments to support climate mitigation projects?

Exactly. I think we should be taxing the rich and we should be using that money to invest in, broadly speaking, electrification projects. From a climate point of view, I think that’s the best thing we can be doing — and just doing everything we can to move off of oil. Alberta is going to fight us tooth and nail, but let’s find a way to transition that economy to a renewable economy. If we have to sink a lot of federal money into it, that’s worth doing, because our dependence on fossil fuels is bad for everyone.

Do you think philanthropy plays a role in solving these bigger existential problems?

I do. With the government, we’re kind of entrusting all of our collective money and the government, as a result, tends to be quite risk-averse. The government doesn’t want to put a lot of capital into something that might fail and they get blamed and they won’t get re-elected or whatever. I think that caution is actually quite appropriate with public money, but at the same time when they do decide it’s worth doing something, they can do it on a very large scale. 

I think philanthropy can be the other side of that coin, which is to say individual philanthropists can take risks with their money and explore ideas that are not as proven. And then, hopefully, having proved some of them right, the government can come in and scale that up. So I think that’s worthwhile. That said, does that philanthropy need to be tax deductible? I don’t really think so.

Who are the Patriotic Millionaires?

Patriotic Millionaires is an organization that began in the U.S. It’s a very focused advocacy organization of people who have wealth who are asking for higher taxes on people who are wealthy. [They] opened a sort of sister organization in the U.K. and last year opened a Patriotic Millionaires in Canada. My wife and I are both members and she is now on the board.

I can see some opposition from powerful minorities, but I think most people can get behind the idea of everyone paying a fair share.

And yet the capital gains exclusion that was on the table for former prime minister Justin Trudeau came off with Prime Minister Mark Carney. Speaking for myself, not the organization, we need to understand why that is. It seems to me the loud minority won that fight. I don’t understand the politics there, but I think that in order to figure out what to do next, we need to understand.

I was listening to a podcast on fashion, of all things, about tariffs and the economy and this idea that we need to tax the wealthy more. They put it in this framing of “join us.” 

Like, “You guys are off in this little corner and having to hide your money and put it in all these different places and do these different things to avoid being like the rest of us. Come be like the rest of us; join us.” I’m curious for your thoughts on that.

One part of our story is that wealth was a relatively new thing for us and there was a period of a few years where we were really trying to hide from our friends and neighbours how wealthy we were. There’s kind of a social norm there, right? You don’t talk about money. And the dissonance there was so hard.

It feels so much better to be much more open about this with people — and, yeah, to join them. We live on Galiano Island: it’s a small community, it’s a tight community. It’s much better to have those close relationships with people in honesty and solidarity.

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.