By Paul Vieira
OTTAWA--Canada's effort to accelerate resource projects must incorporate reductions in carbon output, the country's energy minister said Tuesday.
Building the carbon-capture facility, known as Pathways and backed by some of Canada's biggest energy producers, is "crucial to ensuring Canadian oil and gas continues to grow," Tim Hodgson, Canada's minister of energy and natural resources, said.
Pathways "will show that energy production and emissions reduction can move together," Hodgson said, according to prepared remarks at an energy conference in Calgary, Alberta, the financial nerve center for Canada's oil-and-gas sector.
"We cannot pretend the world no longer needs oil and gas. It does," the minister said. "And we cannot pretend emissions do not matter. They do," he added.
The remarks reinforce the condition that Prime Minister Mark Carney has said must be met--the construction of a major carbon-capture and storage project--before his government will endorse a new crude-carrying pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific Coast that the western Canadian province is championing.
The energy companies behind the Pathways project have said they remain committed to the carbon capture, but only if the appropriate fiscal and regulatory terms are in place--a sign that they are seeking money from the federal government for construction. The companies, part of a group called the Oil Sands Alliance, have also complained about a steep industrial-carbon tax that Alberta agreed to impose to help secure Carney's full support for the new pipeline.
Representatives from the alliance didn't respond to questions about Hodgson's speech.
Write to Paul Vieira at paul.vieira@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 09, 2026 12:58 ET (16:58 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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