Support For National Pipelines And LNG Projects Gain Momentum, Even In Quebec

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Public opinion on pipelines has shifted. Will Ottawa seize the moment for energy security or let politics stall progress?

The ongoing threats posed by U.S. tariffs on the Canadian economy have caused many Canadians to reconsider the need for national oil pipelines and other major resource projects.

The United States is Canada’s most significant trading partner, and the two countries have enjoyed over a century of peaceful commerce and good relations. However, the onset of tariffs and increasingly hostile rhetoric has made Canadians realize they should not be taking these good relations for granted.

Traditional opposition to energy development has given way to a renewed focus on energy security and domestic self-reliance. Over the last decade, Canadian energy producers have sought to build pipelines to move oil from landlocked Alberta to tidewater, aiming to reduce reliance on U.S. markets and expand exports internationally. Canada’s dependence on the U.S. for energy exports has long affected the prices it can obtain.

One province where this shift is becoming evident is Quebec. Historically, Quebec politicians and environmental interests have vehemently opposed oil and gas development. With an abundance of hydroelectric power, imported oil and gas, and little fossil fuel production, the province has had fewer economic incentives to support the industry.

However, recent polling suggests attitudes are changing. A SOM-La Presse poll from late February found that about 60 per cent of Quebec residents support reviving the Energy East pipeline project, while 61 per cent favour restarting the GNL Quebec natural gas pipeline project, a proposed LNG facility near Saguenay that would export liquefied natural gas to global markets. While support for these projects remains stronger in other parts of the country, this represents a substantial shift in Quebec.

Yet, despite this change, Quebec politicians at both the provincial and federal levels remain out of step with public opinion. The Montreal Economic Institute, a non-partisan think tank, has documented this disconnect for years. There are two key reasons for it: Quebec politicians tend to reflect the perspectives of a Montreal-based Laurentian elite rather than broader provincial sentiment, and entrenched interests such as Hydro-Québec benefit from limiting competition under the guise of environmental concerns.

Not only have Quebec politicians misrepresented public opinion, but they have also claimed to speak for the entire province on energy issues. Premier François Legault and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet have argued that pipeline projects lack “social licence” from Quebecers.

However, the reality is that the federal government does not need any special license to build oil and gas infrastructure that crosses provincial borders. Under the Constitution, only the federal Parliament has jurisdiction over national pipeline and energy projects.

Despite this authority, no federal government has been willing to impose such a project on a province. Quebec’s history of resisting federal intervention makes this a politically delicate issue. There is also a broader electoral consideration: while it is possible to form a federal government without winning Quebec, its many seats make it a crucial battleground. In a bilingual country, a government that claims to speak for all Canadians benefits from having a presence in Quebec.

Ottawa could impose a national pipeline, but it doesn’t have to. New polling data from Quebec and across Canada suggest Canadians increasingly support projects that enhance energy security and reduce reliance on the United States. The federal government needs to stop speaking only to politicians—especially in Quebec—and take its case directly to the people.

With a federal election on the horizon, politicians of all parties should put national pipelines and natural gas projects on the ballot.

Joseph Quesnel is a senior research fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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Carney government’s anti-oil sentiment no longer in doubt

Published on November 19, 2025

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From the Fraser Institute

By Kenneth P. Green

The Carney government, which on Monday survived a confidence vote in Parliament by the skin of its teeth, recently released a “second tranche of nation-building projects” blessed by the Major Projects Office. To have a chance to survive Canada’s otherwise oppressive regulatory gauntlet, projects must get on this Caesar-like-thumbs-up-thumbs-down list.

The first tranche of major projects released in September included no new oil pipelines but pertained largely to natural gas, nuclear power, mineral production, etc. The absence of proposed oil pipelines was not surprising, as Ottawa’s regulatory barricade on oil production means no sane private company would propose such a project. (The first tranche carries a price tag of $60 billion in government/private-sector spending.)

Now, the second tranche of projects also includes not a whiff of support for oil production, transport and export to non-U.S. markets. Again, not surprising as the prime minister has done nothing to lift the existing regulatory blockade on oil transport out of Alberta.

So, what’s on the latest list?

There’s a “conservation corridor” for British Columbia and Yukon; more LNG projects (both in B.C.); more mineral projects (nickel, graphite, tungsten—all electric vehicle battery constituents); and still more transmission for “clean energy”—again, mostly in B.C. And Nunavut comes out ahead with a new hydro project to power Iqaluit. (The second tranche carries a price tag of $58 billion in government/private-sector spending.)

No doubt many of these projects are worthy endeavours that shouldn’t require the imprimatur of the “Major Projects Office” to see the light of day, and merit development in the old-fashioned Canadian process where private-sector firms propose a project to Canada’s environmental regulators, get necessary and sufficient safety approval, and then build things.

However, new pipeline projects from Alberta would also easily stand on their own feet in that older regulatory regime based on necessary and sufficient safety approval, without the Carney government additionally deciding what is—or is not—important to the government, as opposed to the market, and without provincial governments and First Nations erecting endless barriers.

Regardless of how you value the various projects on the first two tranches, the second tranche makes it crystal clear (if it wasn’t already) that the Carney government will follow (or double down) on the Trudeau government’s plan to constrain oil production in Canada, particularly products derived from Alberta’s oilsands. There’s nary a mention that these products even exist in the government’s latest announcement, despite the fact that the oilsands are the world’s fourth-largest proven reserve of oil. This comes on the heels on the Carney government’s first proposed budget, which also reified the government’s fixation to extinguish greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, continue on the path to “net-zero 2050” and retain Canada’s all-EV new car future beginning in 2036.

It’s clear, at this point, that the Carney government is committed to the policies of the previous Liberal government, has little interest in harnessing the economic value of Canada’s oil holdings nor the potential global influence Canada might exert by exporting its oil products to Asia, Europe and other points abroad. This policy fixation will come at a significant cost to future generations of Canadians.

Kenneth P. Green

Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute

Business

Nearly One-Quarter of Consumer-Goods Firms Preparing to Exit Canada, Industry CEO Warns Parliament

Published on November 18, 2025

Todayville

Dan Knight

Standing Committee on Industry and Technology hears stark testimony that rising costs and stalled investment are pushing companies out of the Canadian market.

There’s a number that should stop this country cold: twenty-three percent. That is the share of companies in one of Canada’s essential manufacturing and consumer-goods sectors now preparing to withdraw products from the Canadian market or exit entirely within the next two years. And this wasn’t whispered at a business luncheon or buried in a consultancy memo. It was delivered straight to Parliament, at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, during its study on Canada’s underlying productivity gaps and capital outflow.

Michael Graydon, the CEO of Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada, didn’t hedge or soften the message. He told MPs, “23% of our members expect to exit products from the Canadian marketplace within the next two years, because the cost of doing business here has just become unsustainable.”

Unsustainable. That’s the word he used. And when the people who actually make things in this country start using that word, you should pay attention. These aren’t fringe players or hypothetical startups. These are firms that supply the goods Canadians buy every single day, and they’re looking at their balance sheets, their regulatory burdens, the delays in getting anything approved or built, and concluding that Canada simply doesn’t work for them anymore.

What makes this more troubling is the timing. Canada’s investment levels have been falling for years, even as the United States and other competitors race ahead. Businesses aren’t reinvesting in machinery or technology at the rate they once did. They’re not modernizing their operations here. They’re putting expansion plans on hold or shifting them to jurisdictions that move faster, cost less and offer clearer rules. That’s not ideology; it’s arithmetic. If it costs more to operate here, if it takes longer to get a permit, and if supply chains back up because ports and rail lines are jammed, investors will choose the place that doesn’t make growth a bureaucratic mountain climb.

Graydon raised another point that ought to concern anyone who cares about domestic production. Canada’s agrifood sector recorded a sixty-billion-dollar trade surplus last year, one of the brightest spots in the national economy, but according to him that potential is being “diluted by fragmented interprovincial trade and logistics bottlenecks.” The ports, the rail corridors, the entire transport network—choke points everywhere. And you can’t build a productive economy on choke points. Companies can’t scale, can’t guarantee delivery, can’t justify the costs. So they leave.

This twenty-three percent figure is the clearest evidence yet that the problem isn’t theoretical. It’s not something for think-tank panels or academic papers. It is happening at the level that matters most: the decision whether to continue doing business in Canada or move operations somewhere more predictable. And once those decisions are made, they’re very hard to reverse. Capital doesn’t boomerang back out of patriotism. It goes where it can earn a return.

For years, Canadian policymakers have talked about productivity as if it were a moral failing of workers or a mystical national characteristic. It’s neither. Productivity comes from investment—real money poured into equipment, technology, training and expansion. When investment stalls, productivity collapses. And when a quarter of firms in a major sector are already planning their exit, you are not looking at a temporary dip. You are looking at a structural rejection of the business environment itself.

The fact that executives are now openly warning Parliament that they cannot afford to stay is a moment of clarity. It is also a test. Either this country becomes a place where people can build things again—quickly, affordably, competitively—or it continues down the path that leads to empty factories, hollowed-out supply chains and consumers who wonder why the shelves look thinner every year.

Twenty-three percent is not just a statistic. It’s the sound of a warning bell ringing at full volume. The only question now is whether anyone in charge hears it.

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