Alberta Pipeline Plan Sparks Fear and Hope Among Canada’s Indigenous Groups

Alberta’s pitch to build a new crude oil pipeline to Canada’s Pacific coast has divided the region’s Indigenous communities, where there are memories of a similar project that was fought and eventually canceled.

Canada holds one the world’s largest reserves of crude in the western oil sands, but the vast majority of its current production flows to one market: the US. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith plans to advance a proposal for a new pipeline to ferry as many as 1 million barrels a day to the northern British Columbia coast, where it would be loaded onto tankers. That would be enough to more than double Canada’s oil-export capacity to Asia, lessening its dependence on the US.