April 26, 2026
Reading time: 7 minutes
Full Story: The Canadian Press
Author: Lauren Krugel, Ian Bickis, Nick Murray
Mack Male/Flickr
The federal government has approved a $4-billion plan by Enbridge Inc. to expand an existing natural gas pipeline in British Columbia, a move one executive says demonstrates a greater “sense of purpose” from Ottawa toward bolstering Canada’s status as a global energy exporter.
The Sunrise project would add 300 million cubic feet per day of transportation capacity on Enbridge’s 3.6-billion-cubic-feet-per-day Westcoast system, which connects gas fields in northeastern B.C. and northwestern Alberta to the Canada-U.S. border. The project involves adding almost 140 kilometres of new pipe by constructing 11 looping segments parallel to the existing line.
The gas that would flow through the expanded line is not bound for any particular destination, but “some of the capacity will no doubt go offshore,” Matthew Akman, who leads Enbridge’s gas transmission and midstream business, told reporters on April 24.
Sunrise was not reviewed under federal legislation passed last year meant to speed along new infrastructure deemed in Canada’s national interest. Nonetheless, Akman said he appreciates the improved tone under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government.
‘Do it Faster’
“There’s more of a sense of purpose and an intent and a prioritization, which is what we need to see in Canada,” Akman said.
“Going forward, though, I think we all need to work more closely together to make this even faster. And there are ways to have just as rigorous a consultation process, just as rigorous an environmental review process and community engagement process, but do it faster.
“We’ve been at this project almost four years already and still don’t have a shovel in the ground.”
The approval is part of the government’s effort to get more projects moving, faster, said Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson during a speech in Toronto on Friday.
“For too long, we became accustomed to mistaking delay for seriousness. But seriousness is not measured by how long a country takes to make decisions, it is measured by whether those decisions are thoughtful, credible and made in a timeframe that actually matters.”
He said the Sunrise project will provide more supply for heating buildings, provide gas for electric power generation and industrial and manufacturing processes as well as ensure enough supply of LNG.
The project will add more than $3 billion to Canada’s GDP and create some 2,500 jobs at peak construction, said Hodgson.
He said the government will be ushering more projects ahead to actually being built. By spring 2027, there will be not only more projects added to the major projects office, but at least five to 10 new projects reaching a final investment decision or broken ground.
“Canada is building again.”
B.C. Premier David Eby said the Sunrise expansion is good news for jobs in his province.
“At a time of uncertainty and global instability, this is how we create the prosperity needed to pay for the public services that make us all better off,” he said in a news release.
But Alex Walker, energy analytics program director with Environmental Defence Canada, called Ottawa’s approval “a disastrous climate decision that prioritizes fossil fuel industry growth over Canada’s climate commitments.”
Construction on the pipeline is expected to begin this summer, with startup targeted for late 2028.
All of the soon-to-be built space on the Sunrise project has been spoken for, Akman said, noting the company is also expanding gas infrastructure in the northern part of B.C.
Last year, Enbridge inked a partnership with an alliance of three dozen First Nations in B.C. for a 12.5 ownership stake in the existing Westcoast pipeline. Akman said those groups are not obligated to take on equity of the pipeline expansion, but have the option to do so.
Akman said there is opportunity to build even more gas pipeline capacity—from scratch or by expanding existing infrastructure—under the right conditions.
One is to ensure a speedy review process “because we can’t tie capital up forever doing these things.”
Another is to ensure Canadian investments can compete with projects being pursued in the United States, where Enbridge has a substantial presence and has been seeing better returns.
“We’re a large company with investors all over the world,” Akman said. “So if we see competitive returns on capital in British Columbia, then we could do any of those types of investments.”
Geopolitical Issues at Play
In the context of the current global energy crisis, fuelled in large part by the war in Iran and its disruption of oil and gas supply chains, this pipeline is a big deal, according to experts who spoke with The Canadian Press.
“It’s another step toward diversifying our asset base in a world hungry for this,” said Jay Khosla, the executive director of economic and energy policy with the Public Policy Forum and a former assistant deputy minister in the Privy Council Office.
“The South Koreans in particular are out there begging for any source of supply of gas at this moment in time. The Nepalese and the Bangladeshis and the Pakistanis are running out of cooking fuel, which is gas-based, (and) are moving to 4-day work weeks because the Qatari supply has been taken off the market,” he said.
“This is all an effort to address that.”
Leverage For Canada-U.S. Relations
While the expanded pipeline will help Canada meet the broader goal of reducing its reliance on the United States as a customer, it also helps position Canada as a necessary supplier to the United States.
“For a long time, the shale revolution in the United States was flooded with natural gas, and now we’re starting to pick up again where the United States is importing more from Canada and wants more from Canada,” said Heather Exner-Pirot, a senior fellow and director of energy, natural resources and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
“They need more AI. They need more data centres. And they are exporting more LNG than they’ve ever exported, and we’re talking about non-renewable resources.
“So I feel in my heart in the next 10 or 15 years, Canadian natural gas is going to be very important to the American natural gas story.”
Khosla added that expanding Canada’s export capacity could put it in a better position as it prepares to formally begin negotiations on the mandatory review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, better known as CUSMA.
“It really allows us to catalyze something that we’ve been trying to do for a long time, which is market diversification, leverage with the U.S., and for sure I do think that it could help with CUSMA,” Khosla said.
“I know for a fact, and we’ve heard that, the president (Donald Trump) is not really thrilled that we’re supplying Chinese markets with our oil right now because he knows he needs all of that.
“Like we give them pretty much 25% of their source supply. All of these moves are very, very helpful to give us some leverage—and we don’t have a lot, let’s be honest.”
The Carney Government’s Political Play
Prime Minister Mark Carney has promised to build big and build fast as he tries to shore up Canada’s economy in the face of U.S. protectionism and tariffs. But approving a new pipeline is a complicated process fraught with political landmines and opposition from environment groups and many Indigenous communities.
While Exner-Pirot said the expansion itself isn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things—she described Enbridge’s $4 billion investment as “table stakes”—she sees this as an easy win for the Carney government because it’s natural gas, and British Columbia isn’t opposed to it.
“It’s good that we’ll have construction. That’s going to be very helpful for the B.C. economy, so it’s absolutely not nothing,” Exner-Pirot said.
“And there was Indigenous support. So a very easy thing for them to do and to say, ‘We are building and we are being an energy superpower.”
Khosla agreed that having both Indigenous support and ownership behind the project was key to pushing it through. He noted it was done without the need to refer it to the major projects office.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 24, 2026
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