The Canada-British Columbia Cooperative Prosperity Agreement, signed by Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier David Eby, commits Ottawa and Victoria to accelerate major projects across LNG, critical minerals, electricity and trade corridors. It is a queue-clearing mechanism for a province where private capital, Indigenous ownership, federal approvals, hydro demand and export politics now sit on the same chessboard.
The headline commitments are large. Ottawa said it will invest $500 million in the Red Chris Mine expansion, provide $3.9 billion through various tools for Phases 1 and 2 of the North Coast Transmission Line, and contribute up to $3 billion toward the George Massey Tunnel Replacement Project. The federal government also committed to infrastructure upgrades around the Port of Vancouver’s Roberts Bank corridor.
LNG
The agreement’s most commercially sensitive section is LNG. Canada and BC named LNG Canada Phase 2, Ksi Lisims LNG, Cedar LNG and Woodfibre LNG as priority projects for coordinated permitting, financing and construction support. The official agreement says regulatory certainty, timely decisions and federal-provincial coordination are “pre-requisites for investment confidence” in the sector.
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That language matters because several of the projects are already past the easy-announcement phase. LNG Canada Phase 2 is still aimed at a potential final investment decision in 2026. A May cooperation agreement said the project remained subject to commercial, fiscal, regulatory and governance requirements, even after joint venture participants approved hundreds of millions of dollars for pre-FID work.
LNG Canada is backed by Shell, PETRONAS, PetroChina, Mitsubishi Corporation and KOGAS. A Phase 2 buildout would expand what Ottawa calls Canada’s first major LNG export facility.
Ksi Lisims adds a second layer to the strategy. The proposed 12 million-tonne-per-year LNG project has been courting European buyers as Canada tries to diversify beyond U.S.-linked energy exposure. Reuters reported in May that Germany’s SEFE agreed to a non-binding plan to buy 1 million tonnes a year from Ksi Lisims, while the project’s lead developer said it had 5 million tonnes of planned annual capacity allotted and wanted another 3 million to 4 million tonnes before a final construction decision.
Cedar LNG is further advanced. The Haisla Nation-majority-owned project reached a positive final investment decision on June 25, 2024, with early construction underway and service expected in late 2028, according to the project. Woodfibre LNG, near Squamish, is a smaller 2.1 million-tonne-per-year export facility under construction, with long-term offtake tied to BP Gas Marketing.
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On power, the $3.9 billion North Coast Transmission Line commitment is designed to deliver clean electricity to communities and industrial customers in northwest BC, including mines and LNG plants. Ottawa said the line could create $10 billion in new economic activity and reduce emissions by up to three million tonnes annually.
The agreement says Canada intends to extend the Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit to support major high-voltage intra-provincial transmission projects, with support coming through federal contributions, low-cost financing, tax credits and First Nations equity supports.
Critical minerals
The Red Chris copper-gold expansion gives the pact its critical-minerals anchor. Ottawa said the $500 million contribution will help expand the mine and increase Canada’s annual copper production by more than 15%. Newmont, which operates Red Chris, said the block cave project is expected to create more than 1,800 construction jobs, sustain about 1,500 peak-season operational roles, extend the mine life by about 14 years and support a final investment decision process still underway.
Imperial Metals, Newmont’s Red Chris partner, said BC granted key authorizations on June 19 to shift the mine from open-pit operations to block cave mining. The company said the approvals followed a consent-based framework with the Tahltan Nation and effectively permit mine-life extension into the mid-2040s.
The southern trade corridor is the other half of the bargain. Ottawa’s Roberts Bank commitment is aimed at the Lower Mainland logistics network, including port infrastructure, rail links and related development. The prime minister’s office said the Port of Vancouver-Roberts Bank upgrades could unlock more than $100 billion in new trade capacity and add about $3 billion to Canada’s economy each year.
The George Massey Tunnel commitment targets a different choke point. Canada agreed to support up to one-third of capital costs, capped at $3 billion, for a replacement of the aging four-lane Highway 99 tunnel with an eight-lane tunnel. The government framed it as a freight and commuter project, not merely a local transport fix.
Pipeline tradeoff
The political tradeoff sits in the pipeline section. BC does not endorse a new Alberta-backed trans-provincial oil pipeline, but the agreement says the province recognizes its constitutional obligations and will engage in routing and permitting discussions if reciprocal commitments are met. Those include maintaining the federal North Coast tanker ban, First Nations consultation, possible loan guarantees for First Nations equity participation, an annual royalty framework for BC, and an environmental liability and emergency response fund.
That structure gives Ottawa room to advance Alberta’s west coast pipeline ambitions while giving BC financial and environmental guardrails. It also confirms that the northern tanker ban remains intact, meaning the energy politics are not simply “more oil to the coast.”
