Pacific Link Named a Project of National Interest: What Ottawa Decided

Ottawa has designated the Pacific Link oil pipeline from Alberta to B.C. as a project of national interest.

Prime Minister Carney listed the West Coast Oil Pipeline, now known as Pacific Link, on Oct. 1, according to the Prime Minister's Office. The designation was reported the same day by The Globe and Mail.

The line would carry one million barrels of oil per day and largely follow the Trans Mountain system route — the existing corridor to the coast. Ottawa describes it as a proposed interprovincial pipeline to move heavy crude oil, thick oil that needs extra processing, from Alberta to the B.C. coast. The expected cost is $35.2 billion to $43.7 billion.

Canada and Alberta would own Pacific Link in equal shares. Indigenous communities would be offered at least a 10 per cent ownership stake through federal and provincial Indigenous loan-guarantee programs, which back borrowing to buy in. Canada's Major Projects Office says Indigenous equity purchase rights would come equally from Canada's and Alberta's shares, as described by the Major Projects Office.

Ottawa's Major Projects Office, the federal office that coordinates reviews of large projects, would lead the federal review with support from the Canada Energy Regulator, the independent energy regulator. It aims to finalize conditions by Sept. 1, 2027, so construction can begin by 2032.

The designation follows several months of federal-provincial discussion about west coast export capacity. Canada and Alberta advanced a west coast pipeline proposal in early July, as announced on July 2. A federal backgrounder on July 3 described the idea as heavy crude movement from Alberta to the B.C. coast.

That discussion has not been limited to one route. On July 6, 2026, Alberta and Ontario proposed a separate 2,050-mile (3,300-km) crude oil pipeline, according to Reuters. Canada is the world's fourth-largest oil producer, Reuters reported in August. A year earlier, on July 4, 2025, Canada's minister said Ottawa had received no private-sector proposal to build a new crude pipeline to the Pacific coast. Ottawa would now act as both regulator and part-owner alongside Alberta, with Indigenous equity taken from both governments' shares rather than added on top.

The broader context here is the shift from no private proponent to a jointly owned project, and the execution risk in a short timetable. A Sept. 1, 2027 date for final conditions gives the Major Projects Office less than a year to reconcile environmental assessment, consultation duties and commercial terms for a one-million-barrel-per-day line with a cost estimate spanning more than $8 billion. Co-ownership may simplify alignment between Ottawa and Edmonton, but it concentrates political risk in both governments if costs move, timelines slip or throughput commitments soften. For Indigenous partners, the structure offers a defined minimum stake backed by loan guarantees, while leaving open how purchase rights will be allocated among communities, how governance rights will attach to equity, and how revenue will interact with existing benefit arrangements along the corridor.

Looking at what this means for the file, Pacific Link now becomes the test of the national-interest designation in practice. The designation does not authorize construction. It sets the review path, the lead agency and the timetable Ottawa intends to hold. Whether a 2032 construction start holds will depend on regulatory findings, court scrutiny, financing and the willingness of future governments in Ottawa and Edmonton to remain equity holders through final investment decision.