It is easy to get lost in the numbers when talking about fracking in Alberta: to be temporarily dazzled by the growth of production, the insatiable thirst for water and the profits that follow. 

The practice has seen a dramatic increase over the past 13 years, with production rising sevenfold between 2013 and 2024 to the equivalent of more than 640 million barrels of oil per year. Water consumption also soared 335 per cent, from 6.5 billion litres to almost 30 billion litres of freshwater per year.

Those sorts of figures are almost impossible to comprehend. You could count how many swimming pools that water might fill (164 million), or try to imagine a stack of barrels teetering high into the atmosphere, but what does that really mean?

In parts of rural Alberta, you don’t need those kinds of mental gymnastics to understand the scale of the industry and its impact. The evidence is all around you. Creeks run dry. Hoses and pumps seem to line every ditch. Then there are the trucks and drilling and noise.

This is particularly true in the rural areas of west-central Alberta, a long stretch of the province sandwiched between the foothills to the west and the frenetic Calgary-Edmonton corridor to the east.

It’s here where ranches, farms and communities sit side by side with a fracking boom that is outcompeting the locals for water.

What we saw this summer

Looking back on the past ten years, the summer of 2026 was an anomaly for the area of Alberta an hour drive southwest of Edmonton. Parched fields were inundated with rain early in the season, and rivers and creeks flowed with renewed vigour. Some areas received more rainfall than ever before.

But that moisture wasn’t enough to quell concerns from some residents in the Blindman and Medicine River watersheds, where fracking activity has been increasing — and water concerns are front and centre. 

Fracking involves injecting water deep into the ground to break up rock where gas is trapped in tight crevasses, often thousands of metres under the surface. That water, vast quantities of it, is almost entirely lost to the water cycle as it remains trapped in the reservoirs that previously held gas. The water that does come to the surface is contaminated.

The Narwhal spent a day travelling through the Rimbey, Alta., area with Daniel Iseli-Otto and Assar Grinde, two members of the Blindman River Watershed Society, in July this year, visiting impacted landowners, following pumping hoses to enormous reservoirs and stopping for a photoshoot among Grinde’s cattle.

There’s an image in many a head of what kind of people raise concerns over oil and gas. Former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney often dismissed those with environmental concerns as “foreign-funded radicals,” but those stereotypes don’t hold.

Butch and Nicole Smith, who live in the area, blame the construction of a massive reservoir across from their isolated property for the decline of their bison herd. They’re moving. 

Grinde, whose family has owned its ranch for generations, talks about watching the creek on that land dry up and how the oil and gas companies were still pumping water for fracking while he was left with mud. 

Iseli-Otto curses as we turn onto another gravel road, heavily pitted from the trucks moving back and forth from a fracking reservoir site. “This is industrial pulverization of county roads,” he says, as he slows down in his Ram 3500 pickup truck.

Dana Kreil, the chair of the nearby Medicine River Watershed Society, and a councillor for Lacombe County, jumped in Iseli-Otto’s truck in the afternoon. She says the road in front of her home was “trashed” by one company active in the area.

“I want them to get a bill,” she says.

Not just fracking, not just the Blindman

Travelling through rural Alberta, it feels like the frustrations that come alongside the pay cheques and the royalties of the broader oil and gas industry are increasing in step with a years-long trend of companies failing to pay their share — whether they frack wells or not. 

Even with record profits, investments and jobs don’t stack up the way they used to. Too often, oil and gas companies fail to pay their bills, and that has consequences. Unpaid municipal taxes hurt local governments — and eat into budgets for things like road maintenance — and unpaid leases force landowners to seek government compensation on behalf of delinquent companies. At the same time, there are more and more orphan and inactive wells. 

All of those local impacts intertwine with the changing climate and the associated droughts, fires and floods.

Grinde says no one really thinks of the water the companies pull from the rivers and underground aquifers until there’s not enough to go around, and then it becomes a priority. And although the summer of 2026 was altogether too wet for many farmers, the drought years are predicted to return as part of a longer-term pattern of increased volatility. 

The cause of those swings in climate are once again related to big numbers that are hard to grasp. 

$168 billion in revenue. $22 billion in royalties the government relies on. 310 billion litres of water consumed by Alberta’s oil and gas industry. Then there’s the five billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions from global oil and gas production, seven billion tonnes from transportation and the unfathomable heating of oceans. 

The big picture is abstract; hard to fathom. But here at Blindman Creek, the impacts are tangible. 

“It’s really obvious that it’s an issue, but it’s really hard to make it concrete for people,” Iseli-Otto says. “This is an issue for people in Calgary, this is an issue for people in Edmonton, but they don’t know. The amount of water that’s getting sucked out is mind blowing.”

Updated on Oct. 15, 2026, at 2:05 p.m. MT: This story has been updated to clarify that the five billion tonnes from global oil and gas production and seven billion tonnes from transportation refers to tonnes of emissions.

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A document meant for a behind-closed-doors group of fossil fuel advocates earlier this year got right to the point: Canada’s policies to fight the climate crisis, protect nature and defend Indigenous Rights are a “problem,” and environmental organizations are “opponents.” 

The document, a copy of which was reviewed by The Narwhal, relates to a presentation that was scheduled to occur in January 2026. It was prepared by two advocacy groups called Energy United and Resource Works, both with connections to the country’s largest oil and gas lobby group, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. 

It was part of a session in which fossil fuel advocacy groups were to discuss shaping public perceptions in favour of the oil and gas industry and against the transition to clean energy, according to materials downloaded from a coordinating group’s website by The Narwhal and originally uncovered by Greenpeace Canada.

Under the heading “Knowing our opponents,” the document details work by environmental advocacy organizations and First Nations, and the funding that supports them.

It lays out how environmental non-profit groups are collaborative, well-funded — and effective. “The damage is real & intentional,” the document says of environmental advocacy in Canada, adding, “Every major ‘problem policy’ we fight traces back to an ENGO-authored framework or idea.” 

An ENGO is an environment-focused non-governmental organization. The document includes examples of “problem policies,” including the federal emissions cap, Canada’s commitment to protect 30 per cent of its lands and water by 2030 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The document also highlights funding for Coastal First Nations, and their stance against lifting the oil tanker ban in northern B.C. — a years-long thorn in the side of the fossil fuel industry and another “problem policy,” according to the document.

“So, what can we do about it?” the document asks of environmental advocacy in general. It proposes moving “from defence to offence” by launching “counter-campaigns,” “calling out hypocrisy” and filing “regulatory complaints” against environmental groups like the David Suzuki Foundation.

“They want to be on the attack,” Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist for Greenpeace Canada, said of oil and gas groups in an interview.

Stewart is one of the authors of the Greenpeace report “Manufacturing Petro-Populism,” which was published Oct. 8 and delves into the web of pro-fossil fuel organizations. 

The document was one of eight presentations scheduled to occur at the January “funders session,” according to an agenda published on the website of a coordinating network, Energy In Action. The session was organized for a group called Canadian Energy Prosperity. The Energy In Action website stated that it hosted a “showcase of a selection of our 30+ groups” Canadian Energy Prosperity works with.

The document was posted publicly on the Energy In Action website, where The Narwhal viewed it. The Narwhal emailed questions to Energy In Action on Oct. 5. The following day, the website became password protected.

Energy In Action and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did the advocacy organizations Energy United and Resource Works. Canadian Energy Prosperity does not appear to have its own web presence or any publicly available contact information.

Media, including The Narwhal, singled out in internal oil and gas document

The document also singled out a government funding program called the Local Journalism Initiative. 

It included a screenshot of a story published by The Narwhal, written by journalist Matt Simmons, whose work has been supported by the initiative. The story recounts Simmons’ experience being followed by private security as he reported on a pipeline being built through Wet’suwet’en lands.

The Local Journalism Initiative is a federal program that funds news reporting in rural, remote and otherwise underserved communities. The Narwhal receives this funding for reporting in northwestern B.C. and northern Ontario.

To protect the independence of the press, the government does not directly fund media outlets. The program is delivered by independent non-profits representing different segments of Canada’s media industry. 

“It’s clear that they see some journalists as opponents,” Stewart said of the pro-fossil fuel groups behind the document. “They don’t want anyone looking too closely at what they’re actually doing.”

Material ‘appears to build on a long-standing public outreach program’: Greenpeace

Greenpeace Canada claims the Energy In Action network “appears to build on a long-standing public outreach program” by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, “which seems to have been repurposed to enable oil companies to spread their message via third parties.”

Energy United founder Tim McMillan was president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers for seven years, and is currently registered as a federal lobbyist on energy issues. Stewart Muir, the president of Resource Works, formerly lobbied for a pro-fossil fuel group organized by Resource Works called The Task Force For Real Jobs, Real Recovery. The task force’s website claims the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers is a “supporter.” 

Requests for comment to McMillan and Muir’s LinkedIn pages were not returned.

Greenpeace Canada’s report says the Energy In Action network operates “under the guise of independent and grassroots entities” but actually coordinates industry-linked activities designed to “shift public discourse and actively lobby against renewable energy initiatives.”

It said the network’s “hidden funders” are investing in campaigns targeting a large cross-section of Canadian demographics and regions, using different tools like lobbying, public advocacy and digital and traditional advertising.

The network’s activities and internal materials, it said, deploy “climate disinformation, covert influence campaigns and attacks against activists.”

The Energy In Action documents should be seen as part of a broader context of an industry that’s been proactive for years in trying to shape public opinion about its activities, its climate impacts and its economic benefits, according to Shane Gunster, a professor in the school of communication at Simon Fraser University who studies oil and gas populism.

In an interview, Gunster said his research has shown pro-oil-and-gas messaging shifted over the last decade from more expensive public relations campaigns to using social media to mobilize supporters. 

He said in recent years he’s seen greater use of what he calls “pop-up groups,” which appear to be self-contained entities that focus on a particular issue in a particular geographic location, and only appear for a limited time.

“Groups that are not explicitly connected to particular funders or industry itself can do things that industry itself would find challenging to do or to say,” he said.

He said the group of funders tied to the activities Greenpeace uncovered are supporting particularly aggressive messaging, but that isn’t always the case with pro-oil-and-gas campaigns.

Canada passed legislation in 2024 to crack down on greenwashing, which is when companies make misleading claims about how environmentally friendly their products or actions are. It created a requirement for companies in Canada to back up their green claims with evidence. After it passed, oil companies scrubbed their websites and social media feeds. 

Although Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government rolled back a clause stipulating that this evidence be based on internationally recognized standards, several oil companies were still citing the law as a reason why they can’t disclose more information. 

Gunster said he felt the anti-greenwashing changes were a factor, but not necessarily the driving force behind the pro-oil-and-gas messaging shift towards pop-up groups, which he began seeing before the anti-greenwashing law was in place.

There is public evidence that at least some of the entities Greenpeace connected to the Energy In Action network have received funding from oil companies themselves. 

According to corporate disclosure records, Cenovus, one of Canada’s largest oil and gas companies, has funded seven of them, including Resource Works. Cenovus is a member of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, and Cenovus president Jon McKenzie is also the chair of the association’s board.

Cenovus proactively discloses its advocacy funding, while some other prominent oil companies do not. 

There’s no indication that the funding Cenovus has provided is directly related to the public advocacy activities reported by groups such as Resource Works during the Canadian Energy Prosperity sessions. Cenovus did not return a request for comment.

Groups tied to Energy In Action are funding disinformation: Greenpeace

Another document, a video presentation viewed online by The Narwhal, introduced itself as a “performance update for CEP,” the acronym for Canadian Energy Prosperity. The beginning of the video is dated July 2, 2025, and states that it would take place at the Calgary Petroleum Club.

That video highlighted four pro-fossil fuel ad campaigns by the organization Debunk Inc., which claims its mission is to “challenge misinformation.” Debunk’s video said the campaigns were “thanks to CEP’s support,” but did not specify who funded them or how much funding they received.

One of Debunk’s ads defended the use of natural gas in homes. Another attacked a proposal to limit heat-trapping carbon pollution from the oil and gas industry. A third downplayed the necessity of transitioning to lower-emissions fuels, and a fourth suggested liquefied natural gas, or LNG, could lead to “lower” emissions.

A Harvard study has shown that low levels of pollutants seep into homes with gas heat, while gas stoves have been associated with increased risk of asthma in children. Scientists say a disputed theory long favoured by the industry, that LNG can displace coal power abroad, underestimates the climate impact of equipment leaking methane, the main component of natural gas.

Each of these campaigns achieved results, the video claimed. The most successful was the anti-emissions cap campaign. Debunk claimed it had reached “up to 1.5 million Canadians” each month, and scored 22.3 million total views in 2025. 

The Calgary Petroleum Club did not return a request for comment.

On the Energy In Action website viewed by The Narwhal, an individual webpage also featured content from Debunk, listing the four campaigns as well as a “top performing post” which claimed it is “debunking the ‘complete fabrication’ of climate change.” 

That post, which the webpage said received “over 3,000,000 views,” contained a video claiming carbon dioxide does not cause harmful climate change. Hundreds of global climate scientists working under the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have confirmed that the burning of fossil fuels is “unequivocally” responsible for recent global warming.

The Debunk webpage on the Energy In Action website featured a social media post claiming, “We’re wasting a lot of money for very little, if any, gain with all this climate hysteria.”

That post contains another video claiming the amount of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere isn’t a significant problem. Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have increased dramatically in less than two centuries, recently to levels that have not been seen in millions of years.

Debunk did not respond to requests for comment. Founders Anastasia Columbos and Britni Weston are described on the website as “two Canadians with deep roots in the energy industry.” Neither responded to requests for comment on LinkedIn.

Greenpeace is calling on “all entities, organizations and corporate partners” involved in the Energy In Action network to disclose their funding sources and any financial connections to Canadian Energy Prosperity.

It is also echoing UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s call for countries to ban fossil fuel advertisements.

Methodology+

The presentations and agendas for two “Canadian Energy Prosperity funders” meetings, one in mid-2025 and one in early 2026, were posted publicly on the Energy In Action website, energy-in-action.com. The contact email listed was hosted on the domain cep-eia.com, a combination of the acronyms for both Canadian Energy Prosperity and Energy In Action.

The Narwhal reviewed the material directly by downloading it from the Energy In Action website on Oct. 2 and Oct. 5. The Narwhal emailed questions to Energy In Action’s email on Oct. 5. The following day, the Energy In Action website became password protected. Energy In Action did not return the request for comment.

One of the documents mentioned in this article included reference to a handful of philanthropic organizations, several of which have provided funding to The Narwhal and are disclosed on our website along with all major donors. Greenpeace carried out its investigation with support from the Trottier Family Foundation, which also provides funding to The Narwhal. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, no foundation has any editorial input.

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There was a brief, telling moment when Prime Minister Mark Carney was onstage at a Calgary Chamber of Commerce event last year, following the announcement of a memorandum of understanding with the Alberta government for a new “private sector constructed and financed pipeline” to the West Coast. 

Deborah Yedlin, the CEO of the chamber, mentioned the agreement’s stipulation: the project needed a private proponent rather than public funding. Then she said the project required “derisking.”“Are you saying there’s no room for the government to derisk something for a period of time in order to attract private capital that’s needed for a project like that?” she asked Carney. In other words, how far was Carney willing to go to protect industry from losses?Carney listed off moves his government was making, including regulatory clarity, tax incentives and loan guarantees to move the project forward. And then he said: “In essence, the Asian pipeline will be a private sector project …”

That one word, essence, bore considerable weight. 

So too did the timing of the Oct. 1 announcement that the pipeline — now known as Pacific Link — would be the first project of national interest listed under the federal government’s sweeping Building Canada Act. It comes just over two weeks before Alberta holds a referendum on whether to hold an independence referendum, as well as a slew of questions aimed mostly at immigrants. 

From the beginning, the pipeline plan was a political one, based on a calculus that can be hard to understand outside of Alberta, where decades of government and industry messaging has succeeded in tightly weaving oil and gas into the province’s culture. 

Never has that narrative been pushed harder than by the United Conservative Party government, first under former premier Jason Kenney and now amplified even more under Premier Danielle Smith. 

Having directly linked the future of the country with deregulation for the oil and gas sector, Smith now faces the headwinds of that rhetoric in the form of a burgeoning separatist movement. It’s one she has aided to protect herself from an influential secessionist base in her party. 

It’s a situation Carney has recognized and attempted to shape, acquiescing to Alberta’s demands in an effort to shore up a united front as threats from the United States grow more stark. 

The prime minister might have promised Canadians a “private sector constructed and financed pipeline” in last fall’s memorandum. But it was clear from the beginning he was willing to pay a premium to achieve peace. 

How Alberta’s politics of wealth and alienation fuelled the Pacific Link promise

After their first meeting in March of last year, Smith threatened Carney with an “unprecedented national unity crisis” if he did not respond to a list of demands almost entirely focused on boosting the oil and gas sector. 

It was part and parcel of a wider campaign to link Alberta’s political and economic fortunes more tightly with fossil fuels, including moves to designate emissions data as critical infrastructure to prevent the federal government from accessing it and put up regulatory and economic hurdles to block renewable energy development. 

Smith’s actions are part of a long history of resentment that stretches back as far as the creation of the province, when the federal government denied Alberta control over its natural resources, a move that was later reversed. 

There’s an entire mythology of eastern Canadian domination built up around the National Energy Program introduced by Pierre Elliot Trudeau in the early 1980s, which still resonates with separatists and mainstream conservatives alike. In this century, the climate actions of his son Justin Trudeau inflamed a new sense of subjugation in the oil patch. 

Those resentments and mythologies have been curated by successive Alberta governments as an easy way to rally Albertans to their cause and help cover up internal failures, particularly when it comes to budget crashes. And now it has reached a fever pitch. 

Carney, a veteran of Brexit and big brain amidst big brain money makers, recognized the weight of Smith’s threat and an especially restless Alberta, particularly as the geopolitical landscape shifted under his feet. He wasted no time in wooing her, and her province. 

He has proven willing to deregulate and slash emissions programs and targets to help industry. Now, he’s opening the federal government’s hefty purse to buy peace. The pipeline will cost billions, without any promise that price will be enough to please Smith’s government and the powers it has unleashed. 

Pacific Link pipeline promise is rushing to meet a very specific moment

Pacific Link is moving fast, because it’s meant to meet this specific moment: oil prices are high, Alberta separation is occupying vital political real estate, and a trade war with the U.S. is both threatening Canadian well-being and galvanizing political will for big risks and fast action. 

In this rush, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that many important details still aren’t finalized — such as the route, financing and oilsands companies meeting requirements for a massive carbon capture and storage project.

All of this makes meeting this specific moment difficult, to say the least. It will be years before the pipeline is online. 

There are also serious questions about investing billions of taxpayer dollars into a project for a sector facing possible reductions in demand and a global shift away from the uncertainty of oil markets. Not to mention concerns over the impacts of increased emissions and the reduced ambitions for carbon capture. 

Despite this announcement, the referendum will still take place. The provincial government is spending millions to tell Albertans to send Ottawa a message and stand up for a more sovereign province. Its list of demands remains, even if Smith is playing nice with Carney for the time being.

The willingness of the Alberta government to act in good faith is also questionable. Only days after it signed last fall’s memorandum with the federal government, it went ahead with changes which undermined its industrial carbon price that it promised to strengthen in the agreement. 

That’s the same memorandum containing the broken promise of a “private sector constructed and financed pipeline.” It all suggests Donald Trump isn’t the only Western leader who signs agreements in pencil. 

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LNG Canada is already the largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in the country. Now, the Shell-led project is set to double its production. 

The consortium of companies behind the massive LNG export facility announced the decision to green-light spending on Sept. 28. Shell, along with its partners Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi and Korea Gas, were originally approved by the provincial and federal governments to build two phases of the Kitimat, B.C., plant in 2015. Operations of the initial phase started last year, with the first shipments leaving Canada in late June.

Prime Minister Mark Carney touted the investment decision in Vancouver this morning. “Canada is building big again,” he said, speaking to a room of company executives, politicians, First Nations elected and hereditary chiefs, municipal leaders and stakeholders. “Today’s investment — as you know, over $30 billion in LNG Canada 2 — will make LNG Canada the second-largest facility of its kind in the world.”

“This is a very big deal indeed,” BC NDP leader David Eby said at the same announcement. “It will change lives, here and around the world.”

The $33 billion investment decision comes as the first phase continues to face problems with its equipment.

As first reported in The Narwhal, an integrity issue with the facility’s flare stack was identified in the early commissioning stage after the company began testing its equipment in late 2024. LNG Canada later reported the problem to the BC Energy Regulator and the facility has been continually in non-compliance with its government-issued permits since. For months, Kitimat community members were subjected to excessive noise, black smoke, a towering flame — at times reaching the height of New York’s Statue of Liberty or London’s Big Ben — and a concoction of unidentified chemical smells and various other emissions as plant operators tried to get things under control. 

LNG Canada and the BC Energy Regulator maintain emissions from the plant are not harmful to human health, but many residents worry the combined output from the new liquefaction facility and Kitimat’s aluminum smelter may impact respiratory conditions and cause other health issues.

Burning excess methane gas, or flaring, is a normal safety procedure at liquefaction facilities. It releases greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide as well as emitting dangerous pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and small particulate matter, which affect human health.

Earlier in September, LNG Canada held community meetings in Kitimat so locals could weigh in on plans for a permit amendment. The consortium wants an increase in allowable emissions levels to account for its need to keep the flare burning 24/7 — until the stack can be redesigned in 2028. 

“There is an operational issue with the flare design where at very low flow rates, the gas being burned moves from the tip of the flare to within the flare tip itself, causing a hot spot in the metal there,” Teresa Waddington, a senior executive at LNG Canada and registered professional engineer, previously told The Narwhal. “To prevent these hot spots, more gas is sent through the flare system … to push the flame back up to the top of the flare tip.”

This “assist gas” amounted to around 10 per cent of all gas that was sent to the coastal plant last year. As The Narwhal and Point Source reported, LNG Canada flared 350 million cubic metres of gas in 2025, making it one of the highest sources of LNG flaring emissions globally.

What exactly is the LNG Canada Phase 2 expansion?

LNG Canada was approved for two phases: the second adds two processing units, called trains, to increase the liquefaction capacity from 14 to 28 million tonnes of LNG per year. This expansion also means Coastal GasLink, the contentious 670-kilometre pipeline supplying the export plant, needs to double its capacity. That will be done by building five new compressor stations along the route. 

“Thanks to LNG Canada’s decision today, TC Energy is moving forward with its own multi-billion-dollar Phase 2 of the Coastal GasLink pipeline,” Carney said. “That means doubling capacity, creating an additional 2,000 jobs and maximizing the value of … one of the most prolific natural gas basins.”

Coastal GasLink, which was built between 2019 and 2024 by Calgary-based TC Energy, faced widespread opposition in support of Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs, who argued the company did not receive free, prior and informed consent from the Aboriginal title holders to land intersected by the pipeline.

When Indigenous land defenders and their supporters tried to stop construction, a series of infamous RCMP raids led to dozens of arrests and solidarity protests across the country.

In its announcement yesterday, LNG Canada noted the investment decision includes an equity option agreement secured this summer with “a limited partnership of the economic development organizations of five First Nations neighbouring LNG Canada’s operations: Gitga’at Nation, Gitxaała Nation, Haisla Nation, Kitselas First Nation and Kitsumkalum First Nation.” That agreement “represents one of the largest Indigenous ownership positions in major Canadian infrastructure,” according to the company.

LNG Canada also said the expansion has “the potential to generate more than $50 billion in government revenues” over the 40-year life of the project.

“A year ago, the federal government referred LNG Canada Phase 2 to our Major Projects Office. One office. One point of contact. One goal: get to the right decision, rapidly and efficiently,” Carney said. “Working with Shell and LNG Canada, British Columbia, and First Nations, we have accomplished exactly that.”

What comes next?

Construction on the pipeline and at the Kitimat facility will begin immediately, Carney said in his speech. According to the company, around 4,000 workers will be hired to build the expansion at the plant and around 2,000 people will build the pipeline compressor stations.

Community members in Kitimat continue calling for transparency and investment in health facilities and studies. 

“I wish that they could acknowledge [emissions from the plant] could be a problem,” one young resident, who asked not to be named, told The Narwhal. “We’re gonna have to be around the flaring either way.”

LNG Canada said a redesign of the malfunctioning flaring equipment will be implemented in 2028. In the meantime, the company plans to request an amendment to its permits to account for continued higher levels of flaring emissions. 

The BC Energy Regulator said “LNG Canada has reported ongoing instances where flaring from one or more of the facility’s flare systems is not consistent with the requirements of its air discharge permit to the [regulator, but] these instances have not had a measurable impact on local air quality.”

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As the September sun dips down towards the mountains on the western side of the Kitimat Valley in northwestern B.C., a blueish haze hovers over the coastal community. 

The familiar plume from Rio Tinto’s aluminum smelter, a source of local air pollution for more than seven decades, now mixes with emissions from the LNG Canada gas liquefaction and export facility, which started shipping cargoes overseas last year. At the centre of the sprawling industrial site, an orange flame glows continuously from the top of a red and white tower. That’s the flare stack, which earned the new gas plant the dubious distinction of being among the world’s highest sources of flaring emissions last year. 

LNG Canada, owned and operated by a consortium of five foreign companies led by Shell, maintains its emissions are safe. Some residents aren’t so sure.

At open-house events at the town’s recreation centre over two days in mid-September, company executives, engineers and other employees field questions from members of the public. Moments after walking into the fluorescent-lit room, I’m recognized by a company representative who asks if I plan to interview anyone while I’m there. I laugh, shaking my head incredulously. He grins and says he’s read my reporting. A few minutes later, Teresa Waddington, a senior executive at LNG Canada and registered professional engineer, approaches to shake my hand.

LNG Canada is holding the event so community members can weigh in on plans for a permit amendment. The consortium wants an increase in allowable emissions levels to account for its need to keep the flare burning 24/7 — until the stack can be redesigned in 2028. 

Waddington tells me it’s not a perfect solution to problems that have plagued the flaring system since commissioning began in late 2024, but says the company has made significant progress to reduce flaring levels over the past couple of months. She says the original permit didn’t account for “higher flaring volumes” associated with getting an LNG plant up and running. 

But that’s not the whole story.

Kitimat sits at the end of a 100-kilometre long fjord, hemmed in by mountains. Its geography means the town experiences a specific set of weather conditions: regular high winds, temperature inversions, rollercoaster pressure systems fed by the Pacific Ocean and more. LNG Canada’s flare stack wasn’t built to handle those conditions.

When the liquefaction facility fired up its flare stack, locals and workers alike quickly realized something was wrong. As first reported in The Narwhal, an integrity issue with the main stack was identified and later reported to the BC Energy Regulator. For months, the community was subjected to excessive noise, towering flames lighting the night sky, black smoke and a concoction of unidentified chemical smells and various other emissions as plant operators tried to get things under control. 

“There is an operational issue with the flare design where at very low flow rates, the gas being burned moves from the tip of the flare to within the flare tip itself, causing a hot spot in the metal there,” Waddington tells me later in an email, after I follow up on our conversation. “To prevent these hot spots, more gas is sent through the flare system … to push the flame back up to the top of the flare tip.”

This “assist gas” amounted to around 10 per cent of all gas that was sent to the coastal plant last year. Locals nicknamed the flare, which reached heights of around 90 metres at times, the “Eye of Mordor” after J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

While LNG Canada is working to amend its permits, the consortium also appears poised to make a final investment decision on an approved expansion, which would double production at the Kitimat plant. As Reuters recently reported, a decision on the project’s second phase could come as early as October. Both the federal and provincial governments have signalled strong support for the expansion.

In the community, vast work camps built to support construction of the LNG plant sit vacant and quiet. Today, the flare burns low, a dull fiery glow at the heart of the haze like the ember of a cigarette seen across a dimly lit room. It’s been calmer and quieter lately — but problems persist, and the gas being burned daily continues to exceed government permits.

Flaring not a danger to human health, LNG Canada says

Kitimat is no stranger to industry. The community was built on Haisla lands in the 1950s as a company town — serving what was then known as the Aluminum Company of Canada, or Alcan. 

The town’s residents, while not accustomed to living alongside a liquefied natural gas plant, are familiar with being an industrial hub. As Kitimat mayor Phil Germuth previously told The Narwhal: “Being a town that was built by industry, people understand that every once in a while you’re going to have to put up with something to get the bigger goal in the end.” 

Kitimat is also a small town, with a population of around 8,000, and a major industry like LNG Canada has extensive connections throughout the community that might make dissenting residents think twice about openly voicing their opinions. 

Several community members The Narwhal spoke to, who asked not to be identified, said they’re grateful for LNG Canada grants they’ve received or sponsored programs they’ve participated in, but worry about how the combined emissions from the two major industrial facilities might be affecting their health. Most who shared their views say they’re not against having a gas plant in town — but they’re skeptical about claims the emissions aren’t harmful.

One resident tells me they avoid strenuous activity outdoors now — just in case. Another, who owns and operates a local business, wonders why Rio Tinto, which produces more hydroelectricity than it uses and sells the balance to BC Hydro, and LNG Canada, which is liquefying natural gas extracted from deposits in the northeast, don’t provide the town with free electricity and gas.

“I’d much rather not pay for hydro and gas,” they shrugged.

According to LNG Canada and the provincial regulator, excess flaring isn’t a problem for human health. Because the gas is burned at the flare stack, it’s mostly converted to carbon dioxide and water vapour, Waddington says. In other words, more gas being flared doesn’t necessarily increase local pollution levels — which have remained below provincial guidelines, according to the BC Energy Regulator. This claim is substantiated by local air quality monitoring, much of which was implemented when Rio Tinto underwent a major expansion between 2011 and 2015.

“There is a long-established air quality monitoring network that monitors ambient air quality in the Kitimat region, on an ongoing basis … to ensure no impact to human health,” Waddington says.

They’ve reduced the flaring volumes significantly since installing a new flare tip in July, Waddington adds, but until the whole system can be redesigned they will still need to burn more gas than originally planned.

The new flare tip has “the same design [with] upgraded metallurgy [that enables it to] operate with a bit more backburn and manage hot spots,” which she explains reduces the amount of extra gas being flared by about 60 per cent. “We are working with the company that designed the flare tip to improve this design further and to ensure it operates as expected in real-world conditions.”

But there are other emissions from the plant, too, including black smoke from the stack, which indicates particulates and unburned gases. As The Narwhal recently reported, LNG Canada predicted black smoke would be emitted between 15 and 60 minutes one to three times per year while it stabilized early operations, but the plant has exceeded that estimate. 

In April, the BC Energy Regulator ordered LNG Canada to identify the root cause and implement a fix by October. On Sept. 21, the regulator posted the first report since implementing these measures, which identified “20 black smoke events that occurred between April 22 and July 31, 2026, including events that LNG Canada self-reported as non-compliances.” The regulator noted LNG Canada also reported “four additional black smoke events during August 2026” and community members told The Narwhal of at least one event in September.

Still more types of emissions, visible only through an optical gas imaging camera, are also being released at the plant. Details of these emissions were published in August by The Narwhal and Point Source after being observed by Tim Doty, a former oil and gas inspector with the state of Texas.

“The emissions that could not be seen with the bare eye were shocking,” he said at the time, after monitoring emissions at the Kitimat facility with a camera earlier in the year.

In Strawberry Meadows, the residential neighbourhood closest to the plant, several homes and serviced lots are listed for sale. They’re nice houses: modern design, tucked in amongst the trees on quiet streets. But while the entire town is adjusting to living with the new industrial project, it’s this area that has experienced the most noise and emissions. 

Around this time last year, one resident of the neighbourhood told The Narwhal he and his family couldn’t sleep for days on end.

“We maybe got two hours’ sleep this whole weekend. I’m just useless now.” 

Because of the imminent provincial election, the regulator was unable to answer questions, noting “government is in a caretaker mode” and communications, including from Crown agencies like the BC Energy Regulator “are limited to critical health and public safety information.” A spokesperson sent links to data — LNG Canada’s daily and monthly flaring amounts, the latest air quality data map and B.C.’s air quality objectives and standards — along with a statement about its ongoing oversight of the liquefaction facility.

Residents ‘more curious than concerned:’ LNG Canada executive

At the open house, community members speak quietly with company reps, asking questions about flaring, emissions, smells and more.

Joanne Spencer, another senior executive with LNG Canada, says most residents who come through are more curious than concerned. Between four sessions over two days, around 120 people stop by.

“This is quite an engaging way to talk to members of the public,” she says, gesturing around the room at clusters of employees speaking with residents. “If you’re looking at somebody in the eyes, it gives the opportunity for you to acknowledge that they’ve understood or [see if they] have another question.”

For her part, Waddington says she’s committed to show up at council meetings and “many other places where people congregate to engage in the conversation on what LNG Canada is doing well and where we need to improve.” 

She tells me she previously worked as a plant manager at a Shell gas facility in Scotland where flaring “attracted community interest and concern.”

“As a result of a prolonged flaring incident, many of the staff from the facility were facing hard questions from concerned community members in their day-to-day lives,” she says, explaining she experienced tension while going about the community. 

“It was important to me then, as it is to both me and LNG Canada now, that the company engages directly with [the] community when they have concerns to provide information, listen for what matters and how we can improve in those areas or better communicate about them.”

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As other western provinces struggle to address the environmental and economic fallout from thousands of orphan oil and gas wells, only a tiny portion of Manitoba’s petroleum infrastructure is sitting idle and unclaimed. 

But it’s unclear, however, if the province’s small roster of orphan wells is the byproduct of effective regulation — or a historic lack of departmental oversight. Manitoba’s oil and gas industry is relatively small and generally opaque. None of the experts contacted for this story had direct knowledge of the province’s orphan-well landscape.

“My lab has probably measured the most non-producing wells in the country. I don’t think anybody I know is working on it [in Manitoba] who are in the academic realm,” Mary Kang, an associate professor in civil engineering at McGill University, says.

The province’s petroleum branch has only been compiling and sharing orphan-well data for the past five years. Its 2025 inventory lists 31 well sites without a legally or financially responsible owner, which make up less than one per cent of the 4,000 wells currently producing oil in Manitoba.

The reasons for this are many: Manitoba’s oil and gas industry is smaller than other western provinces, allowing for regular inspections of batteries and most producing wells, according to an emailed statement from a provincial spokesperson.

But the intricacies of regulation also differ across the provinces. At the same time, the government body tasked with keeping tabs on the issue has been chronically understaffed. Whether Manitoba offers a lesson for other provinces or if it should be eyeing the rapidly escalating orphan well inventories of its neighbours with caution remains to be seen.

Environmental impacts of old wells can include methane, contamination

Orphan wells are oil or gas drilling sites that have been left to languish without being properly cleaned up, often because the company that owns them has gone bankrupt. Wells are often thousands of metres deep and these sites can leak methane, a potent and volatile greenhouse gas, and contaminate soil, air and groundwater.

A 2025 study co-authored by Kang suggests Canada’s non-producing oil and gas wells emit a combined 230 kilotonnes of methane per year — a figure seven times higher than estimates from Environment and Climate Change Canada. Wells that have been properly sealed with cement and decommissioned are referred to as plugged or “abandoned.” Most orphan wells are not yet plugged.

“In general, plugged wells emit less [methane] and are less of an environmental concern,” Kang says, adding unplugged wells are a bigger concern. “But even among unplugged wells, some emit nothing and some emit a lot.”

Orphan well inventories can grow ‘in leaps and bounds’

Orphan wells are an issue that can expand quickly.

“The concern is that the inventory can grow in leaps and bounds from year to year. We just saw that happen here in Alberta,” Amanda Bryant, manager of the oil and gas program at the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental think tank, says. 

Alberta’s orphan-well inventory ballooned to more than 7,300 sites this year after thousands of wells owned by an insolvent Calgary-based oil company were transferred to the province’s Orphan Well Association.

The association — a non-profit funded by industry — is responsible for decommissioning and cleaning up orphan oil and gas sites. Alberta had fewer than 300 orphan wells when the organization was founded in 2002.

That exponential growth is due to poor provincial regulation, Bryant says. 

“The main problem is that there’s nothing stopping companies from deferring the costs of closure and cleanup,” she says. “The other half is the so-called liability-dumping behaviour that a lot of companies engage in.”

The practice of liability dumping cited by Bryant has made insolvency a growing concern as larger companies sell off risky assets to smaller companies, which critics say happens with too little financial vetting from the regulator.

As in Manitoba, oil and gas companies in Alberta are legally required to clean up well sites that are no longer in use. Yet, because the Alberta Energy Regulator provides no concrete timelines for closing unused wells, operators often leave the sites for years or decades to avoid paying clean-up costs. 

If a company files for bankruptcy prior to remediation, that cost is passed on to the Orphan Well Association. Taxpayers can be left footing some of  the bill for closure costs — which carry an estimated $1.66-billion price tag — due the association’s lack of adequate funding, while also covering delinquent oil and gas companies’ unpaid oil and gas land rent and taxes owed to municipalities.

To address the issue, the Pembina Institute has recommended increasing the orphan-well levy, enacting an escalating inactive-well fee and introducing strict timelines for cleanup.

The situation is similar in Saskatchewan, which has nearly 4,500 orphan wells, and British Columbia, which has 998.

Manitoba’s unique regulatory environment

Manitoba’s oil and gas industry is an outlier in several ways. 

For one, it has a comparatively small oil patch, which is concentrated in the southwest corner of the province and dominated by Tundra Oil & Gas — a locally owned subsidiary of James Richardson & Sons. 

It also differs in provincial regulation. Operators have to submit an application to suspend drilling at a well site to the petroleum branch. Suspensions are valid for a maximum of three years, after which the company needs to apply for an extension.

“What it means is that Manitoba has a much lower proportion of its wells that are in a suspended state,” Bryant says. “If [wells] sit there in a state of inactivity for a long time … there’s a risk that they’ll end up orphans, and so that’s a positive policy move that the province has taken.”

Unlike other provinces, where insolvency is a driving force, most of Manitoba’s orphan wells are the result of petroleum branch seizures following non-compliance of shutdown orders or failure to meet regulatory requirements, a provincial spokesperson said. 

If a seized well is capable of producing oil, the province can sell the facility or transfer the licence to a new owner.  

Nearly all of the companies with orphan wells are still actively drilling elsewhere in the oil patch.

Four inspectors are now employed in Manitoba’s petroleum branch, up from one

Manitoba has been addressing orphan wells for many years, according to the province, but only released its first consolidated inventory in 2021, with an update posted publicly last year. 

Of the 23 wells listed on the original inventory, all but six remained orphaned in 2025, according to a Narwhal/Free Press analysis of the publicly available records. The others were removed from the list after their status was updated to abandoned (as in, properly plugged) in 2022.

The 2025 batch of 25 seized wells is largely due to improved staffing capacity, allowing the department to clear a backlog of investigations, the spokesperson said.

Manitoba currently has four provincial petroleum inspectors, up from the single inspector employed in early 2024, when a major Imperial Oil pipeline shutdown prompted the government to address gaps in its monitoring program.

Mya Wheeler, a Winnipeg-based social scientist and researcher whose PhD thesis focused on the local oil and gas industry, found staffing was a perennial problem that undermined departmental efforts to adhere to legislated regulations. 

“As the ramping up of oil wells occurred, there was the same and then less staff, and there was a 600 per cent increase in drilling during the fracking boom,” she says.

“There’s not a lot of ability to make compliance happen because of low staffing.”

Eva Wasney is a reporter covering environmental issues in Manitoba. Her position is part of a partnership between The Narwhal and the Winnipeg Free Press.

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British Columbians are heading back to the provincial polls on Oct. 24, just two years after the 2024 election where the BC NDP barely held on to power.

David Eby justified his decision to call a snap election on Tuesday, pointing to threats posed by trade issues with U.S. President Donald Trump and chaos on B.C.’s political right.

Eby said British Columbians can choose between “the chaos, the cuts [and] the cozying up to Trump of the Conservative caucus” or his party’s pledge to “stand shoulder to shoulder across the country with Canadians.”

During his speech, Eby repeatedly used fire imagery, comparing the situation in the United States to a spreading wildfire. “We need to build a firebreak around the things that make British Columbia special, things that matter most to British Columbians,” he said. “A firebreak, yes, against Trump’s economic attack, but a firebreak against our dependence on the United States, and a firebreak against the Trump-style politics that threatens to infect our province.”

Eby’s decision will also cost the province tens of millions of dollars and disrupt the work of government, leaving legislation in limbo and throwing wrenches into all kinds of timelines. Calls for B.C.’s auditor general to investigate the billion-dollar error in the province’s gas royalty calculations will remain unanswered. Legislation to enact a treaty between B.C. and the Kitselas First Nation could be delayed by months. And the future of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act will be uncertain at least a little longer. 

The premier’s choice to call a snap election now has angered many local government representatives. Municipal elections will take place across B.C. on Oct. 17, and the final weeks of those campaigns will now be overshadowed by the looming provincial election.

“It’s two conversations at one dinner table — it’s noisy, it’s hard to understand and only the loudest voices will be heard,” Cori Ramsay, a city councillor from Prince George who served as the president at the Union of B.C. Municipalities, said at the organization’s annual conference last week. “Overlapping elections will lead to less scrutiny, less accountability, and it’s not in the public interest.”

At the conference, delegates endorsed an emergency resolution calling on the B.C. government to keep a provincial election campaign separate from the scheduled municipal elections. 

Kathryn Harrison, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia, said Eby is taking a calculated risk calling an election so soon after the last one.

“Will the NDP be able to make a credible case for voters that this economic moment justifies an election compared to the case that their opponents will make that this is premature?” she asked.

This isn’t the first time in recent memory a BC NDP premier has called a snap election during a fraught historical moment. In fall 2020, former Premier John Horgan decided to go to the polls, arguing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic required a majority government to effectively serve British Columbians.

Horgan’s gamble paid off, with the NDP winning 57 of the B.C. legislature’s 87 seats.

“I assume that experience is top of mind for Premier Eby and the NDP this time round,” Harrison said. “Can they make the wartime mandate argument, given that Donald Trump’s threats to Canada — threats to the B.C. economy, especially — were not something that was foreseen?”

Despite the risk, Eby has decided to proceed with a snap election call. Here’s why and what it means for some of the significant policies affecting B.C.’s environment.

Why call a B.C. election now?

If the justifications seem flimsy, it may be because all signs point to a major factor in Eby’s decision being the state of the BC Conservative Party, B.C.’s official opposition.

To briefly recap: John Rustad resigned as the party’s leader in December 2025 after weeks of caucus infighting. The race to replace Rustad resulted in Kerry-Lynne Findlay, a former Conservative Party of Canada MP and cabinet minister, becoming leader of the BC Conservative Party on May 30. Findlay’s victory was narrow; she won 51 per cent of party members’ votes, barely beating out second-place finisher Caroline Elliott.

Findlay’s tenure as party leader was spectacularly brief and chaotic. Multiple members of the BC Conservative caucus publicly criticized her leadership style and staffing choices. Over a six-week span this summer, 10 MLAs left the BC Conservative caucus, citing a lack of confidence in Findlay’s leadership. Three others were removed from the caucus, including Rustad (though he has since been invited to rejoin the BC Conservative caucus).

Findlay resigned as party leader on September 20, leaving the BC Conservatives to appoint Cariboo-Chilcotin MLA Lorne Doerkson as interim leader. Following the snap election call, many of the ousted MLAs rejoined the BC Conservatives and joined Doerkson for an afternoon press conference in Vancouver.

“I think David Eby is going to regret this,” Doerkson said. “Because this election actually offers an opportunity for hope and for real change.”

He rejected Eby’s claim the BC Conservatives support Trump, calling the U.S. president a bully.

B.C. politics is infamous for dramatic developments and unprecedented situations, but the unravelling of the BC Conservatives — a party that came within a handful of votes of driving the NDP out of government in 2024 — over the past two years is truly remarkable. For Eby, leader of an aging government with a tenuous grip on power, the chaos enveloping the BC Conservatives presents an irresistible opportunity to potentially trounce his political opponents.

After a week of mounting speculation about a snap election call at the Union of B.C. Municipalities conference, the B.C. government issued a flurry of announcements in the days before Eby confirmed his decision.

Over the weekend, the BC NDP announced a pair of significant investments into healthcare, and on Monday, published 16 press releases, twice the number of any other day this month. They highlighted millions in government spending, including $27 million from the Clean Industry Fund for 17 emission-reduction and efficiency projects.

Tilbury LNG Phase 2 was promoted twice. First, Environment and Parks Minister Tamara Davidson and Energy and Climate Solutions Minister Adrian Dix announced the project received its environmental assessment certificate, less than two months after the final public comment period ended.

The final government press release of the day touted the major expansion — a 10-fold increase in the facility’s liquefied natural gas production capacity — at Tilbury as “a major economic, clean-energy opportunity for B.C.”

The flood of press releases made it seem the B.C. government was working to clear the decks of government business before an election call prompted a shift into campaign mode. 

B.C. election comes amid criticism of gas royalty framework

The election call also comes amid criticism and controversies facing the BC NDP. Including that fossil fuel companies will pay B.C. hundreds of millions of dollars less than anticipated over the next few years due to an error in the province’s natural gas royalty calculations, as reported by Business in Vancouver last month. The miscalculation means the province will collect $306 million less than projected this fiscal year, according to the Ministry of Finance, though experts told Business in Vancouver B.C. could end up losing out on $500 million per year.

The B.C. government explained the error as a simple calculation mistake which has been rectified, but West Moberly First Nations Chief Roland Willson wants a more detailed explanation.

“I don’t think they know what they’re doing,” Willson said in an interview.

Treaty 8 First Nations, including West Moberly First Nations, flagged the error to the province in the midst of consultations on a new pricing structure for natural gas extracted in B.C. The incoming royalty framework is meant to collect a fair share of profits from companies extracting natural gas from land owned by the province. The new framework is scheduled to take effect in January 2027 and will replace a temporary system that has been in place since 2022, after an independent assessment found the existing system needed a complete overhaul.

In 2022, the B.C. government said the new royalty framework would collect half of company profits from natural gas, but Treaty 8 First Nations have since concluded the new framework may capture just 11 per cent.

Willson wants the new framework paused until a thorough and independent review can be done.

“The auditor general should do a complete review and it should be transparent,” he told The Narwhal. “I think they should make it public because this would affect B.C.’s revenues — the fiscal health of the province — for decades.”

On Sept. 14, Finance Minister Josie Osborne said the Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions was communicating with the Office of the Auditor General about the budget error and possibility of a review. The Office of the Auditor General told The Narwhal it does not comment on potential reviews. The Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions did not respond to an email sent Sept. 17, requesting confirmation that an auditor general’s review had been requested.

The legislature was scheduled to convene on Oct. 5 for a five-week sitting. Eby’s snap election call either significantly shortens the amount of time MLAs will spend in the house this fall or eliminates it altogether.

The future of DRIPA

It may seem like a long time ago now but B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, known as DRIPA, was at the centre of major political drama this spring.

Following a December 2025 court ruling, Eby kicked off the spring session vowing to amend the law to shield the provincial government from legal liability over the pace and scope of its reconciliation work. At first, he claimed changing the law was non-negotiable, and something that had to be done before the legislature’s summer break.

Eby went so far as to vow to make his DRIPA amendments a confidence vote, thereby staking the future of his government on its outcome

But First Nations leaders rejected Eby’s plan and told him his “approach was totally unacceptable.” That prompted the then premier to propose suspending DRIPA for up to three years, an approach he soon abandoned in the face of steady opposition from First Nations leaders.

By the time the legislature’s summer break arrived, Eby had settled on continuing discussions about DRIPA’s future with First Nations and tabling unspecified amendments during the fall session.

“We’re still at the table with First Nations leadership and it’s important work and we’re going to continue that work,” Eby said of the DRIPA discussion during a Sept. 8 press conference.

Without a fall session, any changes to DRIPA will wait until the spring, leaving lingering uncertainty about the future of the law.

In the meantime, the BC Conservatives have continued to call for DRIPA’s repeal. In August, Elections BC approved an initiative petition backed by BC Conservative MLA Harman Bhangu that aims to repeal DRIPA. If Bhangu collects signatures from 10 per cent of registered voters in each of B.C.’s 93 ridings by Jan. 25, the petition will be submitted to the legislature for a vote.

Kitselas treaty bill

If the fall session doesn’t happen, the legislature may not reconvene until February, shortly before the B.C. government traditionally presents its throne speech and introduces its budget.

Before the throne speech, a process called prorogation wipes the legislative slate clean, giving legislators a fresh start. Any legislation left lingering on the order paper is erased and must be reintroduced before starting the process to become law all over again.

If that happens following this election, three pieces of legislation will be sent back to the drawing board. One is Bill 21, the Kitselas Treaty Act, which received first reading on April 15. If passed, the bill would be the provincial government’s first step to implement the treaty with Kitselas First Nation. 

If the treaty is ratified by both the B.C. and Canadian governments, Kitselas First Nation would no longer be controlled by the federal Indian Act and instead governed by its own constitution. Work on the Kitselas Treaty began in 1993 and Kitselas members voted in favour of the draft treaty in April 2025. 

David Try, senior negotiator with the Kitselas treaty team, expects the election will delay the passage of the bill by up to six months, depending on when the legislature reconvenes.

While the delay is disappointing, Try is hopeful B.C.’s next government would make the Kitselas treaty bill a priority in its first legislative session.

“When you negotiate something for 30 years, there’s a certain implicit commitment to bring it home,” Try said. “We think that the treaty would be back on the legislative agenda, but how do we know? We don’t.”

The Lax Kw’alaams and Nine Allied Tribes dispute the scope of the Kitselas Treaty’s territorial claim and the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs called for both treaty bills to be paused until the territorial boundary disputes with neighbouring First Nations were addressed.

Eby’s choice to call an election is predicated on his confidence that they will win back seats lost to the BC Conservatives in 2024. However, this victory is far from guaranteed. After Oct. 24, B.C. might have a new party in power — or it might be the same one, its power weakened or consolidated. None of the possible outcomes guarantees the provincial priorities will stay the same.

Updated Sept. 22, 2026, at 4:53 p.m. PT: This story was updated following a press conference with interim BC Conservative leader Lorne Doerkson

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s dive in.

What’s the deal with that leaked document?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The document says it’s not moving fast enough.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is this just a passing idea?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A note on trust, integrity and unnamed sources+

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

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

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

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

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

Have something to share? Send us a story tip.

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

What else is the Alberta government saying?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A note on trust, integrity and unnamed sources+

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

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

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

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

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

Have something to share? Send us a story tip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A note on trust, integrity and unnamed sources+

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

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

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

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

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

Have something to share? Send us a story tip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The moves could cost Albertans. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

The document warns First Nations could also initiate lawsuits. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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For over a decade, Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 has been the centre of a political and environmental battle in Michigan. The legal conflict included state officials, federal agencies, tribal nations, environmental groups and the Canadian energy company fighting over what the future of the aging pipeline should look like.  

But, in recent weeks, that debate has only become more complicated. 

Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy issued a key environmental permit for a proposed tunnel on July 15, appearing to move the project closer to construction. 

Two weeks later, the construction timeline moved farther away after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the Michigan Public Service Commission did not adequately consider the tunnel’s environmental consequences when giving the project its own permit. The court sent the case back to the commission for further review.

The decision added another layer to a dispute that already involved state and federal courts, multiple government agencies and competing arguments about Michigan’s energy needs, the Great Lakes and tribal Treaty Rights.

“We’re still in a state of limbo,” Mike Shriberg, director of the University of Michigan Water Center, said. “The decisions in the last few weeks, rather than clarify, have probably muddied the waters more and extended the lifetime of the conversation and the decisions about the future of Line 5.”

And on Aug. 12, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a long-desired permit for Enbridge for the construction of the tunnel. The next steps are securing the remaining permits and approvals needed for construction.

A long history

In 1953, Line 5 was built running 1,038 kilometres from Superior, Wisconsin, through Lake Michigan and Sarnia, Ont. Initially, the pipeline’s lifespan was supposed to be around 50 years. Its 50th birthday was 23 years ago. 

Most of the pipe is about 75 centimetres, with the exception of the position beneath the Straits of Mackinac. There, the pipe splits into two 50-centimetre lines that sit on the lake-bed for about seven kilometres.

That section has become the main bearer of controversy, with the central focus being a possible rupture that could release oil into the Great Lakes.

Safety concerns heightened after an approximately two-metre rupture in another Enbridge line, near Marshall, Michigan, in July 2010. The break released more than three million litres of heavy Canadian crude oil into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River.

In 2018, due to human error, a ship’s anchor hit Line 5 causing minor dents, but no oil was spilled. 

The proposed Great Lakes Tunnel Project would run beneath the lake-bed. Enbridge says the pipeline would sit about 30 metres below the lake-bed, protecting it from ship anchors. 

But the tunnel has yet to be built.

Why the debate is still ongoing

The newly proposed tunnel is only one piece of the larger Line 5 dispute.

In 2019, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel sued Enbridge in hopes of shutting down the existing pipelines in the Mackinac straits. She argued that Enbridge did not have a valid agreement to operate the pipeline under the straits — mainly that Line 5 was violating Michigan environmental laws.

This year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Nessel’s lawsuit belongs in state court after Enbridge attempted to move it to federal court.

Separately, a federal judge ruled in December that Michigan could not enforce its 2020 order to shut down Line 5 — saying the federal pipeline safety laws overruled the state’s order. Since then, Michigan has appealed the decision.

The result is a series of overlapping cases moving through different courts.

“I think it’s mostly because the legal system that we have is set up to make it easier to delay than to move forward,” Shriberg said. “It’s pretty easy in our legal system to draw things out, to appeal, to stop things from happening.”

That’s why Line 5’s problems are difficult to summarize in a single legal storyline.

“It’s a complicated array of things going on that’s very hard to explain in a straightforward manner,” Shriberg said.

Enbridge’s case for keeping the pipeline

Through the last decade of controversy, Enbridge has maintained that Line 5 is an important part of the region’s energy infrastructure.

Ryan Duffy, an Enbridge spokesperson, said the pipeline carries light crude oil and natural gas liquids, with about 80 per cent of the products being light crude oil and 20 per cent natural gas liquids.

The company says Line 5 transports as much as 540,000 barrels of product each day, a figure also cited by the Michigan Public Service Commission. The company estimates that Line 5 supplies 65 per cent of propane demand in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and 55 per cent of the state’s overall propane needs.

“A lot of people still heat their homes with propane in [Michigan’s Upper Peninsula],” Duffy said.

Line 5 is “at or near capacity,” Duffy said, adding that the only other pipeline moving product toward Sarnia is Line 78 which is also at or near capacity.

“There is really no viable alternative to transporting the product that Line 5 carries,” Duffy said.

Enbridge’s proposed solution to safety concerns is the tunnel.

According to Duffy, the tunnel was determined to be the best solution for protecting Line 5 in the Straits. He said the project would eliminate the possibility of oil or other products escaping into the Straits. 

Enbridge also points to the pipeline’s operating history. 

The company says the straits crossing has never leaked during more than 65 years of operation and is subject to continuous monitoring and maintenance.

Yet, Line 5 has experienced spills elsewhere along its route. In 2017, a National Wildlife Federation analysis identified 29 known spills, busts and equipment failures along the pipeline since 1968. Between those spills, more than three million litres of oil and natural gas have been released.

Concerns beyond safety

“The tunnel is really the common-sense solution going forward because it both protects the environment and makes sure that the product that people need continues to be delivered safely and reliably and affordably,” Duffy said.

For Bay Mills Indian Community President Whitney Gravelle, located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Line 5 is not a question of safety or energy supply.

“For my tribal nation specifically, Line 5 is a threat to our way of life, to our tribal Treaty Rights, to our cultural resources,” Gravelle said.  

Line 5 crosses territory included in the 1836 Treaty of Washington, where tribal nations yielded millions of acres of property to the United States while retaining certain rights, including what the treaty describes as the “usual privileges of occupancy.”

Gravelle said those rights depend on the health of the natural resources around them.

“You can’t have a treaty right to fish without clean water for fish to spawn,” she said. “And you can’t have a treaty right to hunt if you’re cutting down forests and filling wetlands.”

Protecting the Great Lakes is inseparable from protecting the tribe’s culture for Bay Mills. 

“We cannot be Ojibwe, Anishinaabe, without the Great Lakes,” Gravelle said. “Our entire being, our culture, our language is interwoven into the Great Lakes.”

She says the tribe opposes the tunnel because it believes moving Line 5 underground would extend the pipeline’s operation rather than eliminate the threat. 

“We’re only focused on these four miles in the straits without looking at the 645 miles that Line 5 traverses and asking ourselves, 100 years from now, do we still want Line 5 in the state of Michigan?” Gravelle said. “Because that’s what the tunnel would do. It would cement Line 5’s existence for the rest of time.”

Others have raised similar concerns.

Jeffrey Insko, an English professor at Oakland University who writes a newsletter on Line 5, said the tunnel could lock in fossil fuel transportation for decades.

“What the tunnel really means is locking in fossil fuel transport for another 100 years,” Insko said.

For the tunnel, he said he is also concerned about whether the project would adequately protect the Great Lakes from environmental harm during construction.

“We need to be thinking about ways and investing in ways to reduce fossil fuel consumption rather than investing in prolonging the lives of fossil fuel consumption,” Insko said.

How needed is the pipeline?

At the heart of the disagreement is a key question: does Michigan need Line 5?

“The one thing that people haven’t looked into or covered enough is: What’s the need for Line 5?” said Shriberg of the University of Michigan. “There’s extremely good information out there that shows that Line 5 is not needed for use in the U.S.”

Enbridge says it is. Opponents say alternatives exist.

Gravelle said Enbridge should decommission Line 5 and instead use alternatives like using Line 78, which runs through southern Michigan from Indiana to Sarnia. She argues Michigan could continue getting energy supplies without Line 5. 

“This ultimately is about Enbridge’s profits. It’s not about energy infrastructure,” Gravelle said.

Over the years, the state should have used the time to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, she said. 

“What could we have done in those 10 years to actually reduce our reliance on those issues?” Gravelle said. 

Enbridge disputes any claims that there could be other ways to supply what the line holds, saying there are no viable alternatives capable of replacing everything Line 5 currently carries.

What’s next

The immediate future of the Great Lakes tunnel is uncertain.

The Michigan Supreme Court’s July 31 decision requires the Michigan Public Service Commission to revisit its analysis of Enbridge’s tunnel proposal — which includes the environmental impacts that the court said were not adequately considered.

“The Great Lakes tunnel is on sort of an indefinite hold right now,” Shriberg said. “There’s not going to be any dirt moving in the near future.”

Duffy said the decision is disappointing and delays a project the company has spent years planning and permitting.

“We view that as disappointing because that is going to be an additional delay,” Duffy said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has also issued a federal permit for the tunnel project, adding another approval to the project’s permitting process.

At the same time, the legal battle over whether the existing Line 5 pipelines can continue operating in the Straits remains separate from the tunnel permitting process.

“They’re on separate tracks,” Shriberg said.

The goal remains clear for Enbridge: keep Line 5 in operation and move the straits crossing into an underground tunnel.

After more than seven decades, the pipeline remains in operation. And after years of lawsuits, reviews and political battles, the question of what happens to Line 5 is still unsettled.

“I would not expect any final decisions on a Great Lakes tunnel until 2027 at the earliest,” Shriberg said.

For now, the pipeline continues to carry petroleum through the straits while the courts and regulators decide whether its future lies beneath the water, inside a tunnel, or somewhere else entirely.

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