Unleashing Prosperity: Why Canada Must Build the West Coast Pipeline Corridor Now

By Peter Coleman

Even now, Canadians are being forced to accept a narrative of managed economic decline. Driven by lingering "net-zero" delusions and shadow de-growth agendas, Ottawa is still intentionally limiting our natural resource sector. The result? Skyrocketing home heating bills, crushing pain at the gas pump, and an economy that is losing its competitive edge on the world stage.

Recent changes don't go far enough. And it doesn't have to be this way. Canada sits on some of the cleanest, most abundant energy reserves on the planet. By building out our resource networks—instead of picking more losers than winners, or shutting them down entirely—we can immediately make life more affordable for Canadian families and make our national economy resilient against global shocks.

This is the core message driving the National Citizens Coalition’s "Energy Affordability Now" campaign, and it represents a vital blueprint for the return to true Canadian prosperity. To achieve real energy recovery, Canada must aggressively finish its new pipeline infrastructure directly to the West Coast. Connecting our massive energy reserves to global Pacific markets, to be dealing from a position of strength with the present U.S. administration and ready for a return to a true cooperative partnership, that is the single most effective way to reverse our current economic stagnation.

In a notable federal shift (driven by common-sense Canadians, not the Liberals), the government finally moved to designate the proposed Alberta-backed West Coast oil pipeline as a “national interest” project under the 'Building Canada Act.' While this 1,250-kilometre project—designed to carry over one million barrels of crude oil a day to a port near Delta, B.C.—aims to fast-track approvals and bypass regulatory barriers, this recognition should have come much sooner. Years of political foot-dragging have already cost Canadians dearly, and a mere administrative listing means nothing without steel in the ground.

What matters most now is immediate, uninterrupted action. Securing Canada's economic independence requires seeing critical memorandums of understanding (MOUs) through to completion. These agreements with international trading partners and pro-development stakeholders cannot remain mere pieces of paper.

However, the path to building West Coast corridors faces steep political hurdles, most notably from the provincial government in British Columbia. Defeating the NDP in B.C. is a critical prerequisite to ensuring guaranteed project access. For years, provincial ideologues have weaponized bureaucratic delays and Indigenous legal challenges to obstruct energy infrastructure, starving both western producers and Canadian consumers of economic relief. Replacing this obstructionist leadership is essential to establishing predictable, legally protected transportation routes to the coast.

Furthermore, Canada must firmly rebuke activist groups that actively sabotage our economic potential. Organizations like 'Coastal First Nations'—a foreign-funded NGO—seek to permanently stall the very projects needed for Canada’s energy recovery, affordability, and prosperity. While legitimate and non-corrupt local governance must be respected, the Canadian economy cannot be held hostage by special interest groups operating to enforce a de-growth agenda.

True reconciliation and national progress are achieved by partnering with the numerous Indigenous communities that actively support pipeline equity and resource development, not by capitulating to unaccountable NGOs. By rejecting the narrative of decline, standing up to foreign-funded interference, and establishing secure pipeline access to the Pacific, Canada can reclaim its status as a global energy superpower.

The choice is clear: we can continue down a path of self-inflicted scarcity, or we can ethically unleash our natural resources, to lower costs for families and secure our national future.

Peter Coleman is the President of the National Citizens Coalition.

Support the Energy Affordability Now campaign.