A plan for a plan
What to make of the Alberta-Ottawa pipeline deal
On Thursday, November 27, 2025, Alberta premier Danielle Smith and Canadian prime minister Mark Carney, teamed up to announce a Memorandum of Understanding around a new oil pipeline project stretching from the tar sands to B.C.’s north coast.
What Smith and Carney lack in judgement, they make up for in audacity.
Dogwood was part of a more than 10-year fight to keep oil tankers off B.C.’s coast, first by helping defeat Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project, then again when the Trans Mountain expansion reared its ugly head.
For Dogwood’s staff and our long-time No Tankers community, this announcement cut deep. And for many of us, sent us into a temporary tailspin.
They can’t. They won’t. They better not!
The reality is they — the premier, the prime minister and his cabinet — can. But thankfully, only if a lot of things go wrong. There are many obstacles – truly powerful forces – that stand in the way of this figment of a pipeline.
The obstacles ahead
Alberta and Ottawa have outlined a plan (for a plan) to ship heavy crude oil across B.C. without the province’s consent, in a pipeline with no proposed design or map (or investors, or permits) to a terminal that does not exist, onto tankers that would then ply coastal waters that are protected under legislation against aforementioned tankers.
There’s a lot wrong in that description. Let’s break it down:
There IS. NO. PROJECT.
No owners. No investors. No name. No route. No plan on a page. Nothing but the desperate hopes of a small-minded premier on a quest to please her oil and gas puppet masters and sooth Alberta separatists.
Indigenous rights and leadership
Haisla Nation and the District of Kitimat immediately said ‘no terminal here’ which doesn’t leave a lot of other options. Coastal First Nations are united in their opposition. And in a monumental decision, the national Assembly of First Nations unanimously voted to demand that Carney walk back the MOU.
As reported by Lauren Krugel in the Energy Mix, analysts at CIBC Capital Markets say they don’t believe any private sector investor would want to get involved with a new oil sands pipeline if First Nations are opposed.
Economics
The bitumen produced in Alberta’s tar sands is thick and dirty, which means it uses more energy to refine into crude oil and leaves less of the “good stuff” to sell. The United States refines most of the bitumen Canada ships off, then we buy it back from them ready to burn.
The so-called Asian markets this pipeline is destined for don’t have the bitumen refineries needed to make this scheme work. And there’s no project plan setting out how Ottawa and Alberta plan to solve that little problem.
There’s also the issue of private investors dropping pipeline projects, leaving tax payers to foot the bill. When Kinder Morgan washed its hands of Trans Mountain, it was the Canadian government, using Canadian public money of course, that bought it and finished the job… to the tune of $34 billion (original estimates had the project total at $5.6 billion!!).
Then there’s investing in a fossil fuel economy with no hope of a future given that renewable energy production is where everyone else is headed. We’re already behind other “first world” countries, and it’s embarrassing.
On-the-ground opposition
Folks in B.C. are not going to sit idly by while a pipeline project moves ahead. Enbridge was defeated, we sent Kinder Morgan packing, and Trans Mountain was delayed for YEARS because of Indigenous resistance and legal challenges, community backlash, blockades, you name it. Any company with even a hint of interest in this new project should buckle up for a long and bumpy ride.
The tanker ban
Tankers are not permitted in a very specific section along B.C.’s coast for good reason. The seas are rough and dangerous.
The federal tanker moratorium protects coastlines from a catastrophic spill, and the ship’s captain and crew from peril. To push through a project even larger than the now-defeated Northern Gateway proposal through northern B.C., it would mean making exemptions to that tanker ban or or lifting it entirely.
THE CLIMATE
Burning fossil fuels is killing us and won’t stop killing us until we stop burning it. The end.
WHY are they doing this?
The most generous thing one could say about Smith and Carney in this moment is… they lack vision.
There is some political brinksmanship at play, it seems. Danielle Smith, with all her transphobia, book banning and hanging teachers out to dry, has been steadily losing support in her province.
To have a for-now popular politician like Mark Carney share some of that heat on her cheeks might help, and in return, a province typically at odds with Ottawa might just like this new guy they have at the top. Carney’s eating Poilievre’s lunch on this one, and there’s no way that’s not planned.
Don’t get distracted
We have imminent threats here in B.C. regardless of the Alberta dog and pony show of late.
Ksi Lisims LNG was recently anointed by Mark Carney as a project of national interest, one he has now sent to the Major Projects Office for review. If they see fit, the MPO will recommend this fracked gas terminal be fast-tracked to completion, likely with the help of Canadian taxpayers’ money.
This future floating LNG terminal slated for northern B.C. is 100 per cent American owned, backed by some of the scummiest men in America. Billionaire MAGA donor and Trump advisor Steve Swarzman is one. And Apollo Inc. is another. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because its former CEO, Leon Black, was forced to step down in 2018 for being caught bankrolling Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.
This Wall Street-backed project is what passes as “Canada first” for B.C. premier David Eby and PM Mark Carney. Just ignore the fact that major parts of the facility are slated to be built in South Korea using their own local steel. Now there’s a country proving it can still build things!
The Ksi Lisims LNG terminal and its sister project PRGT have approvals in hand, and pipeline construction is right around the corner. So while we can’t ignore the pipeline drama playing out on the national stage, we can’t take our eye off a much more advanced threat from the same players.
The Major Projects Office has its say next year on July 1. Until then, we’re urging people to take the immediate threat of Ksi Lisims seriously.
Actions you can take
Tell Mark Carney you do not want LNG projects funded by American billionaires in B.C.
