Canadian government’s pipeline agreement with Alberta is ‘the wrong choice,’ Amnesty International Canada says
Press Release
The Canadian government’s “grand bargain” with Alberta, which further opens the door to the construction of a new fossil-fuel pipeline, is “the wrong choice at the wrong time,” Amnesty International Canada says.
On Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Daniel Smith announced that an agreement had been reached in months-long negotiations on oil-and-gas expansion. Ottawa now says it will support the development of a new oil pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. coast if Alberta agrees to a hike in the province’s tax on industrial carbon emissions from its current rate ($95 per tonne) to $130 per tonne by 2040. That number pales in comparison to the federal goal of $170 per tonne by 2030 set by Canada under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – a target that environmental advocates charged was already too low for Canada to uphold its climate commitments.
‘We urge Ottawa and the provinces to correct course and accelerate the transition to a green economy – one that protects people’s health and livelihoods, Indigenous rights, and the survival of our planet.’
—Ketty Nivyabandi, Secretary General, Amnesty International Canada
“Expanding fossil-fuel pipelines and intensifying oil extraction is the wrong choice at the wrong time,” said Ketty Nivyabandi, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada’s English-speaking section. “With this disastrous agreement, Canada and Alberta are squandering another critical opportunity to wean Canada off fossil fuels, and it is a provocation of Indigenous Peoples in B.C. who oppose a new pipeline to the west coast. We urge Ottawa and the provinces to correct course and accelerate the transition to a green economy – one that protects people’s health and livelihoods, Indigenous rights, and the survival of our planet.”
Friday’s announcement stems from discussions surrounding a memorandum of understanding between Ottawa and the Alberta government. The final deal is said to include commitments to build the proposed Pathways “carbon-capture” network. The $16.5-billion project is intended to trap carbon emissions from multiple oil sands facilities, pump them to a central storage site in northeastern Alberta, and house them underground indefinitely so they do not escape into the atmosphere.
“Staking our future on an unproven technology is a colossal gamble, at best,” Nivyabandi said. “Not only is carbon capture a risky and expensive proposition, but it gobbles up exorbitant amounts of land, eroding biodiversity, ripping up farmland, and threatening the rights of Indigenous Peoples across the globe.”
Canada’s latest regression in struggle against climate change
Prime Minister Carney’s “grand bargain” with Alberta is the latest in a series of regressions in Canada’s efforts to combat climate change. Since March 2025, the federal government has scrapped the consumer carbon levy and an emissions cap that had been imposed on the oil-and-gas sector, among other measures. Meanwhile, 2025 saw Canada experience its second-worst wildfire season on record.
“Trump’s trade war and skyrocketing energy costs call on Canada to act,” said Nivyabandi. “But we cannot secure the future by doubling down on the destructive technologies and failed economic logic of the past. We owe it to future generations, and to ourselves, to build a Canada that puts the planet – and ultimately, people – first.”
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