Summary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cities and provinces say natural gas limits will hinder homebuilding

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Summary

• The federal government will offer tax credits to companies that capture carbon pollution and use it to extract more oil.
• That process is called enhanced oil recovery, and it involves injecting carbon dioxide deep underground to push more oil to the surface.
• Critics say subsidizing enhanced oil recovery operations is counterproductive. It does stop some carbon dioxide from escaping into the atmosphere, but it also enables the production of more carbon-emitting fossil fuels.

Canada is planning to give financial incentives to companies that capture carbon dioxide and use it to produce more oil. The technique, called enhanced oil recovery, was formerly barred from receiving federal tax credits. 

Huh? Enhanced oil recovery? You’d be excused for scratching your head.

The technique uses carbon dioxide to pump more oil (we’ll get into it below) — and is controversial. Can you reduce emissions by pumping more oil? 

But the government’s ban on subsidies for enhanced oil recovery projects was reversed in dramatic fashion last year, first in a deal with Alberta that resulted in cabinet minister Steven Guilbeault resigning.

The government then solidified the change across the country in its latest economic update.

So what is enhanced oil recovery and what are its impacts on emissions and on government finances?

Here’s a primer.

Back up, what’s carbon capture, utilization and storage?

Industries emit a lot of carbon dioxide. Too much. Governments have tried to incentivize companies to reduce the amount of carbon pollution they release into the atmosphere — where it traps heat and contributes to climate-driven problems like increased wildfire, hurricanes, droughts and more.

One strategy is to capture the carbon pollution rather than release it up into the sky, then either store it (storage) or use it to make other things (utilization). When it’s stored, it’s most often injected deep underground.

There are two options in this scenario: one, it can be stored underground, plain and simple. Buried and forgotten.

The second is that you use the carbon dioxide to get more oil out of the ground, then store it. That’s what’s known as enhanced oil recovery — in essence, injecting carbon dioxide into a well so you can get more oil. Globally, it’s by far the most common of the two.

A 2022 report found nearly three-quarters of captured carbon pollution around the world is used to extract more oil.

How does enhanced oil recovery work?

Enhanced oil recovery can involve pumping anything from water to steam to gas deep into the ground to increase pressure in an underground oil reservoir. The goal? To force more oil out of a well. 

But in this instance, we’re talking specifically about using captured carbon dioxide as the pressure builder, often alongside water.

A company will either capture carbon pollution, or purchase it from another source, and then inject it deep underground to push more oil to the surface. Most of that carbon pollution will then remain trapped underground.

A well-designed system will capture emissions from the enhanced oil recovery operation and reinject them back into the reservoir, creating a closed loop, but not all systems will capture all emissions.

Sounds smart, what’s up?

The process can significantly prolong the lifespan of a fossil fuel reservoir, so it makes sense if the goal is to increase or extend production. 

It also creates a bigger market for captured emissions, further incentivizing companies to capture carbon pollution rather than release it into the atmosphere. 

But the issue is that enhanced oil recovery takes carbon dioxide, ostensibly captured to reduce emissions, and uses it to pull more carbon-emitting fossil fuels from the ground.

Determining whether there is a net reduction in emissions from this process is complicated and depends on a lot of factors — including how much traditional production is displaced by enhanced oil recovery, how much carbon is actually stored underground, the impact on prices and demand, how much carbon is produced while recovering oil, the type of oil produced and the lifecycle of the fuel that is produced.

Sound complicated? It is.

Research suggests the process can achieve reductions in per-barrel emissions, commonly referred to as emissions intensity.

On the other hand, enhanced oil recovery produces more carbon pollution than simply capturing and storing emissions permanently underground.

Traditionally, enhanced oil recovery used carbon dioxide that was naturally occurring and already stored underground, but newer methods involve using captured emissions — a critical distinction when discussing the potential of any emissions reductions. 

As one 2025 peer-reviewed meta-analysis of enhanced oil recovery research dryly suggested, “the extent to which [carbon capture and utilization] projects that store captured [carbon dioxide] in oil reservoirs support achieving [greenhouse gas] emissions targets is debated.” 

That study found analyses of the life-cycle emissions of enhanced oil recovery vary greatly — all the way from increasing emissions to reducing them.

So, why are we talking about this?

The previous Liberal government announced tax credits for carbon capture and utilization projects, significantly reducing costs for the companies building them. Projects are typically expensive to build and the government wanted any and all emissions reductions to move ahead. 

It excluded enhanced oil recovery, arguing it was counterproductive to reducing overall emissions and the government’s goal to move toward a net-zero economy.

The Liberals under Prime Minister Mark Carney, however, reversed that decision and announced enhanced oil recovery could receive tax credits, first in a November memorandum of understanding with Alberta regarding a new pipeline, and then again in its latest economic update. Industry cheered the decision, while those concerned with emissions cried foul.

Under Carney’s new rules, a project will have to permanently store 95 per cent of the carbon dioxide used to pump more oil be eligible for tax credits. 

In Alberta, the government already provides tax credits for enhanced oil recovery operations. That program does not include the need to capture a minimum amount of carbon in order to qualify.

Critics call these credits a fossil fuel subsidy. Companies who receive the money from the federal and provincial governments do not. Therein lies the debate.

What will this cost taxpayers?

That will depend on how many producers meet the criteria set by the government.

In 2024, the Parliamentary Budget Office estimated the tax credit would cost the government $5.7 billion between 2022 and 2028 — but that was before enhanced oil recovery was added to the list of eligible projects. It’s unclear what the impact of that addition will be. 

There is one important distinction: the tax credits for enhanced oil recovery aren’t as lucrative as those for storage alone: the amount of money an oil project can recoup is half of what a company that simply stores carbon permanently underground can receive. 

For that reason, the federal government estimates credits for enhanced oil recovery might actually save some taxpayer dollars — $395 million over four years, starting in 2027, according to a federal Department of Finance official responding to questions from The Narwhal.

The official said the savings would come from companies deciding to store carbon for enhanced oil recovery rather than dedicated storage, and receive less public money for doing so.

While incentivizing enhanced oil recovery may represent a savings in terms of tax credits, the costs come from increased emissions and long-term impacts.

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Summary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Summary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Methodology

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

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

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

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

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Again and again last year, Canadian oil and gas executives and lobby groups made public overtures to Prime Minister Mark Carney to “unwind the past decade” of environmental and energy policy in order to “unlock” fossil fuel industry growth.

After eight months in office, the Carney government has signalled major policy changes through its Building Canada Act, its Major Projects Office, its federal budget and its pipeline-focused memorandum of understanding with Alberta. All of this brings federal policy at least partially in line with the list of proposals made by these industry representatives. 

One fossil fuel company spokesperson told The Narwhal they’re “pleased to see the progress that has been made.”

“These are all steps in the right direction of building a stronger Canadian economy and an acknowledgement of the critical importance of energy and energy infrastructure to our country’s competitiveness and future,” Gina Sutherland, senior advisor, corporate communications and media relations for Calgary-based Enbridge, wrote in an email response.

The pipeline and utility company’s president and CEO, Greg Ebel, is an original signatory to the industry’s vision, laid out in March in an open letter titled “Build Canada Now.” Updated versions were published in April and September as more executives and lobby groups signed on and the group sharpened its requests.

Eight of the executives who signed the September letter, largely representing companies in the oilsands, had also planned to attend a meeting with Carney on June 1, 2025, to discuss “partnerships,” according to an internal government list of confirmed participants released to The Narwhal through access to information law. Government officials suggested that during his opening remarks, Carney could relay his “intention to use the letter to guide the discussion and delve into the positions they put forward,” according to briefing notes for the prime minister for that day.

The government says its policy changes are part of a broader plan to fight climate change, support workers and boost economic growth, especially in the face of the United States throwing around tariffs and threatening worse. 

Canadians expect their government to “win” the trade war, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said Dec. 9 on Parliament Hill. “To do that, we need cards in our hands. We have some fantastic cards: our energy and natural resources.”

Which might be true. It’s also true that the fossil fuel industry appears to have been very successful at arguing its case, with its wish list ticked off one by one.

Emilia Belliveau, energy transition program manager at advocacy organization Environmental Defence, has researched the fossil fuel industry’s techniques for garnering public support.

“We’re seeing an incredible alignment of government interests and fossil fuel industry interests,” she said in an interview.

Where Canada and the oil and gas industry align

The September version of “Build Canada Now” boasts 95 signatories including major lobby groups like the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. In that version, the group called for a federal law that bans crude oil tankers from the north coast of British Columbia to be completely repealed.

That would set up a major confrontation with Coastal First Nations, whose president Marilyn Slett made it clear to Carney on Jan. 13 at a meeting in Prince Rupert, B.C., that the oil tanker moratorium must be kept in place. 

The Carney government has not repealed the tanker ban, but its memorandum of understanding with Alberta commits to changing the ban if necessary to get a new pipeline built.

Another law the industry executives wanted to see vanish is the federal carbon pricing regime. While it is still in place, the federal government released a “climate competitiveness strategy” in November that commits to negotiating new carbon pricing arrangements with the provinces. The deal it signed with Alberta also permits the province significant flexibility over how its carbon rules are applied to specific sectors like oil and gas and electricity.

The executives also asked for an overhaul of a federal law that governs environmental assessments, and the Building Canada Act strips out part of that assessment process for projects the government deems in the “national interest.” 

They wanted to kill off a proposed emissions cap on the oil and gas sector, and the Alberta deal says Canada is happy with other plans to reduce emissions and won’t implement it. 

A central goal of the government’s Major Projects Office is to shrink approval timelines for projects — another item on the wish list.

Finally, the industry representatives asked for more loan guarantees for Indigenous communities. A loan guarantee is when the government agrees to repay any debt taken on by Indigenous communities that buy ownership stakes in oil and gas projects, should they be unable to repay it themselves. 

Making it financially easier for Indigenous communities to own portions of oil and gas projects is seen as addressing historic financial barriers to Indigenous economic participation — but it can also be seen as useful for overcoming opposition to fossil fuel expansion.

The federal budget reiterates a commitment to doubling its Indigenous loan guarantee program, and directs the Major Projects Office to help with financing.

The executives wrote in the Build Canada Now letter that they have “consistently advocated for the changes required to unwind the past decade of increasing policy complexity and uncertainty that led to delayed investments, lost opportunities and a competitive disadvantage on the global energy stage.”

Federal disclosure records show industry lobbyists focused on at least two aspects of the letter, carbon pricing and the emissions cap, as well as other elements of the federal climate plan during the two months surrounding the executives’ June 1 meeting with Carney.

Sutherland, at Enbridge, said the government’s proposed policy changes will now need to be “fully implemented” for large energy projects to move forward.

The Narwhal reached out to several other signatories of the Build Canada Now letter, including the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Pathways Alliance of oilsands companies, but none responded by publication time.

Joe Calnan, vice-president of energy and Calgary operations at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, noted many of the industry’s proposals had been floated at one time or another, in particular by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith — like killing the tanker ban, altering carbon pricing and overhauling the environmental assessment law. Alberta’s oil and gas industry accounts for 84 per cent of total Canadian oil production.

Smith’s pressure on these issues “did kind of make these kinds of demands from industry more tangible and more clear as to what they’re after,” Calnan said. 

Large, publicly traded corporations also have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to make money, Calnan added, and so their interests lie in ensuring increased production of oil and gas. A province like Alberta, which takes in royalties when resources are developed, also has an interest in increasing fossil fuel production.

The government of former prime minister Justin Trudeau had portrayed many of the policies changed by Carney as necessary to deliver crucial carbon pollution cuts, and to properly consider the impact of oil and gas projects on the environment, Indigenous Peoples’ constitutional rights and the long-term well-being of Canadians, whose lives are continually disrupted by wildfires, floods and other extreme weather made worse by climate change. The emissions cap, for example, was supposed to hold the industry at its word to take steps to decarbonize its production.

In November, former Trudeau-era environment minister Steven Guilbeault quit his Cabinet post following the Alberta deal’s unveiling, saying several elements of the climate plan he had worked on “have been, or are about to be, dismantled.” 

Belliveau, at Environmental Defence, said it was frustrating to watch Carney and Smith discuss a “grand bargain” over oil and gas development that purported to also plan for emissions reductions, given that similar rhetoric had been deployed seven years ago when Trudeau framed the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline as a “trade-off” for getting Alberta to sign on to climate action. 

“The last so-called grand bargain failed to produce the results that it promised, and the result that we need to actually address climate change,” Belliveau said. “Prime Minister Carney should be learning from past Liberal government mistakes.”

Pitfalls of Canada’s past climate policies

The latest government progress report on Canada’s climate plan shows the country is “significantly off track” to meeting its emissions reduction target for 2030 and 2035, according to the Canadian Climate Institute.

Carney’s environmental policy changes were also unveiled during a year when Canada faced its second-worst wildfire season, second-worst year for ice loss and major heat waves, the severity and frequency of all of which are tied to climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions, of which the global oil and gas industry is the largest contributor.

Belliveau said the government should be doing more to help people cut emissions — and, over time, their bills — by providing subsidies and access for clean technologies like heat pumps, instead of doubling down on fossil fuels.

The Narwhal asked the office of Hodgson, the energy minister, about how closely the government’s policies align with the requests in the letter from oil and gas executives, and whether the changes were made to fulfill those requests. The Narwhal also asked whether the government agreed with the assertion in the Build Canada Now letter about the need to “unwind the past decade.” 

Hodgson’s office directed questions to Environment and Climate Change Canada Minister Julie Dabrusin. Her press secretary Keean Nembhard said the government is committed to working with Alberta and is relying on industrial carbon pricing to cut pollution going forward. He acknowledged the “economies of tomorrow” will be “clean, low-carbon and resilient” and that “Canada can — and must — lead the way” in addressing climate change. 

“We’re creating the conditions for world-leading clean technology to thrive — by investing in Canadian innovation, scaling homegrown solutions and positioning Canadian companies to lead in the global race to net-zero,” he said.

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The Ontario government is not considering changing its law that prevents municipalities from charging Enbridge Gas for building pipelines on public land, despite calls to do so.

“I’m not aware of any contemplation of amending the current policy,” Ontario Energy Minister Stephen Lecce told reporters during a Jan. 7 press conference in Toronto.

Last November, Waterloo Region became the second Ontario municipality, after Guelph, to resist renewing these agreements. Doing so would have meant locking in for another two decades of offering free space to pipelines that carry natural gas, which is largely made up of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere.

Through longstanding regulation, the province prohibits municipalities from charging for the right of way used for natural gas pipelines. 

The law requires municipalities to enter into franchise agreements with natural gas providers, allowing them to build pipelines under roadways and surrounding lands without charge. Enbridge Gas has these agreements with more than 340 municipalities, the details of which are negotiated through the Ontario Energy Board, a non-partisan regulator mandated to uphold provincial law.

These are unique arrangements in Canada; in provinces including British Columbia and Alberta, municipalities can charge gas companies that want to build pipelines on their land. 

Along with Waterloo Region and Guelph, both Ottawa and Toronto have argued changes to these agreements would give local councils a much-needed source of revenue, along with the ability to move away from fossil fuels and reduce emissions in their cities. 

“Were the province to amend its regulation and city council decided to apply a land-based charge to Enbridge’s use of the right of way, it could generate between $73 million and $293 million in total annual revenue,” according to City of Toronto staff, based on how such charges are applied elsewhere.

As of December 2025, neither Guelph nor Waterloo had received an official response from the province. 

In his Jan. 7 response to a question from The Narwhal about potential changes to the policy, Lecce deferred to the Ontario Energy Board. The board has announced a full review of these agreements in spring 2026 — the first since 1999. That will play out at the board alongside individual cases about Guelph and Waterloo Region’s agreements with Enbridge Gas. 

“The Ontario Energy Board is an independent adjudicator,” Lecce said. “They make sure that any cost that is borne on the ratepayer is prudent. … I have confidence in the [board].”

A spokesperson for Enbridge Gas previously told The Narwhal the company would not comment on the upcoming hearings, but that the board “reviews and approves every agreement to make sure it’s fair and in the public interest.”

Regardless of the board’s decision, the government would have to amend the Municipal Act to allow municipalities to charge gas utilities for pipeline right of way going forward. Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner, who is the MPP for Guelph, has twice tabled a private member’s bill proposing this amendment, with the latest iteration awaiting second reading. 

The upcoming Ontario Energy Board hearings between Enbridge Gas and the municipalities come in the wake of the board’s 2023 decision, when it ordered the company to stop passing down the cost of new gas hookups to homeowners on their bills, arguing cleaner and more economical alternatives exist. In early 2024, the Ford government made the unprecedented decision to overrule the regulator’s decision. After that, the government created a new energy policy that keeps natural gas, a fossil fuel, in Ontario’s supply mix until at least 2050. 

When asked if the government would accept the board’s decision on franchise agreements, Lecce said, “We want to seek alignments with the [board].” 

“We respect their independence, and obviously, I’m not going to entertain hypotheticals that may or may not come down the pipe in a year or two or three,” he added. “Our message to the [Ontario Energy Board] … is we want to focus on the economy, keep costs down.”

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The Alberta Energy Regulator appears to have ignored a direct ministerial order meant to protect rural municipalities and prevent struggling oil and gas companies from obtaining new licences, data obtained by The Narwhal reveals.

At issue is a transfer of 170 oil and gas wells, 30 related facilities and 47 pipeline licences to Calgary-based MAGA Energy in September 2024 despite the company owing unpaid taxes to Sturgeon County, just north of Edmonton. 

A ministerial order, first signed in 2023, prevents the regulator from approving the transfer of licences to any company owing more than $20,000 in unpaid taxes unless there’s a payment plan in place. 

Data obtained by The Narwhal shows MAGA Energy owed more than $200,000 in taxes to Sturgeon County at the time of the transfer — more than 10 times the limit. The county told The Narwhal MAGA Energy violated an agreement to repay a portion of those taxes owing from 2023, and that it alerted the regulator in March 2024 that MAGA Energy was non-compliant.

The regulator touts its power to approve licence transfers as a primary tool for weeding out bad actors in the oilpatch and says indications of financial difficulties, including tax arrears, will trigger a deep dive into a company seeking licences. 

Critics say the MAGA transfer is just one example of a far bigger problem.

“Every time I hear the Alberta Energy Regulator say, ‘This transfer process is the backbone of our liability management system,’ I mean, I almost throw up my breakfast,” Shaun Fluker says. A law professor and head of public law clinic at the University of Calgary, Fluker’s “seen nothing to back up that statement, and what you uncovered here is really just a very quantifiable illustration of that.”

Alberta Energy Regulator in ‘direct violation’ of its rules: lawyer

The Alberta Energy Regulator refused to answer questions regarding the MAGA transfer and the figures obtained by The Narwhal. 

The office of Alberta’s energy minister, Brian Jean, did not respond to emailed questions, neither did MAGA Energy.

In response to earlier questions for a previous story about MAGA Energy, it said the company “met the requirements to proceed” with the transfer and that “the evidence MAGA provided is not public information; it is between MAGA and the municipality or municipalities in which the arrears existed at that time.”

When emailed a series of questions and asked how the company could meet the requirements to proceed with the transfer given the evidence from Sturgeon County, the regulator declined to answer. 

“Please refer to previous statements, we have no further statements on this topic,” read an email signed “AER media.”

Fluker, who has represented landowners in court over oil and gas licences and has extensive experience researching energy regulations in Alberta, says the lack of an agreement over its tax arrears with Sturgeon County would represent a “direct violation” of the minister’s order.

He says even if, hypothetically, MAGA Energy presented false information to the regulator — the “evidence” cited in the regulator’s response to questions — the regulator would still bear the blame. 

“Even if MAGA did lie to the Alberta Energy Regulator, they had the information from the municipality,” he says. 

“They have to be better than accepting false claims from applicants or transferors. … I think we legitimately expect them to be able to overcome that. That’s the whole point of being a regulatory agency.”

After publication, Fluker added the following additional statement: He has seen no evidence that MAGA Energy lied to the Alberta Energy Regulator but that it seems from what information is now publicly available that either MAGA submitted incomplete or inaccurate information to the regulator — or the regulator failed to act on accurate information provided by MAGA in relation to its unpaid municipal taxes. “Either way, the fact that the Alberta Energy Regulatory refuses to disclose evidence submitted by MAGA to clarify the situation is highly problematic and leads to discussions in hypotheticals and speculation,” he wrote in an email.

Fluker is skeptical the regulator undertakes the due diligence it professes when it comes to regulatory oversight and licensee evaluations.

‘It is an absolute free-for-all’ says Sturgeon County of regulatory failure

Obtaining tax information for oil and gas companies is a difficult, and expensive, task. Municipalities do not openly share details on which companies are in arrears and how much they owe. 

Sturgeon County did admit MAGA Energy owed more than the ministerial order allowed. It previously told The Narwhal that the county alerted the regulator that the company was non-compliant with its obligations. But to determine the exact amounts required a trip to the county — as tax data can only be accessed by visiting the physical office — and paying the $1,000 required to release the data. 

That data from county tax rolls shows MAGA Energy owed just over $100,000 in taxes and penalties for 2023, an additional $90,000 in 2024 and $116,000 more in 2025. 

But Sturgeon County said the figure it reported to the regulator on March 15, 2024, was slightly higher, at $171,000 owing. A spokesperson confirmed MAGA Energy breached its agreement with the county in February 2024. 

The county’s openness is in contrast to municipalities that are reluctant to provide even basic information. Many of those other counties are smaller and more dependent on oil and gas producers. 

“For us, this particular company not paying its taxes is not going to break us,” Sturgeon County mayor Alanna Hnatiw says.

Still, it is a pressing issue across the province and has a significant impact on the ability of smaller counties to pay for services such as roads and wastewater treatment, Hnatiw says, adding it undermines faith in the government, regulator and industry. 

“If we can’t have trust that we know how to make regulations that serve and protect people, and uphold those regulations, then it is an absolute free-for-all,” she says. “And I don’t think any Albertan is really comfortable, or any Canadian for that matter, is comfortable with the idea of a free-for-all in the energy sector or in any other sector.”

Hnatiw is a strong supporter of the oil and gas industry and believes the vast majority of companies follow the rules and act responsibly, but she says the regulator, and the government which gives it direction, have allowed problem companies to act with impunity.

“The Alberta Energy Regulator has to get serious about how to deal with these businesses, because they are running without consequence, and they know that,” she says. 

“These companies do know how to thread the needle right enough to keep running without paying their way.”

In the specific case of licence transfers, Hnatiw questions why there is a process for alerting the regulator to delinquencies if that information is going to be ignored.

Across Alberta, hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes from oil and gas companies

MAGA Energy now owes more than $300,000 to Sturgeon County as 2025 comes to close, but it’s just one of hundreds of oil and gas companies across the province that are impacting the ability of rural municipalities to operate. 

Across the province, companies owe more than $254 million in unpaid taxes and municipalities have written off an additional $200 million, money that will never be recovered. 

The Rural Municipalities of Alberta says $100 million of the remaining taxes are owed by 201 companies that are still operating.

Hnatiw says that’s particularly egregious. 

“I think there’s a difference if you have a company that is defunct and is basically in a period of stasis, than somebody who is still using your roads, using your infrastructure and requiring the maintenance to be able to deal with their wear and tear on roads,” she says.

She also takes issue with a provincial government that doesn’t appear to be taking action while downloading the consequences to municipalities. 

At the recent Rural Municipalities of Alberta convention, she says Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told attendees that those millions in unpaid taxes are unlikely to ever be collected. (Smith’s office did not respond to a request for comment about this by publication time.)

“To hear that and to not hear the next sentence about what we’re doing to shut down these companies doesn’t give me a lot of confidence that these companies are going to see any consequences,” she says.

— With files from Kelsie Johnston

Updated on Dec. 11, 2025, at 2:08 p.m MT: This story has been updated to include an additional statement from Shaun Fluker.

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Grand bargain is a phrase that’s being tossed around a lot lately. Nationally, it’s framing the debate around fossil fuel development and emissions reductions — support an industrial carbon tax, get a pipeline! In rural Alberta, however, it’s about the balance between landowner rights and oil and gas exploration. 

Increasingly in rural Alberta, it’s a fragile balance.

It works like this: in Alberta, landowners aren’t allowed to block oil and gas companies from accessing their property to drill there. In exchange, companies must pay the landowner for the loss of that land. 

And, crucially, if the company stops paying, the government has long promised it will pay on the company’s behalf. 

But the grand bargain is fraying. 

Decades of poor regulation have allowed companies without the finances, or the intention of living up to their obligations, to proliferate — snapping up cheap existing wells to pull as much wealth out of them as possible while not paying their due. Many of these wells are either inactive — not pulling anything from the ground (but they might one day … or so the story goes) — or are what’s known as marginal wells, those that are only pumping a relatively small amount. But those wells come at a bargain, so still attract small oil and gas operators looking to get a foot in the door.

More than 175,000 inactive and marginal wells dot the landscape, bringing with them their own environmental risks and potential nuisances for farmers and landowners.  

Meanwhile, the Alberta government dishes out millions of dollars each year to cover the unpaid leases for solvent companies.

Add in unpaid municipal taxes and cleanup costs that stretch past $100 billion and it helps to explain why rural Albertans are increasingly calling into question the grand bargain that bought their support in the first place.

Lost in those grand debates, however, is clarity over just what it is we’re talking about, so let’s dive in.

What’s an oil or gas surface lease?

It might be easier to think of it as land rent.

The oil and gas companies will determine an area where they want to drill, sign an agreement with the landowner setting out the terms of the lease and then fence off the area around a well or facility. 

The agreement includes the amount to be paid to the landowner for loss of access to that land until the well is decommissioned and then certified as reclaimed. 

Unlike rent for something like an apartment, where landlords generally choose their tenants, landowners can’t say no to an oil and gas company that wants to set up shop on their land.

So, what’s the problem?

If the cheques keep coming, the arrangement usually works, assuming there aren’t any leaks, spills or other issues. 

When the cheques stop coming, you hear about it. 

Companies in financial distress, or bad actors, often cut costs by halting their lease payments. It’s an easy expense to drop immediately and, as we’ll discuss, there are government backstops for the landowners. 

Sometimes it’s a company that is struggling financially, but sometimes it’s a company that snaps up a lot of wells for next to nothing and then immediately stops paying the leases.

Doesn’t the Alberta Energy Regulator have rules about this?

They do. The Alberta Energy Regulator insists it has improved monitoring for bad actors and companies in distress to prevent them from taking over new licences. But it is unclear what information the regulator collects and even more unclear what information it uses. 

What is clear is the regulations aren’t working and some companies in financial distress are still able to acquire new licences.

What happens when an oil and gas company doesn’t pay their lease?

Well, it can impact the company’s ability to acquire new licences, but that doesn’t do much to help the landowners with the existing wells on their property. The regulator says it considers unpaid leases in its “holistic assessment” to determine whether a company is on sound financial footing. 

That can result in restrictions or suspension of operations, but it’s unclear how often that happens. 

What does happen is landowners can apply to a government board called the Land and Property Rights Tribunal to be reimbursed by the government. It’s part of that grand bargain. If a company fails to pay its leases, the government will cover the entire cost of that lease every month, or year, it’s not paid — a critical component for getting landowner buy-in for oil and gas development.

Payouts on behalf of companies in 2024 were up 4,500 per cent since 2010 and the government paid out $30 million last year alone.

Okay, but the Alberta government gets that money back from oil and gas companies, right?

In short, no. 

The government says it will recoup money paid out for oil and gas company leases, but it rarely does.Between 2010 and 2024, the government paid approximately $150 million to cover unpaid leases. It recovered approximately $1.4 million — less than one per cent. 

In 2024, for example, the government had only collected $167,000 — 0.06 per cent.

Do oil and gas companies pay municipal taxes?

Yes, municipal taxes are property taxes, just like someone pays on their home or business.

Those taxes go to local governments where oil and gas companies operate and help pay for things like schools and roads. 

This is another big issue in rural Alberta, where municipalities are owed approximately $254 million in unpaid taxes, according to Rural Municipalities of Alberta. The organization, which advocates for towns and counties across the provinces, says its members have written off an additional $200 million in debts, meaning it will never be collected. Approximately $100 million of the outstanding amount is owed by 201 companies that are still operating.

According to a survey of its member municipalities, many were forced to raise taxes on individuals and other companies to make up the shortfall.

Okay, are there consequences if a company doesn’t pay its taxes?

Well. According to a ministerial order, the Alberta Energy Regulator is supposed to prevent the transfer of new licences to any company that owes more than $30,000 in unpaid municipal taxes, but there are serious questions about enforcement of that requirement.

And while the Municipal Government Act, the legislation that sets out the rules for how municipalities operate in Alberta, does give the power to seize property from delinquent companies, gaps in other legislation and regulations prevent that from happening.

In short, municipalities are essentially powerless.

So wait, is this on top of the billions of dollars in oil and gas well cleanup fees?

Yes.For conventional oil and gas — your traditional oil and gas well (think of a pumpjack sitting in a field) — the regulator estimates it would cost around $37 billion to clean up all of the infrastructure and remediate the land. Some estimates put that figure north of $60 billion. That figure, of course, doesn’t include the oilsands, where the official estimate is around $53 billion.Those estimates are likely low. The regulator’s own internal figures, obtained by the media in 2018, show the problem could exceed $100 billion — $260 billion including the oilsands and pipelines — and the number has been continually revised upward since more accurate monitoring of cleanup costs began. 

Companies are required to spend a minimum amount of money each year on closing and cleaning up old wells and to pay into the industry-funded Orphan Well Association, which cleans up sites left behind by bankrupt companies.

Not everyone fulfills those obligations and can face restrictions on operations if they do so.

But they’ve collected security deposits for this, right? RIGHT!?

Er. No. Not really.

There is the Orphan Well Association, which acts as a sort of collective security deposit.

The regulator has also started collecting security deposits from the companies it deems to be on shaky financial footing when approving licence transfers, but the amounts are small. 

According to its latest liability management report, operators determined to have “less capability” were transferred assets — i.e. they were able to take on wells and more — with $197 million in environmental liabilities. The regulator collected $500,000 in security, or about 0.3 per cent.

New companies put down more money to get into the business, according to the same report. With a collective $274 million in liabilities, the regulator collected $25 million in security, or about 10 per cent.

When it comes to the oilsands, well. Out of that official $53-billion estimate, the regulator has collected $2.6 billion — about five per cent — with 2025 marking the first year a company was required to start paying yearly amounts for a mine determined to be nearing the end of its life. This year also marked a nearly $5-billion reduction in oilsand liability estimates, although it’s not clear what justifies that dramatic decrease, according to researchers Drew Yewchuk and Martin Olszynski.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Pushing for that Alberta pipeline plan

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

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

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

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

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

3. Supporting Pathways Alliance and its pricey carbon capture plan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. Loosening restrictions on tax breaks for clean technology

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6. Giving clean electricity regulations the boot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government says it’s paring back parts of Canada’s anti-greenwashing law after hearing from fossil fuel companies and other groups that their “good-faith efforts” to protect the environment are going unadvertised.

The changes, proposed in Carney’s Nov. 4 budget, are meant to address what his government says is a “trend” of companies staying silent about their environmental efforts out of fears of running afoul of the law, according to a statement sent to The Narwhal from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada.

Greenwashing is when companies make misleading claims about the eco-friendliness of their products or actions — making their environmental stewardship appear greater than it is. Lawmakers added the anti-greenwashing provisions to the federal Competition Act last year in part to address the issue of companies advertising that they were headed towards net-zero emissions while not presenting evidence showing they were taking any significant steps toward cutting their carbon pollution.

But now, the government believes companies are “withholding information that could aid in attracting investment for green innovation,” a departmental spokesperson said. Carney’s budget claimed the anti-greenwashing law, brought in under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, was leading to “some parties slowing or reversing efforts to protect the environment.”

When asked by The Narwhal, the federal department couldn’t name any specific examples of companies slow-walking genuine environmental efforts as a result of last year’s legal changes — which deal specifically with marketing unsubstantiated green claims, and not environmental action itself. 

One expert says any legal risks are being massively exaggerated. Wren Montgomery, co-founder of the Greenwash Action Lab and professor at the Ivey Business School at Western University, believes awareness of how to comply with the law is already fairly widespread — and the companies still complaining may simply want to avoid being held accountable for their lack of climate action.

“The only lawyers I’ve heard complain about it are the lawyers actually working in these corporations,” Montgomery said. “So it seems either just that [corporate lawyers] are too thinly spread, and don’t really understand competition law or sustainability reporting very well, or that they’re using it as an excuse.”

The government’s remarks come on the heels of a Nov. 16 open letter released by Clean50, a collective of sustainability leaders, and signed by 144 of its members in business, academia, politics and the environmental sector calling on Carney to do more to tackle the climate crisis — including reversing plans laid out in the budget to dismantle some of Canada’s anti-greenwashing rules.

The letter says it’s the Carney government’s proposed changes to the law, and not the law itself, that will undermine investor confidence and harm Canadian entrepreneurs who had already adapted to the changes.

“Renewed greenwashing can distort competition and act as a barrier to entry to genuine green firms or drive them from the market,” the letter reads.

It also comes as Canada signs on to an international pledge to combat climate disinformation that commits to “equitable access to accurate, consistent, evidence-based and understandable information on climate change.”

Fossil fuel companies pushed back on Canada’s anti-greenwashing law

The Carney government’s concerns about the law revolve around a requirement added to Canada’s Competition Act last year for businesses to back up their environmental claims with evidence that conforms to internationally recognized standards for calculating a company’s carbon footprint.

The budget argued the requirement to adhere to internationally recognized standards, as well as another rule allowing private individuals or organizations to bring greenwashing complaints before a tribunal, were “creating investment uncertainty” and “having the opposite of the desired effect.” It proposed getting rid of both rules, while keeping the base requirement for businesses to substantiate their environmental claims.

The federal Competition Bureau, which enforces fair competition in the marketplace, says deceptive marketing about environmental efforts can lead to a distorted playing field where Canadian consumers make ill-informed choices with their money. A spokesperson for the Competition Bureau said they were aware of the Carney government’s proposed changes to the law, but declined an interview request from The Narwhal.

In Canada, voluntary disclosure standards for including environmental risk in financial statements, developed based on internationally recognized criteria, refer to a framework called the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Other jurisdictions like the United States have put in place similar requirements that green claims be grounded in evidence from relevant scientific fields or verifiable criteria. 

In June, the bureau issued guidelines for organizations navigating Canada’s anti-greenwashing rules, saying it would accept any carbon accounting standard recognized in at least two countries.

Montgomery said consultants and lawyers who have been working on sustainability reporting have told her they were already aware of what green accounting standards to use, or were already incorporating them into their work. She said it was important to stick to internationally recognized standards because of the risk of industry using third-party certification methods that could prove dubious.

The government has the option of strengthening the law, Montgomery and other greenwashing experts have argued, instead of repealing parts of it. Ottawa could change the language around the use of standards, the experts said, such as removing the “international” requirement or specifying precisely which standards to use. 

Suspending the third-party right of action until those changes were made, instead of cancelling it permanently, would be a way to provide clarity without stripping away the law’s purpose, they added.

Federal government unable to name examples of decline in corporate environmental efforts

The government’s concerns over uncertainty in the law echo complaints lodged by large oil and gas companies in Canada last year, many of which said the anti-greenwashing provisions had introduced significant “uncertainty” and that the requirement to adhere to the standards in presenting their information was “vague” or “overreaching.”

The Narwhal asked the office of Industry Minister Mélanie Joly if it could name any examples of companies or organizations that were slowing or reversing genuine environmental efforts as a result of the law.

A departmental spokesperson, Andréa Daigle, responded that the government had heard from “numerous stakeholders across various sectors of the economy” that they felt unable to report on environmental achievements, but did not discuss the impact of those efforts.

The fossil fuel industry, as well as other businesses, civil society and government-run groups, had “regularly raised what they and their legal counsel considered an unacceptable risk in making public statements” when it was unclear what standards to use for backing them up, Daigle said.

“This has resulted in a trend … of withholding information that could aid in attracting investment for green innovation and informing consumers about good-faith efforts,” she said. 

The goal of paring down the law was to “ease fears of heavy enforcement that could discourage companies from speaking up, while ensuring they remain accountable for showing their claims are genuine.”

Last year, an official at Environment and Climate Change Canada told the Competition Bureau that “uncertainty” around the anti-greenwashing law “has led to some challenges” in encouraging companies to voluntarily adopt net-zero commitments under a government-run program.

At the same time, the department said it was “reasonable” to expect companies to come up with an environmental plan backed by “credible elements” that includes carbon accounting “based on international methodology,” like the law required.

Others at the time said the law seemed fine. The Canadian Renewable Energy Association, for example, said it supported the rules and said it would “strongly encourage” the adoption of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol as the internationally recognized standard of choice. 

In a 2024 survey by Angus Reid Forum, commissioned by Greenpeace Canada, 93 per cent of Canadians agreed companies should face penalties for making unproven environmental claims.

“The only other thing which Canadians have supported by that margin was preferring the Jays over the Dodgers,” Clean50 executive director Gavin Pitchford said in a statement.

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The truck slowly pulled alongside as I idled at the side of a remote dirt road in northern B.C. No cell service, the nearest town half an hour away. I’d pulled off to let industrial traffic heading the other direction pass. It was 2022 and I was on my way to meet with Indigenous land defenders embroiled in a years-long fight against a major pipeline being built through Wet’suwet’en lands and waters without the permission of Hereditary Chiefs. 

The driver of the truck rolled down his window. 

“Need any help?” he said.

I knew from markings on the truck that he worked for Forsythe, a private security company contracted by Calgary-based pipeline giant TC Energy. Security companies were hired to protect the construction of Coastal GasLink, a 670-kilometre natural gas pipeline. For years, Coastal GasLink had been a focal point for conflict, including dozens of arrests and extensive surveillance operations by private security and RCMP. What I didn’t know at the time was information about me, collected on behalf of the pipeline company, could have been shared with Canada’s national spy agency.

The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation recently reported TC Energy apparently leveraged a close relationship with former Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) director David Vigneault to expand information-sharing between CSIS and major Canadian companies. In 2024 emails to Vigneault, TC Energy said the proposed arrangement was necessary due to “security threats facing Canadian industry” which the company said included “acute risks from foreign adversaries,” according to documents obtained through freedom of information legislation. Vigneault left CSIS in 2024 and now works for an American intelligence company. 

This year, Canada passed legislation delivering many of TC Energy’s requests. Critics warn the flow of information could be going both ways — that companies like TC Energy could be feeding information to CSIS. They worry this could influence how and when the spy agency and federal law enforcement conduct surveillance of individuals and groups.

It also means third-party security services like Forsythe, which employs ex-paramilitary soldiers and former RCMP officers, could be passing on information to CSIS and police about Indigenous and non-Indigenous land defenders and activists.

Tia Dafnos, an associate professor of sociology at the University of New Brunswick, said the level of access gives industry an opportunity to shape a criminal justice narrative aligned with its interests. 

“One of the key concerns here is the lack of transparency and therefore accountability, when you have these discussions happening in spaces that are outside of public access,” she said.

As the federal government pushes resource extraction in response to a barrage of economic sanctions from the current Trump administration, several major industrial developments — including an expansion of Coastal GasLink — could become new sources of conflict. Now, companies being scrutinized by environmental advocates and Indigenous land defenders have direct and secretive channels of communication to Canada’s spy agency. 

“When you have something deemed to be in the national interest, a threat to that national interest would move it into the realm of a national security issue,” Dafnos said. Protecting critical infrastructure can then become a justification to monitor and criminalize project opponents, she explained.

Eric Balsam, a spokesperson with CSIS, said “the nature and severity of the threat” is what determines whether it’s a matter of national security, not the designation of a project.

“CSIS uses a variety of collection methods to monitor activities that threaten national security,” Balsam wrote in an emailed statement, adding the CSIS Act “specifically excludes investigating lawful protest and dissent.”

Balsam said CSIS could, in some circumstances, investigate “individuals and/or groups involved in protest or other forms of opposition to projects if there was reasonable suspicion that they were planning activities that pose a threat to the security of Canada,” as defined by the legislation.

Formal and informal relationships between industry executives and senior CSIS officials offer the private sector an avenue for “framing a threat or influencing the perception of threat,” Dafnos said. The secretive nature of those relationships also risks criminalizing or intimidating journalists.

Back in 2022, I told the security guard I didn’t need his help and rolled up my window. After the heavy trucks rumbled past, I drove on. He followed. 

For more than 20 kilometres, winding through deep forest beside the Wedzin Kwa (Morice River), the truck stayed close behind, a spectre in my rear view mirror. At my destination, I parked and got out, shouldering my camera and grabbing my notebook. I could see him in his truck watching my movements from a distance. I turned and went inside the land defenders’ compound.

What goes on in ‘private, high-level’ discussions between TC Energy and CSIS? No one knows

The documents obtained by The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation this fall detail email communications between TC Energy executives, the Business Council of Canada, which represents the country’s wealthiest companies, and Vigneault, who signalled his support for the industry-led initiative. It was a paper trail that confirmed what was discussed in internal company calls leaked to the media in mid-2024. 

On those calls, detailed by The Narwhal in a series of investigative reports, former staffers from the first Trump administration — including foreign service operatives and ex-military hackers — talked about the extensive intelligence-gathering operations they conducted on behalf of the pipeline company. They also said TC Energy executives were attempting to persuade CSIS to share information with corporations more freely. 

Those efforts were ultimately successful.

Keith Stewart, a senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada, warned the powers given to CSIS are “ripe for further abuse.”   

“This intelligence sharing blurs the line between public security and corporate interests and risks putting Indigenous land defenders and climate activists under increasingly invasive surveillance for peacefully opposing fossil fuel expansion,” he said in a statement.

Secrecy is intrinsically part of CSIS operations, which means much of what goes on in its meetings with corporations like TC Energy remains unknown. Unlike lobbying activities, which give the public a glimpse into how and when fossil fuel companies and other private sector entities interact with government officials, the “private, high-level discussions” requested by TC Energy remain a black box.

As Dafnos put it, an absence of any details about what kind of information is being shared means the public doesn’t know whether or not it should be concerned.

“It’s kind of a conundrum,” she said, adding it’s also likely information is being shared in less formal ways. 

As The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation reported, Business Council of Canada president Goldy Hyder called Vigneault a “dear friend” and said he texts him regularly.

“Are they sharing information about threats, like political opposition or grassroots opposition to energy projects?” Dafnos asked. “How do we get access to the phone calls that people are making to each other?”

‘Our democratic right’

Nikki Skuce has first-hand experience with her environmental activism attracting the attention of the federal spy agency.

While working for environmental advocacy group ForestEthics in the early 2010s, she found herself unexpectedly entangled with CSIS. At the time, she was involved in organizing opposition to the Northern Gateway pipeline, an Enbridge proposal to transport bitumen from the Alberta oilsands to marine shipping routes on the northwest coast. 

Skuce said opposition to Northern Gateway drew the ire of former minister of natural resources Joe Oliver. In 2012, Oliver accused those who opposed projects like the pipeline of having a “radical ideological agenda.” He alleged they were trying to “exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects.” Others took it a step further, labelling Skuce and her peers as “eco-terrorists” or “extremists” after then-prime minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet lumped environmental advocates in with white supremacists and anti-capitalists in a controversial anti-terrorism bill. 

“It was frightening, frankly,” she said. 

She told The Narwhal she first became aware she was being spied on after a small community meeting on Nadleh Whut’en territory, about 150 kilometres west of Prince George, B.C.

“It wasn’t a meeting that stood out or anything,” she said, explaining the point was for attendees to come together in solidarity and strategize opportunities for outreach.

After the surveillance operation came to light, when records were unearthed in 2013, land defenders and environmental organizations in B.C. feared they were under constant surveillance and some felt they could no longer safely voice dissent over Northern Gateway.

“It was rattling and just a feeling in the pit of your stomach, like, what has become of this country, what’s become of Canada, that they’re spying on activists?” Skuce said.

Skuce and others targeted in the surveillance operation later testified as part of a case brought forward by the BC Civil Liberties Association, which alleged CSIS had illegally spied on citizens, groups and First Nations, and was sharing that information with fossil fuel companies. At the time, they were subject to a “gag order” prohibiting witnesses from talking about their testimonies, even to each other, Skuce said. Eventually, after lawyers with the civil liberties group fought in the courts for five years, the so-called “protest papers” were released, though heavily redacted, and the gag order was lifted. In 2024, the federal courts denied an application to release all the documents unredacted. The civil liberties association appealed that decision. 

“It was just shocking and kind of hard to believe,” Skuce said. “Since then, I think it’s gotten worse, seeing how things played out here in Wet’suwet’en territory with Coastal GasLink and the level of oppression and the weaponizing and use of injunctions.”

She said it feels like an erosion of democracy, where dissent is directly targeted and dissuaded, if not criminalized. 

“It’s just depressing, really.”

“Legitimate protest and activism is our democratic right here in Canada and I think everyone should be concerned if we’re having our police force and spy agencies sharing that information with corporations,” she said.

— With files from Zak Vescera

Updated Nov. 13, 2025, at 12:00 p.m. PT: This article was updated to include comment from CSIS.

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