MONTREAL — There has never been a more opportune time to build a pipeline through Quebec.

The province, long the place where pipeline projects have gone to die, has had a whiplash-like attitude adjustment. In February, Quebec Premier François Legault indicated he would likely greenlight the very natural gas project he scuppered in 2021. That same month, a poll indicated that as many as 61 per cent Quebecers were in favour of pipeline construction through the province.

They certainly voted accordingly in last week’s federal election: Mark Carney’s Liberal Party, which, among other things, campaigned on easing the regulatory barriers to building pipelines, won 43 seats in Quebec—a majority. The Bloc Québécois, which enshrined its disdain for anything flammable and Alberta-sourced in its platform, won about half that. 

Add the million or so Conservative votes in Quebec, and you have a fairly amazing statistic: over 65 per cent of voters in the province opted for parties who want to build pipelines through Quebec, post-haste. 

The oilpatch can thank U.S. President Donald Trump’s mouth for Quebec’s petroleum-soaked come-to-Jesus moment. Perhaps it was when Trump said he wanted to annex Canada. Maybe it was the realization that Trump himself could potentially throttle Quebec’s own oil supply, much of which passes through the U.S., with a flick of his busy thumbs. 

Whatever the cause, Quebec is suddenly bullish on pipelines—and Albertans have taken note. “I’m glad so many Quebeckers now realize the importance of pipelines in pushing back against our dependence on the American market, which is an existential threat,” Martha Hall Findlay, director of the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, told me. 

The political consequences of this about-face are profound. A national pipeline project to eastern tidewater would at once ease alienation in the western provinces and endear Carney to people who resoundingly rejected him all of a week ago. Alberta sends roughly 94 per cent of its oily lucre to the United States. A pipeline through Quebec would theoretically slacken this de facto monopoly by allowing the province to sell more elsewhere. A hell of a lot more, if precedent is any indication. 

Canadian crude oil exports to countries other than the U.S. increased nearly 60 per cent in 2024, according to Statistics Canada. The reason for the jump: the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. Completed in 2024, it tripled the capacity of the Edmonton-to-Burnaby pipeline, facilitating more exports to Asia’s thirsty markets.

Quebec’s sudden soft spot for pipelines isn’t just Trump-driven. In fact, it’s not even all that sudden, but a product of a long-running demographic downturn and diminishing hydroelectricity returns. David Heurtel is a former Quebec politician who was the province’s environment minister in 2017 when TransCanada killed its Energy East project, which would have laid roughly 650 kilometres of pipe across Quebec en route to the east coast. “Back then, we were literally swimming in energy,” Heurtel told me. 

Two things have since changed: demand for electricity has exploded, and Hydro-Québec’s reservoirs are well below average. On top of all this, Quebec’s population is older than the Canadian average. 

“You have to find money somewhere to pay for health care, education and all the social programs that define Quebec and Canada. In Quebec, economic growth over the last 50 years has been in large part due to hydroelectricity. The fact is, we simply don’t have it right now,” Heurtel said. Done correctly, Heurtel said a pipeline project could benefit Quebec mightily, thereby mitigating the various economic and demographic tsunamis looming on the provincial horizon.

Though Quebec has seemingly extended its hand to the oil and gas industry, it remains an open question whether anyone will shake it. Both Energy East in 2017 and Énergie Saguenay LNG in 2021 died on the Quebec border—a heavy precedent for companies considering a multibillion-dollar project. And though oil now flows through enlarged Trans Mountain pipelines, the project blew through deadlines and budgets by orders of magnitude. Is there stomach to endure a likely similar scenario in Quebec, where blown deadlines and budgets are frequently the norm? 

Finally, a new pipeline through Quebec might not make economic sense. Any such project would likely only come online after 2030, the year after which demand for oil is expected to diminish, according to the International Energy Agency. “Given huge costs and long timelines associated with building pipelines toward the EU and other eastern markets, it’s not entirely clear what the business case is,” provincial Liberal MNA Désirée McGraw told me.

It underscores another knock against pipelines to the east coast. Trans Mountain feeds the Asian market, where demand for fossil fuels is booming. A pipeline to the Atlantic would feed Europe, where demand is going the other way. The EU, wanting to wean itself off Russian fossil fuel, sees imports from the likes of Norway and the U.S. as a stopgap to a carbon-free future. It’s not the kind of market on which to build a business model—in Quebec or anywhere else. 

Martin Patriquin is The Logic’s Quebec correspondent. He joined in 2019 after 10 years as Quebec bureau chief for Maclean’s. A National Magazine Award and SABEW winner, he has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, The Walrus, Vice, BuzzFeed and The Globe and Mail, among others. He is also a panelist on CBC’s “Power & Politics.”