Canada should consider west-east oil pipeline now that American relationship has changed: minister

Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said Thursday the country should weigh building a new west-east oil pipeline after President Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs exposed what he’s calling a vulnerability in energy infrastructure.

Speaking to reporters after spending the week in Washington pitching American lawmakers on the value of the Canada-U.S. trade relationship, Wilkinson said some parts of Canada, namely Ontario and Quebec, are dependent on oil pipelines that move through the U.S. to meet their needs — and there has to be some hard conversations about whether that’s sustainable given what may transpire during a possible Trump trade war and beyond.

Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline, which moves Western Canadian oil across the continent and down through Michigan into Sarnia, Ont., is a critical piece of energy infrastructure that operates at the whim of the Americans, at least in part. Even before Trump re-entered the scene, Michigan’s Democratic governor tried to shut it down (new window).

Line 5 feeds refineries that produce about half of Ontario and Quebec’s fuel needs — everything from jet fuel for Toronto’s Pearson Airport to gas for home heating.

WATCH | Wilkinson says a cross-Canada oil pipeline warrants reflection:

Wilkinson says Canada needs to reflect on energy ‘vulnerabilities’ amid U.S. tariff threat

Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson says he expects the prime minister and the premiers to reflect on the idea of an oil pipeline running from the west to the east and, along with Indigenous partners, collectively decide ‘whether there is some things we should do to address these vulnerabilities.’

I think we need to reflect on that, Wilkinson said. That creates some degree of uncertainty. I think, in that context, we will as a country want to have some conversations about infrastructure that provides greater security for us.

I think those conversations are going to happen and that’s all for the good as we actually reflect on the implications of what we’re going through now, he said, nodding to the U.S. tensions.

Asked again at a later news conference if the Liberal government would back a west-east oil pipeline, Wilkinson said Trump’s recent actions have prompted some soul-searching.

He said successive Canadian governments never really gave it much thought that a lot of the energy the country needs to power its economy flows through the U.S.

I don’t think anybody ever expected us to be in the situation where the president of the United States is essentially treating Canada as an adversary and not as an ally, he said.

There are some vulnerabilities that we did not actually believe existed. We should be reflecting on the vulnerabilities and deciding whether there are some things we should do.

Wilkinson said the prime minister and the premiers, at their weekly meetings (new window) throughout this trade fracas, are discussing how to make Canada more energy secure from an oil perspective.

Quebec Premier François Legault said earlier this week that there is still no social acceptability for an oil pipeline through the province, but suggested Trump’s actions could change the situation.

Nova Scotia’s Tim Houston, however, is all-in on a hypothetical west-east pipeline. I called on the prime minister and the federal government to immediately approve the Energy East project, he said, referencing a long-dead pipeline project.

Wilkinson said he’s not being prescriptive and he’s not demanding a west-east pipeline be built — but it’s something that should be on the table for discussion, he said. Any conversation would need to include Indigenous and other affected communities, he added.

Wilkinson said it’s a plus that the federal government got the Crown-owned Trans Mountain pipeline expansion built because that allows some 900,000 barrels of Canadian oil to be transported to the West Coast for shipment overseas every day — all without going through American territory.

“The Trans Mountain pipeline was not without controversy (new window) but I think, in the current context, it’s hard to argue that that was not an important investment for this country to make,” he said, referencing Ottawa’s decision to rescue the project after its original American backer pulled out (new window).

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, among others, have been pushing the government to green-light a west-east pipeline to secure Canada’s energy independence. They have both pushed for a revival of the Energy East project, or something like it.

That TC Energy-backed project would have moved Alberta oil to eastern markets, including Irving Oil’s major Saint John refinery in New Brunswick (new window), effectively doing away with the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

In 2023, Canada imported nearly 500,000 barrels of oil a day (new window) from countries like Saudi Arabia and Nigeria even though this country has the third-largest oil reserve in the world.

WATCH | Canadian energy sector looking to navigate Trump tariff unrest:

Canadian energy sector looking to navigate Trump tariff unrest

U.S. President Donald Trump is talking about reviving the Keystone XL Pipeline, even as he threatens to impose tariffs on Canadian imports. Richard Masson, an executive fellow at the University of Calgary’s school of public policy, says many U.S. refineries can only process the type of crude oil that Canada provides, so a trade war would also harm American consumers.

TC Energy spun off its oil pipeline business into a separate, publicly traded company last year to focus on natural gas infrastructure.

It’s been tough getting any pipelines built due to entrenched opposition from some environmentalists and Indigenous communities — not to mention the possibility for major cost overruns.

Indeed, Keith Stewart, a senior energy strategist at Greenpeace Canada, an environmental group, condemned talk of a new pipeline Thursday.

The smart play for Canada is to reduce our reliance on oil exports, as doubling down on new pipelines when the rest of the world is moving to electric vehicles and heat pumps would be like buying a Blockbuster franchise as Netflix is taking off, he said.

But in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, TC’s president and CEO, François Poirier, said Ottawa would have been much better positioned to handle trade negotiations in general — and less dependent on the U.S. specifically — if liquefied natural gas or other export pipelines and infrastructure had been operational years ago.

This article is republished from RCI.