Canada ‘extremely concerned’ about fate of Line 5 pipeline in Wisconsin, embassy says

Canada’s embassy in Washington says it is “extremely concerned” about the fate of the Line 5 cross-border pipeline. This photo taken in October 2016 shows an aboveground section of Enbridge’s Line 5 at the Mackinaw City, Mich., pump station. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-John Flesher

By James McCarten in Washington

Canada’s embassy in Washington says it is “extremely concerned” about the fate of the Line 5 cross-border pipeline.

A court hearing Thursday in Wisconsin could determine whether the pipeline, owned and operated by Enbridge Inc., is allowed to continue operating.

“The energy security of both Canada and the United States would be directly impacted by a Line 5 closure,” the embassy said in a statement.

“At a time of heightened concern over energy security and supply, including during the energy transition, maintaining and protecting existing infrastructure should be a top priority.”

The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa says spring flooding has heightened the risk of a rupture and it wants a federal judge to shut the line down.

A strongly worded statement from the embassy says doing so would endanger more than 33,000 U.S. jobs and US$20 billion in economic activity.

Canada argues that Line 5 is a vital energy conduit across the U.S. Midwest and an economic lifeline for Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec.

The Indigenous band fears a rupture would foul not only a key watershed on its territory, but also the waters of Lake Superior.

Canada has already invoked a 1977 pipelines treaty with the U.S. in both Wisconsin and Michigan, where Michigan’s attorney general is also in court trying to get the pipeline shut down.

Talks under that treaty have been ongoing for months, with the latest session taking place last month in Washington.

“Canada invoked the treaty’s dispute settlement provisions because actions to close Line 5 represent a violation of Canada’s rights under the treaty to an uninterrupted flow of hydrocarbons in transit,” the embassy said.

“If a shutdown were ordered because of this specific, temporary flood situation, Canada expects the United States to comply with its obligations under the 1977 Transit Pipelines Treaty, including the expeditious restoration of normal pipeline operations.”

Spring flooding has washed away significant portions of the riverbank where Line 5 intersects Wisconsin’s Bad River, a meandering, 120-kilometre course through Indigenous territory that feeds Lake Superior and a complex network of ecologically delicate wetlands.

The band has been in court with Enbridge since 2019 in an effort to compel the pipeline’s owner and operator to reroute Line 5 around its traditional territory — something the company has already agreed to do.

But the flooding has turned a theoretical risk into a very real one, the band argued in an emergency motion last week, and wants the pipeline closed off immediately to prevent catastrophe.

“There can be little doubt now that the small amount of remaining bank could be eroded and the pipeline undermined and breached in short order,” the band’s lawyers argued.

“Very little margin for error remains.”

Line 5 meets the river on Indigenous territory just past a location the court has come to know as the “meander,” where the riverbed snakes back and forth multiple times, separated from itself only by several metres of forest and the pipeline.

At four locations, the river was less than 4.6 metres from the pipeline — just 3.4 metres in one particular spot — and the erosion has continued in recent days at an “alarming” rate, the motion said.

In one case, so-called “monuments” installed to measure the losses show that where there was more than 10 metres of riverbank in early April before the flooding began, only 3.7 metres remained as of last Tuesday.

“Significant erosion is continuing as of the filing of this motion, and the evidence strongly suggests that further bank loss could be substantial and result in exposure and rupture of the pipeline.”

Wisconsin district court Judge William Conley will hear oral arguments on the motion Thursday. It’s not clear when he’ll decide whether to grant an injunction that would require Enbridge to shut down the pipeline and purge its contents.

Enbridge has described the motion as “truly outrageous” and unnecessary: “There is no pipeline safety issue and certainly no cause for alarm.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 16, 2023.

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US government buys stakes in two Canadian mining companies

Published on October 20, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Steven Globerman

Prime Minister Mark Carney recently visited the White House for meetings with President Donald Trump. In front of the cameras, the mood was congenial, with both men complimenting each other and promising future cooperation in several areas despite the looming threat of Trump tariffs.

But in the last two weeks, in an effort to secure U.S. access to key critical minerals, the Trump administration has purchased sizable stakes in in two Canadian mining companies—Trilogy Metals and Lithium Americas Corp (LAC). And these aggressive moves by Washington have created a dilemma for Ottawa.

Since news broke of the investments, the Carney government has been quiet, stating only it “welcomes foreign direct investment that benefits Canada’s economy. As part of this process, reviews of foreign investments in critical minerals will be conducted in the best interests of Canadians.”

In the case of LAC, lithium is included in Ottawa’s list of critical minerals that are “essential to Canada’s economic or national security.” And the Investment Canada Act (ICA) requires the government to scrutinize all foreign investments by state-owned investors on national security grounds. Indeed, the ICA specifically notes the potential impact of an investment on critical minerals and critical mineral supply chains.

But since the lithium will be mined and processed in Nevada and presumably utilized in the United States, the Trump administration’s investment will likely have little impact on Canada’s critical mineral supply chain. But here’s the problem. If the Carney government initiates a review, it may enrage Trump at a critical moment in the bilateral relationship, particularly as both governments prepare to renegotiate the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).

A second dilemma is whether the Carney government should apply the ICA’s “net benefits” test, which measures the investment’s impact on employment, innovation, productivity and economic activity in Canada. The investment must also comport with Canada’s industrial, economic and cultural policies.

Here, the Trump administration’s investment in LAC will likely fail the ICA test, since the main benefit to Canada is that Canadian investors in LAC have been substantially enriched by the U.S. government’s initiative (a week before the Trump administration announced the investment, LAC’s shares were trading at around US$3; two days after the announcement, the shares were trading at US$8.50). And despite any arguments to the contrary, the ICA has never viewed capital gains by Canadian investors as a benefit to Canada.

Similarly, the shares of Trilogy Minerals surged some 200 per cent after the Trump administration announced its investment to support Trilogy’s mineral exploration in Alaska. Again, Canadian shareholders benefited, yet according to the ICA’s current net benefits test, that’s irrelevant.

But in reality, inflows of foreign capital augment domestic savings, which, in turn, provide financing for domestic business investment in Canada. And the prospect of realizing capital gains from acquisitions made by foreign investors encourages startup Canadian companies.

So, what should the Carney government do?

In short, it should revise the ICA so that national security grounds are the sole basis for approving or rejecting investments by foreign governments in Canadian companies. This may still not sit well in Washington, but the prospect of retaliation by the Trump administration should not prevent Canada from applying its sovereign laws. However, the Carney government should eliminate the net benefits test, or at least recognize that foreign investments that enrich Canadian shareholders convey benefits to Canada.

These recent investments by the Trump administration may not be unique. There are hundreds of Canadian-owned mining companies operating in the U.S. and in other jurisdictions, and future investments in some of those companies by the U.S. or other foreign governments are quite possible. Going forward, Canada’s review process should be robust while recognizing all the benefits of foreign investment.

Steven Globerman

Senior Fellow and Addington Chair in Measurement, Fraser Institute

Business

Over two thirds of Canadians say Ottawa should reduce size of federal bureaucracy

Published on October 19, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Matthew Lau

From 2015 to 2024, headcount at Natural Resources Canada increased 39 per cent even though employment in Canada’s natural resources sector actually fell one per cent. Similarly, there was 382 per cent headcount growth at the federal department for Women and Gender Equality—obviously far higher than the actual growth in Canada’s female population.

According to a recent poll, there’s widespread support among Canadians for reducing the size of the federal bureaucracy. The support extends across the political spectrum. Among the political right, 82.8 per cent agree to reduce the federal bureaucracy compared to only 5.8 per cent who disagree (with the balance neither agreeing nor disagreeing); among political moderates 68.4 per cent agree and only 10.0 per cent disagree; and among the political left 44.8 per cent agree and 26.3 per cent disagree.

Taken together, “67 per cent agreed the federal bureaucracy should be significantly reduced. Only 12 per cent disagreed.” These results shouldn’t be surprising. The federal bureaucracy is ripe for cuts. From 2015 to 2024, the federal government added more than 110,000 new bureaucrats, a 43 per cent increase, which was nearly triple the rate of population growth.

This bureaucratic expansion was totally unjustified. From 2015 to 2024, headcount at Natural Resources Canada increased 39 per cent even though employment in Canada’s natural resources sector actually fell one per cent. Similarly, there was 382 per cent headcount growth at the federal department for Women and Gender Equality—obviously far higher than the actual growth in Canada’s female population. And there are many similar examples.

While in 2025 the number of federal public service jobs fell by three per cent, the cost of the federal bureaucracy actually increased as the number of fulltime equivalents, which accounts for whether those jobs were fulltime or part-time, went up. With the tax burden created by the federal bureaucracy rising so significantly in the past decade, it’s no wonder Canadians overwhelmingly support its reduction.

Another interesting poll result: “While 42 per cent of those surveyed supported the government using artificial intelligence tools to resolve bottlenecks in service delivery, 32 per cent opposed it, with 25 per cent on the fence.” The authors of the poll say the “plurality in favour is surprising, given the novelty of the technology.”

Yet if 67 per cent of Canadians agree with significantly shrinking the federal bureaucracy, then solid support for using AI to increasing efficiency should not be too surprising, even if the technology is relatively new. Separate research finds 58 per cent of Canadian workers say they use AI tools provided by their workplace, and although many of them do not necessarily use AI regularly, of those who report using AI the majority say it improves their productivity.

In fact, there’s massive potential for the government to leverage AI to increase efficiency and control labour expenses. According to a recent study by a think-tank at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly known as Ryerson), while the federal public service and the overall Canadian workforce are similar in terms of the percentage of roles that could be made more productive by AI, federal employees were twice as likely (58 per cent versus 29 per cent) to have jobs “comprised of tasks that are more likely to be substituted or replaced” by AI.

The opportunity to improve public service efficiency and deliver massive savings to taxpayers is clearly there. However, whether the Carney government will take advantage of this opportunity is questionable. Unlike private businesses, which must continuously innovate and improve operational efficiency to compete in a free market, federal bureaucracies face no competition. As a result, there’s little pressure or incentive to reduce costs and increase efficiency, whether through AI or other process or organizational improvements.

In its upcoming budget and beyond, it would be a shame if the federal government does not, through AI or other changes, restrain the cost of its workforce. Taxpayers deserve, and clearly demand, a break from this ever-increasing burden.