With the provincial election just days away, promises from B.C.’s main political parties are piling up. Voters have been offered tax breaks, tax increases, price caps and new health-care resources. But none of the main parties vying for votes has had much to say about the environment or climate change. It took more than two weeks for the BC NDP and BC Greens to release their climate platforms. The BC Conservative Party put out its full platform — with the party’s first explicit mentions of climate change — on Oct. 18, two days after advance voting began and just six days before the final vote.

After nearly a decade in government, the BC NDP isn’t offering much in the way of new climate-focused policies in this election. The party’s climate platform, released on Oct. 10, includes a pledge to cap the amount of power available for AI and data centres, a policy already enacted into law last year. If re-elected, Leader David Eby is promising to hold data centres in B.C. to high standards for water efficiency and require them to report their water use publicly.

The BC Conservative platform mentions climate just once, stating “climate decisions” should be based on three principles: protecting people from extreme weather, reducing emissions in B.C. and beyond and delivering measurable results. “The need to develop our natural resources must always be weighed against the need to conserve our bounty through responsible resource management,” the platform states.

Unsurprisingly, the BC Green campaign platform promises to put climate policy at the centre of the provincial agenda by making climate targets central to “major policies, infrastructure investments and industrial decisions.” In addition to a dedicated climate platform, many of the party’s campaign promises include climate-conscious components. The Greens’ economic platform focuses on ways to build “a prosperous, resilient, low-carbon economy” and the party’s housing platform includes a commitment to reduce emissions related to buildings by focusing on lower-carbon designs and materials, as well as conserving existing housing stock.

With all three party platforms published, The Narwhal dug in to see where the parties stand on key issues — and what they’re promising to get rid of.

What B.C. election platforms say about LNG, fracking and fossil fuels

Both the NDP and the Conservatives are committing to expanding the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry in B.C. Producing natural gas usually involves hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process that shoots high-pressure water mixed with chemicals underground to fracture the rocks and release the gas. Making LNG requires running massive compressors 24-7 to cool gas into a liquid. It’s an energy-intensive process that — so far in B.C. — is largely powered by burning natural gas.

The Conservatives have promised to make B.C. an “energy superpower” by doubling LNG production by 2032 and tripling it by 2035. When that policy dropped, the NDP was quick to point out the five LNG projects in development are already on track to more than triple the province’s LNG production by 2035.

The Conservative energy platform also pledges to get rid of B.C.’s industrial carbon tax and replace it with new rules that it says would ensure B.C.’s gas exports are competitive with the United States and Qatar. 

A BC Conservative government would take a new approach to tallying B.C.’s greenhouse gas emissions, one that runs counter to the 2016 Paris Agreement. The Conservative platform proposes taking credit for “emissions avoided through cleaner B.C. exports,” using the example of exported gas replacing coal. 

If his party forms government, Leader Lorne Doerkson has also promised to use deregulation as a tool to spur economic development, partly by bringing back a ministry dedicated to getting rid of rules, processes and laws it deems burdensome or unnecessary. For every new regulation a Conservative government makes, it would axe two existing regulations, according to Doerkson.

The NDP is promising to use some oil and gas royalty revenue — $50 million to start — to promote climate action and create jobs. The “Clean Futures Fund,” as the NDP platform dubs this promise, might sound familiar, possibly because some of the revenue raised by B.C.’s consumer carbon tax was once dedicated to similar spending priorities.

Speaking of oil and gas revenues, Eby refused to confirm whether his government is still committed to its original plan to collect 50 per cent of profits reaped by gas companies in B.C. The new gas royalty system is scheduled to take effect in 2027.

“We’re going to hold on to high royalty rates,” Eby said in response to a question from The Narwhal about whether he remains committed to the 50 per cent target announced by the B.C. government in 2022.“We’re going to demand as much as possible and we’re also going to build the economy.”

The BC Greens’ platform promises a 50-50 profit split under the new gas royalty framework. The Green climate platform notes B.C. is expecting to collect about $1.1 billion in gas royalties in the 2027-28 fiscal year. Bumping the province’s share of that royalty revenue up to 50 per cent would yield over $4 billion, according to the Greens.

The Greens have also pledged to end further fossil fuel development in B.C., banning new fracking operations, LNG facilities or expansions and pipelines, and axing provincial subsidies, favourable tax policies and public financing for fossil fuel production.

Leader Emily Lowan was the only provincial party leader to criticize LNG Canada’s decision to proceed with Phase 2 of its Kitimat LNG facility. The final investment decision to proceed with the expansion — which has been fully permitted since 2018 — was announced on Sept. 28 and celebrated by both Eby and Doerkson.

Neither party leader mentioned the integrity issue with the existing LNG Canada facility’s flare stack which resulted in Kitimat community members being subjected to excessive noise, black smoke, a towering flame — at times reaching the height of New York’s Statue of Liberty or London’s Big Ben — for months.The consortium of companies behind LNG Canada wants the facility’s permit changed to accommodate higher emissions levels to account for its need to keep the flare burning 24-7 until the stack can be redesigned in 2028.

B.C. election platforms on Indigenous Rights and DRIPA

One of Doerkson’s first public statements after becoming interim leader of the BC Conservatives was to declare his desire to repeal B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA.

The pledge, which is a top priority for the Conservatives, appears in the party’s platform under a section titled “protect private property rights” — despite the fact that DRIPA doesn’t deal with private property.

A Conservative government would pass a law requiring information about Aboriginal Title claims and ongoing negotiations to be made public. The proposed law would also publicize information about legal actions and agreements related to First Nations Rights and Title.

The party’s platform also promises to “restore equal access to Crown land and provincial parks,” a pledge that appears to target annual temporary closures of Pipi7íyekw/Joffre Lakes Park that restrict visits to members of Líl̓wat and N’Quatqua First Nations, whose unceded territories encompass the park. These reconnection periods have been taking place since 2023 and are intended to allow the Nations to conduct traditional harvesting, as well as ceremonial and cultural practices.

Under a BC Conservative government, reconciliation with First Nations would focus on “practical cooperation, clear and fair treaty agreements and economic opportunities,” per the platform. It emphasizes opportunities for First Nations to benefit from projects via revenue sharing and ownership opportunities.

The BC NDP platform doesn’t mention DRIPA but Eby confirmed near the beginning of the election campaign that he would stick to his plan to amend the law to block further court challenges.“We do have to respond to that court decision, it’s not up for debate,” he said on Sept. 25. “We’ve been working with First Nations over the summer to see if we can find a path forward that we all agree on.”

The Greens are promising to leave DRIPA as is and to work with First Nations to develop a process aimed at resolving disputes proactively as a way to avoid court cases — something some NDP MLAs have often stated the law was intended to do.The Greens are the only party with a dedicated Indigenous Rights section in their platform.

Protecting lands and waters in B.C.

An NDP government would stick with its commitment to protect 30 per cent of B.C.’s lands by 2030, a promise the party has been working on since 2022. 

In the party’s 2026 campaign platform, the 30-by-30 goal is linked to the Northwest Critical Conservation Corridor, a federal initiative announced by Prime Minister Mark Carney in November 2025 and referred to the Major Projects Office as a potential national interest project. According to the NDP, the corridor will “add protections to an area equivalent to 12,000 Stanley Parks, while enabling responsible natural resource development.”

The NDP is also promising to continue funding the Watershed Security Fund at $30 million per year. The fund was created in 2023 with a $100-million commitment from the province making this another stay-the-course pledge from the party.

The BC Conservative platform claims conservation is a conservative value but doesn’t offer many specific conservation-focused commitments. The party pledges to increase enforcement in parks and wilderness areas with more conservation officers in the field, and to establish sustainable fish and wildlife population objectives.The platform promises a science-based approach to wildlife management with input from hunters, anglers and First Nations. It also repeats a 2024 campaign commitment to develop a made-in-B.C. species-at-risk law. The Conservative platform doesn’t mention B.C.’s existing 30-by-30 commitment. In May 2024, former BC Conservative leader John Rustad told The Narwhal he would abandon the goal.

The Greens would make 30-by-30 a minimum goal. The party also promises to boost funding by BC Parks and recreation sites across B.C. to $114 million, a 50 per cent increase.

In its tourism strategy, the Green Party platform promises to put environmental impacts front and centre when considering development opportunities for new and existing tourism destinations.

The platform has a section dedicated to water management and protection, including a commitment to implement a proactive, long-term approach to protecting water security and ensuring industrial users pay a fair share for the water they use.

None of the party platforms mention the future of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs), which have been a key tool for advancing conservation efforts in B.C. and Canada. In northern B.C., members of the Kaska Nation say the snap election has slowed efforts to finalize protection of Dene Kʼéh Kusān, a proposed Indigenous-protected area that would cover one of the province’s largest intact wilderness areas.

B.C. election platforms on logging, old-growth forest protections

B.C.’s forestry industry has struggled for years with multiple mill closures and hundreds of jobs lost since the 2024 election. At the same time, the province’s forests have been impacted by wildfires and drought.

On the campaign trail, Eby pointed to the support his government secured from Ottawa to offset the impact of U.S. tariffs on softwood lumber and efforts to get more woodfibre to mills. The NDP platform promises to continue to support the forest industry by providing more cash for mills to upgrade their operations, spending $120 million to protect jobs at mills that are at risk of closing and focus on making sure mills get the fibre needed to keep operating.

The party’s promises to protect B.C.’s forests are less robust.

A re-elected NDP government would dedicate $50 million to permanently protect some of B.C.’s “most irreplaceable and rarest” old-growth forests. The party’s platform makes no mention of the 2020 old-growth strategic review, despite a 2024 campaign commitment to fulfill all of its recommendations.

The BC Conservatives are promising to do many of the same things the NDP has done but better, bigger and faster. The party’s forestry platform promises to make more trees available for harvest — but does not address how the party would ensure companies actually harvest the maximum amount allowed, something that has not happened in years due to largely to the dwindling availability of economically viable trees to log. The Conservatives are also promising to focus on streamlining permitting, reduce costs for forestry companies and support value-added manufacturing.

The platform projects Conservative forestry policies would double government revenue from stumpage fees by 2028-29. The 2026 provincial budget did not include a specific revenue estimate for stumpage but estimated total forestry-related revenues will increase 3.3 per cent per year through 2029.

A Conservative government would “encourage Indigenous participation in the forestry industry by investing in skills training” and dedicate a portion of federal funding for targeting the forest industry to First Nations.

The party is also promising to “resolve” the issue of old-growth deferrals by “protecting original old growth” and making the rest eligible for logging. The platform does not define original old growth but does say that B.C.’s “most endangered and rarest ecosystems” would also be protected.

The Green platform proposes shifting B.C. forestry from a fibre-supply model to one that prioritizes ecosystem health, wildfire resilience, cultural values and healthy communities. A Green government would permanently protect old-growth forests and large second-growth forests from logging, fully implement the old growth review’s recommendations and provide conservation financing to help First Nations replace forestry revenues in favour of protecting forests.

The Greens are also promising to ban the use of glyphosate and other chemical herbicides as part of forest management practices — a pledge the NDP and Conservatives both made in 2024.

Energy, electrification and renewables

Beyond boosting natural gas and LNG production, the BC Conservatives are promising to boost B.C.’s energy self-sufficiency, a commitment that would mean building a considerable amount of additional energy generation capacity. The province currently balances its energy needs through a mix of energy imported from other jurisdictions (mostly Alberta and western U.S. states) and locally generated power.The strategy, basically, is to use local sources when they are cheap and convenient and buy imported power — such as solar-generated power from California — when it is plentiful and cheap. To date, the strategy has worked out well, though recent drought conditions have put a squeeze on those margins. 

The Conservatives are committed to boosting B.C.’s energy production “from every available source,” according to its platform.

Boosting biomass production is a key part of the Conservatives’ energy pitch. The party is proposing to increase the use of logging and mill waste to make renewable fuels. On renewables, the Conservatives support wind, solar and small-scale hydro power “where economics and reliability make sense,” as well as geothermal projects where a business case can be made — i.e. with little investment from the provincial government.

Notably, the 2026 B.C. Conservative platform doesn’t mention nuclear power, a source the party touted as part of the solution to B.C.’s energy crunch during the 2024 election.Beyond increasing exports, a Conservative government would also consider opening the door to more natural gas power production in B.C. by making them eligible for BC Hydro’s call for energy project proposals. 

The Conservatives are also promising to “restore choice in energy for home heating and cooking” — a commitment to attacking restrictions and bans on natural gas use implemented by local governments — and overhaul B.C.’s Energy Step Code, which sets energy efficiency standards for new buildings.

While the NDP government hasn’t exactly shied away from natural gas as a power source, the party’s platform touts efforts to ensure nearly all of B.C.’s electricity is generated from renewable and low-emission sources.

An NDP government would continue funding for heat pump rebates to the tune of $50 million per year and dedicate $16 million to building out the province’s electric vehicle charging network. 

The Green platform promises to one-up the NDP on most of its existing energy promises. This includes heat pumps, insulation and energy-efficiency upgrades, restoring BC Hydro’s abandoned net-metering system for residential solar power and allowing plug-in balcony solar in B.C.The Green energy platform also emphasizes community-owned energy projects, an area where B.C. currently lags behind several provinces.

A Green government would ban oil and gas hookups for new homes and residential buildings and set a goal of using electricity to supply at least 35 per cent of B.C.’s total energy needs by 2035. Currently, about 20 per cent of all the power used in B.C. comes from electricity, according to the Canada Energy Regulator, while 34 per cent comes from petroleum products and 31 per cent is natural gas.The final voting day in the B.C. election is Oct. 24.

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On the eve of B.C.’s 44th general election, FortisBC’s bid to significantly expand its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production was given a key green light by the B.C. government.

Less than 24 hours before David Eby’s snap election call sent cabinet ministers out onto the campaign trail, Environment and Parks Minister Tamara Davidson and Energy and Climate Solutions Minister Adrian Dix announced the project received its environmental assessment certificate. The approval was issued roughly two months after the final public comment period on the project ended.

Environmental groups condemned the government’s speedy approval as a rubber stamp.

“Approving more new fossil fuel infrastructure in a climate crisis is reckless and irresponsible, and yet more evidence that Premier David Eby is happy to break his past promises on fighting climate change,” Isabel Siu-Zmuidzinas, climate campaigner with the Wilderness Committee, said.

The final press release from this version of the Eby government published on Sept. 21 touted the major expansion at Tilbury — a tenfold increase in the facility’s liquefied natural gas production capacity — as “a major economic, clean-energy opportunity for B.C.” But even if the expansion is powered by electricity, as planned, experts worry chemical emissions from the facility could affect the health of people living and working in nearby communities, including Delta, Richmond and New Westminster.

The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment has called for the B.C. government to fully assess the potential health impacts of the LNG industry, from the fracking fields in northern B.C. to LNG production and shipping facilities, like LNG Canada in Kitimat.

“If this industry is safe, the province should be willing to prove it before our families and our healthcare system pay the price,” Dr. Kai Irani, B.C. representative for the doctors’ association, said in the wake of the Tilbury Phase 2 approval.

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

The project’s environmental assessment certificate includes 18 conditions aimed at mitigating its impacts, including air quality monitoring and emission reduction. B.C.’s environmental assessment will inform the federal government’s own assessment of the project and pending decision on whether to approve Tilbury’s expansion.

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

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

Dix’s order prompted one of his fellow cabinet ministers to take the unusual step of speaking out against a government decision. Kelly Greene, who served as Minister of Emergency Preparedness and Climate Readiness, said she was disappointed with the decision to advance the Tilbury expansion. She has since decided not to seek re-election in the Richmond—Steveston riding she won in 2020.

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

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

B.C. is betting on major projects as Canada looks to open new markets and reduce its reliance on the U.S. Tilbury Phase 2 is among the 41 energy and mining projects the province has identified as a priority. 

Here’s what you need to know.

Why this project?

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

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

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

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

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

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

What’s different about Tilbury LNG?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What exactly will the expansion look like?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The federal government’s pending decision can now be informed by B.C.’s environmental assessment. This provincial environmental green light allows the federal process to continue moving, saving Tilbury LNG Phase 2 from lingering in limbo as the snap election unfolds.

Updated, Sept. 24, 2026 at 11:00 a.m. PT: This story incorrectly stated Isabel Siu-Zmuidzinas is a climate campaigner with Stand.earth, in fact she works for the Wilderness Committee. The story has been corrected.

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.

Pickering Nuclear Generating Station, which produces ten per cent of Ontario’s energy supply, will go fully offline next week.

Nicolle Butcher, president and CEO of Ontario Power Generation, told the gathering of investors, CEOs and politicians at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Canada Investment Summit on Monday that the plant, which has operated for 50 years, “will come out of service next week and we’ll start its refurbishment.” Butcher said it would be off-grid for five to seven years. 

The shutdown was expected this fall, with plans to begin repairs early next year, pending regulatory approval. The refurbishment is expected to last until the mid-2030s, enabling the plant to provide enough energy to power more than two million homes for an additional 30 years. Ontario has had two other nuclear facilities undergoing similar repairs: the update at Darlington just wrapped up, while the one at Bruce Power is ongoing. 

In the interim, the province will maintain its electricity supply largely by relying on natural gas — a fossil fuel composed mainly of the greenhouse gas methane. This is not a surprise. In 2021, the Independent Electricity System Operator cited aging nuclear facilities coupled with increasing demand as driving an increase in gas generation in the province.

Not everyone thinks the Pickering project is worth it. “The real question that Ontarians should be asking is: does the refurbishment of this plant make any sense?” Keith Brooks, a program director with a focus on energy at the advocacy group Environmental Defence, told The Narwhal. “It’s going to be more expensive than the Darlington and Bruce refurbishments” — themselves years-long, multibillion-dollar projects already pushing rates higher — “and meanwhile, wind and solar and batteries have come of age and come so far down in cost that a cheap, clean energy future is within our grasp, if only we’d reach for it.”

The Narwhal sent questions to Ontario Power Generation, a Crown corporation of the province, and Energy Minister Stephen Lecce’s office. Neither provided answer by publication time. Lecce’s office has not answered emailed questions from The Narwhal or granted requests for interviews since he took on the role in June 2024.

Here’s what you need to know.

Why is Pickering Nuclear Generating Station shutting down?

Simply, because it’s very old. 

Located just east of Toronto, Pickering Nuclear Generating Station has already been operating for an extended lifetime. It was originally slated to close in the early 2020s. Instead, since taking office, the Doug Ford government has extended its life. The plant became increasingly vital in closing a tightening energy supply gap fuelled by a growing population, and more recently data centres and electric vehicles. 

In 2022, the Ford government announced it would push Pickering’s youngest four reactors — Units 5 through 8, known as Pickering B — to run through September 2026, while Units 1 through 4, known as Pickering A, were permanently shut down. 

In October 2024, following public hearings that drew submissions from Ontario Power Generation, experts from the the federal Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and 54 intervenors, the plant was granted a further extension until Dec. 31, 2026. Around the same time, the province instructed Ontario Power Generation to begin planning a full refurbishment of Pickering B, rather than let those four reactors retire.

How does the Pickering refurbishment fit into Ontario’s broader energy plans?

Pickering’s refurbishment isn’t happening in isolation — it’s one piece of a much larger provincial rebuild that touches all three of Ontario’s major nuclear sites. Darlington, outside Bowmanville, Ont., just wrapped up its own years-long refurbishment — “on time and under budget,” according to the government and Ontario Power Generation. At the investment conference panel, Butcher said such efficiency “is not usual for a nuclear project.”

Bruce Power, in Kincardine, Ont., is mid-refurbishment right now, with a timeline that overlaps Pickering.

Ontario is also pursuing new nuclear construction. The province is advancing Canada’s first small modular reactor project at Darlington, and is separately looking at building an entirely new nuclear site at Wesleyville. But the timelines on those projects fan out over the next two decades, with the first of four small modular reactors expected to come online in 2030.

Bruce Power has also proposed four large new reactors at its site, which would be Canada’s first large-scale nuclear build in more than 30 years. And the Ontario government has already agreed to share the costs of the impact assessment with the company.

How much will the Pickering refurbishment cost Ontario taxpayers?

The government has approved a $26.8-billion budget for the Pickering refurbishment — more than double the $12.8 billion spent rebuilding Darlington. The government and Ontario Power Generation attribute the higher cost to Pickering’s age, which demands a heavier rebuild, plus inflation.

For Ontarians, the cost will show up most directly on power bills. Last year, Ontario Power Generation filed an application with the provincial energy regulator, the Ontario Energy Board, to roughly double the cost of nuclear-generated electricity. If approved, the increase would add an average of $3.50 to monthly household bills each year for the next five years, according to the Crown corporation. 

These rising costs come with a tradeoff: nuclear’s size and dependability versus its cost. Brooks is right about renewables — the International Energy Agency says solar, especially, is growing faster than any other energy source globally, becoming cheaper and more effective. 

Yet while Ontario does have some renewable projects in the works, overall, the Independent Electricity System Operator projects renewables will make up roughly the same share of Ontario’s electricity mix 25 years from now as they do today. This reflects the province’s bet on nuclear, rather than renewables, as the backbone of its energy plan.

What will replace the power provided by the Pickering nuclear plant?

A combination of natural gas, battery storage and electricity imports.

There is no nuclear facility that can make up the shortfall from Pickering’s shutdown. Darlington already provides 20 per cent of Ontario’s energy supply and, according to figures from the Independent Electricity System Operator, it doesn’t have any additional capacity to make up for the loss of Pickering. Neither does Bruce during its refurbishment. 

So the province’s electricity operator has been putting callouts for more natural gas generation to maintain a reliable power grid.

Battery storage is also playing a growing role. The Oneida Energy Storage Project, a 250-megawatt facility near Six Nations of the Grand River that opened in 2025, doubled Ontario’s battery storage capacity to 475 megawatts on its own, and the province has procured close to 1,800 megawatts more storage across other projects, expected online by 2028. Battery projects are able to store excess power when demand is low and deploy it when demand is high, helping to balance out the grid and its power sources.

The operator has projected the Pickering retirement and refurbishment outages will make Ontario a net importer of power for the first time since 2005 — with imports largely coming from the United States, a complicated prospect amid a tariff war. The system operator expects that balance of trade to return to exports once the nuclear refurbishments wrap up in the 2030s.

What happens next?

Canada’s nuclear regulator told The Narwhal it will be holding the second half of a public hearing starting Oct. 6 to decide whether to renew Pickering’s operating licences — for both the power plant and its waste storage facility — for another 10 years, and whether to approve the planned refurbishment. The hearing will be in Ajax, Ont., and last a week. 

Once the hearing wraps up and the regulator has all the input it needs, it’ll issue a decision, typically within four months.

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A leaked document, labelled a cabinet report and outlining possible plans to overhaul Alberta’s natural gas pipeline system to spur AI data centre construction, caused an uproar last week. 

It was top of mind for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on her weekly radio show, it was the subject of an Alberta NDP news conference and it was in media outlets of every stripe. But what exactly is the leaked document at the heart of the controversy and what does it actually mean?

The document, first obtained by The Narwhal, has spread far and wide, at least according to Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi. Multiple media outlets say they’ve received a copy, but the full details have not been made public. Until now. 

The document was leaked to The Narwhal by a government official whose identity is being kept confidential. The Narwhal verified they are in a position that would likely have access to such a document, and the provincial government did not deny its authenticity when it issued a statement in response to the leak.

The Narwhal is publishing a copy of the document it obtained, alongside an explanation of what it all means — and whether it is, as Smith’s government now suggests, merely one of many considerations it reviews on a regular basis. 

A copy of the document can be found here. The document will contain some typos, introduced by efforts to ensure the document’s source remains confidential.

Let’s dive in.

What’s the deal with that leaked document?

The document outlines plans for the province to overhaul how natural gas pipelines operate and are regulated within the province. 

According to the document, the recommended proposals for consideration include changing the regulations in Alberta to ensure all natural gas pipelines fall under provincial jurisdiction, and then also passing legislation that would allow the government to create two Crown corporations. One corporation could oversee the pipeline system and compel companies to make investments deemed a priority by the government, and the other could build and operate, or bankroll, new pipelines — and directly compete with existing private companies.

If the government doesn’t go for the recommendations, the document says there could be some combination of those interlocking options. For example, creating the Crown corporation that would oversee the system, but not the corporation that could build or bankroll new pipelines. There is also the option to continue with the status quo. 

The document includes timelines for cabinet decisions, as well as implementation. It also breaks down the estimated costs of implementing the changes, including the multimillion-dollar costs of possible legal battles with companies including TC Energy.TC Energy owns and operates the largest natural gas pipeline system in the province, called the Nova Gas Transmission pipeline, or NGTL. 

TC Energy and ATCO, another energy company mentioned in the document, did not respond to a detailed list of questions about the contents of the document by publication time.

In a statement released after the document was leaked, TC Energy said it is prepared to keep investing in its pipeline system to meet demand.“This will require all of us — industry, customers, regulators, governments, stakeholders and rightsholders — to come to the table and improve the conditions to get infrastructure built,” it reads.

“The key is working together to bring forward credible solutions, capital and capacity quickly enough to support Alberta’s growth and enable Canada to unlock the opportunity to meet the moment.”

Wait, why is Alberta considering this? Do we need pipelines for AI data centres?

The plans for natural gas expansion are not just about data centres, there is also reference to expanding oil and gas production, including access to natural gas for oilsands operations. 

But the expansion of AI data centres are front and centre throughout the document, which notes “the Government of Alberta is actively courting hyperscale data centre capital and other investors.”So why do we need gas for that?

The Alberta government is eager to host data centres in the province, with a line-up of potential projects that dwarf any other region in the country. The province, realizing there was no way to power all those projects, capped access to the electricity grid and told producers to build their own power if they want to get up and running. 

The draft rules for data centres require that electricity to be generated by natural gas, at least for now, part of a wider plan to increase production and demand for the resources.

In a recent interview with The Hub, the government argued bottlenecks in the natural gas pipeline network are an impediment to attracting and building more data centres, one of the key reasons it wants to incentivize, or force, expansions to natural gas pipelines.

TC Energy said in its statement that it has invested approximately $15 billion into expanding its Alberta network over the past ten years and plans to spend billions more. 

The document says it’s not moving fast enough.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says this is just spitballing, is that true?

The first thing Smith addressed on her weekly radio show on Sept. 12 was whether or not the province is considering spending billions to build new pipelines for data centres.“Short answer, no,” Smith said, in response to the question from host Wayne Nelson.

She then went on to add nuance to that hard “no.”

TC Energy has a “monopoly” on the gas pipeline system, she said, and the government wants other companies to build more access. 

“We would very unlikely have to create a Crown corporation to do it,” she said.

But the premier did not rule out compelling private companies to build more natural gas pipelines the government deems to be in the province’s best interests. 

One day earlier, after The Narwhal broke the news of the leaked document, the office of Alberta Energy Minister Brian Jean issued a statement.“Governments routinely examine a wide range of policy, regulatory and legislative options when considering complex issues, and internal materials do not represent government decisions,” it read.

Is this just a passing idea?

The Narwhal shared excerpts from the document with Shannon Phillips, a former environment minister in the NDP government between 2015 and 2019. Though she is not involved in the current deliberations, speaking from past experience with such documents she said she believes the document outlines a “serious plan.”

“This isn’t just the government blueskying,” she said. “They’re going to move.”

Lori Williams, a political science professor at Mount Royal University, agrees with Phillips. The Narwhal also shared excerpts of the leaked document with Williams.

 “This is a fairly well-developed plan with very short timelines, and this isn’t just a discussion about something that might happen someday,” she said based on her review. (Williams is not privy to any internal details about the government’s deliberations.) “This is something that’s got timelines for this month.”

According to the document, the plan went before a high-level cabinet committee on Sept. 10 and is scheduled to be presented to the full cabinet on Sept. 22. The document says it would then move to the government’s legislative review committee to draft new laws on Oct. 15 and then new regulations on Dec. 4. 

“The idea that it’s just a speculative exercise is harder to maintain when you’ve got timelines that begin this month,” Williams said. 

An internal government source, whose identity is being kept confidential due to professional risk, said the cabinet report is moving forward regardless of the statements made by Smith over the weekend.

A note on trust, integrity and unnamed sources+

This story uses information from sources The Narwhal has agreed not to name. The Narwhal only agrees to keep names confidential when we believe two things. First, that the person we’re speaking with is putting themselves at genuine risk, either personal or professional, by sharing this information with us. Second, that the information they’re sharing is in the public interest. Our decision to do so is never made lightly. 

There are two types of unnamed sources. A confidential source is someone whose name we know, but aren’t sharing. We make multiple attempts to verify their identity and information with other sources. If we aren’t able to get a second source, we say so. 

An anonymous source is someone whose name we don’t know. It is incredibly rare for The Narwhal to publish a story with a completely anonymous source. In these instances, we don’t publish until we have verified the information shared with us with at least one other source. 

And again, these stories must be in the public interest. 

As Canadian governments become increasingly secretive, the courage of whistleblowers is to be admired. We value them greatly. At the same time, our promise to readers is The Narwhal will always make sure the facts are airtight. 

Have something to share? Send us a story tip.

The Alberta government did not respond to questions about whether it was pursuing the plans outlined in the document by publication time.

What else is the Alberta government saying?

One item in the document raised particular concern for some, and was the focus of a news conference Nenshi hosted the same day The Narwhal published its story: cost for consumers.

The document warns the moves will likely increase costs for Albertans. One estimate in the document suggests the government’s aim is to almost double natural gas prices to support and expand production, which could see the cost to generate electricity rise by 25 per cent. That cost would then be passed down to consumers on their power bills, but the document does not predict those impacts. 

On her call-in show, Smith argued the opposite was true. 

“If you have constrained gas, and there’s more demand than there is supply, that’s what causes prices to go up,” she said. “And so what you need to do is you need to increase supply so prices stay low.”

That runs counter to estimates laid out in the document, the government’s own ambitions. It also runs counter to outside analysis.

How could the plan in this document affect your power bills?

Data centres consume vast quantities of power. One hyperscale data centre can consume as much power as the entire city of Edmonton, or more. That also means they consume vast quantities of natural gas in their power plants. 

It’s one reason why the government has explicitly linked increased natural gas demand with the data centre buildout, and argued the increased demand will help natural gas producers and the government’s own bottom line through increased royalties. 

Analysis from the Pembina Institute estimates the recently announced Meta data centre near Edmonton alone could add $270 to $460 to electricity bills each year.

Beyond the cost of gas, there is also concern with the potential costs passed down to taxpayers from lawsuits, the construction and operation of pipelines or the creation of a new corporation to oversee the pipeline network.

Sonya Savage, an energy minister under premier Jason Kenney, told the Calgary Herald this week that government interventions in the market can be a big gamble. 

“It makes me very nervous, because there is not a great track record,” Savage said in the wake of the document leak.

“But [if] the private sector is not prepared to invest in projects that are in the public interest — and have public merit and benefits — then I’m not opposed to the government looking and researching.”

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How can you tell when a Crown corporation is fulfilling its obligations and goals?

For BC Hydro, one place to start is the provincial utility’s annual service plan report. Released every year, usually in late summer, the document outlines the utility’s finances and progress toward specific goals and objectives. Within its pages, phrases like “meet growing customer demand” are examined through performance metrics, such as whether it has achieved the goal of freeing up 350 gigawatt hours through energy efficiency and conservation programs (for 2025-26, the answer was yes, plus an extra 111 gigawatt hours).

Did BC Hydro cut greenhouse gas emissions from its operations by 44 per cent? Page 12 of the most recent report confirms the Crown corporation did even better, reducing its emissions by 56 per cent (mostly because the natural gas-powered Fort Nelson generating station ran less often than expected).

Among all these straightforward answers, one important piece of information is harder to find. Was all of the power generated or bought by BC Hydro in the past year clean electricity?

BC Hydro has been publicly reporting its achievements related to the province’s climate targets in its annual service plan report for fifteen years. Currently, the clean electricity standard requires all electricity BC Hydro sells in the province or exports to other markets come from low-emissions sources. By 2030, the provincial government has directed the Crown corporation to completely phase out fossil-fuel generated electricity.

But BC Hydro’s 2025-26 annual report does not mention the clean electricity standard at all. 

In 2024-25, BC Hydro met that objective, according to that year’s annual report. But its most recent report lacks that declaration, as former BC Utilities Commissioner Richard Mason recently noticed.

“The loss of transparency is a problem; we should be told whether the provincially-owned utility is meeting these objectives,” Mason wrote in a post on his website, Just and Reasonable. BC Hydro has also removed the clean electricity standard from the list of corporate objectives in its most recent service plan, he noted.

In a statement, BC Hydro told The Narwhal it whittled the performance measures in its service plan from 28 to 12, “focusing on key strategic priorities and aligning with benchmarking practices used by comparable North American utilities.”

Going forward, the statement said information about BC Hydro’s achievement of the clean electricity standard will be published in its annual sustainability report published in August. In 2026, BC Hydro fell just short of the standard at 99 per cent, according to the report.

Clean electricity metrics should be ‘front and centre’ in BC Hydro’s plan: experts

Mason argues the clean electricity standard performance metric should be part of BC Hydro’s main annual report. 

“I believe it has the most value in an annual report because you can put the climate reporting in context with everything else that BC Hydro is doing,” he told The Narwhal in an interview.

BC Hydro publicly communicates about its activities, achievements and finances across several reports, some of which are updated yearly, including the sustainability and annual reports. Others, like the service plan and integrated resource plan, publish less frequently. In addition, the utility releases unscheduled updates and quarterly financials. 

Anyone interested in deeply understanding what BC Hydro is up to and how it is fulfilling its obligations has to wade through a lot of information, noted Mark Zacharias, an adjunct professor in the public administration school at the University of Victoria.

“BC Hydro has a legal requirement to supply 100 per cent clean electricity by 2030,” Zacharias, a former executive director of Clean Energy Canada, told The Narwhal. “With growing industrial loads, an electrifying economy and a changing climate, how BC Hydro will meet this requirement is an important conversation that should be front and centre in the annual service plan.”

There are other reasons to wonder about the ongoing importance of BC Hydro’s clean electricity commitments. Earlier this year, the Crown corporation submitted an argument to the BC Utilities commission that its obligations under the Clean Energy Act, which requires it to generate and purchase enough energy to meet demand, trumps the direction to phase out fossil fuels by 2030. 

Weeks after BC Hydro’s submission, Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions Adrian Dix announced BC Hydro’s intent to purchase Island Generation, a natural gas-powered plant in Campbell River. Natural gas is largely made up of methane, a fossil fuel that traps heat in the atmosphere and drives climate change. 

To Green MLA Jeremy Valeriote, BC Hydro appears to be “making up for lost time in terms of not having anticipated demand,” which is projected to rise 20 per cent by 2030 and 50 per cent by 2050.

That surge in demand is driven largely by mining and liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects, as well as increasing numbers of electric vehicles and heat pumps in B.C. homes.

“Suddenly, that’s used to justify any number of non-clean electrical sources,” Valeriote said.

He described the removal of the clean electricity standard reporting from BC Hydro’s annual report as disheartening.

“It’s the slow whittling away of some of the principles that were being applied,” he added.

Sourcing more electricity does seem to have become a top priority for BC Hydro, Mason said, partly as a way to secure economic growth.

“Growing electricity production in the province is a good thing,” he said. “I suspect, however, they’ve realized they can’t do it all with clean electricity.”

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Naheed Nenshi, the NDP leader of Alberta’s Opposition, is accusing Premier Danielle Smith of a scheme that could increase power bills for Albertans “so she can build AI data centres for her foreign billionaire friends.” 

The comments come from a news conference organized by the NDP in response to reporting by The Narwhal on a leaked document — labelled a “cabinet report” and bearing the Alberta government logo — that appears to show the provincial government is planning to take control of Alberta’s natural gas pipeline system to increase both supply and demand. 

The document outlines plans to wrest regulatory control over the province’s main natural gas transmission line, called the Nova Gas Transmission pipeline, owned and operated by TC Energy, away from the federal Canada Energy Regulator, and to create two new government-owned corporations. One of those Crown corporations could force companies to build natural gas pipeline expansions based on government priorities, while the other could build and operate the pipelines itself. 

Those moves, according to the document, would raise prices on ordinary Albertans and businesses, but would bring in more royalties for the government. 

“Let me reiterate this: Danielle Smith is rolling out the red carpet for data centres, and that will cause higher electricity prices, and she doesn’t care if it spikes your electricity and your heating bills,” Nenshi said.

Detailed questions were sent to several Alberta ministries prior to publication of the original story, but the government did not respond by publication time. 

Late Friday afternoon, the office of Minister of Energy and Minerals Brian Jean sent a statement to The Narwhal in response to a follow-up email asking for comment on the original story.

“Governments routinely examine a wide range of policy, regulatory and legislative options when considering complex issues, and internal materials do not represent government decisions,” it said.

“An increasing number of project proponents across a variety of industries have raised concerns about accessing industrial quantities of natural gas in several regions of Alberta. We are working with industry, including the natural gas infrastructure owners, to better understand these issues and identify practical solutions that support future growth and investment.”

The document on which the reporting was based was leaked to The Narwhal by a source within the Alberta government, whose identity is being kept confidential due to personal and professional risks stemming from the leak. 

A note on trust, integrity and unnamed sources+

This story uses information from sources The Narwhal has agreed not to name. The Narwhal only agrees to keep names confidential when we believe two things. First, that the person we’re speaking with is putting themselves at genuine risk, either personal or professional, by sharing this information with us. Second, that the information they’re sharing is in the public interest. Our decision to do so is never made lightly. 

There are two types of unnamed sources. A confidential source is someone whose name we know, but aren’t sharing. We make multiple attempts to verify their identity and information with other sources. If we aren’t able to get a second source, we say so. 

An anonymous source is someone whose name we don’t know. It is incredibly rare for The Narwhal to publish a story with a completely anonymous source. In these instances, we don’t publish until we have verified the information shared with us with at least one other source. 

And again, these stories must be in the public interest. 

As Canadian governments become increasingly secretive, the courage of whistleblowers is to be admired. We value them greatly. At the same time, our promise to readers is The Narwhal will always make sure the facts are airtight. 

Have something to share? Send us a story tip.

The moves could cost billions of public dollars if the government builds its own pipelines, according to the document. The document estimates it will cost more than $160 million just to institute the changes and fight anticipated legal battles with companies such as TC Energy, or potentially First Nations. “There may also be litigation risk from Indigenous communities and organizations where they believe that they have not been meaningfully engaged from early on in any proposed projects,” the document reads.

Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation Chief Sheldon Sunshine said his community, which is fighting a massive data centre proposal in northern Alberta led by celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary, is “outraged” by the details outlined in the document, which he says he has independently reviewed.

“For years, our Nation has been fighting for meaningful consultation and effective regulation of hyper-scale data centres — including the massive O’Leary Project,” he said in a statement sent to The Narwhal. Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation is not specifically named in the leaked document.

“Now we find out that the United Conservative Party government is trying to artificially drive up the demand for natural gas to lure even more of these data centres to Alberta — all while knowing that this would trample our Treaty Rights and send electricity prices soaring for all Albertans.”

The document estimates building a pipeline to meet government expectations could cost as much as $6 billion. The capacity from that new pipeline could provide enough gas for six gigawatts of power generation for data centres, according to the document. A recently rejected AI data centre near Olds, Alta., would have required a 1.4-gigawatt power plant and used as much power each day as the City of Edmonton.

According to information on TC Energy’s website, the company has invested approximately $15 billion into the Nova Gas Transmission system since 2015, with double the capacity increases outlined in the document.

The document points to the need to feed natural gas to AI data centres as a primary motivation for the moves, but also highlights desired growth in the oil and gas sector, saying “the Government of Alberta is actively courting hyper-scale data centre capital and other investors.”

Nenshi, who said he has now seen the leaked document himself, was blunt. 

“This report makes it clear that their strategy all along was to do whatever they could to increase natural gas prices, to promote the government’s own bottom line due to their own fiscal mismanagement,” he said. The document suggests the moves could increase royalties to the government while consumers could end up paying higher prices for their natural gas and electricity bills under the proposed plan.

Document leaked by whistleblower for whom Canada affords little protection: expert

According to David Hutton, a senior fellow with the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University, whistleblowers who leak sensitive information to the media run a considerable risk, from losing their jobs, friendships or families through divorce.

He said Canada is “back of the bus” when it comes to protections.  

“International experts have done surveys of various countries and rated them, and we come out at the bottom,” he said in an interview. The federal government has a whistleblower program, but Hutton said there’s never been compensation awarded through it. 

Provincial laws are similar to the federal protections, including Alberta’s, and “are really not of any value,” he said. 

He stresses how crucial it is for public-interest information to see the light of day. As The Narwhal has reported, this is becoming increasingly difficult in Canada as multiple levels of government tighten freedom of information legislation. 

“Research done over decades now has consistently shown that tips from whistleblowers account for usually more than 40 per cent of all of the frauds that are uncovered [globally],” he said, highlighting one aspect of information that is shared.

There is no indication of fraud in the leaked document in Alberta. 

The plans outlined in the document single out TC Energy, which owns and operates the largest gas pipeline system in the province, as a likely source for legal action pushing back against the plans, due to the impacts on its business. 

The company did not respond to questions for the original article or for this follow up. 

Nenshi said he has not yet spoken with representatives from the company after the revelations were made public, but intends to. 

“To actually say government wants to step in in order to hurt people, and that government is strong-arming a company to make billions of dollars in investments that they don’t want to make, with the threat of competing with them if they don’t?” he said. “That’s textbook bullying behaviour. It’s also bad economics and it’s bad business.”

Document points to constraints imposed by feds, says Alberta seeks to ‘achieve greater control’

The document points the finger not just at TC Energy, but also at constraints imposed by the federal regulation of the natural gas transmission network.

“Federal regulatory oversight … is now compounding Alberta’s gas access challenges,” the document reads, adding this oversight “has caused growing concern about the pace of infrastructure development for the [natural gas transmission network].”

The document suggests moving TC Energy’s Alberta pipelines back under provincial regulatory control and under the authority of one of the new government corporations.

Some pipeline networks within the province are already under provincial jurisdiction, including the ATCO distribution network that interconnects with TC Energy’s system. ATCO operates approximately 8,500 kilometres of pipelines in Alberta, whereas the Nova Gas Transmission pipeline, the province’s main natural gas transmission line operated by TC Energy, is about 25,000 kilometres.

“Without provincial regulatory oversight, the Government of Alberta is limited in its ability to compel federally regulated pipelines to invest in capacity expansions,” reads the document.

“Due to the federally regulated [natural gas transmission line] system being fully subscribed, the province cannot guarantee the timely expansion of gas transmission capacity required to support new demand.”

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Editor’s note: Go here to read The Narwhal’s story on the backlash that followed this investigation.

Alberta is so determined to usher in a wave of AI data centres and increase oil and gas production that it is considering rewriting legislation and creating government-owned corporations that would force private companies to invest in natural gas pipeline expansions — or allow the government to build and operate those pipelines itself — according to a document leaked to The Narwhal. It’s also willing to pay for any legal challenges that follow. 

The document — labelled a “cabinet report” and bearing the Alberta government logo — contains a broad swath of recommendations it indicates were prepared for the Energy and Minerals Ministry led by Minister Brian Jean, and says it was scheduled to be presented to a high-level cabinet policy committee on Sept. 10.

The document says private ownership of natural gas transmission pipelines is throttling growth and that “escalatory and direct measures are now required,” especially as “the Government of Alberta is actively courting hyper-scale data centre capital and other investors.”

The document notes Alberta risks losing investment from AI data centre companies if it can’t come up with “speed-to-market” solutions.

According to the document, the government has been in talks with TC Energy, which owns and operates Alberta’s main natural gas pipeline system, since 2024 in an attempt to force the company to invest in new pipeline capacity, but the company refuses to build based on “speculative demand.” TC Energy did not respond to detailed questions.

Talks with the company stalled, according to the document, after the company pitched a plan that would involve the province assuming more financial liability for the pipeline system and forcing higher rates on those who use it. 

“Discussions continued until 2026 and escalated with the premier’s involvement,” reads the document. “Extensive discussions with TC Energy [have] produced no viable solutions to date.”

The document is critical of TC Energy’s track record, saying the company’s “underinvestment in [natural gas] pipeline capacity has caused a market failure in the natural gas sector leaving key growth regions unable to access gas,” calling the result a “dysfunctional natural gas pipeline network.”

The document was leaked to The Narwhal by a government official whose identity is being kept confidential. The Narwhal has verified they are in a position that would likely have access to such a document. The Narwhal has not been able to independently verify the authenticity of the document, but Alberta’s lobbyist registry confirms TC Energy has been in talks with government officials regarding “increased support for gas market access,” as well as discussions on “strategic natural gas initiatives.”

A note on trust, integrity and unnamed sources+

This story uses information from sources The Narwhal has agreed not to name. The Narwhal only agrees to keep names confidential when we believe two things. First, that the person we’re speaking with is putting themselves at genuine risk, either personal or professional, by sharing this information with us. Second, that the information they’re sharing is in the public interest. Our decision to do so is never made lightly. 

There are two types of unnamed sources. A confidential source is someone whose name we know, but aren’t sharing. We make multiple attempts to verify their identity and information with other sources. If we aren’t able to get a second source, we say so. 

An anonymous source is someone whose name we don’t know. It is incredibly rare for The Narwhal to publish a story with a completely anonymous source. In these instances, we don’t publish until we have verified the information shared with us with at least one other source. 

And again, these stories must be in the public interest. 

As Canadian governments become increasingly secretive, the courage of whistleblowers is to be admired. We value them greatly. At the same time, our promise to readers is The Narwhal will always make sure the facts are airtight. 

Have something to share? Send us a story tip.

Detailed questions sent to the premier’s office, including for confirmation of details in the document, were sent to the press secretaries for the premier and the ministers of affordability and utilities, energy and minerals, jobs, economy, trade and immigration, and treasury board and finance. There was no response by publication time. 

There was also no response to an email and phone call to Vitor Marciano, the chief of staff to the energy minister.

Late Friday afternoon, following the morning publication of this story, the office of Minister of Energy and Minerals Brian Jean sent a statement to The Narwhal saying “Governments routinely examine a wide range of policy, regulatory and legislative options when considering complex issues, and internal materials do not represent government decisions.”

“An increasing number of project proponents across a variety of industries have raised concerns about accessing industrial quantities of natural gas in several regions of Alberta,” it added. “We are working with industry, including the natural gas infrastructure owners, to better understand these issues and identify practical solutions that support future growth and investment.”

According to the document, the full slate of proposals for cabinet consideration include taking regulatory control for the pipeline transmission network operated by TC Energy away from the federal Canada Energy Regulator, creating a Crown corporation that would guide pipeline construction based on government forecasting, and another Crown corporation that would oversee, or build and operate, its own pipelines. 

That would give the government the power to control some private investment decisions, including directing companies to build pipelines, and it could also make the government a direct competitor of companies such as TC Energy. 

The document argues the moves are necessary to rapidly build natural gas pipeline capacity to help increase oil and gas production and spur data centre growth. The government’s data centre strategy explicitly encourages the use of natural gas for power generation. 

Since the release of that strategy, the government has restricted AI data centre access to the provincial grid until 2028 because there is not enough power to fuel demand and keep the lights on. Developers are required to build their own power supply, which is currently restricted to natural gas power plants.

Albertans could be on the hook for hundreds of millions — or billions — to help support power for AI data centres: document

The moves could cost Albertans. 

The document is clear one of the main drivers of the plan, in addition to increasing the province’s oil and gas production, is attracting AI data centres to the province. “Alberta’s ability to attract and retain data centre investment depends on reliable access to natural gas service,” the document says. 

The recommended changes would result in “significant legal and cost impacts for the Government of Alberta,” according to the document, as well as likely result in “increases for utility ratepayers.”

The document notes Albertans may be “sensitive” to what it calls “any change in perceived affordability.”

The preliminary estimated cost of the proposed changes, including the planning and creation of Crown corporations and potential ensuing legal battles, could exceed $162 million, according to estimates in the document, but that does not include possible infrastructure costs.

The document estimates building a pipeline to meet government expectations could cost as much as $6 billion. The capacity from that new pipeline could provide enough gas for six gigawatts of power generation for data centres, according to the document. A recently rejected AI data centre near Olds, Alta., would have required a 1.4-gigawatt power plant and used as much power each day as the City of Edmonton.

The total cost includes anticipated litigation from TC Energy and other companies, including concerns over “significant claims for compensation” for “alleged expropriation of valuable contractual rights.” 

The document warns First Nations could also initiate lawsuits. 

The moves could also make things more expensive for residents and businesses by driving up the price of natural gas, according to the document.

“While low prices benefit customers (Albertans and industrial users), they limit provincial royalty revenues and can discourage natural gas investment by reducing producer revenues,” the document reads. 

“Increased natural gas demand could contribute to higher costs for households, businesses and gas-intensive industries, which could deflect stakeholder support.”

The document also notes “potential disproportionate impacts on seniors and rural residents can be mitigated by monitoring affordability and exploring mitigation measures specific to households and small businesses.”

The government’s aim is to almost double natural gas prices to support and expand production, which would increase the cost of electricity generation by up to 25 per cent, based on calculations in the document. 

It’s unclear exactly what that could mean for Albertans’ power bills, but those costs could be passed down to Albertans, who the document warns could be upset about government spending and increased costs. 

A recent analysis from the Pembina Institute, estimates the recently announced Meta data center near Edmonton could add $270 to $460 to electricity bills each year.

The document suggests government messaging could sell the plan to Albertans to “help strengthen social licence.”

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Updated on Sept. 13, 2026, at 2:11 p.m. MT: This article was updated to include a statement from the office of Minister of Energy and Minerals Brian Jean. The statement was received after publication of the article. No response was received to questions sent in advance of publication.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s what you need to know.

Table of Contents

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

Why this project?

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

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

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

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

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

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

What’s different about Tilbury LNG?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What exactly will the expansion look like?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are the next steps for the proposed expansion?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s everything you need to know.

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

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

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

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

How does a data centre get built in Ontario?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How will data centres impact Ontario’s electricity demand?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How will data centres impact Ontario’s water usage?

We don’t know yet. 

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

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

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

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

What are Ontario municipalities doing about data centres?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Summary

• Internal documents show LNG Canada’s original plans for the project included a commitment that operations would not include routine flaring. 
• While LNG Canada and the B.C. government have promoted the site as an environmental leader, the facility burned about 350 million cubic metres of gas in its first year of operation.
• LNG Canada did not directly respond to questions about the removal of the commitments and said it is currently working to “reduce flaring and progress toward steady, long-term operations.”

This story is a collaboration between The Narwhal and Point Source, a U.K.-based investigative journalism organization.

LNG Canada, the country’s first major liquefied natural gas export facility on B.C.’s West Coast, has made international headlines over the past year — for burning off the gas it should have been exporting. 

An issue with one of the facility’s flare stacks has caused the plant to burn off extra gas since starting up in late 2024. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Early versions of LNG Canada’s operational plans included detailed environmental commitments — and a promise the Kitimat, B.C., plant would operate “without routine flaring.”

In 2019, the consortium of five foreign-owned companies behind the multi-billion-dollar project told the BC Energy Regulator its massive gas liquefaction and export facility would have minimum disturbance to the local community, assuring the provincial government the plant would be built to specifications that would ensure flaring — the burning of unused gas — would only need to be done in extraordinary circumstances. 

These promises appeared in multiple versions of regulatory reports submitted to the B.C. government. Six versions of the reports — drafts of LNG Canada’s flaring management plans marked as “restricted” — were included in hundreds of pages of government documents obtained by The Narwhal and UK-based investigative journalism outlet Point Source. 

In November 2023, the commitments vanished from the latest drafts — and remained absent from all subsequent drafts and the final version. The removal of commitments close to completion raises fresh questions about whether potential problems during construction may have led the company to downgrade its environmental targets.

A few months later, the mega-project started its commissioning process. Then came the flaring.

As The Narwhal and Point Source previously reported, LNG Canada burned approximately 350 million cubic metres of gas in 2025, making it one of the most polluting LNG facilities in the world. Some unplanned flaring events included multiple occurrences of flames reaching heights of 90 metres, roughly as tall as London’s Big Ben, along with plumes of black smoke settling over the community. 

“The fact that LNG Canada showed the regulator multiple draft documents which all said that the facility would not flare on a routine basis was beyond misleading,” Tim Doty, a former state oil and gas inspector from Texas, said in an interview. “This was totally false information.”

During his tenure with the Texas government, Doty managed thousands of air quality monitoring projects as part of environmental assessments of industrial facilities. He’s now a consultant who works on behalf of companies and organizations to assess and monitor emissions at oil and gas facilities around the globe. 

Unnecessary flaring of gas essentially wastes the resource — and creates carbon pollution.

Even after LNG Canada quietly dropped its planned commitment to operate without routine flaring, stakeholders continued to tout its environmental credentials. In June 2025, Shell CEO Wael Sawan said LNG Canada would be “one of the lowest-carbon [LNG] projects anywhere in the world,” speaking at the Energy Asia conference in Malaysia. 

B.C. Premier David Eby echoed the claim in July that year, saying gas processed at the Kitimat terminal is the “lowest-carbon LNG in the world.”

Many experts now say these claims were fundamentally untrue.

Christopher Doleman, an LNG and gas specialist at the U.S.-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said the volume of flaring at the facility “undermines claims being made” about low-carbon LNG.

“Statements that have been made by officials saying that the LNG is the cleanest in the world now seem to be completely untrue,” he previously told The Narwhal.

The premier’s office did not reply to a request for an interview, referring questions to the Energy Ministry, which acknowledged it received the questions but ultimately did not respond.

LNG Canada did not directly respond to questions about the removal of the commitments and said it is currently working to “reduce flaring and progress toward steady, long-term operations.”

‘An extremely big polluter’: former oil and gas inspector

LNG Canada flared a minimum of 127,900 cubic metres of gas every day in 2025, with the daily average being much higher: almost one million cubic metres. Government data show 3,648 million cubic metres of gas were sent to the facility last year via the Coastal GasLink pipeline, meaning almost 10 per cent of all gas transported to the terminal was burned off without being used for power or exported.

The average household in Canada consumed around 2,216 cubic metres of natural gas in 2024, according to the Canadian Gas Association. That means LNG Canada burned off the equivalent amount of gas that could have provided energy to 157,942 homes.

Yet, LNG Canada’s documents submitted to the provincial government claim environmental excellence. 

“LNG Canada’s ‘commitment and policy on health, safety, security, environment and social performance’ focuses on ways to avoid and minimize negative environmental and social impacts resulting from our operations and enhance the positive impacts in a systematic manner,” the early documents noted.

Doty said regulatory plans for LNG facilities are often subject to multiple revisions by the government regulator. 

“It is normal for there to be a bit of back and forth between the operator and the regulator when documents are being prepared that are associated with operating permits which allow the company to release pollution,” he explained. “However, it does seem strange that these documents contained these environmental pledges that were later scrapped entirely.”

The BC Energy Regulator told The Narwhal and Point Source the early versions of the reports “included commitments and commentary that were outside of the intended scope of the report and not consistent with the design of their facility.”

“Routine flaring is authorized for specific purposes, including pilot systems, continuous purge systems, passing valves, manual sampling systems and online process analyzers,” a regulator spokesperson explained in a detailed response to questions.

Doty questioned whether the designs were ever intended for a facility that would operate without routine flaring or if something happened while building the plant. 

“You can see from the way that this facility was designed that there was always supposed to be some kind of combustion going on — and with that comes emissions,” he said, adding additional problems may have occurred early in the commissioning process.

The regulator spokesperson disagreed with the theory that the plant was designed for high rates of flaring. 

“The [BC Energy Regulator’s] reviews of the facility and LNG Canada’s submissions during design and construction … did not identify factors that would have contributed to increased flaring rates during operation,” the spokesperson noted.

James Smith, a Kitimat community member whose name has been changed to protect his family from potential repercussions, worked on the project during construction. He said he witnessed numerous problems on the job site, ultimately leading him to quit.

“They cut corners: it was about timelines and money,” he said. “They knew even before the flare arrived, before they started building it, that it wasn’t going to work. That was the word on the ground.”

The Narwhal could not independently verify Smith’s claims, and LNG Canada did not respond to questions about alleged problems during construction. 

In January, The Narwhal revealed an “integrity issue” with the facility’s flaring equipment resulted in LNG Canada burning significantly more gas than expected — and discovered it could take three to five years to fix.

The issue was identified shortly after the LNG plant started testing its equipment in late 2024, if not before, but the government regulator did not learn about the problem until April 2025.

“I’ve been assessing and monitoring facilities in the oil and gas sector for more than 30 years, and I can tell you that LNG Canada is an extremely big polluter,” Doty said. “In my opinion, it should not be allowed to operate with such excessive emission levels.”

The facility is currently operating with a cracked flare tip as well as several leaking valves, according to previous reporting from The Narwhal and technical reports since the issue was identified. A flare tip, which sits at the top of the flare stack, helps ensure the safe combustion of the gas.

The technical problems have increased the risk of flames from flares retreating back into the system’s pipes and causing an explosion. To stop this from happening, LNG Canada has substantially increased the gas flows to all of the facility’s flares.

“A replacement flare tip is currently being installed,” a spokesperson for the consortium wrote in an emailed statement. “While the replacement is expected to improve flare tip integrity, a longer-term redesigned tip is being developed.”

LNG Canada wants the B.C. government to let it increase flaring tenfold

Earlier this year, LNG Canada revealed it was planning to ask the B.C. regulator to increase its flaring limit tenfold for the next three years. The company’s deputy chief operating officer, Teresa Waddington, disclosed the plans during a Kitimat council meeting in March and at a recent presentation to Kitimat residents.

If approved, the new limit would allow the company to continually flare up to 300 tonnes of gas per day, an increase from its current limit of 28 tonnes per day. The company said the new, more permissive flaring limit would help accommodate operational problems which have led to higher-than-anticipated flaring volumes.

LNG Canada told The Narwhal and Point Source the proposed amendment is “not expected to materially increase emissions in the local air shed.”

“The original … authorization was based on long-term, stable operating conditions and did not reflect the higher flaring volumes typically seen during start-up and early operations at an LNG facility,” the spokesperson wrote. “LNG Canada is requesting a temporary, three-year provision that reflects overall flaring during the early operations period.”

However, flare tips are large and complex pieces of equipment and can take more than a year to procure, according to Waddington. As a result, she said LNG Canada wants to keep purging extra gas to prevent the flames from spreading downward into the pipes, likely until 2028.

“LNG Canada has said that it’s going to take three years to replace the flare [tip], but I can tell you that it doesn’t take three years to replace a flare [tip] like this,” Doty said. “The plant should be shut down. It should be properly repaired and engineered and then started back up again.”

Tracey Saxby, a marine scientist and executive director of non-profit environmental organization My Sea to Sky, worries LNG Canada is setting a precedent that other liquefaction and export facilities will follow.

“Woodfibre LNG in Squamish has estimated that flaring during startup will last for one month, with intermittent flare events of three to four days,” she said in an interview. “After that, during regular operations, they are saying they will only flare three per cent of the time, which is 11 days a year. But after what we have seen at LNG Canada and other facilities worldwide, this seems unrealistic.”

She said the excessive flaring at LNG Canada held against its previously stated commitments demonstrates there is “nothing anyone can do if the operator of one of these facilities breaks its promises about pollution.”

The regulator said it is “actively overseeing LNG Canada’s progress on short-term and long-term corrective actions and measures to reduce flaring from all facility flare systems.” 

“[BC Energy Regulator] technical experts review flaring and air contaminant discharge information submitted by LNG Canada, conduct inspections and take compliance actions where required,” the spokesperson noted, adding an “investigation into potential non-compliances is ongoing.”Updated on July 31, 2026, at 5:39 a.m. PT: This story has been updated to correct a statement that the BC Energy Regulator has promoted the LNG Canada facility as an environmental leader. It is the B.C. government that has made that claim.

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Summary

• The Alberta government is hoping to attract $100 billion worth of data centres to the province over the next four years. If built, the data centres would require enormous amounts of electricity to operate.
• With a cap on how much electricity data centres can purchase from the provincial grid, most will have to generate their own power by burning natural gas, a fossil fuel.
• A global surge in demand for natural gas plant infrastructure is driving up costs and extending wait-lists, calling into question how realistic Alberta’s data centre ambitions are.

The Alberta government has big ambitions for AI data centres, but those dreams will have to contend with the harsh reality of a heated global competition for electricity. 

Around the world, there is a shortage of turbines used in natural gas power plants, as more and more electricity generation is built to feed hungry data centres. Estimates for wait times to obtain the critical components are now upwards of five years. Prices have also increased dramatically. 

That has serious implications for Alberta’s plan to attract $100 billion worth of data centres over the next four years, not only in terms of how quickly the facilities can be built, but also at what cost. 

As if to drive the point home, the province joined private industry on July 2 for the announcement of the $4.6 billion Greenlight natural gas power plant, which is 2.6 times more expensive than a similar sized power plant completed by the same company two years ago. That plant will feed electricity to a $15 billion Meta data centre.

“We’re definitely seeing the impact of that turbine supply crunch,” Will Noel, senior electricity analyst with the Pembina Institute, says. 

These power plants burn natural gas, a source of the potent greenhouse gas methane, to spin turbines that generate electricity. Natural gas power generation accounts for approximately 77 per cent of Alberta’s electricity grid.

The turbine shortage comes on the heels of the province’s overhaul of its electricity market, a move that has stalled power plant investment as companies wait for more certainty before committing. It also follows the government’s crackdown on renewable power generation, which decimated the market for wind and solar in Alberta.

Data centre developers face lengthy waits and a highly competitive process if they want to connect to Alberta’s grid, but can move quickly if they build their own power supply — which the grid operator requires to be natural gas, at least for now. 

The operator, in response to questions from The Narwhal, said that’s because developers must be able to meet their power demand at all times.

“Renewables and stand-alone storage are currently excluded because of weather dependency and duration limitations,” a spokesperson said by email. “As of now, they are not qualified to reliably offset a data centre’s around-the-clock draw the way dispatchable gas generation can.”

New technologies could change that, according to the operator. 

If the proposed data centres don’t already have their turbines ordered, it’s going to be a long wait. 

Noel says we don’t actually know how many of the 41 data centre centre proposals in Alberta as of July 7 have finalized designs and parts on order. It’s also not known if any will eventually connect to the grid. 

“This is obviously speculation,” he says, “but I imagine most of these data centres don’t have turbines ordered.”

The global turbine shortage

Across the world, but particularly in the U.S., data centres are being built at a furious pace. That, along with a broader turn to electrification and production challenges, is creating a bottleneck for turbines and additional power plant components. 

A report from Bloomberg says the cost of building a natural gas plant in the U.S. increased 66 per cent between 2023 and 2025, while the time it takes to complete construction has increased 23 per cent in the same time period. 

The pressure to build and the lack of components is creating bidding wars on turbines and swelling the bottom lines for turbine manufacturers.

GE Vernova, one of the few large-scale turbine suppliers, saw significant growth last year and into 2026, and has a backlog of orders that account for 100 gigawatts of potential power supply. (For reference, that’s nearly one-third of the electricity the entire city of Calgary uses in a year.) 

All three of the major turbine suppliers are reporting delays.

That supply crunch has led some data centre developers in the U.S. to go to extreme lengths to get power, including repurposing old jet engines. 

Noel calls those fixes “inefficient and very costly,” but notes “the revenue they’re getting from the data centres is outstripping the extra cost, so they’re just kind of doing what they can to get any power on site as fast as possible.”

In Alberta, a power surplus could quickly evaporate

There is nothing to that extent happening in Alberta, which quickly instituted a hard cap on how much power was available to data centres from the existing power grid.

The Alberta government has embraced the AI boom as a way to increase demand for the province’s vast natural gas reserves. 

“Jurisdictions that can provide reliable and affordable power will have a serious advantage in attracting investment, and with our vast natural gas resources and mature industrial infrastructure, that is exactly what Alberta can offer,” Premier Danielle Smith said while announcing the recent Greenlight project.

The Alberta Electric System Operator, which manages the province’s private grid, allocated 1.2 gigawatts of power for data centres in a competitive process that ended with two developers allowed to tie into the grid. 

Another round will dole out additional power and the system operator recently announced data centre developers planning to build their own power plants could temporarily tie into the grid while those plants are being built, up to 1.6 gigawatts. 

The operator said by email that the “bridging provision” is a “general mechanism accommodating a time gap (up to three years) between a load being ready to operate and its generation being fully built and in service for any reason.”It is up to the developer to ensure it has the necessary power after that three-year window and if there is a power shortage during those three years, data centres using the bridging provision would be the first to have electricity curtailed. 

The province also has a healthy cushion of extra power after a buildout of capacity prior to market reforms and a renewable crackdown. But that won’t necessarily last. 

Noel points to the insatiable data centre demand and resulting supply crunch, combined with population growth and increasing electrification as pressures on the system. 

“And then we’ve got the old coal plants that were converted to run on gas — those are coming up soon on their end of life,” he says. “So I think mid-2030, if we don’t kind of deal with this now — whether it’s more gas or more renewables or whatever — I think there’s a real possibility that we will go from flush with power to just scraping by again.”

The office of Alberta’s minister of affordability and utilities, RJ Sigurdson, didn’t reply to specific questions about the turbine shortage and its impacts, but said the government prioritizes the “well-being of Albertans” and “will not compromise the reliability or affordability of the electricity that millions of Albertans, Indigenous communities and our local industries depend on.” 

The minister’s office said the government “does not prescribe a specific generation technology for powering data centre projects.” It said the decision by the grid operator to limit generation to natural gas at this time is an independent decision by the arm’s length body. 

The Alberta Electric System Operator says its role is to ensure the safety and reliability of the grid and it does not track whether private developers have ordered the necessary equipment.

So what does this all mean for Alberta’s AI data centre dream?

The Narwhal reached out to all of the big natural gas generators in the province to see if they were being impacted by turbine delays and cost increases, but received no responses. Emails to two data centre developers, Beacon Data Centers and Synapse, also did not get a response. 

It can be difficult to assess how the various companies could be impacted by the current race for power plant components, but applications to the Alberta Utilities Commission, the regulator for power plants, provide some insight. 

Synapse, which hopes to start construction on a data centre near the town of Olds in October, hasn’t disclosed who will build its turbines, but says once final decisions are in place, it could have them on site within a month. It plans to use modular generators, operating alone, before completing construction of a full system while the project is online.

In the company’s application to Alberta Environment and Parks, Synapse says it will use generators from Alberta-based Eco Power Equipment, which specializes in portable gas generators. Eco Power said it doesn’t manufacture turbines. 

Another data centre moving through the regulatory process is Beacon Data Centers’ Indus project, southwest of Calgary. 

Its application to the regulator shows details on turbine components and has a target of Dec. 31, 2028, for completion of the project, pending approval.

Alberta’s electricity market overhaul stalls investment as companies wait for more certainty

As those projects move through the regulatory process, large electricity generators remain cautious about building new projects to help keep the lights on.

There are also questions about how the data centre boom could impact prices. Premier Smith says the Greenlight project could help bring down transmission costs, which ultimately show up on electricity bills. Noel agrees that’s possible. 

But the flip side is increased demand for natural gas and the trickle down of massive cost increases for building power plants could potentially increase electricity or heating bills. 

“I think everyone’s kind of sitting and waiting to see how the [restructured electricity market] plays out,” Noel says. 

“In 2028 we’ll phase out the old market and bring in the new, and maybe then we’ll start to see investment, but that’s a pretty long time.”

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