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With a deadline looming to submit a new oil pipeline proposal to the B.C. coast, and the Alberta government saying they will put forward a general corridor plan, project observers do not to expect a detailed package that has industry backing or a specific route.
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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney set July 1 as the date the application for a one-million barrel pipeline would be ready to submit to the federal government’s major projects office, which is meant to expedite projects to help diversify Canada’s exports away from the U.S. in the face of President Trump’s tariffs.
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Smith has been strongly pushing for the pipeline to help diversify exports to Asian markets — and as a signal that Ottawa is responding to Alberta’s interests. Smith has not endorsed Alberta separating from Canada, but has put a question on a referendum this fall allowing voters to choose to remain a province or commence the legal process for a future binding separation vote.
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FP West: Energy Insider
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Amy Janzwood, an assistant professor in political science and at the Bieler School of the Environment at McGill University, says she expects an announcement by Smith on July 1 is not likely to contain any of the substantive elements of regular submissions of projects of this nature to the Canada Energy Regulator, including a company that will build the pipeline, oil producer support, baseline studies or a detailed route.
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“We are really going off book in terms of what a proposal … requires at this stage. So I’m expecting there to be very little substance,” said Janzwood, author of the 2025 book Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance: Tar Sands, Social Movements, and the Politics of Energy Infrastructure.
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Janzwood said it’s politically advantageous for the Smith government to have a flashy headline of some description declaring the need for an energy corridor, but expects the proposal to be extremely light on details.
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Smith’s hoped-for timeline includes the federal government designating the project to be in the national interest by the end of the year and a construction start as early as the fall of 2027.
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But industry observers have been skeptical, noting there’s no industry backing and there are other pipeline projects already ready to go that total more than one million barrels.
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If the project goes through northern B.C., which Alberta continues to indicate it prefers, the federal government would need to remove a tanker ban, which coastal First Nations staunchly oppose.
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B.C. Premier David Eby has not been supportive of a new oil pipeline to the northwest B.C. coast, saying it would put at risk liquefied natural gas and critical mineral projects that have First Nations support at risk.
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The pipeline is “really just used as a way to continue to push for everything else that the Smith government has been quite relentlessly demanding from the federal government in terms of rollback of existing climate policy,” observed Janzwood,
