Workers place pipe during construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion on farmland, in Abbotsford, B.C., on May 3, 2023.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Joe Dion is the CEO of the Western Indigenous Pipeline Group.
On July 2, the Canadian and Alberta governments announced that they will build a new oil pipeline to the West Coast – one million barrels a day, running largely along the existing Trans Mountain corridor.
This is the same corridor that crosses the rivers, salmon-bearing streams and marine waters of the more than 35 Indigenous nations represented by Western Indigenous Pipeline Group. It would be the second new line, and the third pipeline, in that single corridor.
The announcement came wrapped in familiar language: “a meaningful equity stake reserved for Indigenous Peoples,” with consultations to “begin immediately.”
We have heard that promise before. We are still waiting on it.
In March, 2019, the then-federal minister of finance announced that Indigenous communities would have the opportunity for economic participation in the Trans Mountain Expansion: equity ownership, revenue sharing and royalties. In August, 2023, the minister put it in writing, telling Indigenous groups that Ottawa would provide access to capital so that no nation would have to risk its own money, with the equity held collectively and cash flowing back to our communities. The door to ownership, we were told, was open.
The Western Indigenous Pipeline Group was built to walk through that door. We were formed in 2019 for one purpose: to secure Indigenous ownership in Trans Mountain on behalf of the nations along its route. For seven years we have done the technical and financial work to acquire a meaningful interest on commercially reasonable terms. We are ready today.
Yet so far not a single share of Trans Mountain has been sold to Indigenous owners. The consultations that began with real momentum have stalled. In recent months, government representatives told us that no discussion of a sale would happen until the system is expanded and optimized, a deferral decided without us, and now a third pipeline is proposed in the same corridor, again without meaningful consultation.
Before finishing the equity deal on the existing Trans Mountain pipeline – and even before seriously beginning it – Canada intends to build another one beside it. The new project will be led by Trans Mountain Corporation, the government-owned company whose pipeline we have been trying to buy into for seven years. Pembina, a private company, has already been allotted a defined stake in the new line: 10 per cent through construction, with the option of 10 per cent more once it is operating. A private investor’s ownership of a pipeline that does not yet exist is spelled out to the percentage point. Indigenous ownership of the pipeline already operating through our territories remains an abstraction – “reserved,” but never negotiated.
The contradiction is not new. Since signing an MOU in November, 2025, Alberta and Ottawa have shown they can move quickly on pipeline proposals when they want to. Yet Canada has spent seven years unable to sell us a share of the already existing pipeline.
We welcome genuine Indigenous ownership in any new pipeline. But Canada cannot credibly promise us tomorrow’s pipeline while breaking its promise on today’s. Reconciliation is not measured in press releases, memoranda and referrals. It is measured in ownership, in shared governance, and in shared wealth reaching our communities.
Indigenous economic participation is one of the most effective tools any government has to earn the free, prior and informed consent of affected Indigenous communities. Both experience and the courts confirm the same lesson: the earlier communities are brought into ownership and decision-making, the stronger and more defensible the outcome. Ownership is not a favour to us. It is how responsible energy development gets done in this country. And it is how this new pipeline will have to earn the consent it needs to succeed.
Our message to the Prime Minister is simple: Before a single metre of new pipe is laid in our corridor, close the deal on the pipeline already there. Sit down with a prepared, willing and capable Indigenous partner and negotiate a meaningful interest in Trans Mountain, with real governance rights, on commercially reasonable terms, for both the existing pipeline and any proposed new one. Mark Carney has invited investors from around the world to consider buying into Canadian resource and infrastructure assets – but they are not even engaging with Indigenous groups that have been ready to invest in these assets for years.
Seven years of waiting is long enough. What is missing is the will to keep one promise before making the same promise again.