The Ontario government pushed forward TC Energy’s proposal to build a large pumped storage project on Georgian Bay, despite early expert advice it would be costly and not meet the province’s current energy needs. That advice was shared by the provincial Crown corporation responsible for the supply and demand of energy, the Independent Electricity System […]

The Alberta government paid more than $30 million on behalf of delinquent oil and gas companies in 2024, The Narwhal has learned. The companies failed to pay rent owed to landowners for the use of their property for oil and gas activities. This represents a 4,500 per cent increase in the amount of money the […]

This investigation is a collaboration between The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation. One of Canada’s largest oil and gas companies violated a deal it struck with B.C.’s energy regulator to address thousands of inactive pipelines in the province — and faced no financial penalties for doing so.  Internal government documents obtained by The Narwhal […]

In early October 2023, a senior bureaucrat in the Ontario Energy Ministry emailed an Enbridge official with a “sort of urgent” request.  Newly released internal documents show that Premier Doug Ford had called the natural gas giant that month to discuss delays in obtaining a natural gas connection for a facility whose name is redacted […]

A controversial decision last year to substantially increase the number of cougars that can be hunted in Alberta was not based on science, according to government documents obtained by The Narwhal. Instead, expanded cougar hunting was “based on direction from [the] minister last year and input from stakeholders,” according to an internal email between senior […]

This investigation is a collaboration between The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation. Fewer than two dozen BC Energy Regulator inspectors are responsible for monitoring nearly 200 fossil fuel companies operating 6,594 — and counting — active oil and gas wells, pipelines, processing plants and other related infrastructure in British Columbia.  During inspections conducted between […]

This investigation is a collaboration between The Narwhal and the Investigative Journalism Foundation. The British Columbia government quietly granted one of Canada’s biggest oil and gas companies an exemption for thousands of pipelines that should have been deactivated before a legal deadline, according to documents obtained under freedom of information legislation. In 2020, the BC […]

Edward Burrier chuckled as he told his colleagues what he thought about an academic paper written by a prominent U.S. climate scientist. Burrier, a director of public policy at Canadian fossil fuel giant TC Energy, said the study was largely to blame for public skepticism about whether liquefied natural gas (LNG) is as environmentally friendly […]

This investigation is a collaboration between The Narwhal and Investigative Journalism Foundation. “Serious deficiency.” “Very stinky.” “Leakage.” “A hazard.” Those are some of the ways BC Energy Regulator officials described oil and gas sites when they documented apparent environmental infractions during routine inspections, according to internal documents.  The regulator, a provincial government agency, is largely […]

This investigation is a collaboration between The Narwhal and Investigative Journalism Foundation. On a warm mid-August afternoon in 2022, a BC Energy Regulator inspector drove to an oil and gas site in the northeast part of the province. The inspection was one of more than two dozen stops for the compliance and enforcement officer that […]

This investigation is a collaboration between The Narwhal and Investigative Journalism Foundation. Between 2017 and 2023, BC Energy Regulator officials documented thousands of apparent environmental infractions at oil and gas facilities only to conclude the sites were compliant, according to internal government documents. In more than 1,000 instances, inspectors documented a series of apparent environmental […]

In April 2023, François Poirier, president and CEO of Calgary-based TC Energy, wrote a letter to B.C. Premier David Eby, applauding the NDP government’s decision to approve Cedar LNG, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility that will be built by the Haisla Nation in Kitimat, B.C.  Poirier noted in the letter how TC Energy […]