Originally published Feb. 2, 2026 at The Narwhal. Read the full story here.

If you’re in Western Canada — heck if you’re anywhere in Canada — you’ve probably heard about pipelines lately (or for the past seemingly million years). It’s particularly true since late last year when Prime Minister Mark Carney signed an agreement with Alberta meant to incentivize a new oil pipeline to the West Coast.

The last time Canada was so into talking about pipelines was about 10 years ago, a national back and forth that ended with the cancellation of the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal and the federal government buying and building what turned out to be a very expensive Trans Mountain expansion. 

Since then, oil has started to flow through the government-owned project, drastically increasing shipments to the coast and expanding market access to other countries (somewhat, more on that later). That has helped put more money into the very large pockets of oil companies, but hasn’t been enough to satisfy the patch or the Alberta government. 

Trans Mountain is still front and centre in the new national debate — a debate that includes whether or not the country’s oil industry actually needs a new pipeline. That’s not helped by a lack of clarity around how much oil is actually flowing through that pipe, how much could flow through that pipe, how much oil Canada actually has to move to international markets and how much of that oil other countries actually want. 

There’s also the fact that no company has indicated it wants to actually build a new pipeline. 

Here, we break down where we are, where we could go and why it all matters.

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE NARWHAL.