Ontario Premier Doug Ford has pledged provincial capital to help build the proposed Northern Shield oil pipeline from Hardisty, Alta., to Sarnia, Ont., a line that would initially carry 500,000 barrels of crude a day. The pledge comes as Ottawa prepares to fast-track a different project.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is expected to announce Thursday that the proposed West Coast Oil Pipeline will be designated a project of national interest under the Building Canada Act. Northern Shield, by contrast, remains at the feasibility stage, with no private proponent, no cost estimate and no formal submission to Ottawa. Supporters pitch it as an all-Canadian answer to the trade war with the United States. Critics question why Ontario is offering taxpayer money for a project whose cost is unknown and that has yet to attract a private investor publicly.
The West Coast designation would be the first under the Building Canada Act, which Parliament passed last year with Conservative support. The law lets cabinet shorten approvals and firm up certainty for investors in projects it deems nationally significant. The federal Major Projects Office, based in Calgary, is running the process. Ottawa gave notice in the Canada Gazette on Aug. 1 that it may list the line, which would carry one million barrels a day from Bruderheim, Alta., to a port near Delta, B.C. The Oct. 1 deadline for a decision was set in May, in an implementation agreement Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith signed. Energy Minister Tim Hodgson said earlier this week he expected the office to finish its work on time.
Northern Shield’s path is longer. Alberta and Ontario unveiled the proposed route in July. The provinces say an Ontario-led feasibility study will be finished by the end of 2026, and only then will they decide whether to proceed and submit the project to the Major Projects Office. In July, a spokesperson for Hodgson said Ottawa would review the study’s results but that its priority was the West Coast line.
Ford made his funding pledge Monday in Calgary, alongside Smith, at an energy-services industry event. The 3,300-kilometre line would pass through Regina and Winnipeg, with a possible extension to the Port of Churchill in Manitoba. It could grow from an initial 500,000 barrels a day to 800,000. Ontario is funding the feasibility study. Ford described the province as a minority investor rather than the sole backer, calling its planned contribution small without putting a figure on it. He and Smith suggested construction could take under five years.
Rudyard Griffiths, the co-founder and publisher at The Hub, and Sean Speer, The Hub‘s editor-at-large, made a related argument last fall, when Alberta stepped forward to sponsor a West Coast line. They argued that Canadian pipelines once got built because private backers judged them commercially sound, and that Alberta’s need to take on that role was a measure of how far policy had drifted from market tests. Once governments take a financial stake in energy infrastructure, they warned, they rarely give it up.
Alicia Planincic, the director of policy and economics at the Business Council of Alberta, observed that crude is the country’s most valuable export and among the most dependent on the American market. Eighty-five percent of crude shipments head south, against 72 percent of merchandise exports overall. “Put simply, crude oil is Canada’s single biggest diversification opportunity,” she wrote, in a piece arguing that a West Coast line would do the most to open new markets.
The approvals overhaul extends beyond the national-interest track. Carney’s government introduced Bill C-39, the Building Canada Strong Act, on Sept. 21. The bill would extend the “one project, one review, one year” approach developed under Bill C-5 and the Major Projects Office across the federal approvals system, with permits reviewed in parallel rather than one after another. The current push is shaped by earlier collapses. Northern Gateway, a $7.9-billion line for 525,000 barrels a day to Kitimat, was rejected by the federal cabinet in 2016. Energy East, a $15.7-billion proposal to move more than one million barrels a day eastward, was abandoned by TransCanada in 2017.
Hub contributors have argued that government sponsorship changes who carries the risk as much as how quickly a project is reviewed. Northern Gateway and Energy East were private ventures. Northern Shield begins with two provincial governments carrying the early costs, which means political judgment rather than shipper demand has put the line on the table. The diversification argument is strong on its own terms: 85 percent of crude still goes to the U.S. But a line ending at Sarnia’s refineries does more to secure domestic supply than to reach new export markets, unless a tidewater extension follows. And that is why the absence of committed shippers matters. If the opportunity were as bankable as advertised, producers would be signing contracts without a premier’s cheque.
On the evidence so far, Northern Shield is a political commitment running ahead of a commercial one. Ontario has not said how large its stake would be, and no private investor has publicly committed. No federal decision on the line is pending, and the national-interest process Ottawa is about to use for the first time has not yet seen a project through to construction, so there is no record of how much it lowers costs.
The West Coast listing is expected Thursday. On Oct. 19, Albertans vote on whether the province should remain in Canada or begin the legal process toward a binding referendum on separation.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the federal government was poised to designate the Northern Shield pipeline a project of national interest under the Building Canada Act. The designation expected Thursday is for the proposed West Coast Oil Pipeline. Northern Shield remains at the feasibility stage and has not been submitted to the Major Projects Office. The Hub regrets the error.
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Ottawa is set to fast-track the Northern Shield oil pipeline project, which aims to transport crude from Alberta to Ontario, as Premier Doug Ford pledges provincial funding. The project is framed as a national interest initiative to counter U.S. tariffs and Alberta separatism, but critics raise concerns about the financial viability and lack of private investment. The pipeline, with a capacity of at least 500,000 barrels per day, is expected to undergo an accelerated review process under the Building Canada Act. The political implications of this project are significant, especially in light of upcoming votes in Alberta regarding separation.