Alberta
History, Controversy & Indigenous Involvement – Death of Keystone XL

For many, few stories have been as captivating and as frustrating as that of the stop-and-start Keystone XL pipeline project, which appears to officially be reaching its end following the inauguration of President Joe Biden on Wednesday, January 20, 2021.
The Keystone XL pipeline extension was originally proposed by TC Energy in 2008 as the 4th phase of the existing Keystone Pipeline System, which traverses Canada and the United States. The 1,947 km pipeline would run from Hardisty, Alberta, to Steele City, Nebraska, dramatically increasing the transportation capacity of Alberta crude oil to 830,000 barrels per day.
The National Energy Board first approved the Keystone XL application in March 2010, with a number of conditions in place to protect environmental and landowner interests.
Opposition towards the project developed quickly, largely on the basis of environmental concerns. Environmental assessments released by the U.S. State Department, which established the pipeline would have “limited environmental impact”, were met with public backlash and mass protests.
In 2011, the State Department required TC Energy (then TransCanada) to reroute the pipeline around an “ecologically sensitive” area in Nebraska, to which TC Energy agreed.
In January 2012, President Barack Obama rejected the Keystone XL, but invited TC to submit another application, which was done in May 2012.
Following another 3 years of legislative debate, protest and controversial back and forth, Obama vetoed the bill to build the Keystone XL on February 24, 2015.
On November 6, 2015, the Obama Administration once again rejected TC Energy’s application to build the Keystone XL pipeline.
In this context, tensions continued to rise, as massive amounts of money and potential jobs hung in the balance with no end in sight. In 2016, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump included the Keystone XL in his campaign, vowing to approve it if elected as President of the United States.
Following his election in November 2016, President Trump signed an executive order approving the Keystone XL pipeline, along with an order requiring American pipelines be built with American steel.
In late 2018, the pipeline’s construction was delayed once again by a U.S. federal judge, citing environmental impact.
Construction resumed in April 2020, following a pledge from Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to invest CAD$1.5 billion in the project in March 2020. Outrage from environmental and Indigenous groups continued in the wake of the announcement.
In May 2020, then-presumed presidential nominee Joe Biden shared plans to shutdown the Keystone XL as a part of his campaign. (1)
It is January 2021, and Biden has indeed followed through on his claim to scrap the pipeline. To the outrage of many Albertans and their fellow Canadians, one of Biden’s first executive orders as President of the United States, just hours after his inauguration, was to revoke TC Energy’s permit for the Keystone XL.
As of December 2020, more than 150 kilometres of pipeline had already been installed. According to Financial Post, the cancellation leaves behind approximately 48,000 tons of steel.
Biden’s decision has served to deepen the division between pro and anti-pipeline groups, including the opposing positions expressed by a number of Canadian Indigenous groups.
Over the course of the past decade, Indigenous opposition to the pipeline has been well documented through a series of protests and petitions, featuring countless Canadians who rallied in support of First Nations groups, environmental concerns and land rights.
In 2016, Donald Trump’s renewed approval of the pipeline was met with equally renewed opposition by those groups determined to halt the project once and for all. “The fight to kill the Keystone XL pipeline begins anew,” said Dallas Goldtooth, lead organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network in 2017, “and Donald Trump should expect far greater resistance than ever before.”
On the other side of this opposition, the historic formation of the Natural Law Energy coalition came as a shock to many. Natural Law Energy (NLE) is a coalition of First Nations groups who expressed their support for the Keystone XL pipeline by pursuing investment opportunities with TC Energy. Little Pine First Nation, Louis Bull Tribe, Nekaneet Cree First Nation, Ermineskin Cree Nation and Akamihk Montana Cree First Nation came together to form the coalition with the ambition of providing First Nations groups with financial resources and opportunities.
For Chief Alvin Francis of Nekaneet First Nation in Saskatchewan, the pipeline presented an opportunity to secure funding for indigenous communities and aid indigenous youth in their schooling or business endeavors for years to come. “It’s about making life better for all of our youth,” he told the Globe and Mail in November 2020.
Just as Indigenous anti-pipeline groups celebrate the latest development, Biden’s executive order to cancel the pipeline once again has been met with disappointment from members of the NLE and its supporters.
Recent developments over the multi-billion dollar Keystone XL have also led to heated discussions between the Kenney Administration and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Kenney’s response to the Canadian Federal Government as well as the Biden Administration was one of absolute disappointment and anger, as Alberta’s oil and gas industry sustained another massive hit. He went as far as to call upon Trudeau to impose economic sanctions on the United States.
While many have echoed Kenney’s sentiments regarding the cancellation of the pipeline and the Biden Administrations early treatment of Canada and the province of Alberta, others have identified this development as an opportunity for Alberta to diversify. Under the current economic circumstances, can Alberta overcome the loss of the Keystone XL? Should Alberta focus on diversifying? Given the ongoing global shift towards renewable energy technology, can we afford not to?
For more stories, visit Todayville Calgary.
Alberta
Upgrades at Port of Churchill spark ambitions for nation-building Arctic exports

In August 2024, a shipment of zinc concentrate departed from the Port of Churchill — marking the port’s first export of critical minerals in over two decades. Photo courtesy Arctic Gateway Group
From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Will Gibson
‘Churchill presents huge opportunities when it comes to mining, agriculture and energy’
When flooding in northern Manitoba washed out the rail line connecting the Town of Churchill to the rest of the country in May 2017, it cast serious questions about the future of the community of 900 people on the shores of Hudson Bay.
Eight years later, the provincial and federal governments have invested in Churchill as a crucial nation-building corridor opportunity to get resources from the Prairies to markets in Europe, Africa and South America.
Direct links to ocean and rail

Aerial view of the Hudson Bay Railway that connects to the Port of Churchill. Photo courtesy Arctic Gateway Group
The Port of Churchill is unique in North America.
Built in the 1920s for summer shipments of grain, it’s the continent’s only deepwater seaport with direct access to the Arctic Ocean and a direct link to the continental rail network, through the Hudson Bay Railway.
The port has four berths and is capable of handling large vessels. Having spent the past seven years upgrading both the rail line and the port, its owners are ready to expand shipping.
“After investing a lot to improve infrastructure that was neglected for decades, we see the possibilities and opportunities for commodities to come through Churchill whether that is critical minerals, grain, potash or energy,” said Chris Avery, CEO of the Arctic Gateway Group (AGG), a partnership of 29 First Nations and 12 remote northern Manitoba communities that owns the port and rail line.
“We are pleased to be in the conversation for these nation-building projects.”
In May, Canada’s Western premiers called for the Prime Minister’s full support for the development of an economic corridor connecting ports on the northwest coast and Hudson’s Bay, ultimately reaching Grays Bay, Nunavut.
Investments in Port of Churchill upgrades
AGG, which purchased the rail line and port from an American company in 2017, is not alone in the bullish view of Churchill’s future.
In February, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew announced an investment of $36.4 million over two years in infrastructure projects at the port aimed at growing international trade.
“Churchill presents huge opportunities when it comes to mining, agriculture and energy,” Kinew said in a release.
“These new investments will build up Manitoba’s economic strength and open our province to new trading opportunities.”
In March, the federal government committed $175 million over five years to the project including $125 million to support the rail line and $50 million to develop the port.
“It’s important to point out that investing in Churchill was something that both the Liberal and Conservative parties agreed on during the federal election campaign,” said Avery, a British Columbian who worked in the airline industry for more than two decades before joining AGG.
Reduced travel time
The federal financial support helped AGG upgrade the rail line, repairing the 20 different locations where it was washed out by flooding in 2017.
Improvements included laying more than 1,600 rail cars worth of ballast rock for stabilization and drainage, installing almost 120,000 new railway ties and undertaking major bridge crossing rehabilitations and switch upgrades.
The result has seen travel time by rail reduced by three hours — or about 10 per cent — between The Pas and Churchill.
AGG also built a dedicated storage facility for critical minerals and other commodities at the port, the first new building in several decades.
Those improvements led to a milestone in August 2024, when a shipment of zinc concentrate was shipped from the port to Belgium. It was the first critical minerals shipment from Churchill in more than two decades.
The zinc concentrate was mined at Snow Lake, Manitoba, loaded on rail cars at The Pas and moved to Churchill. It’s a scenario Avery hopes to see repeated with other commodities from the Prairies.
Addressing Arctic challenges
The emergence of new technologies has helped AGG work around the challenges of melting permafrost under the rail line and ice in Hudson Bay, he said.
Real-time ground-penetrating radar and LiDAR data from sensors attached to locomotives can identify potential problems, while regular drone flights scan the track, artificial intelligence mines the data for issues, and GPS provides exact locations for maintenance.
The group has worked with permafrost researchers from the University of Calgary, Université Laval and Royal Military College to better manage the challenge. “Some of these technologies, such as artificial intelligence and LiDAR, weren’t readily available five years ago, let alone two decades,” Avery said.
On the open water, AGG is working with researchers from the University of Manitoba to study sea ice and the change in sea lanes.
“Icebreakers would be a game-changer for our shipping operations and would allow year-round shipping in the short-term,” he said.
“Without icebreakers, the shipping season is currently about four and a half months of the year, from April to early November, but that is going to continue to increase in the coming decades.”
Interest from potential shippers, including energy producers, has grown since last year’s election in the United States, Avery said.
“We’re going to continue to work closely with all levels of government to get Canada’s products to markets around the world. That’s building our nation. That’s why we are excited for the future.”
Alberta
OPEC+ is playing a dangerous game with oil

This article supplied by Troy Media.
OPEC+ is cranking up oil supply into a weak market. It’s tried this strategy before, and it backfired
OPEC+ is once again charging headfirst into a market share war—a strategy that has repeatedly ended in disaster. Despite weak global demand, falling prices and rising output from non-OPEC countries, the cartel has chosen to flood the market. History shows this tactic rarely ends well for
OPEC+ or oil producers worldwide, including Canada.
OPEC+, a group of major oil-exporting countries led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, works together to manage global oil supply and influence prices. Its decisions have far-reaching consequences for the global energy market—including for Canadian oil producers.
Last Saturday, eight leading members of OPEC+ announced, after a virtual meeting, that they would increase production by 548,000 barrels per day starting in August. That is significantly more than the group’s recent additions of 411,000 bpd, and it puts them on track to fully unwind their
previous 2.2 million bpd in cuts a full year ahead of schedule.
It is a bold move, but it comes at a questionable time.
There is little geopolitical premium built into current oil prices, and the global market is already oversupplied. Brent crude futures are down more than six per cent so far this year. Analysts estimate inventories have been climbing by a million barrels per day in 2025 due in part to cooling demand in China and rising output from countries outside OPEC.
S&P Global Commodity Insights forecasts a supply surplus of 1.25 million barrels per day in the second half of the year. Brent crude stood at about US$68 per barrel on Friday, but S&P says it could fall to between US$50 and $60 later this year and into 2026. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, is also at risk of dropping below US$50 per barrel.
Canada is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, with most of its output coming from Alberta’s oil sands. Though Canadian producers have higher costs than some OPEC+ members, their innovation and access to U.S. markets have made them increasingly competitive.
While the seasonal demand boost might justify a modest increase, OPEC+, especially Saudi Arabia, appears primarily motivated by market share concerns. With U.S. shale and countries like Canada, Kazakhstan and Guyana gaining ground, the cartel is falling back on its old tactic of flooding the market to squeeze out competitors.
Some observers, including Stanley Reed in The New York Times, have suggested that the move may be designed to please U.S. President Donald Trump, who “has made courting Saudi Arabia and regional allies like the United Arab Emirates a priority of his foreign policy.” But even geopolitical gamesmanship has not shielded OPEC+ from the consequences before—and likely will not this time either.
Back in 2014, fed up with the U.S. shale boom, OPEC opened the taps. The goal was to drive prices low enough to force out higher-cost producers. Instead, oil plunged into the US$30 range. According to the World Bank, the 70 per cent drop during that period was one of the three biggest oil crashes since the Second World War and the most prolonged since the supply-driven collapse of 1986. Saudi Arabia’s respected oil minister, Ali Al-Naimi, lost his job in the aftermath.
Then, in April 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic loomed, OPEC and Russia launched a production war that sent oil prices into freefall, briefly into negative territory. Trump had to broker a ceasefire to rescue the U.S. shale industry, forcing Riyadh and Moscow to pull back. Both sides suffered significant economic damage.
For Canada, especially Alberta, the current fallout could be severe. The province is home to most of the country’s oil sands production. Cheaper global crude undercuts Canadian prices, squeezes royalty revenues, chills investment and puts jobs at risk across Canada. And this comes as governments are already grappling with fiscal pressures.
The oil market does not reward short-term thinking. If OPEC+ continues down this road, history suggests the outcome will be painful for them and the rest of us.
Toronto-based Rashid Husain Syed is a highly regarded analyst specializing in energy and politics, particularly in the Middle East. In addition to his contributions to local and international newspapers, Rashid frequently lends his expertise as a speaker at global conferences. Organizations such as the Department of Energy in Washington and the International Energy Agency in Paris have sought his insights on global energy matters.
Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country
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