MONTREAL — Quebec Premier François Legault would likely support new oil and gas infrastructure in the province that would transform Alberta’s natural gas industry, Pierre Fitzgibbon, the former minister who oversaw the failed 2021 liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in the province, has told The Logic.

Fitzgibbon, economy and innovation minister in Legault’s cabinet until his retirement last September, said the political landscape has dramatically changed since the Legault government scuttled the Énergie Saguenay LNG project in 2021. 

At the time, Legault said there was no “social acceptability in Quebec” for the $14-billion project, which would have seen a production facility built in Quebec’s Saguenay region capable of liquefying 10.5 million tons of natural gas a year. The resulting LNG would have been transported to markets in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and South America via tanker.

Fitzgibbon, now an advisor at the Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt law firm, said the threat of tariffs from the U.S. has shown the importance of diversifying Canada’s export markets. Fitzgibbon also said other political factors have changed since 2021—namely, the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose government also rejected the Énergie Saguenay project. 

“Carney and Poilievre have said yes, and Legault would support it,” Fitzgibbon told The Logic, referring to Liberal party leadership candidate Mark Carney and Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre.

Fitzgibbon’s remarks reflect a tonal shift in the Quebec government’s view of oil and gas infrastructure in the province, which has long been averse to such development. Earlier this week, Quebec environment minister Benoit Charette said his government wasn’t opposed to pipeline projects as long as they respect environmental laws. 

In 2021, a provincial environmental review found the Énergie Saguenay project would increase carbon emissions, threaten Saguenay’s beluga whale population and have limited economic benefits for the local economy. Though Quebec leads the country in green energy production, it nonetheless consumed roughly 590 million cubic feet of natural gas per day in 2023, much of it imported from Western Canada.

Fitzgibbon said a new LNG project would help meet the considerable demand for natural gas in Quebec’s northern reaches. “The project as conceived [in 2021] will not happen. But is there a smaller project where the local economy will benefit more as opposed to just exporting it? I think there could be,” he said, while adding that U.S. ownership of LNG infrastructure might pose a problem in the province. The Trump administration’s tariff threat has bolstered Canadian pride, with the strongest increases in Quebec, according to a recent Angus Reid poll.

Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said the country should consider building an east-west pipeline like the mothballed Energy East project in order to secure Canada’s energy sources. Line 5, the country’s main east-west conduit for Canadian oil, cuts through the U.S. on its way across the country.

In response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threat, Legault said Canadian provinces should “work towards real free trade” amongst each other in order to alleviate dependence on the U.S. market. While some business leaders have called on Hydro-Québec to meet potential U.S. tariffs with its own, Fitzgibbon doesn’t expect the utility will do so. “If we start playing the dollar-for-dollar tariff game [with the U.S], we have two months before we die,” he said. “Retaliation with someone who is so narcissistic as Trump doesn’t work.”