CALGARY – By fall 2025, with U.S. tariffs under President Donald Trump squeezing trade, Canada’s energy future sits on edge. Alberta, which holds the world’s third-largest proven oil reserves, is pushing for new pipelines to ship crude and natural gas to overseas buyers. The goal is simple: sell for full value and reduce reliance on discounted U.S. sales.
Public support is strong. Polls show a clear majority of Canadians, including many in British Columbia, want more oil and gas infrastructure. Yet B.C. Premier David Eby and Prime Minister Mark Carney keep raising hurdles. This is not a small policy rift; it is a slap at Canadians who want steady jobs and growth.
Eby is putting an ideological climate agenda ahead of people’s paycheques, while echoing Carney’s hard push to net-zero that critics call greenwashing, feel-good messaging that still leaves Canada reliant on fossil fuels. Together, they are blocking Alberta from growing Canada’s energy strength, catering to a loud minority of activists whose sway outweighs their size.
Polling shows the split between decision-makers and voters. A Nanos Research survey in early April 2025 found 73% of Canadians support an East-West oil and LNG pipeline with terminals on both coasts. Support hit 88% in the Prairies, and even in Quebec, 49% were in favour.
That consensus is rising as tariff threats loom, with forecasts showing Canadian exports could fall by up to 25%, and the energy sector would take the biggest hit. A Yorkville Strategies poll reported a supermajority, more than 80%, backing oil and natural gas growth across the country.
Canada’s Oil Reserves
Support for reviving Northern Gateway reached 82%, and Energy East hit 84%, including 77% in Quebec. In B.C., support climbed to 92%, far above past levels, driven by the promise of jobs, cheaper fuel, and access to new markets.
Views on the Trans Mountain Expansion have warmed, too. TMX doubled capacity from Alberta to B.C.’s coast and started service in May 2024. A Research Co. survey in June 2023, with trends holding into 2025, found 48% of British Columbians now approve of Ottawa’s handling of TMX.
That share grew as the line delivered lower fuel costs, with estimates of $1.5 billion a year in savings for B.C. drivers who once paid more due to bottlenecks. On October 9, 2025, an Angus Reid Institute poll showed a majority in B.C. backing Alberta’s wider pipeline agenda. Nearly half, 49%, favoured repealing or exempting the northern tanker ban.
This is not fringe talk; it is a practical response to a weak economy. With 96% of Canadian oil exports still moving south at a discount, Canada leaves billions on the table. Pipelines to Asia through B.C. could add $20 to $30 billion a year to GDP, according to ARC Energy Research Institute.
Jobs explain the broad support. Oil and gas directly employ more than 150,000 people, and about 900,000 jobs rely on the sector when you include spin-off roles in construction, retail, and services. Pay is roughly twice the national average, which keeps many households afloat.
Yet unemployment in energy services sits near 4.2% as of September 2025, with exploration jobs falling 18.5% year over year, about 20,400 roles lost, tied to regulatory delays. In Alberta, the oil sands are roughly a quarter of the GDP, and thousands need work. As one Fort McMurray rig worker wrote on X in October 2025, we have the resources, so why block the pipes?
Pipelines Bring Jobs
Families need this. A proposed one million barrel per day line to B.C.’s northwest coast, announced by Premier Danielle Smith in October 2025, could add 10,000 construction jobs and 5,000 permanent roles. Many would be union positions with high wages. B.C. residents, hit by housing costs and inflation, see the benefit. TMX has already lifted provincial revenues by about $1 billion through revenue sharing.
Premier Eby’s stance reads as politics over prosperity. Since taking office in 2022, he has dismissed Alberta’s plans as a risk to B.C.’s pristine coast while skipping over key facts. In June 2025, he rejected Smith’s pipeline pitch on the spot, saying there were no private backers and that it needed subsidies.
Polls suggest B.C. voters are ready to say yes. By October, the fight escalated. After Alberta filed its plan with the federal Major Projects Office, Eby branded it fictional and incredibly alarming. He warned it would threaten billions in B.C. LNG and mining investment. On X, he called the project a direct economic threat, claimed there was no Indigenous backing, and said taxpayers would be on the hook.
That framing fails basic tests. Courts have confirmed federal control over interprovincial pipelines, a key point in TMX rulings. And while some First Nations oppose oil routes, others have partnered on proposals, including the Eagle Spirit Chiefs Council, with equity positions worth millions.
This is not about fiscal care; it is about a political brand built on a green label. Eby clings to the 2019 North Coast Oil Tanker Moratorium, a Trudeau-era rule that blocks northern routes and, in his view, protects other projects. That protection has a price.
Eby Playing Politics
It traps Alberta’s heavy crude, raises energy costs across the country, and blocks job flows between provinces. B.C. tradespeople, welders, pipefitters, and equipment operators lose steady work on Alberta-bound projects. Towns like Kitimat and Prince Rupert feel the strain. Eby’s language mirrors his 2017 pledge as attorney general to use every tool in the toolbox to stop TMX.
That fight delayed the line for years and pushed costs near $30 billion, all on taxpayers, after Kinder Morgan walked away. As premier, he is favouring provincial turf over a Team Canada approach. Smith called his position un-Canadian and unconstitutional. Analysts joined in. Eby just set a bonfire to his credibility, Heather Exner-Pirot posted on X.
Prime Minister Carney has become Eby’s partner in a net-zero drive that puts headline wins ahead of household income. Carney rose to the Liberal leadership and took office in April 2025 after a campaign steeped in climate finance. He helped launch the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero in 2021 to steer capital into decarbonization.
As UN Special Envoy for Climate Action, he supported managed phaseouts of high-emission assets like oil fields and pipelines, while pushing banks to pull funding. In Canada, that agenda shows up as production caps for oil and gas, down 35 to 38% from 2019 levels by 2030, and methane targets of 75% cuts.
In a July 2025 Stampede speech in Calgary, Carney teased a pipeline to B.C. as a national priority. Insiders called it lip service. His real focus is clean energy potential, phasing out federal fossil fuel use by 2030, and mandating EVs nationwide.
Eby and Carney Keep Saying No
The policy mix looks like greenwash to many. Carney scrapped the consumer carbon tax for optics, then lifted industrial pricing. The new costs scare off investment but barely dent global emissions. Carbon capture and storage has drawn billions since 2024, about $12 billion federally, yet captures a sliver of emissions, near 0.5%.
Much of it supports enhanced oil recovery, not deep cuts. The International Institute for Sustainable Development says CCS is expensive, energy-hungry, and unproven at scale, and it ignores most of the emissions that come from burning the fuel. Eby repeats the same themes. B.C. still targets a 40% cut by 2030 and a 100% EV mandate by 2035, even as the province imports power to keep lights on.
All of this flatters a small activist class, urban pressure groups, and NGOs like the Pembina Institute, which carry big media profiles but represent a narrow slice of voters. CBC polling shows climate sits below 5% as a top concern for voters, far behind the economy at 23.5% and U.S. relations at 28.5%.
Yet Eby and Carney keep saying no to projects that could blunt tariff damage. Alberta’s October 2025 plan, with $14 million already set aside and outreach to Enbridge and Trans Mountain, promises growth and energy security. Eby calls it a threat to a fragile consensus. Smith replied, This is not the Danielle Smith show, it is Team Canada. On X, columnist Adam Pankratz wrote, David Eby, not a pipeline, is the real threat to Canada’s economy.
People are paying the price. Oilsands communities face layoffs as production limits bite, with 20,400 jobs gone since 2024. B.C. trades want pipeline work too. One user on X wrote, Eby is blocking prosperity to score green points. Carney talks about an energy superpower that blends conventional and clean sources, yet GFANZ partners in the U.S. keep backing away from net-zero scrutiny.
Eby follows that lead, choosing elite agendas over workers who need a plan now. Smith warned in October 2025 that blocking Alberta tests whether Canada still functions as a country.
There is a clear path forward. Repeal Bill C-69’s vague project rules, lift the tanker moratorium, and drop production caps that scare off $100 billion in investment. Voters are already there.
Canada Action’s February 2025 poll found 79% support for pipelines from sea to sea. Eby and Carney can listen to Canadians and reset, or go down as the leaders who boxed in a resource powerhouse and traded long-term jobs for short-term applause from activists.
