Robert Lyman’s analysis of the proposed West Coast oil pipeline identifies the central problem: Ottawa’s promise to accelerate the project does not remove the legal, constitutional, or regulatory machinery that has delayed nearly every major Canadian energy project before it.The proposal is to be considered by the Major Projects Office for a “national interest” designation by October 1. But designation is not approval. Lyman estimates that a final application may not be filed until late 2027 or early 2028, with an assessment report arriving in 2029 or 2030 and a cabinet decision sometime thereafter. Even that assumes an orderly process, limited litigation, and a completed project design that does not yet exist.The official West Coast proposal remains embryonic. It contemplates a 1,250-kilometre pipeline carrying one million barrels per day from the Bruderheim area to a new marine terminal in southern British Columbia. The precise route has not been selected. Detailed engineering, environmental studies, commercial commitments, indigenous consultation, and regulatory applications remain incomplete. Smith did not secure a pipeline. She secured permission to begin developing an application for one. Alberta has already paid a substantial price for this. Our concessions, unlike the pipeline, are immediate and measurable.Under the new carbon-price agreement, the TIER headline price rises to $100 in 2027, $130 in 2035, and reaches $140 in 2040. Alberta must also introduce a carbon-credit price floor beginning in 2030 and design the market toward an effective credit price of $130 by 2040.This trajectory is lower than the previous federal plan to reach $170 by 2030, but it still binds Alberta industry to steadily rising compliance costs for another 14 years. Smith had frozen the rate at $95. She has now accepted a long-term escalator as part of the pipeline bargain..Alberta has also recommitted itself to the Pathways CCS project. Its original first-phase estimate was $16.5 billion. The latest arrangement targets six million tonnes of annual carbon capture by 2035, with shared transportation and storage infrastructure expected by 2032. Another ten million tonnes of reductions are contemplated by 2045, with governments (read: taxpayers) committed to maintaining financial support. Alberta will extend its carbon-capture incentive to 2035, offering grants equal to 12% of eligible capital costs. Ottawa has extended tax credits covering up to 50% of the cost of capture equipment and 37.5% of the cost of transportation and storage equipment. The arrangement is revealing. Taxpayers help finance the equipment. Carbon pricing creates the economics. Producers receive regulatory relief for meeting milestones. Alberta’s obligations are now being embedded. The industry’s binding commitments and pipeline approvals remain in the distant future.Supporters stress that much of the route would follow the existing Trans Mountain right-of-way, but an existing corridor actually solves very little. That may reduce some land-acquisition conflict, but it does not convert a new pipeline into an expansion permit.The project still requires a new large-diameter line, roughly 11 pump stations, two major tank farms, extensive electrical infrastructure, and a marine-loading facility at the proposed Roberts Bank terminal. The terminal site alone is expected to cover approximately 260 hectares, with about 6.5 million barrels of storage. The corridor would affect scores of indigenous communities and cross several reserves. The Tsawwassen First Nation has already said it was not consulted before the proposal was announced. Musqueam and other communities are seeking details. Equity participation may attract support from some nations, but it does not eliminate constitutionally protected rights or the Crown’s consultation obligations. .The federal government’s own project page says the route remains undetermined, and consultation will help shape it. That creates years of opportunities for disputes over routing, cumulative effects, cultural sites, water crossings, spill planning, marine shipping, and accommodation.BC Premier David Eby may promise that his government will not sue, but he cannot bind First Nations, municipalities, landowners, environmental organizations, or American interests. For all of its commitments, Alberta has not purchased any kind of certainty. It has purchased one government’s temporary cooperation.Moreover, the choice of Roberts Bank avoids the northern BC tanker moratorium but transfers the fight into the Salish Sea — one of the most environmentally sensitive and politically organized regions on the continent.A one-million-barrel-per-day export line would produce sustained tanker traffic through Boundary Bay, Haro Strait, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Climate groups will focus on spill risks, marine noise, migratory birds, and southern resident killer whales. The terminal will be opposed not merely as a pipeline endpoint but as a permanent expansion of oil traffic through shared Canadian-American waters. That opposition is already crossing the border. Washington Congressman Rick Larsen has demanded spill-prevention planning and publicly stated that his constituents oppose the pipeline. Tribal governments, coastal communities, and environmental organizations in Washington will have political and regulatory avenues of their own. Every tanker movement will become part of the campaign. Every whale sighting, protest flotilla, marine incident, or spill simulation will be used to demand another study, another condition, or another court challenge. The activists who fought Trans Mountain have not disappeared, and they now possess experience, donor networks, legal precedents, and international media access. This project gives them a larger pipeline, a new terminal, and a more politically explosive marine route..The Trans Mountain expansion began with an operating pipeline, an established right-of-way, and an existing marine terminal. It was still delayed for years; its first federal approval was quashed over inadequate indigenous consultation and marine-shipping analysis, and Kinder Morgan abandoned the political risk.Ottawa purchased the system for $4.5 billion in 2018. The expansion finally entered service in May 2024 at an estimated cost of approximately $34 billion — more than six times its original estimate. The proposed West Coast pipeline is already estimated at $35.2 billion to $43.7 billion. Add the original $16.5-billion Pathways estimate, and the linked projects begin near $52 billion to $60 billion before financing costs, overruns, production investment, and supporting infrastructure. With these projected costs, private capital is hardly charging through the door. Under Pembina’s agreement, the only private company that has expressed any interest would hold only a 10% construction interest, retain complete discretion over its final investment decision, contribute no at-risk development capital before that decision, and receive protections concerning cost overruns and returns. That is not confidence. It is a sophisticated corporation ensuring that governments and taxpayers stand closest to the financial wreckage.Meanwhile, Trans Mountain is pursuing capacity optimization that could raise its existing throughput from approximately 890,000 barrels per day to about 1.19 million by the end of 2028. An incremental increase in an operating system will compete directly with the commercial case for a separate $40 billion public sector megaproject. .This pipeline will never be built. The deal is structured so that everyone except Alberta can claim success without delivering a pipeline. Ottawa can advertise national unity and energy expansion. British Columbia can preserve the northern tanker ban, demand compensation, and decline responsibility for the eventual failure. Producers can secure subsidies, carbon credits, and regulatory concessions while postponing binding investment. Opponents retain every legal, political, and procedural weapon they used against TMX.Alberta, meanwhile, has accepted rising industrial carbon taxes, deeper public financing of Pathways, and potential exposure to another government-controlled pipeline. In exchange, it has received no final route, no permit, no completed consultation, no binding shipper contracts, no private sector investment decision, and no guarantee that any future cabinet will approve construction.The math is brutal. This proposal is too expensive, too politically exposed, too dependent on taxpayers, and too vulnerable to indigenous litigation and environmental obstruction. By the time Ottawa reaches a decision, perhaps by 2030, costs will be higher, governments may have changed, activists will be entrenched, and TMX may already have absorbed much of the available demand.Danielle Smith traded enforceable concessions today for a federal promise designed to be studied, consulted, litigated, delayed, and eventually buried. Ottawa did not have to defeat Alberta at the negotiating table. It merely persuaded Alberta to begin paying the price of its own defeat.Smith was not handed a pipeline. She was handed a press release and an escalating carbon tax schedule. Alberta pays now. Ottawa delays. And when the project finally dies beneath the weight of litigation, climate activism, and political cowardice, every government involved will deny responsibility. Except Alberta, which will be left holding the bill and the shovel used to bury it.
