A Northern Gateway revival is the wrong idea at the wrong time – National Observer

December 3, 2024

Canada’s oil and gas industry might be struggling to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, but it remains as enthusiastic as ever about recycling. Witness its ongoing commitment to dredging up failed and disproven ideas, from the nonexistent business case for an LNG facility on Canada’s East Coast to the even less existent case for it getting emission credits for the LNG it might ship from BC. But now, with Donald Trump about to return to the White House, the industry is ready to recycle its biggest failure yet: the Northern Gateway pipeline project.

“I hope this tariff nonsense helps us understand we shouldn’t push Keystone XL,”  Heather Exner-Pirot, director of natural resources, energy and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, wrote last week on social media. “We should build Northern Gateway instead.” Former Kinder Morgan Canada CEO Ian Anderson apparently agrees. “It’s a long putt to resurrect KXL,” he told the Calgary Herald’s Chris Varcoe. “You’ve proved that you can go to the West Coast.”

This is, to be kind, wildly optimistic on their part. Yes, a future Poilievre government could repeal Bill C-48, the federal legislation that bans ships that hold more than 12,500 metric tonnes of oil from waters off the northern coast of BC. And while the private sector has made it abundantly clear it wants no part of the risks associated with reviving Northern

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