A sensible plan that will advance energy security

British Columbia Premier David Eby has a good idea that deserves serious consideration as a national priority project.

In response to growing demands for the Carney government to quicken the construction of a new pipeline to the B.C. coast that would facilitate oil exports to Asian nations, Eby has a different approach in mind. He says Canada should instead focus on increasing its own refinery capacity rather than building new pipelines that would enable the export of raw, unrefined Canadian oil to other countries.

Under Eby’s plan, a large refinery would apparently be constructed in B.C. It would process bitumen shipped via the already-existing Trans Mountain pipeline, which is currently not operating at full capacity.

The new refinery would receive that bitumen and create finished products that would serve the Canadian market first, with surplus production exported to other countries. With all of the processing being done here in Canada, the economic benefits would stay here — and it would make us less far reliant on the Americans.

By using the existing pipeline, which only began operations in 2024, Eby argues it would be unnecessary to construct a new pipeline through northern B.C. That would save billions of dollars in construction costs and avoid years of contentious negotiations with First Nations all along the proposed pipeline route.

It would also dramatically reduce the environmental risk that would inevitably come with such a pipeline moving through rugged wilderness, and having huge, bitumen-loaded oil tankers sailing along the rugged B.C. coast.

Eby told the media earlier this week that “If we’ve got tens of billions of dollars to spend, I think we should spend it on a refinery, and we should develop oil products for Canadians and for export, instead of being reliant on American and Chinese refineries to do it for us.”

He added that “We’ve got to stand on our own feet here, and building that capacity and jobs in our country is something we should be talking about as opposed to shipping raw resources out as quickly as possible.”

The premier’s absolutely right for several reasons, starting with the fact that more than 90 per cent of Canada’s oilsands exports are currently being sent to the U.S. for refining. That bitumen is then converted into a range of petroleum products and sold by those refiners at a profit.

In some cases, those products are not available from Canadian-based producers, which means that we are forced to purchase them — made from our own oil — from American suppliers, with the profits staying in America.

That hurts our economy, in that it enables a foreign country to profit off our resources and denies us the additional investments, profits, jobs and tax revenue, which would otherwise come from having the additional “value-added” processing activity done here in Canada.

Beyond that, our reliance on the U.S. as the sole purchaser of almost all of our oil exports — much of it at a discount compared to world prices — gives that nation huge leverage over our national economy, and far too much control over our ability to access some petroleum products that may be vital to both our economy and armed forces.

Given the menacing attitude of the Trump administration, we can’t afford to put ourselves in such a weak, vulnerable position.

In the event that demand for bitumen at the proposed new refinery eventually exceeded the current capacity of the Trans Mountain pipeline, Eby says that pipeline can be expanded within its current right-of-way footprint — in other words, without the need for a new pipeline route and years of negotiations.

Another viable alternative he did not mention would be for a new refinery to be located near the oilsands in northern Alberta. The bitumen could be processed there without the need for a long and costly pipeline, with the refined product then shipped to both Canadian and international markets from there — perhaps even via Churchill to European markets.

Yet another alternative could be the construction of a large refinery in Manitoba or Saskatchewan, supplied by oil that is currently being shipped via existing pipelines that pass through those provinces. Why send it to refineries in the American Midwest or Gulf Coast if it can be refined here?

All of this makes so much sense. It would improve Canada’s energy security and sovereignty, while also helping to ensure that our nation reaps the full economic benefit of multi-level, value-added petroleum production.

Given the behaviour of our belligerent neighbour to the south, combined with the uncertain future of global trade, Canada must be focused on achieving self-sufficiency in the energy sector, while also maximizing the economic benefits from that sector.

Eby’s plan is a good step toward that objective.