Canadian Energy Centre
Why Canada’s proposed oil and gas emissions cap goes against UNDRIP and the rights of Indigenous people
Indigenous Resource Network executive director John Desjarlais (centre), with Justin Bourque, president of Âsokan Generational Developments, and Shelby Kennedy, community and Indigenous relations advisor with Enbridge. Photo courtesy Indigenous Resource Network
From the Canadian Energy Centre
Q&A with John Desjarlais, executive director of the Indigenous Resource Network
The Indigenous Resource Network (IRN) is pushing back on Canada’s proposed framework to cap emissions from the oil and gas sector.
IRN executive director John Desjarlais says the proposal directly contradicts Canada’s support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP).
He says the plan would cap opportunity for Indigenous communities as more take on ownership positions in major energy projects from oil and gas pipelines to liquefied natural gas terminals and carbon capture and storage projects.
Here’s what Desjarlais told CEC.
CEC: From the perspective of Indigenous communities across Canada who are involved in natural resources development, what’s your take on the federal government’s proposed oil and gas emissions cap?
John Desjarlais: There’s a lot of confidence that it will curtail production as well, and obvious concern that it’s going to mean less opportunity.
We’ve heard from communities that are saying we’re involved already in emissions reduction. There are communities that just want to advance their opportunities in that space. And it’s at a time when there’s probably the greatest appetite for Indigenous involvement, not just in ownership, but advanced business development and procurement. [It could] mean less jobs, less procurement, less ownership opportunity, less investment.
There are concerns that these impacts are not being heavily understood, measured, contemplated or considered in terms of the policy development and implementation.
CEC: How does being involved in oil and gas development benefit Indigenous communities?
JD: There’s a suite of benefits that are coming from increased engagement, and it’s much deeper than just jobs.
Communities are now jumping into revenue generating assets where they’re creating immediate cash flow, which is allowing them to start to self-determine and invest back into their community either through economic development or through infrastructure programming.
The other side to it is just the capacity that comes from being involved as an owner. Indigenous business and community leaders are being exposed to the requirements and the acumen needed to successfully participate in the ownership of decision making. That’s accelerating the development of the acumen and capacity of different indigenous communities at greater rates
CEC: How many communities would you estimate are now participating at this level?
JD: There’s probably upwards directly of at least 100 different communities now. There are double-digit communities that are involved in at least four or five different deals that are directly involved in the ownership and the benefit side, and then there’s cascading involvement of all the surrounding communities through procurement opportunities and employment. It’s growing quite quickly.
CEC: Why do you say the proposed emissions cap contradicts the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People?
It’s a policy that’s created to achieve certain goals. Creating those types of targets without Indigenous oversight – not just input, [but] oversight and ownership – is problematic because it contradicts the UNDRIP action plan in terms of stepping out of the way of affording Indigenous peoples and communities the ability to self-determine; to invest where they want to invest, and to grow how they want to grow.
We hear a lot of community leaders say, ‘we know what’s best for our territories.’ To have policy that limits our ability to make the decisions we want to make in regard to environmental and economic sustainability is a challenge.
CEC: What would you like to see happen?
JD: It’s a little hard to roll back and involve communities in a total redesign, but at least if we saw an understanding that there’s certainly going to be an economic impact. If there’s a production cap aspect to it, there’s going to be an economic impact to those Indigenous communities that have established livelihoods and revenue streams.
There’s the sentiment that if the government truly is advancing this in the direction that they are, then would they consider omission of Indigenous activity so they can continue advancing their economic interests and growth?
Ideally, [there would be] a policy that’s created in line with UNDRIP that works for communities, industries and governments in their goals.
Alberta
The permanent CO2 storage site at the end of the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line is just getting started
Wells at the Clive carbon capture, utilization and storage project near Red Deer, Alta. Photo courtesy Enhance Energy
From the Canadian Energy Centre
Inside Clive, a model for reducing emissions while adding value in Alberta
It’s a bright spring day on a stretch of rolling farmland just northeast of Red Deer. It’s quiet, but for the wind rushing through the grass and the soft crunch of gravel underfoot.
The unassuming wellheads spaced widely across the landscape give little hint of the significance of what is happening underground.
In just five years, this site has locked away more than 6.5 million tonnes of CO₂ — equivalent to the annual emissions of about 1.5 million cars — stored nearly four CN Towers deep beneath the surface.
The CO₂ injection has not only reduced emissions but also breathed life into an oilfield that was heading for abandonment, generating jobs, economic activity and government revenue that would have otherwise been lost.
This is Clive, the endpoint of one of Canada’s largest carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) projects. And it’s just getting started.
Rooted in Alberta’s first oil boom
Clive’s history ties to Alberta’s first oil boom, with the field discovered in 1952 along the same geological trend as the legendary 1947 Leduc No. 1 gusher near Edmonton.
“The Clive field was discovered in the 1950s as really a follow-up to Leduc No. 1. This is, call it, Leduc No. 4,” said Chris Kupchenko, president of Enhance Energy, which now operates the Clive field.
Over the last 70 years Clive has produced about 70 million barrels of the site’s 130 million barrels of original oil in place, leaving enough energy behind to fuel six million gasoline-powered vehicles for one year.
“By the late 1990s and early 2000s, production had gone almost to zero,” said Candice Paton, Enhance’s vice-president of corporate affairs.
“There was resource left in the reservoir, but it would have been uneconomic to recover it.”
Facilities at the Clive project. Photo courtesy Enhance Energy
Gearing up for CO2
Calgary-based Enhance bought Clive in 2013 and kept it running despite high operating costs because of a major CO2 opportunity the company was developing on the horizon.
In 2008, Enhance and North West Redwater Partnership had launched development of the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line (ACTL), one of the world’s largest CO2 transportation systems.
Wolf Midstream joined the project in 2018 as the pipeline’s owner and operator.
Completed in 2020, the groundbreaking $1.2 billion project — supported by the governments of Canada and Alberta — connects carbon captured at industrial sites near Edmonton to the Clive facility.
“With CO2 we’re able to revitalize some of these fields, continue to produce some of the resource that was left behind and permanently store CO2 emissions,” Paton said.
Map of the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line courtesy of Wolf Midstream
An oversized pipeline on purpose
Each year, about 1.6 million tonnes of CO2 captured at the NWR Sturgeon Refinery and Nutrien Redwater fertilizer facility near Fort Saskatchewan travels down the trunk line to Clive.
In a unique twist, that is only about 10 per cent of the pipeline’s available space. The project partners intentionally built it with room to grow.
“We have a lot of excess capacity. The vision behind the pipe was, let’s remove barriers for the future,” Kupchenko said.
The Alberta government-supported goal was to expand CCS in the province, said James Fann, CEO of the Regina-based International CCS Knowledge Centre.
“They did it on purpose. The size of the infrastructure project creates the opportunity for other emitters to build capture projects along the way,” he said.
CO2 captured at the Sturgeon Refinery near Edmonton is transported by the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line to the Clive project. Photo courtesy North West Redwater Partnership
Extending the value of aging assets
Building more CCUS projects like Clive that incorporate enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is a model for extending the economic value of aging oil and gas fields in Alberta, Kupchenko said.
“EOR can be thought of as redeveloping real estate,” he said.
“Take an inner-city lot with a 700-square-foot house on it. The bad thing is there’s a 100-year-old house that has to be torn down. But the great thing is there’s a road to it. There’s power to it, there’s a sewer connection, there’s water, there’s all the things.
“That’s what this is. We’re redeveloping a field that was discovered 70 years ago and has at least 30 more years of life.”
The 180 existing wellbores are also all assets, Kupchenko said.
“They may not all be producing oil or injecting CO2, but every one of them is used. They are our eyes into the reservoir.”
CO2 injection well at the Clive carbon capture, utilization and storage project. Photo for the Canadian Energy Centre
Alberta’s ‘beautiful’ CCUS geology
The existing wells are an important part of measurement, monitoring and verification (MMV) at Clive.
The Alberta Energy Regulator requires CCUS projects to implement a comprehensive MMV program to assess storage performance and demonstrate the long-term safety and security of CO₂.
Katherine Romanak, a subsurface CCUS specialist at the University of Texas at Austin, said that her nearly 20 years of global research indicate the process is safe.
“There’s never been a leak of CO2 from a storage site,” she said.
Alberta’s geology is particularly suitable for CCUS, with permanent storage potential estimated at more than 100 billion tonnes.
“The geology is beautiful,” Romanak said.
“It’s the thickest reservoir rocks you’ve ever seen. It’s really good injectivity, porosity and permeability, and the confining layers are crazy thick.”
Suitability of global regions for CO2 storage. Courtesy Global CCS Institute
CO2-EOR gaining prominence
The extra capacity on the ACTL pipeline offers a key opportunity to capitalize on storage potential while addressing aging oil and gas fields, according to the Alberta government’s Mature Asset Strategy, released earlier this year.
The report says expanding CCUS to EOR could attract investment, cut emissions and encourage producers to reinvest in existing properties — instead of abandoning them.
However, this opportunity is limited by federal policy.
Ottawa’s CCUS Investment Tax Credit, which became available in June 2024, does not apply to EOR projects.
“Often people will equate EOR with a project that doesn’t store CO2 permanently,” Kupchenko said.
“We like to always make sure that people understand that every ton of CO2 that enters this project is permanently sequestered. And we take great effort into storing that CO2.”
The International Energy Forum — representing energy ministers from nearly 70 countries including Canada, the U.S., China, India, Norway, and Saudi Arabia — says CO₂-based EOR is gaining prominence as a carbon sequestration tool.
The technology can “transform a traditional oil recovery method into a key pillar of energy security and climate strategy,” according to a June 2025 IEF report.
Drone view of the Clive project. Photo courtesy Enhance Energy
Tapping into more opportunity
In Central Alberta, Enhance Energy is advancing a new permanent CO2 storage project called Origins that is designed to revitalize additional aging oil and gas fields while reducing emissions, using the ACTL pipeline.
“Origins is a hub that’s going to enable larger scale EOR development,” Kupchenko said.
“There’s at least 10 times more oil in place in this area.”
Meanwhile, Wolf Midstream is extending the pipeline further into the Edmonton region to transport more CO2 captured from additional industrial facilities.
Canadian Energy Centre
Cross-Canada economic benefits of the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline project
From the Canadian Energy Centre
Billions in government revenue and thousands of jobs across provinces
Announced in 2006, the Northern Gateway project would have built twin pipelines between Bruderheim, Alta. and a marine terminal at Kitimat, B.C.
One pipeline would export 525,000 barrels per day of heavy oil from Alberta to tidewater markets. The other would import 193,000 barrels per day of condensate to Alberta to dilute heavy oil for pipeline transportation.
The project would have generated significant economic benefits across Canada.
The following projections are drawn from the report Public Interest Benefits of the Northern Gateway Project (Wright Mansell Research Ltd., July 2012), which was submitted as reply evidence during the regulatory process.
Financial figures have been adjusted to 2025 dollars using the Bank of Canada’s Inflation Calculator, with $1.00 in 2012 equivalent to $1.34 in 2025.
Total Government Revenue by Region
Between 2019 and 2048, a period encompassing both construction and operations, the Northern Gateway project was projected to generate the following total government revenues by region (direct, indirect and induced):
British Columbia
- Provincial government revenue: $11.5 billion
- Federal government revenue: $8.9 billion
- Total: $20.4 billion
Alberta
- Provincial government revenue: $49.4 billion
- Federal government revenue: $41.5 billion
- Total: $90.9 billion
Ontario
- Provincial government revenue: $1.7 billion
- Federal government revenue: $2.7 billion
- Total: $4.4 billion
Quebec
- Provincial government revenue: $746 million
- Federal government revenue: $541 million
- Total: $1.29 billion
Saskatchewan
- Provincial government revenue: $6.9 billion
- Federal government revenue: $4.4 billion
- Total: $11.3 billion
Other
- Provincial government revenue: $1.9 billion
- Federal government revenue: $1.4 billion
- Total: $3.3 billion
Canada
- Provincial government revenue: $72.1 billion
- Federal government revenue: $59.4 billion
- Total: $131.7 billion
Annual Government Revenue by Region
Over the period 2019 and 2048, the Northern Gateway project was projected to generate the following annual government revenues by region (direct, indirect and induced):
British Columbia
- Provincial government revenue: $340 million
- Federal government revenue: $261 million
- Total: $601 million per year
Alberta
- Provincial government revenue: $1.5 billion
- Federal government revenue: $1.2 billion
- Total: $2.7 billion per year
Ontario
- Provincial government revenue: $51 million
- Federal government revenue: $79 million
- Total: $130 million per year
Quebec
- Provincial government revenue: $21 million
- Federal government revenue: $16 million
- Total: $37 million per year
Saskatchewan
- Provincial government revenue: $204 million
- Federal government revenue: $129 million
- Total: $333 million per year
Other
- Provincial government revenue: $58 million
- Federal government revenue: $40 million
- Total: $98 million per year
Canada
- Provincial government revenue: $2.1 billion
- Federal government revenue: $1.7 billion
- Total: $3.8 billion per year
Employment by Region
Over the period 2019 to 2048, the Northern Gateway Pipeline was projected to generate the following direct, indirect and induced full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs by region:
British Columbia
- Annual average: 7,736
- Total over the period: 224,344
Alberta
- Annual average: 11,798
- Total over the period: 342,142
Ontario
- Annual average: 3,061
- Total over the period: 88,769
Quebec
- Annual average: 1,003
- Total over the period: 29,087
Saskatchewan
- Annual average: 2,127
- Total over the period: 61,683
Other
- Annual average: 953
- Total over the period: 27,637
Canada
- Annual average: 26,678
- Total over the period: 773,662
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