“Premature, ill-advised and respectfully should be reconsidered.” 

That’s how Pictou Landing First Nation Chief Tamara Young described Canada’s decision not to require a federal environmental review of two proposed 300-megawatt gas-fired power plants near her community. The comments came in a letter Young sent to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada in July, two months after the agency declined to study the impacts of the Marshdale and Salt Springs natural gas power plants in Pictou County, N.S., an hour-and-a-half drive northeast of Halifax. 

The letter, shared with The Narwhal by the Mi’kmaw rights organization Kwilmu’kw Maw-klusuaqn, detailed “widespread Mi’kmaq and public opposition” to the proposed projects due to concerns about climate change, water use, public health, wildlife and other “cumulative effects associated with two large fossil-fuel facilities located approximately 20 kilometres apart.” These concerns, Young wrote, “require careful assessment in relation to Mi’kmaw Rights and the lands, waters and resources upon which those rights depend.” 

But according to Janiece Walsh, a spokesperson for the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, these concerns don’t meet their threshold for a review. According to a statement she emailed The Narwhal, they fall outside “the potential adverse effects within federal jurisdiction.” 

The impacts on Indigenous Rights that Young called “significant constitutional, procedural and substantive concerns” are just one of the many issues raised in public comments about the two proposed plants. Dozens of comments submitted between Jan. 5 and Feb. 9, 2026, raised questions about public health, climate change, energy access and which level of government would monitor threats to endangered species like Atlantic salmon, mainland moose and black ash.

Then there are the concerns about speed. Unlike most big industrial projects, Marshdale and Salt Springs weren’t proposed by a company. Instead, they were floated by Nova Scotia’s Independent Energy Systems Operator, an agency created by the province in 2024 to manage the province’s electrical grid. According to Chris Milligan, vice president of planning and procurement for the operator, plants like these are necessary stopgaps for Nova Scotia to meet its goal of ending coal-fired electricity use by 2030. 

“Fast-acting natural gas-fired generators are the resource that can provide the firm capacity the province needs to meet demand when wind and batteries can’t,” he told The Narwhal. 

But comments to the federal review questioned this conclusion, including one from the Sipekne’katik First Nation, a Mi’kmaw community located south of the proposed plants. 

“Although the project may help reduce coal use specifically, it represents an additional investment in alternative fossil-fuel-based infrastructure,” it explained, calling that inconsistent with long-term climate commitments made by both the provincial and federal governments.

This all worries Anna Johnston, a staff lawyer at West Coast Environmental Law and member of the federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change’s advisory council on impact assessment. Johnston told The Narwhal she sees the Nova Scotia power plants issue not just as one isolated decision, but part of a broader “build baby build mentality” spreading across the country that is fast-tracking project approvals without adequately considering environmental and social impacts. 

“You’re effectively giving the green light to the project before you’ve done any of the studies on what the effects are going to be,” she said. “Before you’ve had any opportunities for meaningful consultation or engagement or participation. It’s a rubber stamp.” 

Nova Scotia claims power plants “not likely” to affect Mi’kmaq rights, despite dozens of impacts flagged by federal agencies, communities

In December 2025, the Nova Scotia government posted a project summary claiming the power plants would have a limited impact on “traditional Mi’kmaq land use.” 

“Overall, impacts on Mi’kmaq hunting, fishing, plant gathering or other traditional activities are anticipated to be low and confined to the project footprint,” it said. 

Around the same time, Young’s letter to the agency stated, the provincial government sent letters to Kwilmu’kw Maw-klusuaqn advising “the nature of this project is not likely to lead to appreciable adverse impacts to credibly asserted or established Mi’kmaq Aboriginal or Treaty Rights.” As such, the province asserted, the duty to consult was not triggered.

The same line alarmed Twila Gaudet, director of consultation for Kwilmu’kw Maw-klusuaqn, an association that advocates for Treaty Rights on behalf of the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs. She quoted it in a letter she sent to a provincial environmental assessment officer in February 2026, in which she argued that assertion runs counter to what’s written in the actual project descriptions for the two plants. The section on Mi’kmaw community impacts states that “the Crown has a duty to consult with the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia” before moving forwards. 

“The government has neglected their duty to consult,” Gaudet told The Narwhal.

Comments submitted to the federal review that were acquired by The Narwhal through an access to information request also raise questions about the assertion that these projects would have a marginal impact on Mi’kmaq communities. 

According to these documents, Mi’kmaw organizations and federal agencies, including Indigenous Services Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Health Canada, submitted dozens of statements about the impacts these projects would have on Indigenous communities.

They included concerns about how water use and chemical pollution from the plants would impact threatened Atlantic salmon populations in local rivers, an important food source and cultural species for the Mi’kmaq. Kwilmu’kw Maw-klusuaqn shared similar worries about impacts on mainland moose. 

Some statements raised red flags about how air and water pollution could impact the health of downstream and nearby communities, a particularly important subject for Pictou Landing First Nation, which has already dealt with decades of industrial pollution in nearby Boat Harbour.Once a pristine tidal estuary known as A’se’k, or “the other living space,” Boat Harbour’s waters were used by Pictou Landing for generations. Then, in the late 1960s, a pulp mill was granted permission to discharge wastewater from a treatment facility into the area. It quickly became a toxic soup, and the community started dealing with a range of health impacts. The mills only stopped dumping waste into the estuary in 2020. 

This “dark history of large-scale industrial developments” is why “it is imperative that the local Mi’kmaq communities are adequately informed well in advance of large-scale projects such as the power plants,” Gaudet explained in her February 2026 letter to the province.

The federal agency grouped concerns from the review into five broad subject areas in its summary of issues: fisheries impacts, health conditions, land use and resources, cultural heritage and Indigenous and Treaty Rights. 

The agency also acknowledged that Mi’kmaq communities “raised concerns about inadequate consultation by governments” but said those concerns were considered in making its decision. 

“In determining whether further assessment is required, [the Impact Assessment Agency] considers several factors, including any adverse impacts the designated project may have on the rights of Indigenous Peoples of Canada,” Walsh said.

She added that provincial environmental assessment approvals require proponents to develop “a Mi’kmaq communication plan. This must include … seeking input from the Mi’kmaq on the development and implementation of project mitigation and monitoring plans.”But, Gaudet said, a communication plan isn’t the same as a consultation process that would address the nation’s “Section 35 constitutionally-protected rights and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”

“The blatant disregard for the Mi’kmaq Nation and the impacts these power plants will have on our Mi’kmaw rights is disappointing and unacceptable,” she added.

Nova Scotia’s Department of Environment and Climate Change declined to comment for this story, citing an ongoing judicial review related to the two power plants that has been brought by Living Ecosystems and Power, a Pictou County community organization that launched in April 2026 to oppose the plants. 

Concerns that impact assessment agency ignores emissions 

One big question is which level of government — if any — will monitor or demand mitigation of the plants’ greenhouse gases. Because they’re going to be significant: the initial project plans estimated that each plant will produce 325,594 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide annually each, the equivalent of adding nearly 75,000 cars to the road. And those emissions are based on the plants only running for 2,190 hours, about one-quarter of their actual capacity. 

The federal government’s climate plan doesn’t track or apply to individual projects. 

When asked to comment on the projects’ potential climate impacts, Environment and Climate Change Canada recommended “greenhouse gas and climate change impacts be assessed and mitigated consistent with guidance in the Strategic Assessment of Climate Change.” 

But in 2024, the federal government amended Canada’s Impact Assessment Act, removing greenhouse gas emissions from federal jurisdiction, following a Supreme Court ruling that found this to be an overreach of constitutional authority.  

At the same time, Anna Johnston explained, impact assessments “do consider whether projects would hinder or contribute to Canada’s ability to meet its climate change commitments.” If that sounds confusing, it’s because it is. 

Basically, the agency can’t assess greenhouse gases as its own issue. But if greenhouse gases harm something within federal jurisdiction — “like fisheries, migratory birds and Indigenous peoples,” she explained — then the agency can trigger an assessment, and recommend ways to reduce or eliminate that harm.

Lori Skaine, executive director of the climate change division within Nova Scotia’s Department of Environment and Climate Change, responded to comments focused on emissions concerns that were sent in to the province’s project review. “The project’s overall [greenhouse gas] impact will depend a lot on how many hours the facility runs each year,” Skaine wrote, also noting the amount could vary depending on the fuel used, noting that these plants could run on diesel if natural gas isn’t available. 

Burning diesel produces up to 40 per cent more carbon emissions than natural gas. It also releases more fine particulate matter and increases local health risks. On-site diesel storage adds increased spill risk to the local ecosystem. 

Karen McKendry, senior wilderness outreach coordinator with the Ecology Action Centre, called potential changes to capacity or fuel type “scope creep.” Something, she said, there is no current remedy for. 

“Everything can change about the project, even after it was approved,” she says. “The environmental assessment process is a one-and-done.” 

A “material change” in the projects’ water use

When they were first proposed, the Marshdale and Salt Springs power plants planned to draw tens of thousands of litres of water from local watersheds each day to cool down turbines, clean equipment and mitigate emissions. But there’s a problem. According to Milligan, when the energy systems operator assessed the region, they determined there is not enough groundwater available on site to proceed with this plan. 

Instead, the operator pivoted to use dry technology systems that employ chemicals instead of water. The type and amount of chemicals have yet to be disclosed, and Milligan says that there are “several commercially available technologies routinely used at power generation facilities that can accomplish this.”

Young thinks this change should reopen the federal decision.

“These changes may materially affect the scope, effects, mitigation requirements and cumulative impacts of the projects,” she says.

They also heighten concerns about impacts on Atlantic salmon, which spawn in Eight Mile Brook, a tributary of the West River Pictou located about 300 metres from the proposed Salt Springs facility. 

It’s one of only a handful of rivers in Nova Scotia with Atlantic salmon populations robust enough that the province allows catch-and-release fishing. In their comments to the federal review, Kwilmu’kw Maw-Klusuaqn described Atlantic salmon as “a foundational food source across Mi’kma’ki.” 

“Loss of access to salmon threatens Mi’kmaq food security, self-determination and rights-based harvesting practice,” it added.

The salmon in the West River could soon be listed as a federally protected population after the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada determined that they were “endangered” in late 2025. Other threatened species impacted by this project include mainland moose, which has been listed under Nova Scotia’s Endangered Species Act since 2003, and black ash, which has been federally protected since 2018. Both were flagged as “culturally significant species for the Mi’kmaq” in the federal review. 

In her response to The Narwhal’s questions, Walsh of the federal assessment agency said it “was aware of this recommendation when it issued its determinations,” and that “the proponent is still required to follow the federal requirements of the Fisheries Act and the Species At Risk Act, as well as conditions issued by the province.” 

The federal government says impacts to these species can be managed without a federal impact assessment. But the provincial system has challenges. In 2020, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court found that the province had “a chronic systemic failure to implement action required” to enforce its Endangered Species Act. In February 2026, the provincial natural resources department eliminated its dedicated wildlife division.

In a statement, the department told The Narwhal “all wildlife-related functions are continuing as before” and that the move is simply a restructuring.“No scientists, biologists, forest technicians or wildlife staff were laid off, and no wildlife programs or services have been reduced, eliminated or transferred outside government,” the statement explained.But conservation groups disagreed, arguing that positions dedicated to biodiversity, ecosystems and habitat protection had been all but eliminated. They were backed up by sources within the department, who told the Halifax Examiner the changes were “absolutely gutting” the wildlife department. One source described them as something done “to punish the scientists working on behalf of wildlife and ecosystems.”

A worrying precedent for expedited project processes

On Sept. 9, the federal government announced plans to further expedite project reviews by shifting reviews for things like pipelines, power plants and oilsands mines from the impact assessment agency to the Canada Energy Regulator. These changes won’t apply to the Salt Springs or Marshdale power plants, but to Anna Johnston, they’re part of the same trend. One that she worries will “essentially eradicate federal environmental impact assessment, the best tool we had for avoiding the environmental harms of risky projects and often the only way for the public to have a say.” 

These most recent changes follow previous federal actions, including Bill C-5, which allowed the government to exempt projects from some stages of federal impact assessments, and agreements between Ottawa and the provinces to streamline joint reviews. Prime Minister Mark Carney and Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston signed one of these co-operation agreements back in March. And Ontario, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island and Alberta all have similar agreements, while Quebec is in the process of finalizing one. 

The agreement with Nova Scotia states that the province can decide when the federal government should rely on provincially “applicable environmental assessment and regulatory processes” in reviewing and regulating major projects, as the Nova Scotia agreement puts it. The agreement also directs Canada’s impact assessment agency to “[avoid] duplicative decision-making processes related to assessments by relying on provincial processes.” 

Johnston worried this slew of agreements undermine the basic goals of impact assessments. 

“[There is] a risk that we’ve been flagging for a while that the federal government says, ‘Oh no, we don’t need to look at that, the province is going to do it,’ ” she explains. “Meanwhile, the province is saying ‘we don’t have a role here, or we’re going to fast-track,’ or for whatever reason, it’s not going to look at the issue.” 

That, she said, means no one is looking at the bigger picture, that “you’re getting an authorization under the Fisheries Act, you’re really only looking at the fisheries impacts, [and] if you’re getting a navigable waters permit, you’re only looking at impacts on navigation and navigability.”“Environmental impact assessment is meant to take a look at all of those effects under one umbrella, so that decision makers have a more comprehensive understanding of what the full-picture effects are and how they interact,” she said.  

With all of these questions about the process, opposition to the two power plants has been growing, with petitions and two rallies through the summer in New Glasgow, one outside of a speech directly targeting Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston. On Sept. 3, he weighed in on the plants, saying that he would like to see the energy system operator consider other technologies than natural gas. In a press conference, he said that the energy regulator had been “too focused on [natural] gas” and should consider “a proper and more fulsome assessment of different technologies.” 

The energy systems operator responded a week later with a press release announcing that it would open up the door to project proposals that could meet the same power generation needs of these two plants with “energy storage and other on-demand electricity generation technologies.” 

In the meantime, a legal challenge filed by Living Ecosystems and Power is moving through the Nova Scotia courts. And Twila Gaudet says that Mi’kmaw leadership is considering their next move, “which may include meetings with provincial and federal ministers, legal options [and] peaceful protest.” 

Johnston thinks these responses could multiply across the country as governments continue to try to fast-track project reviews. 

“I think that we’re going to see a much bigger wave of lawsuits,” she says. “That’s not good for taxpayers. Litigation is expensive, and Canadians end up paying for it.”

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Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has introduced legislation to expand its “national interest” regime meant to speed up major projects, overhaul federal environmental scrutiny of industrial activity and consolidate Indigenous consultations.

In doing so, the government is largely moving ahead with sweeping proposals it made in May, and making them permanent, despite spending the summer hearing from a public concerned about exactly this: that the Liberals’ plan could sideline scientific expertise and concentrate political power.

Transport Minister and Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon introduced Bill C-39, the Building Canada Strong Act, in Parliament on Sept. 21. The nearly 250-page omnibus bill will entrench new powers to bypass normal government approval processes for projects like pipelines, highways and nuclear facilities, by removing a five-year time limit that was built into last year’s Building Canada Act.

The Building Canada Act first introduced a special designation to allow projects to skirt regular rules if the government deems them in the “national interest,” coming in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats to annex Canada. 

Asked by reporters on Wednesday to justify why the government was making its temporary powers permanent, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said Canadians “understand what we’re facing is unprecedented in Canada’s history.” 

“We need to make sure that we have the proper tools in the toolbox to favour economic security in our country,” he said.

The government claims the bill will “bring greater speed, certainty and predictability to infrastructure project reviews” while maintaining “strong environmental safeguards” and upholding Indigenous Rights. 

One of the key changes in the bill is to force all projects subject to federal reviews through a one-year timeframe for approval or rejection, compressing the time to examine things like environmental impacts into a matter of months.

“If you’re going to say no — decide it within a year,” is how Carney put it on Tuesday, addressing criticism of the bill on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

But this shortened timeline is one of many proposals Canadians have been cautioning Ottawa against since it was first made last May, warning that such fast-tracking could create conditions incompatible with the time and space necessary to properly assess big projects. 

The government received more than 26,000 emails and over 40 written submissions on its spring proposals from provinces, territories, Indigenous groups, industry representatives, environmental organizations, academics and think-tanks, according to a summary report published earlier this month.

While much of the feedback was broadly supportive of the effort to speed up approval of major projects and cut down on inefficient government processes, there was also “widespread agreement that reform should not come at the expense of environmental protection or Indigenous Rights,” the report noted.

In particular, Canadians expressed a “recurring concern” around the concentration of decision-making authority in a single minister, or in a small group of powerful people. 

“Many cautioned that increased ministerial or Cabinet discretion could weaken accountability, increase politicization, reduce predictability, and diminish the role of independent scientific, technical, environmental, and Indigenous expertise,” the report stated.

Meanwhile, Indigenous groups worried the changes could undermine reconciliation and limit their ability to assert their constitutional rights within their territories, warning of potential lawsuits.

After tabling its bill, the government received praise from business groups for taking steps to attract investment and boost the economy. 

Business Council of Canada president and CEO Goldy Hyder urged Parliament to “pass the legislation quickly to safeguard the interests of Canadians and rebuild the country’s reputation as a reliable trading partner.” The Western Business Coalition welcomed the one-year timeline for reviews, among other changes.

The changes also come after months of intense lobbying from the oil and gas industry to “simplify” project reviews and commit to much shorter deadlines for approvals.

Starting in 2025, oil and gas executives and lobby groups launched a public campaign pressuring Carney to “unwind the past decade” of environmental and energy policy, complaining that the current system was “impeding” fossil fuel growth.

The bill also follows regulatory changes Carney’s government made early in September to remove certain oilsands facilities and fossil fuel power plants from federal assessments.

Other groups have expressed dismay that the government was moving ahead despite public concerns of overreach. 

The environmental advocacy group Centre québécois du droit de l’environnement said a one-year timeline is “incompatible with the assessment of complex, large-scale projects” that often involve big risks to watersheds, wildlife habitat and communities. 

Such projects generally require long-term studies and analysis of cumulative impacts — not to mention meaningful public input and Indigenous consultations.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak warned Carney against “abusing” his powers to speed the bill through Parliament without adequate debate and consultations. 

The national chief said the government should be open to incorporating amendments to the bill offered by First Nations leaders.

So what else is in Bill C-39? Here’s what you need to know.

Moving pipeline and nuclear reviews away from an environment agency

The legislation takes federal reviews of pipelines, nuclear facilities and power lines out of the hands of the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, a federal body that reports to the environment minister and is meant to ensure project designs protect Indigenous Rights and the environment.

Instead, pipeline projects will be reviewed by the Canada Energy Regulator, an agency of the Crown that reports to the energy minister and oversees construction and operation of certain pipelines and power lines.

For nuclear projects, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which also reports to the energy minister, will carry out assessments.

The government said “diverse stakeholders” had expressed support for the move and that environmental, health and Indigenous considerations would continue to be “addressed with rigour.”

Yet making the energy regulator the sole assessor of pipeline projects was one proposal where the public, through “advocacy campaigns distributed through civic engagement platforms and petitions,” had “consistently emphasized concern,” according to the feedback report.

Indigenous representatives also asked the government to hold the energy and nuclear regulators “to the same standard” as the Impact Assessment Agency.

They asked that Indigenous Peoples be involved in updating the laws that govern these agencies, so they’re consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which is meant to uphold their “free, prior and informed consent.” 

In 2021 Canada passed a law to embed that declaration at the federal level.

Taking ‘national interest’ projects a step further

Another idea that elicited major unease from the public was the creation of federal “economic zones” where certain projects could be “pre-approved.” 

Carney’s new legislation rebrands these as “regions of national interest.” Once designated, certain projects inside the region would benefit from the ability to bypass normal approval processes, just like “national interest” projects.

The type of “regions” the government is considering are wide-reaching: a telecommunications network, an industrial area or an “energy production” area are all in play, it said. The region doesn’t even have to be currently used — it could be picked for “future development needs.” 

The first step would be to conduct a regional assessment through the Impact Assessment Agency, which the government said would measure the “cumulative effects of current and foreseeable activities in the area” and involve Indigenous consultations over things like impacts, boundaries and “culturally sensitive areas.”

Then a federal minister will recommend whether to list the region as in the “national interest.” If it does, projects will be “considered pre-approved” and be given a list of conditions.

Kerrie Blaise, founder and lawyer at the nonprofit Legal Advocates for Nature’s Defence, warned in a statement that the Ring of Fire mining and development region on Treaty 9 territory in northern Ontario could be designated as a “region of national interest.”

A group made up of representatives from 15 First Nations and the Impact Assessment Agency are in the midst of a regional assessment of development in the Ring of Fire area.

“Effectively ‘pre-approving’ mining projects within the Hudson-James Bay Lowlands — where the Ring of Fire is proposed — risks irreparable harm to pristine rivers, globally significant carbon stores, refuges for wildlife and species at risk and the Indigenous Peoples who call this region home,” Blaise said.

The regional designation follows a similar process for designating individual projects in the “national interest” that was established in last year’s Building Canada Act.

That process allows the government to automatically grant all federal approvals at the same time, following consultations.

Since passing the law, the government has moved to formally designate four projects as in the “national interest” — a new oil pipeline to the west coast, a nuclear waste depot in Ignace, Ont., the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 in Vancouver and the Mackenzie Valley Highway in the Northwest Territories. 

Many more projects are being considered for the designation by the Major Projects Office, a body run out of the central government agency that supports the prime minister and Cabinet.

A streamlined impact assessment process and the option of earlier project starts

Currently, the Impact Assessment Agency produces a project review to be considered by the environment minister, who then issues a decision on whether it should move forward. 

Other ministers who oversee departments with expertise in different fields, such as fisheries, still have to issue permits for the project after that decision is made, as part of separate processes, which the government says has made the overall project approval process take five years or more.

The new bill would empower the environment minister to issue a decision statement that comes with all required permits issued concurrently from different departments — and all of this happening within a year. 

As well, the environment minister can authorize some work to begin on a project before its Impact Assessment Agency review is completed, if this is deemed in the public interest.

Consolidating Indigenous consultations, making climate one consideration among many

The bill mentions “climate” five times, but vaguely: it’s one of many considerations officials must weigh when deciding on projects like pipelines, power lines or regions of “national interest.” 

The project’s effects on the government’s climate change commitments are among them, but there are no specific dealbreakers, such as an amount of heat-trapping emissions that might trigger a rejection, for example.

Others include “the interests and concerns of the Indigenous Peoples of Canada,” Indigenous Knowledge, scientific information, environmental effects, safety and security, health, social and economic effects, “the existence of actual or potential markets” for pipelines and their “economic feasibility,” and the financial resources of the applicant.

The bill also moves to centralize federal consultations with Indigenous groups by establishing a new “Crown Consultation Hub” within the Impact Assessment Agency, though the energy and nuclear regulators will still oversee their own.

Changes to transportation, navigable waters and fisheries laws

The bill would create a new “National Trade Corridors Council” that would monitor the movement of goods and provide advice to the transport minister on “disruptions.” 

It gives the transport minister new powers to authorize exemptions to the Canadian Navigable Waters Act for dumping materials into waterways. Materials that are currently banned from dumping include sawdust, wood scraps and waste.

As well, some companies would be allowed to harm fish and fish habitat by paying a fee to an environmental damages fund to “offset” it.

The bill also allows the labour minister to end a work stoppage if the government believes that to be in the “national interest.” Labour leaders say that infringes upon Canadians’ right to strike.

Greenpeace Canada dubbed Bill C-39 the “Bulldoze Nature Bill.” 

In a statement, nature and biodiversity campaigner Salomé Sané said, “Carney’s government is locking us into a short-sighted strategy in which decisions about workers’ health and rights, living ecosystems — from rivers, forests to grasslands and communities — are subordinated to a logic of speed and profit, not care and protection.”

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Summary

• Alberta’s plan to build a pipeline to B.C.’s south coast includes a new terminal capable of servicing supertankers sailing into the Salish Sea.
• If the project goes ahead, very large crude carriers (VLCCs) capable of carrying up to 2.2 million barrels of oil could be loading up at Roberts Bank in the Fraser River estuary.
• A major expansion of the Roberts Bank superport is already in the works with potentially catastrophic impacts on local endangered species.

At the mouth of B.C.’s largest river, industrial development has encroached on important ecosystems for decades. Now, Canada’s plans to boost shipping infrastructure and create a new terminal for oil tankers could increase stress on endangered species and critical habitat.

The Fraser River is truly vast. Its tributaries carry water from nearly one-quarter of B.C., and its delta — the area where the river’s waters mingle with the Salish Sea — stretches from the Vancouver neighbourhood of Point Grey to the American settlement of Point Roberts.

In between, there are mudflats, sandy beaches, eelgrass beds and salt marshes that provide critical habitat for young salmon, migrating birds and countless other species.

“These are really productive environments for fish, for shellfish, for mammals, for birds,” Misty MacDuffee, a salmon biologist and director of Raincoast Conservation Foundation’s wild salmon program, says. 

Freshwater from the Fraser pushes all the way out to the Gulf Islands and the tidal flow from the Salish Sea can make its way all the way to Mission, MacDuffee told The Narwhal. That mingling of freshwater and saltwater creates crucial habitat for young salmon as they make the transition from river living to ocean swimming.“We’ve got all five species of salmon going into the Fraser. It’s Canada’s most productive salmon system — our largest Chinook producer — and it’s really important for the rearing and the migrations of adult and juvenile salmon.”This region has long been subject to development, from canneries and agriculture, to airports and port infrastructure. But now the pressure is ramping up. 

The pipeline pivot to Roberts Bank

On July 2, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced federal support for $10 billion in infrastructure upgrades at the Roberts Bank superport as part of a memorandum of understanding with B.C. 

In the agreement, the federal government also pledged to preserve the ban on oil tankers transiting the waters near B.C.’s North Coast. Keeping the tanker ban in place “without alteration, suspension or narrowing of scope,” as the agreement states, removed the port at Prince Rupert as an option for the terminus of Alberta’s proposed pipeline. Prince Rupert is Canada’s deepest natural harbour, capable of accommodating very large crude carriers (VLCCs), huge tanker ships capable of carrying up to 2.2 million barrels of oil — three times as much as the largest oil tankers currently servicing the Trans Mountain pipeline.

Later the same day, Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced plans for a new West Coast pipeline (funded primarily by state-owned pipeline company Trans Mountain), which would follow the same route as the current Trans Mountain pipeline with one key difference: it would detour further south to end at Roberts Bank, instead of in Burnaby. 

Alberta’s submission to the federal Major Projects Office includes a two-berth terminal able to serve very large crude carriers. These ships are 330 metres long — that’s more than three World Cup soccer pitches laid end to end — and have a fully loaded draft of 20 metres. To reach water deep enough for these massive vessels to float in, the terminal’s causeway and jetty would extend about five kilometres out into the Strait of Georgia.

If the project goes ahead, it would be the first time that oil tankers of this size have ever docked in B.C. The largest tankers that can fit beneath the Second Narrows bridge to service Westridge Marine Terminal — the current terminus of the Trans Mountain pipeline — are Aframax tankers, which have a maximum capacity of 800,000 barrels of oil. Currently, even those tankers can only be filled to about 80 per cent, so the port authority has applied to dredge Burrard Inlet to make room for larger loads (a plan the Tsleil–Waututh Nation is fighting). 

On land, the proposed oil terminal would take up 260 hectares — nearly two-thirds the size of Stanley Park. About half of that space would be covered with 15 storage tanks capable of holding 6.5 million barrels.Roberts Bank’s location — hemmed by wetlands, Tsawwassen First Nation treaty lands, parcels in the Agricultural Land Reserve and residential neighbourhoods — raises questions about whether there is enough room for Alberta’s proposal. The Major Projects Office did not respond when asked whether any assessments about fitting the proposed tanker terminal in that location have been completed.A question about whether the oil tanker terminal could be built in conjunction with the proposed port expansion or would have to wait until Roberts Bank Terminal 2 is complete also went unanswered.

The Fraser River estuary has lost 85 per cent of its salmon habitat to the effects of development and there are already plans to double the size of the terminal.

MacDuffee described the estuary as an “incredible natural asset” that has economic and environmental value.

“It supports these vibrant ecosystems that people are travelling from all over the world to visit, to see the Salish Sea, to see whales, to see birds, to see these migrations, to see these special places and here we are moving to take this incredible asset and turn it into an industrial sacrifice zone.”

Tanker terminal piles risk on top of risk

Roberts Bank Terminal 2, as the $3.5-billion planned port expansion is known, would increase the port’s container capacity by 50 per cent. The 2020 federal assessment of Roberts Bank Terminal 2 concluded the expansion’s impact on wetland function, Chinook and chum salmon and southern resident killer whales “is high in magnitude, permanent and irreversible.” In 2023, the federal cabinet concluded the public interest in the port expansion superseded those impacts and approved the project, subject to nearly 400 conditions.

In 2025, the Vancouver Port Authority submitted Roberts Bank Terminal 2 to the Major Projects Office, hoping to see it designated a “nation-building project” and fast-tracked for final approvals. That designation would mean streamlined regulatory processes and assessments.

Alberta’s proposal will also be evaluated by the Major Projects Office. The office did not respond to a question about whether the tanker terminal will be assessed to determine the potential cumulative effects of the project on the Fraser River estuary and Salish Sea.

The proposal to add another terminal and introduce oil supertankers to the Fraser estuary is raising concerns amongst B.C. environmentalists.

“This is supercharging the impact in case of an accident,” Anna Barford, Stand.earth’s oceans campaigner, said. “If we have a spill, if there is a critical problem, if one of these ships loses power and runs aground, we’re looking at incredible devastation in an area that is wildly biodiverse … at the mouth of a very important salmon-bearing river.”

The logistics of bringing such large vessels into the crowded waters of the Salish Sea is also a concern, Barford added.For MacDuffee, the tanker terminal proposal flies in the face of the federal government’s acknowledgement of the Fraser estuary’s importance. With more than $2 million in federal funds, Raincoast has been working to restore salmon habitat degraded by marine infrastructure.

“We’re allowing the flow of water — of nutrients, of sediment, of fish, of everything — back onto Sturgeon Bank, trying to restore the function of this estuary and the opportunity for rearing salmon,” MacDuffee told The Narwhal.

Port expansion poses significant risk to endangered species and critical habitat

Even without adding an oil tanker terminal to the mix, Roberts Bank Terminal 2’s impact on endangered species could be catastrophic, Barford said. 

“We’re looking at increased underwater noise, which we know is very difficult for fish and for creatures like southern resident killer whales that use echolocation to find their food.” 

More than 100 species in the Fraser River estuary are at risk of local extinction by 2045, a 2022 study found. At-risk species include the southern resident orca, whose population was just 74 individuals as of last year’s census. 

Many migrating bird species, including the western sandpiper, could also be negatively impacted by the terminal expansion. During their annual migration from Peru to Alaska, western sandpipers stop in the Fraser estuary, where they fuel up on biofilm, communities of microorganisms that flourish on the estuary’s mudflats. Losing access to this crucial food source would be a significant blow to western sandpipers and the many other migratory bird species.

“Roberts Bank is critical habitat,” Barford said. “Just because it looks muddy … doesn’t mean that it isn’t a paradise for endangered and migratory species.”

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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

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Summary

• The Norwegian company Marinvest Energy AS wants to build Canada’s third largest LNG export facility on the shores of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec
• The company has a non-disclosure agreement with Ottawa which prevents discussion of the proposal with “officials outside the federal government”
• Quebec is an ideal location for ships headed to Europe, but a similar proposal was rejected in 2021 over concerns about risks posed to Indigenous communities and the environment

We’re trying out staff-written summaries. Did you find this useful? YesNo

As the war in the Middle East escalates and oil and gas prices surge, a secretive liquefied natural gas (LNG) project proposed for Quebec is steadily advancing.

The LNG project would ship liquefied gas from the deepwater port of Baie-Comeau, a small city on the shores of the St. Lawrence River, to global markets. 

The project would require a new pipeline — through a small portion of northern Ontario and a swath of Quebec — to send mostly fracked gas from Western Canada to Baie-Comeau, in the province’s Côte-Nord region.

But you won’t find any information about this major resource project on the website of Marinvest Energy AS, the Norwegian company behind it.

Nor will you find any information about the Baie-Comeau LNG project on any federal government website, even though access to information documents reveal Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government has established a multi-departmental “deal team” to facilitate the project.

“There’s been no public announcement, no project description and nothing has been made public,” Louis Couillard, Greenpeace Canada’s climate campaigner, told The Narwhal. “I’m just puzzled at how a project can move along like this without an official proposal.” 

In an emailed statement, Marinvest Energy AS confirmed it is in discussions with First Nations as it develops the project and said it will not be giving an interview “at this stage.” In an emailed response to questions, the Quebec government said it never publicly discusses talks it may “have, or not have” with project promoters.

That leaves Montreal-based Couillard and others in the dark, except for information gleaned from access to information requests that are heavily redacted. One thing they do reveal is Marinvest has a non-disclosure agreement with the government of Canada “such that this project is not to be discussed with officials outside the government.” 

So, what else do we know about the Baie-Comeau LNG project? 

And can it go ahead even though another Quebec LNG export proposal was soundly rejected by the provincial and federal governments only a few years ago? At issue then were risks posed to Indigenous communities, beluga whales and attempts to slash greenhouse gas emissions. 

Read on.

First of all, what exactly is the Baie-Comeau LNG proposal? 

Here’s what we know. 

The project has four components: a gas pipeline, an undisclosed “renewable energy supply,” port infrastructure and gas liquefaction and storage. 

That information comes from Invest in Canada, the federal agency that promotes direct investments by foreign companies. It is included in 137 pages of documents Greenpeace obtained through federal access to information legislation and shared with The Narwhal.

The pipeline and renewable energy supply “would be developed in partnership with First Nations,” according to the documents, which say the project is in the “pre-planning stage.”

The documents also say Marinvest “claims it is making progress on project development” and the company may reach out to Canada’s new Major Projects Office with a project description in early 2026. 

In an emailed response to questions, a spokesperson for Canada’s Major Projects Office said the project has not “been referred” to the office and “nor has the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada received an initial project description, which would start the impact assessment process.” The spokesperson said to contact Marinvest Energy for details about the project.

How big is the Baie-Comeau LNG project?

In a word, big. Really big. “It’s a huge project in terms of the volume [of] exports that they want to do,” Couillard said. 

Neither the company nor the Quebec or federal governments have released information about the volume of LNG the company plans to export. But a company representative earlier told Le Devoir the project would export about ten million tonnes of LNG per year.

That compares to about three million tonnes in annual exports from the Cedar LNG project in B.C., about two million tonnes annually from B.C.’s Woodfibre LNG project and about 12 million tonnes annually from the recently approved Ksi Lisims LNG export project, also in B.C.

It would make Baie-Comeau Canada’s third largest LNG export project, after Ksi Lisims and LNG Canada, the country’s first, in Kitimat, B.C.

The access to information documents lift the veil — a wee bit— on the federal government’s level of commitment to the project.

“Given the scale and significance of this energy infrastructure project, we’d like to establish a monthly coordination call to keep federal partners informed of the latest developments,” Anne-Sophie Proutiere, senior federal partnerships advisor for Invest in Canada, wrote to her colleagues last May, according to the documents.

“These ‘deal team’ calls will also serve as a forum for departments to provide guidance and support to facilitate the investment,” Proutiere wrote. 

Proutiere’s email was sent to colleagues in a variety of departments, including Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada. The subject line was “monthly coordination call — Marinvest Energy project”.

Another email said the calls would “coordinate federal FDI [foreign direct investment] efforts to support this investment in Canada.” 

What’s the big deal about secrecy? 

The documents also reveal the non-disclosure agreement Marinvest has with Canada.

Duff Conacher, cofounder of Democracy Watch, a non-profit organization promoting government accountability and corporate responsibility, warns against fast-tracking major resource project decisions like the Baie-Comeau LNG project and failing to consult with the public and stakeholders before final decisions are made.

Fast-tracking “usually leads to waste, and harm and corruption and boondoggles that actually don’t further the public interest,” Conacher said in an interview.

“It’s just impossible for people sitting behind closed doors in Ottawa in the government to make good decisions about anything, because they need to connect to the reality of the impact of the decisions and action,” he said. “And the only way to do that is to consult with the public in a meaningful way before making the decision.”

Conacher said fast-tracking decisions about major resource projects usually slows them down “because once the public learns about it, the pushback is greater than if people had been consulted in the first place.” That pushback can lead to court cases and other challenges, he pointed out. 

The Carney government has demonstrated a lack of commitment to transparency in many areas of government actions, he said.

Couillard said he’s worried people who would be impacted by the Baie-Comeau LNG project and the project’s pipeline won’t have the information “necessary to understand what’s being fast-tracked in their backyards.”

Phew, that’s a lot. So who’s behind the Baie-Comeau LNG project?

Greg Cano, who is connected to B.C.’s contentious Coastal GasLink pipeline, is the chief operating officer for Marinvest Energy Canada, a subsidiary of Marinvest Energy AS. 

According to Cano’s LinkedIn profile, he’s a mechanical engineer who is an executive sponsor and former chief operations officer for Pacific Atlantic Pipeline Construction Ltd, a subsidiary of Italy’s Bonatti Group. 

That name might sound familiar — the pipeline construction company was a primary contractor for the Coastal GasLink pipeline, which ships gas from northeast B.C. to the LNG Canada export terminal in Kitimat. Pacific Atlantic Pipeline Construction made the news in 2022 when Coastal GasLink terminated the company’s contract, alleging poor performance.

You might be scratching your head by now, thinking Cano’s name also sounds vaguely familiar. Based in Calgary, he’s the former longtime director of project planning and execution for TransCanada, a major North America pipeline company now called TC Energy. TC Energy co-owns and operates the Coastal GasLink pipeline. 

And gas for the Baie-Comeau LNG project would be shipped to the new pipeline through TC Energy’s network, according to Couillard. 

If you live on Vancouver Island, there’s all the more reason to recognize Cano’s name. He was the former project lead for the Steelhead LNG, an export project proposed for Vancouver Island that was halted in 2019.

The Narwhal reached out to Cano by email but did not hear back. 

Marinvest Energy AS declined an interview request. “In a spirit of respect and transparency, our priority is to continue discussions with First Nations communities in order to further develop the project’s concepts,” Justin Meloche, the company’s media relations director, said in an emailed statement. 

“Additional information will be made public once the project has reached a more advanced stage and when concrete elements can be shared responsibly,” Meloche added.

Marinvest Energy registered to lobby the federal government in May 2025. The company said it would engage with the Prime Minister’s Office, the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Finance Canada, Natural Resources Canada and the Canada Infrastructure Bank.

The stated goal was to determine “the applicable conditions for implementing a transformative and beneficial energy project for the future of Quebec and Canada.”

Since then, five lobbyists from National Public Relations have filed reports saying they lobbied federal departments, agencies and the Prime Minister’s Office.

The access to information documents note Marinvest is also in discussion with Alberta and Quebec representatives.

“They’ve been lobbying [for] their project behind the closed door for over a year,” Couillard pointed out. “But for the public, there’s absolutely no info except what we find through .” 

“We’re in the dark right now in regards to the regulatory stages that this project is in.” 

Would the Baie-Comeau LNG project export fracked gas?

Yes. The vast majority — 80 to 90 per cent — of natural gas from Western Canada is extracted through hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking. The access to information documents state the gas for the project would come from Western Canada.

Steven Haig, a policy advisor for the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s energy program, pointed out fracking is a “particularly emissions-intensive method for producing natural gas. 

“And also, by nature of the process … there are significant risks of methane leaks, which add to the emissions associated with the production,” Haig said in an interview. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere, contributing to global warming and climate change. It can also cause respiratory and cardiovascular issues. 

What about Indigenous communities near the LNG terminal and along the pipeline route? 

Couillard isn’t convinced a majority of Indigenous communities will support the Baie-Comeau LNG project even after consultations. 

“Quebec has a problem,” he said. “It’s all unceded. There’s no treaties here. So technically, all these communities need to give their free, prior and informed consent for the project to go ahead.” The Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador formally — and vocally — opposed TransCanada’s bid to build the Energy East bitumen pipeline, which was cancelled in 2017. 

The documents obtained by Greenpeace and other environmental groups list Indigenous communities and organizations that could be affected by the pipeline and LNG project, but all further information is redacted. 

In Ontario, those communities include Apitipi Anicinapek Nation, Métis Nation of Ontario (region three), Taykwa Tagamou Nation, Beaverhouse First Nation, Matachewan First Nation and potentially Mattagami First Nation and Temagami First Nation.

The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada recommended Marinvest engage with about two dozen Indigenous communities and organizations in Quebec, according to the documents. They include many Cree, Algonquin, Atikamekw and Innu communities, such as Pessamit, an Innu community about 60 kilometres south of Baie-Comeau. 

Along with other Innu communities, Pessamit opposed a different LNG export project proposed for the Saguenay region of Quebec on the grounds it would pose a threat to ancestral lands and impact fish and caribou. Pessamit representatives were unable to respond to a request for comment before publication.

So what about the rejected LNG project in Quebec?

The Quebec government nixed plans for a LNG plant in the Saguenay region in 2021, saying it risked “disadvantaging the energy transition.” The province’s environmental review agency found the project’s risks outweighed its benefits. It said the proponent, GNL Québec Inc., had failed to demonstrate the project would reduce greenhouse gas emissions or accelerate the transition to clean energy. 

The Saguenay LNG project would have been about the same size as the Baie-Comeau LNG project, according to Le Devoir.

The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada also found the Saguenay LNG project was likely to harm the environment, leading Ottawa to reject the project in 2022. The agency determined the project would have negative effects on nearby Innu communities, harm the beluga whale population through increased shipping traffic and cause greenhouse gas emissions to rise. 

Why ship LNG from Quebec?

Quebec has a distinct advantage over LNG shipped to Europe from other places in North America: geography. 

A typical shipping route between Baie-Comeau and the Dunkirk LNG terminal in northern France would take about eight days, according to the Montreal Economic Institute, a public policy think tank that receives 11 per cent of its annual budget from the oil and gas industry. (Names of individual funders are not disclosed.)

It would take about 14 days at the same speed for LNG from the Gulf of Mexico’s terminals to reach Dunkirk and more than 17 days from Doha, Qatar, another big LNG export terminal.

“Geography plays in Quebec’s favour,” Gabriel Giguère, a senior policy analyst with the society, said in a February news release. “A shorter distance means shorter delivery times, and therefore lower transportation costs, compared to dealing with its main competitors.” 

Will there be an environmental assessment ? 

Some form of environmental assessment is likely if the Baie-Comeau LNG project proceeds, but the process could be fast-tracked. 

In December, the Quebec government introduced Bill 5, which aims to accelerate authorizations for projects deemed to be priorities and of national importance. 

The Quebec bill, which has not been passed by the National Assembly, follows the federal government’s Bill C-5, passed last June. The federal legislation aims to accelerate “nation-building” projects.

What about the Baie-Comeau LNG project’s economics? 

The oil and gas industry is pushing for LNG expansion, pointing to Europe’s desire to replace Russian gas and Canada’s drive to diversify exports following tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump slapped on Canadian goods. 

“But it’s important to remember that these are multi-billion dollar, multi-decade projects and their long-term viability is a serious concern as global markets shift towards cleaner, more reliable energy sources,” Haig, from the International Institute for Sustainable Development, said. 

As importers shift towards cheaper, more reliable renewables, “An oversupply of LNG is imminent, with a massive wave of new projects coming online around the world, especially in the U.S. and Qatar,” Haig said.

He said the growing war in the Middle East won’t change that. “There’s a difference between short-term supply disruptions and long-term outlook in the market.” 

Doubling down on LNG is likely to expose Canadians to “more risk and volatility, not less, by linking Canada’s domestic natural gas markets to more volatile international LNG market,” Haig said. Many countries are already investing in safe, clean energy, he pointed out.

“When it comes to backing renewables or fossil fuels, let’s pick the horse that’s already ahead.” 

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Northwest B.C. is home to epic rivers, big mountains, a rugged coastline — and relatively few people. Its diverse ecosystems are inextricably intertwined with the cultures of the Indigenous Peoples who have lived here and stewarded the lands and waters for thousands of years, and continue to do so today. 

The staggeringly beautiful landscapes and rich cultures were what first caught my attention two decades ago — but it was the unpretentiousness of its communities that kept me here. 

Last month, Prime Minister Mark Carney was in Terrace, B.C., where he told the media and a small audience his government was sending something called the Northwest Critical Conservation Corridor to the newly formed Major Projects Office for review and potential fast-tracking. 

The word “conservation” next to the word “corridor” naturally made me think of a connected series of conserved areas. Maybe this meant protecting the migratory routes of imperiled caribou or declining salmon populations? Or perhaps it signalled the region’s sacred rivers and their sensitive headwaters would be preserved for their cultural and ceremonial significance. 

When I started asking questions, I found this “transformational strategy” (the federal government’s words, not mine) to be a bit more complicated.

Critical? Conservation? Corridor? 

Before we get into the details, a quick breakdown of the title.

Northwest B.C. is a loosely defined region that includes the communities and landscapes north of Prince George and west of the Northern Rocky Mountains. The strategy also mentions the Yukon, though it is unclear how the northern territory will be included.

Critical refers to so-called critical minerals, which are things like lithium, molybdenum and rare earth elements that play a part in the global transition away from burning fossil fuels. Much of what’s currently being mined in northwest B.C. is gold, which is not, in fact, a critical mineral.

Conservation appears to refer to pre-existing plans led by First Nations. More on this later.

Corridor here is open-ended and confusing — because there doesn’t appear to be one. What’s referenced or included in the plan, instead, is a few industrial and infrastructure developments that are already approved or underway, including liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, pipelines and hydroelectric transmission, as well as a handful of unspecific references to basic infrastructure like cell towers and highway improvements.

Grammar nerds, like me, might call “critical” in this title, appearing as it does next to “conservation” and without referencing mining or minerals, a misplaced or dangling modifier, confusing people into connecting two separate ideas. Political cynics, like me, might think that’s the point. 

What are we conserving? 

The prime minister’s announcement referenced the creation of a “conservation area the size of Greece.” Greece is about 130,000 square kilometres. Northwest B.C., depending on how you define it, is roughly twice the size. So is half the region slated for protection? Not exactly. 

Carney’s office declined an interview request and referred questions to the Privy Council Office, a non-partisan body that advises the prime minister. Pierre Cuguen, a spokesperson with the office, was vague on details but said the strategy will “focus on development of mining, energy and trade infrastructure” while also setting aside conservation areas to “help Canada meet its goal to protect 30 per cent of land and marine areas by 2030.”

Cuguen did not specify areas that would be included, explaining plans will be developed in consultation with “stakeholders and Indigenous Rights-holders” and said “details on the approach are not yet confirmed.”

However, several Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas, or IPCAs, are already on the table in northern B.C. Taken together, four conservation plans proposed or declared by the Kaska Dena, Tahltan, Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs and Taku River Tlingit amount to an area more than half the size of the Mediterranean country home to spanakopita.

The Kaska Dena IPCA, which has been in the works since at least 2019, called Dene K’éh Kusān, would protect 40,000 square kilometres of lands and waters. (It’s more on the northeast side of B.C., but technically the entire province is west of Ottawa, so we can let that slide.) The Tahltan plan includes protecting 10,000 square kilometres in three separate areas, including one known as the Sacred Headwaters, where Indigenous leaders and allies fought a protracted battle two decades ago to prevent Shell from drilling for coalbed methane and Fortune Minerals from developing an open-pit coal mine at the headwaters of the Skeena, Nass and Stikine rivers.

Meanwhile, Gitanyow declared a 540-square-kilometre-area protected in 2021, and has since proposed protection for another 88-square-kilometre area. Taku River Tlingit similarly proclaimed protection of the T’akú Tlatsini in 2023, conserving 60 per cent of the nation’s namesake watershed, or around 18,000 square kilometres, which has been heavily impacted by historic and modern mining activities.

Notably, IPCAs do not necessarily preclude industrial development such as logging and mining.

All four nations are currently involved in an expedited land-use planning initiative announced by the B.C. government in June, which also includes the Nisga’a Nation. The planning is intended to map and assess “areas for conservation of biodiversity, including wild salmon, caribou, sheep and other sensitive species, and cultural values” while also clearly identifying “areas open to potential development, including mineral exploration.” The process is intended to be completed by June 2026.

Where’s the other half of Greece intended for conservation, you might ask? Good question. We don’t know.

What about mining? 

While conservation appears to be part of the federal plan — and environmental advocates are cautiously hopeful this initiative will secure protections for delicate ecosystems in the region — it appears to be secondary to the government’s goals to rapidly expand and diversify the Canadian economy. This includes putting its weight (and financial subsidies) behind extractive industries like mining and fossil fuels.

The northwest is “home to the Golden Triangle, one of the world’s richest reserves of the minerals and metals that are essential for the energy transition as well as defence supply chains for Canada and our allies,” Cuguen told The Narwhal in an emailed statement.

The Golden Triangle refers to an area which has long been a hotbed of mining activity. Most of the mining here has been for gold, as its name suggests. Gold is currently fetching record prices on global markets. Its value has been steadily climbing for a few years and skyrocketed in 2025, passing US$4,100 per ounce in October. Gold is only minimally used in renewable energy technology such as solar panels and its role in the defence sector is primarily economic, with profits made from the precious metal used to offset the costs of extracting other minerals.

In northwest B.C., there are four operational mines (Red Chris, Brucejack, Dome Mountain and Blackwater) and another three (KSM, Eskay Creek and Galore) in various stages of securing approvals, permits or investment. The strategy announced by Carney’s government and referred to the Major Projects Office includes only one mine, the already-operating Red Chris mine on Tahltan territory. 

Red Chris is a copper and gold mine currently owned by Newmont, an American gold mining corporation with headquarters in Colorado. Newmont is in the process of advancing plans to expand production and convert operations from open-pit mining to block-cave mining. This expansion is what the feds are interested in. 

How is this connected to LNG? 

You can’t talk about this “corridor” without talking about liquefied natural gas, or LNG. Because it’s not just mining on the government’s mind. At the Terrace, B.C., press conference, Carney championed the province’s success in getting its long-awaited LNG export sector off the ground. 

“We’re home to the world’s fourth largest reserves of natural gas, and we have the potential to supply up to 100 million tonnes annually of new LNG exports to Asia,” he said.

In the same breath, the prime minister named the recently approved Ksi Lisims LNG processing and export facility. Ksi Lisims is owned by Texas-based Western LNG in partnership with the Nisga’a Lisims Government.

Getting the fossil fuel to overseas markets will require building hundreds of kilometres of pipelines, in part, through this “conservation corridor.” Once it arrives on the coast, it will need to be cooled down to -162 C before it can be loaded onto tankers in its liquid state. 

In Kitimat, B.C., where liquefaction started this summer, some residents are reeling from the impacts of the operation. Flaring, which is when a plant burns off excess or waste gas, has been ongoing for more than a year now as the massive LNG Canada facility slowly gets up and running. The plant’s flare stack has lit up the night skies with a flame about as tall as London’s iconic Big Ben. 

This process also requires a lot of energy, which is where the North Coast transmission line comes in.

The transmission line would involve installing around 800 kilometres of new high-voltage wires across the northwest, in three stages. The wires, which require clearing wide swaths through forests and bisecting agricultural lands, would connect to the existing grid.

“Infrastructure investments under this strategy also link clean electricity to Canada’s ability to export LNG,” Cuguen wrote, adding the feds will be discussing how much money to throw at the plan “to ensure the potential of the region is achieved.”

But there’s a problem. Even with the wildly expensive Site C dam, it’s unlikely that B.C. can produce enough power to electrify LNG projects already on the books, let alone all the other industrial and commercial projects vying for power.

Corridor? What corridor?

In the statement sent to The Narwhal, Cuguen noted the northwest represents “one of Canada’s gateways to global markets through the Pacific Ocean.”

“This corridor will fundamentally transform the lives of thousands of Canadians, position Canada as a global leader in critical minerals and drive prosperity across the country,” Cuguen wrote, without explaining how or when the federal government expects this to happen.

In other words, the “corridor” probably has nothing to do with conservation. If the federal government wants to export more raw goods and resources to countries overseas, decreasing reliance on the U.S., it needs to lock in pathways across B.C.

The Privy Council statement also acknowledged northwest B.C. is “home to vibrant communities in a spectacular environment rich with mountains, glaciers, watersheds and coastal ecosystems.”

The looming question is how this influx of development will impact communities and sensitive ecosystems. If it comes to fruition, the strategy will certainly transform the lives of thousands of Canadians, but it remains to be seen which ones — and in what way.

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Prime Minister Mark Carney is preparing to weaken proposed industrial pollution limits and loosen restrictions on subsidies for the Alberta oilpatch, as part of a major realignment of climate policy he unveiled Thursday alongside Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

The memorandum of understanding between the two governments, billed as a “grand bargain,” is focused on boosting the production of Alberta oil and gas and planning for future projects such as a new pipeline, data centres or transmission lines. 

All of this, Carney and Smith said Nov. 27, would occur while the two aim to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 and provide opportunities for Indigenous consultations, ownership and partnerships.

“This is Canada working, this is co-operative federalism, this is Canada building,” Carney said as he shook hands with a beaming Smith in Calgary.

“In effect, it creates an energy transition — all aspects of energy — but really sets the stage for an industrial transformation.”

But the deal proposes rolling back several environmental initiatives that had been proposed by the federal government under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, including on clean electricity, methane, clean technology and carbon pricing.

It also commits to helping out a proposed megaproject in the oilpatch, the feasibility of which has yet to be proven. And it lends political support to a new Alberta pipeline to the West Coast, an idea that has been vigorously opposed by First Nations and the B.C. government, even as they point out how there isn’t a concrete plan for such a pipeline yet.

It’s a lot to sort through all at once. Here’s a look at seven key environmental policies the Canada-Alberta deal proposes to change.

1. Weakening rules on methane for Alberta’s oil and gas industry

The Canada-Alberta deal commits to an agreement by next April that would allow the province to delay cutting its oil and gas methane emissions by five years compared with proposed federal restrictions.

Methane, an invisible, odourless gas is the second most common greenhouse gas in Canada, after carbon dioxide, and comes mostly from the fossil fuel industry. It’s a potent driver of climate change and an air pollutant that contributes to smog and respiratory health complications. Years of scientific studies have shown how previous published figures on the extent of methane from the oil and gas industry have underestimated reality.

The new federal rules, proposed in December 2023, would require slashing oil and gas methane emissions 75 per cent from 2012 levels by 2030. The deal signed Thursday between Carney and Smith would allow Alberta to achieve the cuts in 2035 instead, and be based on 2014 levels.

“Delaying the methane reduction target for Alberta’s oil and gas industry to 2035 is unwise,” Chris Severson-Baker, executive director of the Pembina Institute, said in a statement.

“It is unacceptable that Alberta should be held to a lower standard than other provinces on this; both the climate and Alberta’s economy will ultimately feel the impacts.”

It wouldn’t be the first time Canada and Alberta have weakened their own methane rules. In 2017, the fossil fuel industry persuaded the provincial government to delay and weaken its methane rules, which were then accepted by the federal government in 2020 as being in compliance with its own.Rick Smith, president of the Canadian Climate Institute, also said delaying the methane deadline was unnecessary. “If there is one no-brainer of climate change policy, it is enhanced reduction of methane emissions from oil and gas,” he said in a statement.

2. Pushing for that Alberta pipeline plan

The “grand bargain” commits to constructing a large oil pipeline from the Alberta oilpatch to the West Coast, with an application ready to go by July. The pipeline would take “a route that increases export access to Asian markets as a priority.”

Canada would declare an oil pipeline to Asian markets as a “priority” and offer “opportunities for Indigenous co-ownership and economic benefits.” The federal government would refer the project to its fast-tracking office for consideration to be deemed in the “national interest.”

Oil lobbyists say Canada needs another oil pipeline to export more petroleum to places other than the United States, as trade tensions continue under President Donald Trump. While the federally owned Trans Mountain pipeline, which was recently given a $34-billion overhaul that almost tripled its capacity, carries crude oil from the oilsands to the West Coast where it can be loaded on tankers and shipped overseas, no private sector proponent has stepped up to propose another new oil pipeline.

But the economics of the industry might delay the prospects of any new oil pipeline. Oil prices are low compared with a few years ago, forcing the industry to cut costs and pare back spending, while green energy sources like solar power and wind power are becoming ever cheaper. Canada’s oilsands produce oil that is heavier and full of more sulphur than other blends around the world, meaning it’s more complex and expensive to refine and so must compete with lower-cost operations.

Meanwhile, building a new oil pipeline from Alberta to B.C. would result in higher emissions than a scenario where no pipeline is built, even if it’s paired with a carbon capture project like Pathways Alliance is proposing, according to a report from the Pembina Institute.

3. Supporting Pathways Alliance and its pricey carbon capture plan

The Canada-Alberta deal commits both parties to working with the Pathways Alliance, a lobby group made up of six large oilsands companies, to enter into a three-way deal by April to create “a set of emissions-savings projects” focused on carbon capture and storage or other technology. 

In fact, the proposed pipeline is contingent on the Pathways project moving forward.

For several years, the lobby group has proposed a carbon capture and storage network in Alberta that would theoretically capture a portion of the roughly 90 million tonnes of greenhouse gases the oilsands create per year, and transport the carbon in a new pipeline to rock formations deep underground. 

The companies involved in the Pathways Alliance have spent years lobbying the federal and provincial governments to put public money toward their proposal, which they once pegged at $70 billion, and to delay or weaken proposed restrictions on the oilpatch while they gear up to build.

At the same time, Pathways Alliance companies have not committed to paying for the proposal themselves — even though they are posting big profits this year. Suncor, for example, reported $1.62 billion in profits over the third quarter, a three-month period, while Cenovus made $1.29 billion in profits. The other members similarly reported hundreds of millions of dollars in profits over the quarter. 

Their plan has also been criticized as a form of greenwashing because it does not account for the emissions created when the oil companies’ products, like gasoline, are burned. It only proposes to draw down the emissions created during the process of digging up more oil.

The Carney-Smith deal said the lobby group’s projects will be built “in a staged manner between 2027 and 2040.” Constructing a carbon capture network that large would be unprecedented. Canada currently captures 4.4 million tonnes per year; scaling up to capture tens of millions of tonnes will require a massive buildout — and that’s if the technology works properly. 

That’s not to mention the concerns locals have about the safety of storing carbon underground in such large amounts.

4. Loosening restrictions on tax breaks for clean technology

Canada is preparing to loosen the restrictions on the tax breaks it has offered for companies to install carbon capture equipment, in a bid to encourage more oil drilling, according to the deal.

It commits to extending federal investment tax credits “and other policy supports” that encourage investments in carbon capture, and indicate these could be applied to “enhanced oil recovery.” 

That’s an industry term for taking the carbon that’s been captured from exhaust sources, and instead of burying it in rock formations underground, injecting it into wells so more oil can be recovered.

The most common use for carbon capture operations in Canada so far has been enhanced oil recovery — but when Canada introduced tax breaks for carbon capture equipment, a key provision in the rules banned their use for this purpose.

Hours after the bargain was made public, Steven Guilbeault resigned as Carney’s Canadian identity and culture. Guilbeault was environment minister in the Trudeau government, when he said the restriction was important to differentiate between providing support for the oil and gas industry to decarbonize, and providing other incentives to encourage more oil production.

“We’ve been asked, and we have resisted, and we have refused to include, for example, the use of carbon capture and storage under the tax credit for enhanced oil recovery,” he told a Parliamentary committee in 2022.

Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist for Greenpeace Canada, said allowing carbon that is captured to be used to “pump more oil out of the ground” would suggest there’s “no net benefit” to that activity. 

Along with the methane and other rule changes, he described the deal as “a betrayal of Canada’s climate commitments” and said it “makes a mockery of our commitment to reconciliation with Indigenous people.”

5. Making exceptions in the oil tanker ban on the West Coast

Canada and Alberta said any future oil pipeline would be “private sector constructed and financed,” and “with Indigenous Peoples co-ownership and economic benefits.”

“At the heart of this is co-operation and partnership with Indigenous Peoples — in Alberta, in British Columbia — as they’re affected. Unprecedented opportunities for Indigenous ownership, partnership, economic benefits, as well as substantial economic benefits for the people of British Columbia,” Carney said Thursday.

Even so, First Nations and the B.C. government have been saying no from the start. B.C. Premier David Eby panned the idea as one that “doesn’t actually exist” and said it was “unacceptable” that Carney and Smith were meeting without B.C.’s input.

Marilyn Slett, president of the Coastal First Nations-Great Bear Initiative and elected Chief of the Heiltsuk Nation, said the nation continues to oppose a new oil pipeline after seeing the agreement. 

“Today’s [memorandum of understanding] does nothing to increase the chances of a pipeline project to the northwest coast ever becoming a reality,” she said in a statement. 

“We have made repeated calls to the federal government to uphold Bill C-48, the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, as it is foundational to the vibrant and growing conservation economy we have built on the North Coast.”

Slett says they have “zero interest” in co-ownership or economic benefits stemming from the proposed pipeline.

Since 1972, the federal government has had a moratorium on oil tankers along the north coast of B.C., and signed a voluntary agreement with the U.S. in 1988 creating an oil tanker exclusion zone. 

The purpose is to protect coastal waters from the risk of pollution from an oil spill. The ban was formalized in legislation by the Trudeau government in 2017 when it passed the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act.

Coastal First Nations and the province of B.C. also signed a North Coast Protection Declaration on Nov. 5, which calls for the tanker ban to be upheld.

Thursday’s “grand bargain” says if a new oil pipeline is approved under federal fast-tracking legislation, Canada would commit to allowing tanker exports through “a strategic deep-water port to Asian markets” — including, “if necessary,” by amending the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act.

Carney has said “all stakeholders have to agree” before a pipeline is built, including the government of B.C. and First Nations.

6. Giving clean electricity regulations the boot

One big win for Premier Smith is the immediate suspension of the federal government’s Clean Electricity Regulations. 

The province, which operates one of the highest-emission grids in the country due to its reliance on natural gas instead of hydroelectricity, has pushed back against the regulations ever since they were proposed. 

But the Smith government has gone even further by restricting a booming renewable energy sector and incentivizing new natural gas generation. 

Suspension of the regulations means it will not have to move fast to bring emissions down. 

A potential compromise offered by the agreement is a push to increase what are known as interties with B.C. and Saskatchewan — essentially, stringing wires between the three provinces to help ensure consistent generation. 

B.C.’s wealth of hydroelectricity can be a cleaner source of regular power to offset intermittent renewables, although Saskatchewan, which still burns some coal for electricity, isn’t likely to help reduce Alberta’s power emissions. 

It’s unclear whether this suspension will apply across the country. Most provinces easily meet the requirements thanks to hydroelectricity, but Saskatchewan and Alberta have chafed at the timeline for cleaning up their fossil fuel-reliant grids. 

“Exempting Alberta from these regulations yet again sends the signal that Alberta is closed for business to renewable electricity developers, an industry which has already suffered under Alberta’s erratic electricity policy changes over the last two years,” Severson-Baker said.

7. Adding flexibility to Alberta’s industrial carbon pricing plan

The federal government will still require a commitment to industrial carbon pricing from Alberta, but the new deal shows it comes with caveats. 

The agreement acknowledges Alberta’s provincial system and calls for increases in the carbon price, which the province froze this year at $95 per tonne through 2026. The freeze meant Alberta would have been out of step with the federal benchmark as of next year.

The deal says the two governments will work to ensure “the application of Alberta’s carbon pricing system (including pricing and stringency) is adapted to the specific circumstances of the electricity sector, the oil and gas sector and other large emitters such as fertilizer and cement sectors.”

In other words, some large polluters will be allowed to operate under special rules. It’s unlikely those carve-outs will be more severe. 

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We’ve all pondered the sound of a tree falling in the forest. Many have also sought the answer to life, the universe and everything. But have enough of us considered the philosophical quandary of debating nothing at all? 

That’s the existential question most relevant in Canadian politics at the moment, where a great nation-building push by the federal government has so far only succeeded in building confusion — and, here in the restive province of Alberta, got many up in arms over the perceived lack of support for a project that doesn’t exist.

Prime Minister Mark Carney was elected on the promise of pushing back against aggression from the U.S. and its trade war. A big part of his response was to pass legislation that would allow the government to “fast-track” grand projects his cabinet deemed to be in the “national interest.”

Since then, his government has made two big announcements touting its pet infrastructure projects — neither of which actually designated any projects in the national interest to be put on a fast track. 

Instead, the government only referred 11 projects — including an expansion of the Port of Montreal and wind-powered energy generation in the Atlantic — to the newly created Major Projects Office for consideration as nationally interesting “major projects” worth fast-tracking. Which means no real projects have actually moved forward, despite the rhetoric around the announcements. 

That lack of clarity, and of tangible action, only adds to the sense of disorientation over intense reaction in Alberta when a new pipeline to the West Coast wasn’t part of the latest announcement. Emotions were pretty strong considering there isn’t an actual pipeline project being discussed — there’s no route, no budget, no company that currently wants to build it. The most tangible thing about it so far has been vocal opposition from B.C. and the Indigenous communities this imaginary pipeline would theoretically pass through.

It is a debate about something that doesn’t exist being snubbed for inclusion on a list that does nothing — unless you count politicking. And while Alberta is being the most dramatic about it all, it’s a situation playing out all over the country. 

A primer on how a non-existent pipeline could get designated for fast-tracking … we think

Before getting into the imaginary pipeline debacle between Alberta, B.C., First Nations and the feds, let’s set the stage. 

Carney’s first act after his April election was to introduce and pass Bill C-5, the Build Canada Act, the legislation that would allow the government to fast-track projects.

Selected projects could essentially be pre-approved for meeting a raft of regulations (although, confusingly, not be exempt from them). It immediately set off alarm bells about the rigor of any required environmental assessments and raised serious concerns about Indigenous participation, consultation and consent. 

Since then, the government has listed 11 projects and seven “transformative strategies” in widely covered announcements that only serve to muddy the debate. The point of this all is unclear, since those projects and strategies were already underway, some in advanced stages, and none of them were declared in the national interest and set for fast-tracking. Yet.

These 11 projects are a short list. There is also a longer list, which is secret, according to the Privy Council Office, of projects in various stages of preparation for presentation to the Major Projects Office.Finally, there’s the list of projects set for fast-tracking, which is empty. So far. 

Those projects would have to be designated in the national interest, then move through a legislative process, consultations with impacted Indigenous people, the province where the project will be built if it’s under provincial jurisdiction, a national security review and more. 

It’s not necessarily a short road to travel.

Alberta’s pipe dreams

Alberta’s United Conservative Party government, facing and facilitating a burgeoning separatist movement at home, has been aggressively pushing to double oil and gas production while pushing back against emissions regulations. When Carney announced his major projects plan, the party decided the lack of a company interested in building a new pipeline shouldn’t be an impediment. 

Nor, apparently, should the basic questions that remain unanswered about the need for a new pipeline and the economics that would support it. Capacity wise, Enbridge has approved expansion of existing pipelines and TransMountain is proposing changes that will allow it to carry more bitumen to the West Coast. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, however, says it’s not enough. 

Profit wise, both of those expansions are forecast to exceed production increases and demand. 

In addition, the International Energy Agency is forecasting significant surpluses in supply versus demand on the global market, possibly reaching a glut of four million barrels per day in 2026 — something the agency calls “untenable.” 

Together, the elements standing in the way of a hypothetical pipeline are significant, but that might not really matter. It didn’t matter to Smith on Oct. 1 when, alongside several cabinet ministers, she announced her province would be the proponent for a pipeline, committing $14 million towards early planning work to get “a credible proposal” in front of the federal government.

What Alberta wants from the federal government is a memorandum of understanding that could pave the way for a hypothetical project, but is also aimed at getting rid of what Smith calls the Nine Bad Laws — including the ban on large oil tankers on the northwest coast, an idea Coastal First Nations and the B.C. government opposed adamantly in a declaration signed earlier this month. 

Smith was hoping for that to happen within a month of her announcement. But, again, no route, proposal or company willing to build has been made public. Alberta is essentially spending millions to make an outline of a project that it hopes someone will build if Ottawa says it’s a good idea, despite fierce opposition from the one place it will have to cross. 

Coastal First Nations and B.C. really, really, really oppose a new pipeline

As soon as Carney started his push for more nation-building projects, he met opposition. There’s serious concern about the potential for fossil fuel-based energy projects being fast-tracked in the era of climate change — which brings its own Canada-wide challenges, such as the ballooning costs and labour pressures of responding to floods, wildfires and other global-warming-fuelled natural disasters.

From First Nations whose territory lies between the Alberta oilsands and the West Coast to nations in Ontario, Alberta and Manitoba, Indigenous communities are extremely unhappy they weren’t consulted on the Build Canada Act, which could directly impact their constitutional rights to consultation and consent.  

In the particular case of a pipeline, it’s difficult to see a physical or political path forward. Along with nations along the (imaginary) route, the idea of lifting the tanker ban has appalled Coastal First Nations and the B.C. government.  

And yet, on Wednesday, The Globe and Mail reported Alberta and the federal government were close to a deal on the pipeline project that doesn’t exist, with sources telling the paper it would, indeed, require lifting the oil tanker moratorium on at least a section of the coast. 

“We are incredibly alarmed to read media reports about alleged negotiations between the federal government and the province of Alberta” about a new pipeline, Coastal First Nations said in a press release on Nov. 19. It added that the passing of the tanker ban in 2019 was the result of over “50 years of advocacy.”

National political interest project

According to The Globe, the feds’ negotiations with Alberta include winning the province’s buy-in for the industrial carbon price, which Alberta has been trying to weaken. There will also, inevitably, be a windfall for carbon capture and storage projects. 

It’s a classic political give and take. Carney could buy peace with a province that has been anything but peaceful for the past six years,, currently governed by a party that has actively pushed for more sovereignty while making it easier for separatists to push their agenda. 

Smith herself has put the future of confederation on the table if the federal government doesn’t acquiesce to her demands. But ever since Carney’s election, the anti-Ottawa rhetoric from her government has been tamped down, even before talk of the hypothetical pipeline. 

It’s a sign that Carney’s strategy of compromise might be working — that Smith is either getting what she wants or thinks she is. 

If reports are accurate, she might be getting rid of at least some of the environmental regulations, including the tanker ban and an emissions cap on oil and gas, her government bristles at. She can claim victory for pushing a pipeline project forward, even if no pipeline is ever built.

Even without any actual infrastructure, agreements to agree on … something? … are not an insignificant political framework for two traditionally combative sides to erect. 

Unfortunately for them, they aren’t the only two pieces on the board and Carney’s balancing act is precipitous. The prime minister has made big promises to industry and to Canadians, while fighting a trade war and a restive collection of provinces with often vastly different ideas on the best economic and social paths forward.

B.C. is already unhappy. So are Indigenous communities in national-interest-major-projects-fast-tracking regions across Canada. It’s also unclear when, and if, Carney will start designating projects for fast-tracking through his new Major Projects Office, and how much more backlash that could stoke. 

If these projects never see the light of day, despite the federal government’s efforts, Carney also risks disappointing those who want to see them built. The anger that could engender is significant. 

Tipping the national balance could be a high price to pay for a reprieve with Alberta, and one that isn’t guaranteed, but pipelines don’t come cheap either. Maybe. If there ever is one. With a budget. Or someone to build it. 

It’s remarkable how much nothing can do. 

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Premier David Eby’s dream of fashioning British Columbia into an economic engine powerful enough to drive the Canadian economy took another step forward on Thursday. From Terrace, B.C., Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Ksi Lisims LNG and the North Coast transmission line would be added to the federal fast-tracking list. 

“We are the province that is bringing forward these projects that will make a meaningful difference in the Canadian GDP, that will make a meaningful difference in families being able to access high-paid jobs and will lift the prosperity of people, not just in this province, but right across the country,” Eby told reporters following Carney’s announcement.

Eby repeated his expectation that the North Coast transmission line will help create 10,000 jobs and tens of billions of dollars in economic development. Carney lauded the potential of Ksi Lisims, a floating LNG plant, to generate $4 billion per year in gross domestic product and create “thousands of skilled careers.”

Thousands of jobs and billions of dollars sound like a great deal — though B.C. and Canadian taxpayers will have to shell out billions first and relinquish input and oversight of those projects to lock in the promised benefits. Surely the federal and provincial governments would be keen to share the details of how, when and where we can expect to see those jobs and dollars materialize?Not so much.The North Coast transmission line is key to making Ksi Lisims “one of the world’s cleanest LNG operations,” according to Carney. By building hundreds of kilometres of high-voltage transmission line from Prince George, B.C., to Terrace, B.C., and then north to the border with Alaska, the province will be able to offer clean electricity to power both Ksi Lisims and multiple mining projects, Eby and his government have argued.But so far, Eby’s government has provided precious little detail on exactly how the North Coast transmission line will deliver its economic bounty — not the number of projects it would serve, the jobs each project would create nor the value of other economic benefits.

Instead, it’s the NDP caucus that has offered the most in-depth estimate of the North Coast transmission line’s economic impact. An Oct. 28 press release from the caucus — the partisan entity that represents all NDP MLAs in the legislature, separate from their roles in government — outlined five projects the transmission line will serve:

Four other proposed mines in northwest B.C. are also “among the mining projects along the North Coast transmission line that will benefit from access to clean power and improved grid reliability,” according to the Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals.Aside from Cedar LNG, none of the projects linked to the North Coast transmission line have reached a final investment decision — meaning none are guaranteed to proceed.

“I agree that we need to make sure that we expedite projects of provincial significance and ones that can actually have national significance,” South Surrey Independent MLA Elenore Sturko said. “But that doesn’t mean that we should entirely remove the ability for public input and consultation.”

Transparency lacking when it comes to North Coast transmission line

Energy Minister Adrian Dix claims the province has publicly made its case for fast-tracking the North Coast transmission line. He referred The Narwhal to an expression of interest call issued by BC Hydro in 2023.That call received 29 submissions, according to BC Hydro, with the highest number of submissions coming from the mining sector, while hydrogen production projects requested the most power overall.

A government press release states those submissions outlined “5,000 megawatts of potential industrial load (about five times the capacity of the Site C hydroelectric project).”

No other information about the projects interested in connecting to the North Coast transmission line has been made public. 

According to BC Hydro, “the information received from companies participating in the expression of interest process is considered commercially sensitive and will be kept confidential.” 

The government’s lack of transparency is unacceptable to Andy Hira, a political science professor at Simon Fraser University and director of the Clean Energy Research Group.

“These are public decisions that are affecting the bottom line for B.C. taxpayers and they’re affecting our ability to create jobs and compete and so they should be made public,” he told The Narwhal shortly after Bill 31, the Energy Statutes Amendment Act, was introduced on Oct. 20. 

“Maybe there is a case to be made that the revenues from LNG will be so great that we should make sure we put enough electricity in them — despite the damning picture that they create in terms of climate change — but that case needs to be made in a public forum. It can’t be made in an arbitrary fashion by people who pretend to know better.”

What we know — and don’t know — about demand for power on the North Coast

Documents obtained by The Narwhal under freedom of information law provide a bit more detail about where the government is expecting the electricity carried by the 2,200-megawatt North Coast transmission line to go.

Nearly half — 900 megawatts — could be dedicated to mines, according to a briefing note prepared for Eby in March 2024. Seabridge Gold requested 220 megawatts from BC Hydro for its KSM mine, a proposed copper and gold open pit project northwest of Stewart, B.C. The Galore Creek copper and gold mine — a joint venture between Teck Resources Ltd. and Newmont Corporation — could use 307 megawatts, according to the briefing note.

That demand may be even higher, according to Michael Goehring, CEO of the Mining Association of BC. During a press conference on Oct. 20, Goehring said critical mineral and precious metal mining projects in the “Golden Triangle” in northwest B.C. could add 1,000 megawatts of new electricity demand to the provincial power grid.

Another 620 megawatts from the transmission line could go to LNG, according to the briefing note. That’s a bit more than enough to electrify Ksi Lisims LNG. The project was seeking 600 megawatts from BC Hydro at the time the briefing note was prepared (though the facility will likely run on natural gas when it begins operations). 

The Port of Prince Rupert could use up to 100 megawatts from the North Coast transmission line, Eby’s briefing note stated, with another 600 megawatts earmarked for potential hydrogen production projects.

The Energy Ministry confirmed the transmission line’s capacity remains the same as the estimate in the briefing note, but would not provide updated estimates for potential electricity requests. 

If all of the projects on the North Coast do go ahead, B.C. could find itself in a significant energy deficit. BC Hydro now estimates demand for electricity will grow 1.4 per cent annually through 2050. That estimate does not include power for projects plugging into the North Coast transmission line, but does assume the province uses the powers Bill 31 would provide to limit power for hydrogen export projects, AI and data centres, and block new connections for cryptocurrency operations. 

Sturko argued British Columbians deserve answers about where the power for the project will come from and who will pay for it.

“I’m really concerned that at the end of the day — whether it’s federal funding or provincial funding or it ends up on somebody’s hydro bill — this is all coming out of taxpayers’ pockets,” she told The Narwhal. “And we don’t really have the certainty that we even have the electricity to make this thing successful.”

Updated Nov. 18, 2025, at 10:12 a.m. PT: This story originally stated Prime Minister Mark Carney’s announcement happened in Prince Rupert. While the event was originally scheduled in Prince Rupert, it was later moved to Terrace, B.C. The story has been corrected.

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Just outside the town of Port Hawkesbury, N.S., the shoreline of the Strait of Canso is dotted with industry. “For Nova Scotia, this is one of the last outposts of industrial activity,” Amanda Mombourquette says, steering her SUV. Out one window, towering mounds of coal are piled outside the Point Tupper Generating Station, while tanks and pipelines from a former oil refinery carve up the slope. A short distance down the road, Nova Scotia’s last papermill standing stretches across the hill.

Although the area supports hundreds of jobs, there’s little traffic on a sunny October afternoon. Pulling her car to the side of Industrial Park Road, Mombourquette, who’s the deputy warden for the County of Richmond, and Brenda Chisholm-Beaton, mayor of neighbouring Port Hawkesbury, note that teenagers often use the road to learn how to drive. 

Yet Chisholm-Beaton and Mombourquette have become regular travellers on this road. For the last several years, they’ve been taking people on tours of the area, to pitch its involvement in a new type of industry: offshore wind.

“Our strong feeling is that if there are industries that are going to be located here and we’re going to ask our communities to engage and participate and to support these industries, there should also be a benefit to our communities,” Mombourquette says. 

They’re not alone in spying an opportunity. In Atlantic Canada, many are looking to offshore wind as a transformational force, providing renewable power in a province still heavily dependent on coal for electricity. Offshore wind could also provide a much-needed economic boost for coastal communities and the province. The impact might not stop there: in September, Nova Scotia’s pitch to export 60 gigawatts offshore wind to provide over a quarter of Canada’s electricity, dubbed Wind West Atlantic Energy, was included on a list of projects of potential national interest: it’s not quite developed enough to make the Liberals’ first two rounds of projects considered for fast-tracking, but it’s in their sightlines. 

Yet the rollout of nation-building renewable energy must also strike a delicate balance between the need for power and the effect that gigawatt-scale wind generation will have on an ecosystem that many Nova Scotians already rely on for their livelihoods, particularly fishers.

The industry is moving toward that, with the regulator now conducting the first round of public consultation that could lead to a licence for a project developer, though it’ll be years before the blades start spinning. Either way, few deny that offshore wind, whenever it unfurls, could be transformative — just not in a way that everyone welcomes. 

Optimal conditions for offshore wind offer economic promise for Nova Scotia communities

The phrase “world-class” gets bandied about a lot in Nova Scotia, in relation to everything from golf courses to Halifax’s convention centre, but when it comes to offshore wind, it’s demonstrably true. Far from land, wind speeds here average nine to 11 metres per second. This is comparable to Europe’s North Sea, which already has a thriving offshore wind industry.

Importantly, unlike Canada’s west coast, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland are surrounded by broad continental shelves. The Scotian Shelf provides a wide swath of relatively shallow seabed on which to build turbines, making offshore wind appealing financially — though scientists say that’s also what makes it appealing to marine life, and therefore fishers.

In recent years, legislation has emerged to support the industry. Offshore energy on the east coast is jointly regulated by the federal government and the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. Historically this meant petroleum, but in 2024, the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board’s scope was expanded to include offshore wind (with Newfoundland’s regulator following suit in 2025). 

The province and federal government have also conducted a regional assessment, meant to assess the potential impacts of the industry on the environment, local communities and other ocean users, and to support the identification of potential locations. That assessment was released in January, and in July, Nova Scotia designated four wind energy areas, located at least 20 kilometres off the province’s eastern shore and the northeast edge of Cape Breton.

While offshore wind could have broad economic benefits — with the province eyeing a four per cent royalty from offshore production, as well as jobs for more than 5,000 workers in construction and associated supply chain industries — it has the potential to be particularly impactful for communities close to the sites.

This includes the Port Hawkesbury region, which has a deep, ice-free port that could be used to marshal offshore wind components like blades and turbines. The town also has a community college campus, where the province’s first wind turbine technician program is launching September 2026. 

Green industry is key to the region’s future, Mombourquette says. She also hopes it could bring more affordable electricity to her constituents, who regularly tell her they can’t pay their power bills. It could also ease the transition from the area’s industrial past — nearly 100 people currently work at the Point Tupper’s generating plant, for instance, which will have to stop burning coal by 2030. 

“What’s going to happen to those people and what kind of economic impact will that have on the town, and on the county?” Mombourquette says. “It’s a concern.”

The Municipality of the District of Guysborough, directly to the south of Port Hawkesbury, is also looking to wind for a more sustainable future.

Three of the proposed wind energy areas are off Guysborough County, where existing infrastructure could be used for the industry, including a former plant for offshore gas, where power generated by wind could be transmitted ashore via underwater cables. Paul Long, warden of the municipality hopes this infrastructure could attract development to support the area’s small and spread-out population, which is older and lower-income than the rest of the province. 

“We’re losing a lot of our young people,” he says. “We need development to ensure that our residents get all the services and infrastructure that they deserve like anybody else. If we had to rely on our residential tax rate, it would not be a pretty situation.”

Some people aren’t as convinced. 

Fishers worry about possible impacts to Nova Scotia’s seafood industry

Ninety minutes down the shore from Port Hawkesbury, at the end of a long peninsula jutting into the Atlantic, sits the community of Canso. This has been a settler fishing community since the 1600s and a site of Mi’kmaw fishing long before that, and from a small building on the edge of town, the Guysborough County Inshore Fishermen’s Association continues to support people fishing for lobster, halibut, snowcrab and tuna along the county’s long coastline. 

“We fish whatever we can because if we have a little bit from each, then you’re not putting too much effort on a single stock,” Ginny Boudreau, the association’s executive director and one of its three employees, says.

For the past two years, Boudreau says much the organization’s time, has been taken up with offshore wind, even though “We don’t have a stick in the water yet.”

Two of the designated areas overlap with places where her members fish, Boudreau says. The association has had to respond to new legislation and the regional assessment, as well as develop a system to track vessels through the areas designated for turbines, to get a comprehensive picture of where people are currently fishing.

That location data is important; the Scotian Shelf is heavily fished, with few areas unexploited. Many people have fished the same spots for decades — and as wind turbines move in, fishers fear they’ll be muscled out. 

In Cape Breton, Michael Barron fishes for lobster, crab and halibut in Sydney Bight, where a 1,300-square-kilometre area has been designated for potential offshore wind. Barron, the president of his own local fishing association, worries about people having to move because turbines are in their way or disrupting fish migration patterns. 

Barron points out that Nova Scotia’s seafood is its main export commodity, valued at $2.4 billion annually. The price of getting into the fishery is hefty: a lobster licence can cost upwards a million dollars and a fishing vessel at least half that. 

“Younger captains are taking on a lot of financial debt,” Barron says. “They need good catch rates. They need good weather. They need lots of fishing grounds to be able to explore … to generate the income to pay those debts that they incurred to become part of a historical tradition.”

Despite that, Barron says there’s been “next to no” consultation with his association from the provincial and federal governments. While he says he’s not against green energy, he wants to see more engagement with the people on the water.

Even without turbines, those fishers are already facing uncertainty — catches for snow crab in Cape Breton this year were “catastrophically bad,” Barron says, though he notes that can’t yet be attributed to climate change. 

Boudreau is worried about those shifts too. Her members know better than anyone that climate change is happening: they see it every day on the water. And for environmental reasons as much as economic ones, she thinks offshore wind is inevitable. 

Given that, she wants a clear plan for how wind and fisheries will co-exist — and a written commitment of who will be holding the bag if they can’t. She says the province promised a framework for compensation, though her association is still waiting to see it.

In an emailed response, Nova Scotia Department of Energy spokesperson Adele Poirier said that offshore wind is a “proven technology that’s used successfully in other parts of the world and co-exists with fisheries, among other users of the ocean.” The statement also noted that federal and provincial governments have been consulting on offshore wind for years, and have already addressed some concerns from fishers.

On compensation, the department pointed to a provincial roadmap, which said compensation would be considered if co-existence is not possible. 

Robert Lennox, an associate professor of biology at Dalhousie University, says research could assuage concerns about potential impacts.

Those include turbines’ impacts on winds and currents, which could affect water cycling and the distribution of larval fish and lobsters.

Lennox, who is scientific director of the Ocean Tracking Network, says tracking technology could figure out how animals are moving through wind energy areas and what happens after turbines are installed. 

“We haven’t been prioritizing tracking them at these locations,” he says.

The organization plans to use its own funds to deploy a network of receivers in the Sydney Bight area, to help nudge those questions towards an answer, Lennox says. These receivers pick up the acoustic signal of tagged animals, though only those tagged by other similar groups around the region. 

One scientist says there’s also a wealth of government data that could be used to inform where wind turbines should go.

Kenneth Frank, a former Fisheries and Oceans Canada scientist who retired in 2019, says when he read the report from the regional assessment that informed the selection of areas for turbines, he was shocked by how it characterized the Scotian Shelf. 

The report made the shelf’s outer banks look like “biological deserts,” he says, rather than drawing on “a mountain of data” from existing surveys that show the ecosystem’s productivity. Frank was paid by the Seafood Producers Association of Nova Scotia to submit a comment on the report, though he says he probably would have done it without payment. 

“They’ve chosen the least desirable areas from a conservation perspective. They chose the shallowest areas on the shelf,” he says, speculating that this was for economic reasons. “There are areas that are far less productive but they happen to be in deeper water.”

The Department of Energy said in a statement that all feedback was considered in the designation of the four offshore wind energy areas, including Fisheries and Oceans feedback on biological considerations.

As climate change intensifies in Atlantic Canada, residents prepare for an uncertain future

These developments come amid a grim period for climate impacts in Nova Scotia. Over the summer, the province experienced multiple wildfires and a record-breaking drought.

Meanwhile, in the ocean, scientists reported a warming trend on the Scotian shelf, with a 3 C increase in bottom temperatures over a three decade period. 

It’s a reminder that with or without offshore wind, change is coming to the region. 

Driving along the Strait of Canso, Chisholm-Beaton and Mombourquette point out the ports that could receive components for offshore wind, musing about the other businesses that could benefit, like a local metal fabricator.

Those benefits could help the region chart a new path. For decades, many people in Nova Scotia, including Mombourquette’s husband, have had to leave the province for work. “It has a direct social impact on communities that I’ve been thinking about for a very long time, having gone through the experience of raising two kids with a husband who works out west back and forth.” Building a local wind industry could break that cycle, Mombourquette says. 

From the back seat, Chisholm-Beaton chimes in: “Export wind and not people.”

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.

Less than two months after receiving approvals from the provincial and federal government, Prime Minister Mark Carney has referred the Ksi Lisims liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility to the Major Projects Office for review.

“Ksi Lisims will become Canada’s second-largest LNG facility with the capacity to export 12 million tonnes of LNG per year to new markets in Asia,” Carney said on Thursday, adding that the project is expected to yield $4 billion per year in gross domestic product.The North Coast transmission line was also on the latest list of projects picked for the Major Projects Office to review. Carney also announced BC Hydro will get a $139.5-million loan from the Canada Infrastructure Bank to support initial work on the transmission line.

The Major Projects Office was created to oversee the Liberal government’s effort to speed up approvals for major infrastructure projects deemed to be of national interest. In September, Carney’s government referred an initial list of candidate projects — including Phase two of the LNG Canada export terminal and the Red Chris Mine expansion in northern B.C. — to the office for consideration.

Ksi Lisims LNG is a joint venture involving the Nisg̱a’a Lisims Government, U.S.-based LNG project developer Western LNG and Canadian natural gas consortium Rockies LNG.

While the B.C. and Canadian governments have emphasized the Nisg̱a’a Lisims Government’s stake in the Ksi Lisims project, documents filed with the B.C. government show the primary owner and operator of Ksi Lisims is Texas-based Western LNG. Employees of Western LNG, which has offices in Houston, Texas and Vancouver, met with senior provincial government officials 69 times since the beginning of 2024, according to B.C. lobbying records.

Both Ksi Lisims and the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline — which will supply fracked gas to Ksi Lisims and LNG Canada, a larger export terminal in Kitimat, B.C. — are backed by Blackstone Inc., a U.S. investment company.

In March 2024, the Nisg̱a’a Nation and Western LNG announced a deal to buy TC Energy’s proposed Prince Rupert gas pipeline project. The project has also finalized two agreements to sell its product. The agreements commit Shell Canada and TotalEnergies to buying two million tonnes of LNG per year from the plant — totalling roughly one-third of Ksi Lisims’ expected annual production.

Four of the eleven projects referred to the Major Projects Office are in B.C., a fact Premier David Eby highlighted at his own press conference on Thursday.“British Columbia is going to be the economic engine of this new economy that we’re building going forward, and it is great to see some recognition from Ottawa that this is going to be the case,” he said.

The Nisg̱a’a Nation is backing Ksi Lisims but other First Nations oppose it

Nisg̱a’a Lisims Government president Eva Clayton has described Ksi Lisims as an economic opportunity that will benefit the nation and the world.

“Ksi Lisims LNG represents a transformational opportunity for all participating B.C. nations, and it will be developed in line with our nation’s high environmental standards,” Clayton said in a statement emailed to The Narwhal following the approval of Ksi Lisims.

But other First Nations oppose the project. The Lax Kw’alaams Band, for example, is southwest of the newly approved LNG facility and tankers filled with the liquefied gas will pass by the village’s coast regularly. Lax Kw’alaams says the LNG facility would negatively affect its traditional territory and has expressed concerns about the project’s potential impact on B.C.’s ability to meet its climate targets.

In September, B.C.’s environmental assessment office concluded dispute resolution processes initiated by Lax Kw’alaams and the Metlakatla First Nation as part of Ksi Lisims’ environmental assessment. The resolution failed to address the First Nations’ concerns about the project’s potential impacts on their communities, according to the environmental assessment office.

In October 2024, the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, whose traditional territory includes parts of the Nass and Skeena watersheds, filed an application for judicial review with the provincial court. The Hereditary Chiefs alleged the environmental assessment office failed in its duty to consult and to adequately protect fish species was rejected by the court in early September.Simogyet Watakhayetsxw (Hereditary Chief) Deborah Good said Ksi Lisims could destroy habitat essential to local salmon populations.

“We’ve had to go to court to fight for our way of life and especially the continuing health of our salmon stocks,” Good said in a statement. “We won’t give up because for us, this is a fight for our way of life — for the salmon that have sustained our economy, culture, people and way of life since time immemorial.”In October, Lax Kw’alaams and the Metlakatla First Nation each filed requests for judicial review with the Federal Court, alleging the minister of environment and climate change ignored their concerns about the adverse impacts of the massive LNG project.Eby said he expects the Major Projects Office will help the province work toward resolving the “complexity” created by projects that span multiple First Nations’ territories and often involve issues of federal jurisdiction.“That’s very helpful to us to resolve long-standing issues, to win support for the project or to help do things faster,” he said. 

Ksi Lisims may eventually connect to B.C.’s grid, but first it will run on gas

Ksi Lisims is located near the Nass estuary at the north end of Pearse Island, an area that is home to salmon, oolichan and many other fish, as well as shellfish and mammal species important to local First Nations. The floating facility would be capable of producing up to 12 million tonnes of LNG annually. 

Like the second phase of the LNG Canada facility, which was among the first crop of projects earmarked for potential federal fast-tracking in September, Ksi Lisims has been approved by the provincial and federal governments. But it has yet to receive a final investment decision — the definitive commitment to investing in and proceeding with a project — from its backers.

Carney said the Major Projects Office will offer support on financing and “help coordinate timely approvals” of the main aspects of the Ksi Lisims project. That includes the pipeline to supply Ksi Lisims with fracked gas, a new electricity transmission line and the floating LNG export facility, as well as “related transmission infrastructure” — namely, the North Coast transmission line.Ksi Lisims will be “one of the world’s cleanest LNG operations,” according to Carney, who said the facility has “the potential to reach net zero by 2030.” To achieve that goal, Ksi Lisims will need to access clean electricity via the North Coast transmission line.

But the transmission line — which the government has exempted from environmental assessment and plans to block the B.C. Utilities Commission from reviewing — isn’t expected to be operational until 2032, while Ksi Lisims hopes to begin operations in 2028. That would have left the facility out of compliance with a 2023 provincial regulation requiring all LNG facilities to be net zero by 2030. However, B.C. Energy Minister Adrian Dix issued “a clarification” of the 2023 net-zero policy in March, advising the environmental assessment agency that new LNG facilities need to be ready to become net zero by 2030 but can use natural gas if clean electricity is not available “due to circumstances beyond the control of the proponent.”

The provincial approval allows Ksi Lisims to use natural gas-fired barges to power its operations until access to BC Hydro’s grid is available. A 2024 briefing note prepared for Eby shows Ksi Lisims requested 600 megawatts from BC Hydro, making it one of the most energy-intensive projects the province has ever seen.

With files from Matt Simmons

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.