‘Things have changed’: Minister Champagne says Canada may need West-East pipelines

Industry Minister Champagne speaks about the need to diversify trade in Canada and what’s needed to make it happen.

As Canadian officials grapple with U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to launch a trade war, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne says this country may now need a pipeline connecting Alberta’s oil and gas sector to the East Coast.

Champagne’s comments come amid calls from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to resume talks on major pipeline projects that could connect the province’s oil and gas to tide water.

“Things have changed … you cannot be in the past,” Champagne told CTV Question Period host Vassy Kapelos in an interview airing Sunday.

“You need to look forward in the future,” he also said. “And that may mean that we need to have transmission lines that could bring electricity East-West. That may mean you need pipelines that go East-West.”

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Despite the 30-day reprieve, the threat of Trump’s punishing tariffs on Canadian goods is unifying officials from different levels of government, and across the aisle. Several of them this week commented on the need for Canada to break down longstanding internal trade barriers and diversity its energy export markets.

Trump has accused Canada and Mexico of being “unfair” to the U.S. on trade, and said his country has “all the oil you need,” signalling Americans “don’t need the products (Canada and Mexico) have.”

It’s been more than seven years, meanwhile, since TC Energy, known as TransCanada at the time, officially terminated its Energy East pipeline.

The Liberal government insisted TC Energy’s decision to cancel Energy East was a “business decision,” but in 2019, a senior vice-president at the company said that regulatory uncertainty had a “chilling effect” on investment.

The Energy East project also faced fierce opposition in Quebec, but Champagne — who represents a riding in the province — said he believes Quebecers have realized “the rules of the game have changed over the last few days.”

“We cannot be dependent,” Champagne said. “We have these natural resources. We need to be able to export to markets. And you know what? I think people understand better now, the nexus between energy security, economic security, and I would even say national security.”

While Champagne may be confident that attitudes towards pipelines could change in Quebec, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said last week he “fiercely opposed” any new pipeline projects in Quebec.

And Quebec Premier François Legault said last week that while Quebec needs to diversify export markets, he was doubtful there was any “social acceptability” in the province for a project like Energy East.

The provincial government in Quebec, meanwhile, has signalled it could be open to reviving a liquefied natural gas project that was cancelled four years ago.

The LNG-Québec project, planned for the Saguenay area, north of Quebec City, was scrapped in 2021 due to the pipeline’s environmental risks — and strong public opposition

But this week, Quebec Environment Minister Benoit Charette said the government would consider looking at the project again, saying the province is “not opposed to energy projects that respect environment criteria.”