By Chris Bonasia

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By Stewart Prest

The recently struck memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Canada and Alberta is a high-stakes strategy that risks deepening already deep divides in Canadian politics.

While the MOU touches on a number of issues, at its heart is a shared vision for a new pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia’s protected northern coast.

In effect, the deal offers a quid pro quo: Ottawa agrees to relax a range of federal environmental regulations — including a ban on tanker traffic in B.C.’s north — and to support a pipeline in exchange for a commitment from Alberta to eventually increase the price of carbon on industrial emissions in the province to $130 a tonne.

It’s a vision negotiated without the involvement of either the B.C. government or the Indigenous Peoples affected by the plan. While the agreement calls for consultations with both groups, they are relegated to the status of secondary partners, with concerns to be addressed in the execution of the plan outlined by Ottawa and Alberta.

A policy solution for an identity issue

The deal is clearly meant to bridge the gap between populist voters centred in the Prairie provinces and the rest of the country. But both the content and the process risks widening that gap, even as it deepens divisions elsewhere in the country.

Simply put, Prime Minister Mark Carney is trying to find a policy solution to an identity problem, and doing so by picking sides rather than neutrally facilitating agreement.

It’s part of the polarized, populist identity in Alberta, in particular, to oppose Ottawa and Liberal governments. In fact, when Alberta Premier Danielle Smith referred to the MOU in front of the United Conservative Party (UCP) convention, she was roundly booed. Rather than being hailed as champion who had achieved valuable policy concessions, she was greeted as a traitor to the cause.

Given the rude reception, it’s not surprising that in recent days Alberta has sought ways to limit its environmental commitments.

Read more: How ideology is darkening the future of renewables in Alberta

Playing favourites in the federation

Over the longer term, the agreement risks legitimizing the narrative of “Alberta aggrieved” by treating it as a distinct, sovereign jurisdiction entitled to special treatment.

In fact, the trappings and language of the agreement seem to reinforce the idea that “Alberta” is a natural negotiating partner with “Canada” rather than part of Canada.

The MOU’s signing ceremony in Calgary — not the provincial capital of Edmonton or Ottawa — bore all the hallmarks of international treaty-making, complete with flags and a formal text in both official languages. The symbolism reinforced the image of the deal as a kind of grand bargain between Ottawa and oil country.

While the federal government often strikes deals with provincial governments, this situation is quite different. It’s a deal only with Alberta but it primarily involves British Columbia. The agreement therefore elevates Alberta to the level of a quasi-sovereign jurisdiction to be treated as an equal with Canada. B.C., site of any future hypothetical pipeline terminals, has been rendered a deal-taker, not a deal-maker.

Unfortunately, that’s not how the federation is supposed to work. Just because the federal government has ultimate jurisdiction doesn’t mean other regions don’t get a say. It’s hard to imagine the federal government striking a deal with Ontario about what should happen in Québec without Québec’s involvement.

Read more: Alberta has long accused Ottawa of trying to destroy its oil industry. Here’s why that’s a dangerous myth

B.C. fury

B.C. Premier David Eby was accordingly furious with the federal government’s approach before the deal was announced.

Since then, while pointing out weaknesses in the deal, the NDP premier has also been at pains to show his willingness to work with Alberta on workarounds, including an expanded Transmountain pipeline or another pipeline that would leave the oil tanker moratorium in place on B.C’.s northern coast.

In leaving Eby out of the conversation, the federal Liberals have alienated a natural ally in their pursuit of economic development, forcing the premier to defend B.C.’s status within the federation, the rights of the province’s Indigenous communities and the province’s protected northern coast and Great Bear Rainforest.

Constitutional obligations to consult

Even more telling is the united reaction of First Nations. The Assembly of First Nations has unanimously voted in favour of a motion calling for the MOU to be scrapped. In fact, the federal government may have put itself in legal jeopardy over its failure to consult prior to the MOU.

At some point, it will likely have to explain in court how it could be serious about consulting in good faith with Indigenous Peoples in accordance with its obligations under Section 35 of the Constitution Act when the MOU gives the appearance of approving the project in principle before such conversations even begin.

Offering ownership stakes to Indigenous groups in a project devised without their involvement is not consultation. Simply put, unless governments can show they’re open to amending their plans in light of information they receive during consultations, they risk falling short of their obligations.

Cracks in the Liberal coalition

While polls suggest a majority of Canadians support the idea of a pipeline so far, the Liberals’ own coalition shows some signs of fraying.

Former environment minister Steven Guilbeault’s resignation from cabinet over the deal, along with the resignations of multiple environmental advisers to the Liberal government, suggest the party’s reputation for environmental progress has taken a hit given the slow and fuzzy approach to climate action outlined in the MOU.

Other federal parties sense an opportunity. The Bloc Québecois has strongly denounced the deal and has offered to support B.C. in its campaign to defend the province’s autonomy. The move underscores the sensitivities that remain in Québec around issues of provincial rights.

Even more tellingly, federal Conservatives, perhaps initially dismayed by a deal uniting federal Liberals and Alberta Conservatives, are now putting a motion before the House of Commons asking it to endorse the government’s position on the MOU and make good on its commitments. The Liberals, for their part, have vowed to vote against the motion, arguing that it only endorses part of the MOU.

In effect, the Conservatives are seeking to turn the government’s own MOU into a wedge issue against it. The Conservatives will likely continue to press the issue going forward given how the idea of a pipeline at any cost unites Conservatives and divide Liberals. Liberal MPs in B.C. and Québec, in particular, will also likely feel torn between loyalty to the party and deference to the views of constituents opposed to the deal.

In short, a pipeline intended to unify threatens to throw divisions into even sharper relief — even within the Liberal Party itself.

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Alberta has introduced changes to its industrial carbon pricing that will make it harder to meet a key commitment in its new memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the federal government.

The amendments to the province’s Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) Regulation were announced in September but formally introduced December 5, the Canadian Climate Institute reports, scarcely a week after Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney signed the controversial MOU. In addition to—and perhaps in exchange for—laying the groundwork for a new bitumen pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia’s environmentally sensitive northwest coast, the MOU commits the two governments to increase carbon credit prices under TIER to $130 per tonne, after reaching an agreement on industrial carbon pricing by April 1.

Even though it fell short of the current federal pricing benchmark of $170 per tonne by 2030, that target was still walked back by Smith’s chief of staff, Rob Anderson, within hours of the signing. Even so, news reporting in the days after the MOU identified the industrial carbon pricing deal as the key win the federal government was looking for, even if it mean trading away hundreds of millions of tonnes of emission reductions through the federal Clean Electricity Regulations.

But days later, Smith’s government “introduced regulatory changes that will flood the province’s industrial carbon pricing market with credits and further weaken the carbon price signal for major emitters,” the Climate Institute’s Principal Economist Dave Sawyer said in a statement Friday.

“By issuing new compliance credits for direct investment and reactivating previously used credits, Alberta is adding more supply to an already oversupplied market,” he explained. “These changes work against the direction set out in [the MOU], which included commitments to strengthen Alberta’s industrial carbon pricing system. When Alberta first signalled its intent in September, TIER credit prices crashed to below $20. This change locks in that crash, and puts significant downward pressure on future prices.”

Achieving the $130 target in the MOU, by contrast, “would require immediate steps to close loopholes in the credit market and address the oversupply of credits” that drives down their value and makes the system as a whole less effective, Sawyer added. “Instead, introducing new investment credits increases oversupply, weakens the price signal, and moves Alberta further away from the path needed to reach $130 per tonne.”

“Well that didn’t take long,” veteran energy policy analyst Dan Woynillowicz wrote on LinkedIn. “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

Although Alberta first announced the regulatory change in September, “following through was a choice, and undoubtedly one made very deliberately,” Woynillowicz added in a follow-up post. “Expect Alberta to continuously test the federal government for weakness, using moves like this to inform their approach at the negotiating table.”

In a statement to the Toronto Star, Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz said the changes would entice more companies to invest sooner in emissions reduction technology. “We’re implementing the changes announced in September to defend jobs and keep industry competitive while still reducing emissions,” she said. “This will lead to more emissions being reduced and a stronger system.”

But University of Calgary energy science professor Sara Hastings-Simon told the Star that made no sense. An oversupply of carbon credits had already brought Alberta’s “headline” industrial carbon price down to $95 per tonne, making it more palatable for companies to buy the credits rather than investing in actual emissions reductions.

“I don’t think there is a credible argument that this action is making the system stronger,” Hastings-Simon said. “It’s doing the opposite.”

Former federal environment minister Steven Guilbeault, who resigned from the Mark Carney cabinet over the MOU, agreed that the regulatory change would make it harder for Smith to keep her promises. “Is this what Premier Smith meant when she spoke of proceeding ‘with a (measure) of good faith’?” he wrote on social media.

In his Thoughtful Energy Journalism newsletter, energy transition expert Markham Hislop speculates that Smith must have known all along what she was doing.

“It is inconceivable that a policy change that directly affects a major agreement with Ottawa was brewing in the Department of [Energy and Minerals] and Smith knew nothing about it,” he writes. “A reasonable inference, then, is that she did know. And if she knew, then she negotiated the deal in bad faith.”

In the aftermath of the MOU, Guilbeault is now warning that the Carney government has put Canada’s climate targets out of reach while fuelling Quebec separatism.

“With what has been announced, there’s no way Canada can meet its 2030, even its 2035, climate change objectives,” he told the Bloomberg news agency. “And frankly, I doubt that we could even be carbon neutral by 2050.” And “there is a feeling right now that by abandoning our climate goals we are fuelling the separatist movement,” the Montreal-area MP and former Canadian identify minister warned on CBC.

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A long-predicted glut in global markets for liquefied natural gas (LNG) is beginning to bite, with some of the world’s biggest consumers declaring they have more of the methane-based fuel than they know what to do with.

The news carries potentially punishing implications for federal and provincial governments in Canada that still say they’re determined to LNG increase exports.

In October, Pakistan asked Qatar, the world’s third-biggest LNG exporter, to find other customers for 24 cargoes for which it had already signed contracts for 2026. “The move comes in response to plummeting domestic gas demand, mounting financial strain, and growing pressure on the country’s gas transmission network,” The News International reported. It was permissible under the terms of the two countries’ long-term supply deal.

Pakistan currently imports nine LNG cargoes per month, The News said, under “take or pay” contracts that require reimbursement whether or not the gas is used. “Due to a sharp decline in demand, Pakistan is facing an annual surplus of 35 LNG cargoes,” the news story stated. In response, the country has shut down some of its own domestic gas fields, but “this solution carries its own dangers. Officials of exploration and production companies warn that some wells may suffer permanent damage after closure, and the shutdowns are already affecting the production of crude oil and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).”

Then in late November, LNG cargo trackers at Kpler GmbH, a Vienna-based analytics firm, said seaborne shipments to China were “set to drop for a 13th straight month on an annual basis, extending a slump in purchases as domestic output and piped imports remain strong,” Bloomberg wrote. Deliveries were expected to be 5.5 per cent lower than the same month last year.

“China’s LNG demand has been soft this year, with buyers shying away from expensive seaborne cargoes of the super-chilled fuel in favour of cheaper piped gas from Russia and Central Asia. Domestic production has also been robust,” the news agency added. The “sluggish demand” from the world’s biggest LNG importer is fuelling concerns that a long-awaited global LNG glut is on the way, with several countries about to bring new projects online.

Analyses dating back years have shown renewable energy investment and deployment in China leading toward a global “Age of Electricity”. And now, utility technology specialist Gavin Mooney sees a variant on that trend shaping up elsewhere.

“Surging solar in Pakistan has led to domestic gas demand plummeting, and LNG imports are now being redirected elsewhere,” Mooney wrote on LinkedIn.

“Pakistan has imported around 45 gigawatts of solar panels in the last few years—almost equal to the total capacity of its grid. Solar’s share of generation is now similar to countries like Australia and Chile,” he added. “The result? Significantly lower gas demand. Gas demand in both power and industry has fallen sharply—in some areas by 40 to 70 per cent. And this isn’t unique to Pakistan. The same pattern is emerging across Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe as solar outpaces LNG everywhere.”

The news from overseas appears not to have deterred Canadian politicians touting new LNG terminals as major “nation-building” projects. In June, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson insisted Canada could deliver a first cargo of LNG to Germany in “as little as five years”, despite projections that European gas demand is set to fall. [Maybe he can settle it all on a Zoom call?—Ed.] And last week, a report commissioned by the British Columbia government concluded that the pursuit of new LNG projects “threatens to set back progress” in reducing greenhouse emissions, in a province that is expected to fall short of its 2030 climate target.

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By Mitchell Beer

Climate advocates and policy analysts are taking Alberta Premier Danielle Smith back to business school after she promised to pitch a new westbound oil pipeline to the federal Major Projects Office by May 2026.

On Wednesday, Smith committed to a “West Coast oil pipeline do-over that hinges on First Nations getting onboard early and Ottawa reversing a tanker ban that would make such a project unworkable on the northern B.C. coast,” The Canadian Press reports. Once the province has put up $14 million for early regulatory work, “the hope is that Alberta’s kick-start will instil enough investor confidence for the private sector to eventually take over and potentially for First Nations to take ownership stakes,” the news agency writes.

“What stands before us right now is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to unlock our wealth and resources and become a world-leading energy superpower,” Smith told media Wednesday.

The project is the latest in a series of efforts by Alberta governments to support a fossil industry that can’t attract the capital for the expanded infrastructure it says it needs. In 2018, then-NDP premier Rachel Notley leased a fleet of rail cars and signed contracts with railways to move the province’s oil to markets, CBC recalls. Her United Conservative Party successor, Jason Kenney, eventually cancelled those deals at a cost of nearly $1 billion.

Instead, Kenney gambled and lost another $1.3 billion on the failed Keystone XL pipeline before U.S. President Joe Biden cancelled the project on his first day in office.

The latest plan from Smith earned swift rebukes, with Aly Hyder Ali, program manager, oil and gas at Environmental Defence Canada, declaring Smith’s declaration “nothing but a farce”. He cited estimates that place the cost of a new pipeline at up to $50 billion over the 10 years it would take to complete the project.

“There is no private company behind the project, no committed investors, and no clear plan—just a province stepping into a paperwork process, desperate to keep the idea of a new oil pipeline alive,” Ali said in a statement. By the time the project could be completed, “global oil demand is projected to have peaked and begun a slow, steady decline, resulting in another stranded asset. According to recent analysis, 66% of new capital investments in oil and gas infrastructure would fail to deliver returns and become stranded assets as the world continues to accelerate towards a global energy transition.”

Janetta McKenzie, director of the Pembina Institute’s oil and gas program, said Smith should heed the private sector’s caution about new oil infrastructure, noting that industry has refused to buy in “after months of pressure from the Alberta government to bring forward a proposal, and offers of concierge service” from the federal government.

“If a new pipeline promised to be profitable, there would be a private sector proposal in some phase of development,” McKenzie said. “It’s economically perverse that the provincial government will spend public money on a project the private sector has balked at, while simultaneously sabotaging private investment in renewable energy projects the market is demanding.”

She added that a new Alberta oil pipeline would be a “multi-decade gamble prefaced on the hope that the world will not reduce oil consumption, despite the advent of lower-cost alternatives and the increasing risk of dangerous climate change. It is a bet that private sector proponents are not willing to take on.”

“This talk of a new pipeline was always only a distraction meant to provide cover for funnelling as much public money towards oil and gas corporate profits as possible,” Conor Curtis, head of communications at Sierra Club Canada, said in a release. “Oil and gas corporations know their industry is dying economically, and even when production increases they still cut jobs.”

In mid-September, Simon Fraser University political scientist Anil “Andy” Hira said there’s only one way private investors would agree to go along with the kind of plan Smith is now proposing. “The private sector is in no way willing to take on the risk of building another pipeline,” he told The Energy Mix. “So unless the federal government steps in and decides to put in massive amounts of money, these things are not going to get built.”

Toronto Star national columnist Althia Raj says Smith’s purpose with her announcement is to dare Prime Minister Mark Carney to defy her, “throwing a bone to separatists in her province, and inflaming a divisive cross-country debate” over pipelines and climate change that the federal government has tried hard to tamp down.

“This is a test of whether Canada works as a country,” Smith told media. “Because if we can’t build with the collaboration of the federal government and between provinces, if it’s everybody gets to get their products going to market except Alberta, that’s not a country.”

Within minutes of the announcement, Smith was on notice that the Indigenous support she’d framed as a condition for the project will not be forthcoming, CP reports. Marilyn Slett, chief councillor of the Heiltsuk Tribal Council and president of the Coastal First Nations-Great Bear Initiative, recalled First Nations’ decades-long fight to win a federal moratorium on oil tankers in their waters.

“As the rights and titleholders of B.C. North and Central Coast and Haida Gwaii, we must inform Premier Smith once again that there is no support from coastal First Nations for a pipeline and an oil tankers project in our coastal waters,” Slett said.

B.C. Premier David Eby told media that Smith wasn’t pitching a real project.

“Premier Smith continues to advance a project that is entirely taxpayer funded, has no private sector proponent,” he said, adding that he would work with Alberta on projects “that have real private sector backing, that aren’t entirely taxpayer-funded wedge politics.” He added that the proposal is “incredibly alarming to British Columbians”.

But in Calgary Wednesday, fossil industry advocates were praising Smith’s move.

“It’s bold, it’s aggressive, and it’s what’s needed to be done in order to get this country moving forward economically,” Robert Cooper of Calgary-based investment firm Acumen Capital Partners told CBC, claiming that federal policies—not increasingly shaky global markets—have made it impossible for oil pipelines to attract investment.

Rafi Tahmazian, a retired energy portfolio manager with Canoe Financial, said Smith “should be praised” for championing the industry, CBC says, but compared the venture to the Trudeau government’s hugely expensive purpose of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. “If the province has to be involved, that’d be a shame. It’d be too bad,” Tahmazian said, since governments have “no business” building or operating pipelines.

The Star’s Raj says Carney “seemed to be pouring cold water on Smith’s plans” on Wednesday, telling a Liberal Party caucus meeting the proposal wouldn’t make the second series of nation-building projects that he’s expected to announce later this year. But she recalls moments when both Carney and Eby have sent out mixed messages on pipeline development.

In the end, “none of these leaders—Smith, Eby, or Carney—can all get what they want (if they can figure out what that even is),” she writes. “And at least one of these politicians is painting the other into a box. The question is, who?”

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By Chris Bonasia

The “financial quagmire” of the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion—a project whose final price tag ballooned 584 per cent from 2012 to 2024—should serve as a cautionary tale against risking public funds when businesses back away, the United States-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) warns in a new report this morning.

“Oil infrastructure development, once seen as a financial boon, is beset by rising costs and lower price trends,” said Mark Kalegha, IEEFA energy finance analyst and co-author of the report. “As the Canadian government experiences pressure to pay industry infrastructure costs from public coffers, it’s time to step back and take a hard look at the energy questions Canada faces.”

IEEFA, an independent research group that studies global energy markets, writes that Ottawa “essentially bailed out” the opposition-plagued TMX project when Kinder Morgan Corporation’s CEO threatened to cancel it, buying it for around C$4.7 billion in 2018. Since then, Canada has provided TMX $35.6 billion in direct funding, about $1.4 billion more than commonly reported.

Overall public exposure surpasses the $34.2 billion spent on pipeline construction, IEEFA writes. The final tally “also includes advances made toward working capital, operations, regulatory compliance costs, and financing concessions. Once indirect subsidies are included, government exposure rises above $40 billion.

The high cost of the pipeline put “enormous pressure on the pipeline toll-setting process, resulting in strenuous objections from the pipeline’s shippers,” IEEFA wrote in a release. “More than $25 billion of the funding provided is ineligible for recovery via proposed shipper tolls.”

Now, as some private interests and public officials call for more pipelines across Canada amid a trade war with the U.S., “it is worth taking a closer look at the financial quagmire of the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline,” IEEFA says. Calling the TMX’s financial track record “a red flag,” IEEFA writes that taxpayers could ultimately be burdened with paying the costs of another such project.

Related Story: Top Free-Market Think Tank Unsure That Canada Needs More Pipelines

As for new import markets in Asia, China is now TMX’s biggest customer, surpassing the U.S., but “the receptivity” of China to an influx of Canadian oil is not guaranteed to grow or even plateau, IEEFA writes. Competition for the soon-to-be declining China oil import market is already “fierce.”

Meanwhile, TMX is still operating at around 80-85 per cent capacity, with a projected 16 per cent excess capacity in 2025. Tankers receiving its oil are being filled to 70 per cent. Still, Trans Mountain Corporation says the pipeline is running “spectacularly well,” on track to pay $1.25 billion worth of interest, fees, and dividends to the government this year.

Alberta’s oilsands production is continuing to expand, which could provide more oil for export if reliable markets are found. Company officials are looking for ways to increase the pipeline’s capacity, including by using drag reducing agents that could increase the amount of oil flowing through the pipe by 5 per cent to 10 per cent, or a more expensive option that would require $3 billion to $4 billion to build more powerful pumping stations, reports CBC News.

The Globe and Mail adds that vessels will be able to be filled to 100 per cent after dredging works in the port in Vancouver are completed in late 2026 or 2027.

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The Trans Mountain Expansion Project (TMEP) came online in May 2024, nearly tripling the capacity of the Trans Mountain System to a total of 890 thousand barrels per day (Mb/d). This increased total western Canadian crude oil export pipeline capacity by 13 per cent and export capacity to tidewater in western Canada by about 700 per cent.^Footnote 1 Since TMEP’s first month of ramping up, the expanded Trans Mountain System has averaged 82 per cent utilization. More broadly, constraints have eased on all of Canada’s largest export pipelines over this period and Canadian crude oil prices have improved relative to international benchmarks.

Figure 1: Monthly throughput and available capacity on the Trans Mountain System

Utilization of the Trans Mountain System since the TMEP Began Service

The Trans Mountain System has been more than 75 per cent full every month since TMEP came online, except for the ramp up period in May 2024.^Footnote 2 From June 2024 to June 2025^Footnote 3, the Trans Mountain System averaged 82 per cent utilization, ranging from a low of 76 per cent in December 2024 to a high of 89 per cent in March 2025.

Since TMEP entered service, approximately 80 per cent of the Trans Mountain System’s capacity (707.5 Mb/d) is now reserved for committed shippers with long term take-or-pay contracts and the remainder (approximately 182.5 Mb/d) is made available on a monthly basis for uncommitted (also known as spot) shippers. From June 2024 to June 2025, committed capacity was effectively fully utilized each month, averaging 99 per cent utilization.

Compared to pre-TMEP levels, the Westridge delivery point^Footnote 4—at Trans Mountain’s marine terminal located in the Port of Vancouver—has seen the largest increase in throughputs, which is driven primarily by heavy oil exports (and some light oil exports) (Figure 1). These volumes are being exported by marine vessel to the U.S. West Coast and Asia. An average of 23 vessels per month departed from Westridge marine terminal between June 2024 and July 2025.^Footnote 5 Since the startup of TMEP, Canadian crude oil exports to countries other than the U.S. have more than tripled.^Footnote 6

Light crude oil and refined petroleum products also continue to be delivered to the Burnaby delivery point to serve Parkland’s Burnaby Refinery,^Footnote 7 Suncor’s Burrard Products Terminal, and surrounding areas. Additionally, the Sumas delivery point, which connects with the downstream Puget Sound Pipeline for deliveries of crude oil to Washington State refineries, has continued to be at capacity.

The Trans Mountain pipeline historically transported mostly light oil, but heavy oil has increased to approximately match light oil volumes since the TMEP came online.

Easing capacity constraints on export pipelines

In the months leading up to the completion of the TMEP, all major oil pipelines out of western Canada were running at or near capacity, as Canadian oil production increased to record levels. Shipper requests (or nominations) to use export pipelines significantly exceeded capacity, resulting in a large rise in apportionment on the largest western Canadian oil pipelines (Trans Mountain, Enbridge Mainline and Keystone) in late 2023 and early 2024.^Footnote 8

Since the startup of the TMEP, with Canadian oil production at new highs, there has been no apportionment on the Trans Mountain System. On the Enbridge Mainline and Keystone, apportionment has fallen significantly while their total utilization remained at or near capacity. Overall, oil export pipeline capacity from western Canada continues to be highly utilized (Figure 2). Additionally, since TMEP entered service, Canada’s crude-by-rail exports^Footnote 9 have fallen to annual-average levels not seen in over a decade.^Footnote 10

Figure 2: Crude oil volumes transported from western Canada relative to available pipeline capacity

WCS price differential narrowed after the TMEP entered service
In the months leading up to the startup of the TMEP, the price differential between Western Canadian Select (WCS) and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) had widened to an average of about US$18.70 per barrel in the period of September 2023 to April 2024.Footnote 11 After the startup of TMEP, with total pipeline capacity no longer being constrained out of western Canada, the differential narrowed to an average of US$12.00 per barrel over the period of June 2024 to July 2025.

This means western Canadian oil has been worth more than if the differential had remained wider, like it was in the period leading up to the expansion. A US$12.00 per barrel differential is more in-line with historical levels seen in periods when markets did not face constrained pipeline capacity.

Figure 3: WTI-WCS monthly average price differential

Footnotes:

1. Pre-TMEP, Trans Mountain set aside 79 Mb/d of capacity for service to its Westridge Marine Terminal (54 Mb/d for committed and 25 Mb/d for uncommitted service) (Source: CER REGDOCS, A3E7A3, C27827-1). Post-TMEP, the Westridge Marine Terminal can export up to 630 Mb/d of western Canadian crude (Source: Trans Mountain, Westridge Marine Terminal). Actual monthly throughputs may exceed the set-aside capacities.
2. In May 2024, system utilization averaged 55 per cent while Trans Mountain ramped up shipments on the new capacity.
3. This 13-month period excludes the ramp-up period during the first month of TMEP operations and includes the latest available throughput data at the time of publication (which Trans Mountain filed with the CER in August 2025).
4. See the Trans Mountain Pipeline Profile for a map of the delivery point locations.
5. Trans Mountain, Shipper Services. At the time of publication, datapoints for June 2024 and July 2024 were removed from the Trans Mountain webpage as it only shows the 12 most recent months. Prior to the update, the webpage showed vessel departures for those two months were 21 and 22, respectively. Vessel departures for August 2024 were 23.
6. See the Commodity Tracking System report for Crude Oil – Summary Export by Destination. Data includes all exports from Canada, not just from Port of Vancouver. Note that crude oil delivered to “other” destinations are primarily non-U.S. destinations but also includes some volumes that are held in storage in the U.S. before reaching a final destination as well as some volumes that are in-transit in the Pacific Area Lightering zone.
7. Burnaby Refinery is currently owned by Parkland Corporation. However, Parkland Corporation and its assets are being bought by Sunoco LP (Parkland News Release).
8. See the Trans Mountain, Enbridge Mainline and Keystone Pipeline Profiles for visualizations of monthly apportionment. To access the raw dataset, visit the Open Government Pipeline Throughput and Capacity Data.
9. See the CER’s Canadian Crude Oil Exports by Rail – Monthly Data webpage to access the data.
10. Rail is typically used when pipeline infrastructure is not available, or when price differentials are wide enough for rail to be economic. The differential that is required to justify shipping crude by rail varies by shipper. While the use of rail has declined recently, it is still integral to serving regions without pipelines.
11. WCS is typically discounted relative to WTI because WCS is a heavier crude oil that costs more to refine than WTI light oil, and because of the cost to ship WCS from western Canada to Cushing, Oklahoma, where WTI is commonly bought and sold.

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By Mitchell Beer

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By Mark Winfield

The acceleration of federal approvals for “nation-building projects” was the major theme of this week’s first ministers meeting in Saskatoon. A rush to streamline approvals for resource development and infrastructure projects has been central to the Canadian response to United States President Donald Trump’s profound disruptions to longstanding trade and security relationships.

At the provincial level, Ontario’s Bill 5 and British Columbia’s Bill 15 also propose to move aggressively to fast-track mining and infrastructure projects.

These fast-tracking efforts are fuelling debate, particularly in terms of the implications for Indigenous rights and the implicit trade-offs pertaining to the environment and climate change.

Read more: Mark Carney wants to make Canada an energy superpower — but what will be sacrificed for that goal?

Regulations often a minor factor

Project review and approval processes in Canada have already been aggressively streamlined over the past decade. The 2019 Federal Impact Assessment Act, also known as Bill C-69, was largely modelled on Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s 2012 Bill C-38 rewrite of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

It’s important to determine why projects are delayed in the first place. Most move through assessment processes with little delay or controversy. Problems emerge when proposals are poorly designed, face serious technical or economic doubts, raise major environmental, climate or safety concerns, and spark significant social, political or legal conflicts over their costs, benefits and impacts.

A recent study on mining approvals in B.C., for example, found that far more mines were approved than ever actually developed. The main cause of delays was changing economic conditions. Regulation was found to be only a minor factor.

While there are always potential ways to improve review processes, the results of previous streamlining efforts suggest the need for caution about the potential for these initiatives to backfire.

Impact assessment and similar processes emerged as more than a way to accurately assess projects and their risks and benefits. They also provided a framework for managing intense social and political conflicts those projects may generate.

If these processes are streamlined too much, the conclusions of these assessments may seem illegitimate. There could be a trade-off between clear, certain outcomes and ensuring the approval process is fair and trustworthy.

Exacerbating conflict

The Harper government’s Bill C-38 reforms were intended to facilitate the construction of more oil pipelines. In the end, they only escalated the spiralling political and legal conflicts around projects like the Northern Gateway and Energy East pipelines.

The accompanying Alberta-to-B.C. Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline was only approved after a tortuous process. That culminated in the federal purchase and completion of the pipeline at a cost to taxpayers of $34 billion.

Read more: Why the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion is a bad deal for Canadians — and the world

A similar process unfolded under Ontario’s 2009 Green Energy Act. The legislation’s aggressive bypassing of local approvals reinforced a backlash against renewable energy projects in rural communities. The end result was a nearly decade-long de facto moratorium on renewable energy development. The situation has only recently eased.

The political consequences of these efforts at streamlining are noteworthy. The Bill C-38 episode was seen as playing a role in the Harper government’s defeat in 2015. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s loss of his majority government in 2011 was also partly attributed to the rural response to the Green Energy Act.

Checks and balances

Aside from the political aspects, it’s important to recognize the value of thorough reviews for projects that are likely to be high-risk, high-cost and high-impact.

When past reviews have been rushed or cut short, they’ve undermine confidence in the decisions made — especially when even faster processes could increase the risks and costs passed on to taxpayers.

The Muskrat Falls and Site C hydro projects in Labrador and B.C., respectively, stand as testament to those risks. Both projects ran years behind schedule and billions over budget and continue to face major technical, environmental and economic challenges. Review processes can be important checks on poorly conceived, politically motivated projects.

It’s also important to think carefully about the long-term economic rationales being presented for projects. Canada is a relatively high-cost fossil fuel producer, making it unlikely to be among the last standing in a decarbonizing world.

That should raise serious questions about major investments in new fossil fuel export infrastructure. The irony of developing such projects as major wildfires, widely attributed to the impacts of climate change, burn in northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba cannot be overlooked.

Global markets for commodities like critical minerals are also uncertain and in deep flux.

The high costs of nuclear projects, as demonstrated by recent experiences in the U.S., the United Kingdom and Europe, also make them unlikely candidates to form the foundation for clean energy superpower status.

Read more: ‘Elbows up’ in Canada means sustainable resource development

‘Special economic zones’

Ontario’s Bill 5 represents the most aggressive streamlining proposal seen so far. The legislation would exempt designated “special economic zones” and even trusted proponents — such as mining companies assigned to lead projects — from all applicable provincial and municipal laws and regulations.

The province’s approach has raised fundamental questions about the rule of law, democratic governance and Indigenous rights, and jurisdictional boundaries.

Some commentators have pointed out that these zones are common in authoritarian regimes like China’s, or in jurisdictions in deep economic distress.

Others have accused Ontario of racing to the bottom in terms of health, safety and environmental standards, respect for the rule of law, Indigenous rights and basic democratic values.

All of this suggests a need for caution in further streamlining review and approval processes for major projects. These are undertakings with risks and costs that could stretch far into the future and must be properly understood before they proceed.

The post Opinion: Why the federal government must act cautiously on fast-tracking project approvals appeared first on Thoughtful Journalism About Energy's Future.

By Mitchell Beer

There’s still a long way to go before the votes are counted in Canada’s April 28 federal election, longer still before we see whether the party platforms have any more substance than the mostly virtual paper they’re written on.

But if some of the campaign pledges and side conversations we’ve seen over the last week are still standing on the morning of April 29, we may be entering a period where endless, performative debate gives way to pragmatic action and getting stuff done. And just in time to help build a new “coalition of the willing”, an alliance of countries standing against Donald Trump’s moves to reshape the global economy in his own chaotic image.

It’s so easy and, let’s be honest, so tempting during an election campaign to react to every issue or policy statement through a partisan lens. But that’s a line that non-profits and charities are necessarily careful not to cross, and you won’t see Energy Mix Productions endorse any candidate or party in this or any other election.

That still leaves the door open for an essential conversation about the practical actions and real-world change we need over the next four years, and what the party platforms tell us about how they plan to respond.

The Answers You Should Want to Hear

Let’s start with some of the enduring questions and priorities that should be on all of our minds, whether or not there’s an election on:

• What are the most practical, achievable, affordable paths that can still transform Canada’s economy and energy systems and get us to zero emissions by 2050?

• How do we make sure that everything we do tackles multiple, interconnected crises at once, so that our actions on energy and climate change make day-to-day life safer, more affordable, and more fair and equitable for all?

• What are the common sense steps that will make a real difference in the manufactured global crisis brought to us by the rogue regime in the White House—to protect and strengthen Canadian sovereignty, restore international cooperation on issues from climate change to health to nature protection and more, and help lead the way to a new international trading bloc that leaves Donald Trump and his clown car full of henchfolk behind?

• How do we build on the moment of national unity Trump has handed us to restore trust and cohesion across the country and its regions? Not by ignoring or averaging out our differences of opinion and partisanship, but by finding the deeper values and priorities (like, y’know, not becoming a 51st state) that unite us?

With this line of questioning, we can assess the major candidates and their platforms based not on any prior party preference, but on the future they seem most likely to deliver if we give them the chance. For better and for worse, the Liberal and Conservative camps have made it pretty easy to compare and contrast—one of them by reading their lips, the other by trying to read their minds.

Read Their Lips

On the Conservative side, party leader Pierre Poilievre has done us all the great courtesy of eliminating all ambiguity about his proposed “Canada First” National Energy Corridor. On a campaign stop in St. John’s April 1, he fully endorsed a letter from 14 fossil fuel CEOs that demanded the next federal government declare a “Canadian energy crisis” and “use all its available emergency powers” to fast-track fossil fuel export projects while gutting federal regulation.

The Conservatives pledged to repeal the federal Impact Assessment Act and the West Coast tanker ban, set a six-month approval deadline for major megaprojects along a pre-approved fossil energy corridor, walk away from the federal emissions cap on oil and gas, and eliminate an industrial carbon tax that has been praised as one of the country’s most effective emission reduction measures.

With those words, Poilievre also eliminated any hope that the new export pipelines he’s promised will go into service until long after the Trump-induced trade crisis is over, and demand for oil and gas has gone into permanent decline. Savanna McGregor, Grand Chief of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation Tribal Council, warned that Poilievre’s promise to “pre-approve” projects along the corridor would “nearly paralyse” the work rather than speeding it up.

“Surely he knows Canada’s constitution requires Indigenous consultation, accommodation, and ultimately consent to build major infrastructure inside his National Energy Corridor?” she wrote for a Toronto Star. “How can there be consultation (to say nothing of accommodation and consent) if the corridor is ‘pre-approved’ before anyone has the blueprints for what infrastructure will be built and where?”

Moreover, Poilievre’s boldly performative (performatively bold?) promise assumes a level of commitment we haven’t seen from some of the companies that are backing these projects. Andrew Leach, a leading energy and environmental economist based at the University of Alberta, recently took a deep dive into the 10 projects the Conservative leader wants to fast-track—and identified the ones that stalled out when their proponents failed to submit their environmental assessment paperwork. After going into the detailed history on one of them, he asks:

So, tell me dear readers: how is a @PierrePoilievre government going to overcome this hurdle? How, in a year, are they going to approve a project that, for 8+ years, has refused to submit a single environmental assessment document and has officially withdrawn its project?

Even when the companies are doing their homework, a new network of oil and gas pipelines along a corridor no one has agreed to isn’t the policy we need or want. Not unless we’re happy to see Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions increase through 2035.

One of the enduring lessons of Donald Trump’s return to power is that when they tell us what they plan to do, what pain and damage and loss they plan to inflict, it’s a good idea to believe them. And Poilievre, to his credit, is leaving no doubt.

Read Their Minds

The assessment is actually a bit more complicated on the Liberal side. Not because party leader Mark Carney’s energy and electricity sovereignty plan doesn’t hit some badly-needed touchpoints, but because the devil is in the details. And the details are all about delivery, an area where his party hasn’t always excelled over the last decade.

In his announcement last Wednesday in Calgary, Carney cast an east-west electricity grid as a “nation-building project” to “secure Canadians’ access to affordable, reliable, clean, Canadian electricity”. He committed to investing in the country’s “conventional and clean energy potential”, touted a new First and Last Mile Fund to kick-start critical mineral projects and build the clean energy supply chain, and pledged to issue decisions on new megaprojects within two years.

The Liberal Party news release and backgrounder ran long on language about clean and community energy, short on references to fossil fuels, and contained not a single nod to pipelines. In Calgary, Carney told media Canada would “choose its partners carefully, and work with those who share our values,” iPolitics reported at the time.

“Ignoring climate change,” he added, is “not only morally wrong, but economically wrong.”

The balance of stated priorities in the Liberals’ policy pronouncement was something the energy and climate crowd could only have dreamed of 10 years ago. But the announcement still received an appropriately cautious response.

“We’re glad to see the Liberal Party highlighting that investing in clean electricity capacity is critical for our sovereignty and economy,” Climate Action Network Canada Executive Director Caroline Brouillette said in a release. But “conventional energy” is still “a euphemism for continuing the status quo approach of expanding fossil fuels,” which translates into “pipelines going across Indigenous lands, many billions sunk into stranded assets, and climate harm caused by increased emissions that will come back to hurt us in the form of floods and wildfires.”

Hey, Let’s Try an Industrial Strategy!

The good news is that this is an industrial strategy, not an energy strategy, which means it has a chance of pushing past the policy paralysis on climate by making emission reductions the “co-benefit” rather than the focal point.

But if the Liberals win government and get a shot at putting action behind their words, everything will depend on the way the plan is developed, pitched, and implemented to make sure the climate gains and associated community benefits they promise actually materialize. Some questions to watch out for:

• How will every project genuinely contribute to a sovereign Canada’s energy and economic security by making energy more affordable, supporting local economies and job creation, boosting climate resilience, and reducing the climate pollution that disrupts our communities with ever-intensifying climate disasters?

• What steps will Canada consistently take to reduce demand for energy and resources before figuring out how to supply the rest, and how will that work be funded?

• How will the government move past checkbox consultation to make sure critical mineral or other renewable resource megaprojects keep community goals front and centre—in Indigenous country, and everywhere else?

• What standards will Ottawa enforce through a fast-tracked, single-window review process to protect health and well-being, look out for local ecosystems, and ensure that real benefits flow to communities that are too often left behind when megaprojects come to town?

• And where will a new government come down on measures like Sen. Rosa Galvez’ proposed Climate-Aligned Finance Act, which died on the order paper in the last Parliament and must absolutely be reintroduced—and adopted—when the new term begins?

Pro tip: All of these priorities—all of them—trace back to a least-cost energy strategy that relies on energy efficiency, renewables, and energy storage, not fossil fuels.

The post Opinion: On climate and energy, Canada needs pragmatics, not performance pieces appeared first on Thoughtful Journalism About Energy's Future.