Photo by David Bloom / Postmedia file

From Energy Now

By Gary Mar

With the Trans Mountain Expansion online, we have new access to Pacific markets and Asia has responded, with China now a top buyer of Canadian crude.

The world is short on reliable energy and long on instability. Tankers edge through choke points like the Strait of Hormuz. Wars threaten pipelines and power grids. Markets flinch with every headline. As authoritarian regimes rattle sabres and weaponize supply chains, the global appetite for energy from stable, democratic, responsible producers has never been greater.

Canada checks every box: vast reserves, rigorous environmental standards, rule of law and a commitment to Indigenous partnership. We should be leading the race, but instead we’ve effectively tied our own shoelaces together.

In 2024, Canada set new records for oil production and exports. Alberta alone pumped nearly 1.5 billion barrels, a 4.5 per cent increase over 2023. With the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) online, we have new access to Pacific markets and Asia has responded, with China now a top buyer of Canadian crude.

The bad news is that we’re limiting where energy can leave the country. Bill C-48, the so-called tanker ban, prohibits tankers carrying over 12,500 tons of crude oil from stopping or unloading crude at ports or marine installations along B.C.’s northern coast. That includes Kitimat and Prince Rupert, two ports with strategic access to Indo-Pacific markets. Yes, we must do all we can to mitigate risks to Canada’s coastlines, but this should be balanced against a need to reduce our reliance on trade with the U.S. and increase our access to global markets.

Add to that the Impact Assessment Act (IAA) which was designed in part to shorten approval times and add certainty about how long the process would take. It has not had that effect and it’s scaring off investment. Business confidence in Canada has dropped to pandemic-era lows, due in part to unpredictable rules.

At a time when Canada is facing a modest recession and needs to attract private capital, we’ve made building trade infrastructure feel like trying to drive a snowplow through molasses.

What’s needed isn’t revolutionary, just practical. A start would be to maximize the amount of crude transported through the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline, which ran at 77 per cent capacity in 2024. Under-utilization is attributed to a variety of factors, one of which is higher tolls being charged to producers.

Canada also needs to overhaul the IAA and create a review system that’s fast, clear and focused on accountability, not red tape. Investors need to know where the goalposts are. And, while we are making recommendations, strategic ports like Prince Rupert should be able to participate in global energy trade under the same high safety standards used elsewhere in Canada.

Canada needs a national approach to energy exporting. A 10-year projects and partnerships plan would give governments, Indigenous nations and industry a common direction. This could be coupled with the development of a category of “strategic export infrastructure” to prioritize trade-enabling projects and move them through approvals faster.

Of course, none of this can take place without bringing Indigenous partners into the planning process. A dedicated federal mechanism should be put in place to streamline and strengthen Indigenous consultation for major trade infrastructure, ensuring the process is both faster and fairer and that Indigenous equity options are built in from the start.

None of this is about blocking the energy transition. It’s about bridging it. Until we invent, build and scale the clean technologies of tomorrow, responsibly produced oil and gas will remain part of the mix. The only question is who will supply it.

Canada is the most stable of the world’s top oil producers, but we are a puzzle to the rest of the world, which doesn’t understand why we can’t get more of our oil and natural gas to market. In recent years, Norway and the U.S. have increased crude oil production. Notably, the U.S. also increased its natural gas exports through the construction of new LNG export terminals, which have helped supply European allies seeking to reduce their reliance on Russian natural gas.

Canada could be the bridge between demand and security, but if we want to be the world’s go-to energy partner, we need to act like it. That means building faster, regulating smarter and treating trade infrastructure like the strategic asset it is.

The world is watching. The opportunity is now. Let’s not waste it.

Gary Mar is president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation

The Port of Prince Rupert on the north coast of British Columbia. Photo courtesy Prince Rupert Port Authority

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Will Gibson

Moratorium does little to improve marine safety while sending the wrong message to energy investors

In 2019, Martha Hall Findlay, then-CEO of the Canada West Foundation, penned a strongly worded op-ed in the Globe and Mail calling the federal ban of oil tankers on B.C.’s northern coast “un-Canadian.”

Six years later, her opinion hasn’t changed.

“It was bad legislation and the government should get rid of it,” said Hall Findlay, now director of the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy.

The moratorium, known as Bill C-48, banned vessels carrying more than 12,500 tonnes of oil from accessing northern B.C. ports.

Targeting products from one sector in one area does little to achieve the goal of overall improved marine transport safety, she said.

“There are risks associated with any kind of transportation with any goods, and not all of them are with oil tankers. All that singling out one part of one coast did was prevent more oil and gas from being produced that could be shipped off that coast,” she said.

Hall Findlay is a former Liberal MP who served as Suncor Energy’s chief sustainability officer before taking on her role at the University of Calgary.

She sees an opportunity to remove the tanker moratorium in light of changing attitudes about resource development across Canada and a new federal government that has publicly committed to delivering nation-building energy projects.

“There’s a greater recognition in large portions of the public across the country, not just Alberta and Saskatchewan, that Canada is too dependent on the United States as the only customer for our energy products,” she said.

“There are better alternatives to C-48, such as setting aside what are called Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas, which have been established in areas such as the Great Barrier Reef and the Galapagos Islands.”

The Business Council of British Columbia, which represents more than 200 companies, post-secondary institutions and industry associations, echoes Hall Findlay’s call for the tanker ban to be repealed.

“Comparable shipments face no such restrictions on the East Coast,” said Denise Mullen, the council’s director of environment, sustainability and Indigenous relations.

“This unfair treatment reinforces Canada’s over-reliance on the U.S. market, where Canadian oil is sold at a discount, by restricting access to Asia-Pacific markets.

“This results in billions in lost government revenues and reduced private investment at a time when our economy can least afford it.”

The ban on tanker traffic specifically in northern B.C. doesn’t make sense given Canada already has strong marine safety regulations in place, Mullen said.

Notably, completion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion in 2024 also doubled marine spill response capacity on Canada’s West Coast. A $170 million investment added new equipment, personnel and response bases in the Salish Sea.

“The [C-48] moratorium adds little real protection while sending a damaging message to global investors,” she said.

“This undermines the confidence needed for long-term investment in critical trade-enabling infrastructure.”

Indigenous Resource Network executive director John Desjarlais senses there’s an openness to revisiting the issue for Indigenous communities.

“Sentiment has changed and evolved in the past six years,” he said.

“There are still concerns and trust that needs to be built. But there’s also a recognition that in addition to environmental impacts, [there are] consequences of not doing it in terms of an economic impact as well as the cascading socio-economic impacts.”

The ban effectively killed the proposed $16-billion Eagle Spirit project, an Indigenous-led pipeline that would have shipped oil from northern Alberta to a tidewater export terminal at Prince Rupert, B.C.

“When you have Indigenous participants who want to advance these projects, the moratorium needs to be revisited,” Desjarlais said.

He notes that in the six years since the tanker ban went into effect, there are growing partnerships between B.C. First Nations and the energy industry, including the Haisla Nation’s Cedar LNG project and the Nisga’a Nation’s Ksi Lisims LNG project.

This has deepened the trust that projects can mitigate risks while providing economic reconciliation and benefits to communities, Dejarlais said.

“Industry has come leaps and bounds in terms of working with First Nations,” he said.

“They are treating the rights of the communities they work with appropriately in terms of project risk and returns.”

Hall Findlay is cautiously optimistic that the tanker ban will be replaced by more appropriate legislation.

“I’m hoping that we see the revival of a federal government that brings pragmatism to governing the country,” she said.

“Repealing C-48 would be a sign of that happening.”