The Office of Religious Congregations for Integral Ecology

National

Pacific Link, Water and the National Interest: Listening to Indigenous Voices

ORCIE has previously shared the concerns raised by Indigenous Peoples about the proposed West Coast oil pipeline and the Government of Canada’s consideration of its designation as a “project of national interest.” With the Government now having designated the Pacific Link pipeline as a project of national interest, we believe it is important to continue creating space for Canadians, and particularly for Catholic religious communities, to learn from Indigenous Peoples who are speaking about the importance of protecting water, lands and the well-being of future generations.

The Keepers of the Water are Indigenous water protectors and leaders whose work reminds us that water is not simply a resource or an economic asset. Their message calls attention to the sacred relationships between water, land, Indigenous Peoples, communities and future generations. In their response to the Pacific Link designation, they have drawn attention to the timing of the decision, coming less than 24 hours after the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, and invited reflection on what is meant by “national interest” when decisions affect Indigenous territories, waters and communities.

The story of Keepers of the Water begins not with a policy or a protest, but with a whisper from the past, Traditional Knowledge, carried on the breath of a Community Leader. “Water is life,” Cleo Reece, now one of our Wisdom Councillors, reminded us in a quiet moment of reflection. “Without water, we would not exist.” (https://www.keepersofthewater.ca/)”

For ORCIE, amplifying this message is an opportunity to help our members listen to and learn from Indigenous perspectives on water and to consider how these perspectives can deepen our understanding of the common good. The Pacific Link project brings these questions into focus: whose interests are being considered, how are Indigenous rights and participation understood, and what does it mean to define the national interest in ways that include the protection of water and the living systems upon which communities and future generations depend?

For Catholics, the protection of water is deeply connected to our faith and our call to care for our common home. Water is essential to life, a gift that belongs to everyone, and a responsibility we hold together across generations. The 2026 Season of Creation theme, “Living Waters,” and Pope Leo XIV’s September prayer intention, “for the care of water,” place this concern firmly within the life of the Church. Pope Leo has drawn attention to the global reality that 2.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water and prayed for forgiveness for treating water as a commodity rather than recognizing it as a universal gift and a right without borders. His reflection offers another invitation for Catholics to consider how our relationship with water is connected to our responsibility for creation and the common good.

From an integral ecology perspective, the well-being of people, communities and the natural world cannot be separated. Water connects us all. As Canada moves forward with the Pacific Link project, the voices of Indigenous water protectors offer an important perspective for understanding what is at stake and what it might mean for a project to serve the “national interest.”

(Photo by Gene Dizon on Unsplash)

ORCIE staff are speaking out on listing the West Coast Oil Pipeline as a project of national interest. Will you join them?

ORCIE staff members has submitted a public comment opposing the designation of the proposed West Coast oil pipeline as a project of national interest.

We warmly invite our members, congregations, and supporters to add their voices to this public comment period by September 18. You are welcome to look at the example comments below, then speak from your own story: your land, your congregation, your hopes for the future. Your voice matters, and each personal submission becomes a powerful act of public dissent that has its own value when building a public record that matters for transparency and any future legal conversations.

To Cabinet,

I lead the Office of Religious Congregations for Integral Ecology (ORCIE), an organization of more than two dozen Catholic religious congregations from across Canada who are working on social and ecological justice. I am writing in response to the government’s consideration of the West Coast Oil Pipeline for designation as a project of national interest under the Building Canada Act. These comments are my own, informed by my work.

The organization takes its name from integral ecology: the view that ecological harm and social injustice are not two separate problems to weigh against each other but one connected reality. The Act’s five-factor test treats them as separable. I want to address two of the five factors where that separation does not hold.

On the question of whether the project advances the interests of Indigenous peoples, the honest answer right now is that it cannot be known. The pipeline crosses the traditional territories of an estimated 90 to 125 Indigenous communities. Consultation is running alongside the comment period rather than ahead of it, and without the project details. Frank McKenna, deputy chair of TD Securities, said in an interview that Dawn Farrell, the Major Projects Office’s CEO, told him her office must finish consultations with roughly 100 First Nations communities within one month for this pipeline. The Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs called for a halt to the project in August, stating consultation had not been conducted in good faith. Two earlier attempts to build a similar pipeline to the BC coast, the Northern Gateway and the original Trans Mountain expansion, were lost or delayed in court for exactly this reason: inadequate consultation. This time the same government is being asked to reach that same certification faster, and for a larger project. I refuse to let this pass as adequate.

On whether the project contributes to Canada’s climate goals the government’s own figures argue against it. Pathways, the carbon capture project tied to this pipeline, is being sold to the public on a 16-megaton figure. Only 6 of those megatons have a project and a date behind them: 2035. The other 10 are attributed to expansion plans, unnamed technology, and a 2045 horizon, none of it committed. The pipeline’s own upstream emissions run to roughly 40 megatons a year. Alberta has tied its support for this same agreement to doubling oilsands production, to eight million barrels a day. Six firm megatons of capture against forty megatons of new emissions, feeding a province planning to expand the very production behind them is not a contribution to Canada’s climate goals. Cabinet should evaluate this factor on the 6-megatons, not the 16-megatons used to promote it.

Indigenous consultation and climate accounting are not two separate scorecard items here. Both fail for the same reason, this is a process moving too fast to reckon honestly with the people it affects and the emissions it will create. This is also the first project to be tested under the Building Canada Act, and whatever Cabinet decides here will set the standard for every project that follows.

That October 1 target was fixed before this comment period even opened. The record built since then does not support it. I ask Cabinet to treat this designation as undecided until the consultation is genuine and the emissions numbers hold up, not as a deadline to be met on schedule.

Respectfully,

Genevieve Gallant

Executive Director/Directrice générale

Dear Minister LeBlanc, 

I am writing to offer my perspective on whether to list the West Coast pipeline as a national interest project under the Act. The project does not provide enough economic or other benefits to Canada; it does not advance the interests of Indigenous peoples; and it will not contribute to clean growth and to meeting Canada’s objectives with respect to climate change.

I am a Honduran-Canadian mother raising two young daughters near Gatineau Park, where we spend many weekends walking and biking together. As infrastructure development has expanded and wildlife habitat has come under increasing pressure, bears have entered our neighbourhood in search of food, which for me is a visible reminder that infrastructure decisions can displace wildlife, and create risks for animals and communities alike. I also lived in British Columbia for ten years, where I appreciated the mountains, salmon-bearing rivers, and coastal communities. These experiences, from one side of Canada to the other, shape why I cannot support the listing of the West Coast Pipeline as a national interest project that threatens lands and waters on which families, Indigenous communities, and future generations depend.

In my work with the Office of Religious Congregations for Integral Ecology, I advocate for policies that protect people and our common home. I cannot reconcile a new oil pipeline with Canada’s climate commitments or with MP Carney’s claim that electrification is the path to sustainability. It just does not add up. It does not contribute to clean growth and to meeting Canada’s objectives with respect to climate change. Public funds should move us toward a clean future, not lock us into more toxic fossil-fuel infrastructure and its detrimental long-term costs.

The 2026 Canada’s Changing Climate Report gives a clear warning: if global climate policies stay on their current path, Canada could warm by an average of 5.0°C by the end of this century. Fire seasons will be longer, extreme heat will get worse, and glaciers in western Canada could lose more than 75% of their ice. Building a new oil pipeline in the face of this future is not responsible growth. It leaves communities and our children to pay the environmental and financial costs.

This is personal for me beyond Canada. This year, my family in Honduras is facing extreme drought and urban communities are receiving water only once every 15 days. Canada cannot call itself a global partner while expanding projects that deepen the climate crisis felt most severely by people who contributed least to it.

I understand the economic and sovereignty pressures Canada faces. This project does not provide adequate economic or other benefits to Canada. Economic growth at any cost is not national interest. A truly national project should protect our land, water, climate, and children. When I think about my daughters (and other children like them) and the country they will inherit, I do not see this pipeline as a legacy of security. I see it as a gamble with their future.

I urge the government not to approve this designation without transparent, independent environmental impact assessments and meaningful, face-to-face consultation with Indigenous Peoples and all affected communities. This project does not advance the interests of Indigenous peoples.

Canada should invest instead in shared solutions that strengthen our economy without sacrificing our common home and our very existence. Let’s start by sitting down together to define what “national interest” truly means before we pursue efficiency at the expense of our planet and future.

In hope,

Sasquia Antúnez Pineda

Advocacy & Communications Officer | Chargée de plaidoyer et de communication

A Collective Appeal on Inefficient Fossil Fuel Subsidies

ORCIE has joined over 80 organizations and dozens of leading researchers in signing a national letter urging the Government of Canada to withdraw proposed tax measures that would expand fossil fuel subsidies under the Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) Investment Tax Credit and reinstate accelerated capital cost allowances for liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities. The letter highlights that enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and LNG expansion would lock Canada into decades of high emissions, diverting public funds from proven climate solutions. As the letter states, “Enhanced oil recovery is designed to produce more oil, not reduce fossil fuel emissions.” This collective action reflects ORCIE’s ongoing commitment to oppose policies that undermine climate justice and to advocate for investments that truly advance a just, renewable energy future.

Opposition to subsidizing fossil fuel industries through new tax creditsDownload

On listing the West Coast Oil Pipeline as a project of national interest

On August 1, the federal government opened a public comment period on whether to designate the West Coast Oil Pipeline a project of national interest, fast-tracking it past the usual environmental review.

Add your voice.

Send in a short note, a few paragraphs, about why this decision matters to you.

Guide to Commenting on the West Coast Pipeline’s as project of National InterestDownload
Guide sur les commentaires publics concernant l’inscription de l’oléoduc de la côte Ouest comme projet d’intérêt national (1)Download

Investing in Our Common Home: ORCIE’s Recommendations for Canada’s Budget 2026

On August 31, 2026, ORCIE submitted its recommendations to the Honourable François‑Philippe Champagne, Minister of Finance and National Revenue, as part of Canada’s 2026 Federal Pre‑Budget Consultation.

Grounded in our Catholic faith and the vision of integral ecology, ORCIE’s submission calls for a budget that reflects care for people, care for the planet, and care for future generations. We urge the federal government to:

  • End public investment in new fossil‑fuel infrastructure and publish a transparent inventory of subsidies.
  • Commit $32.5 billion over five years to build a clean, interconnected electricity grid.
  • Accelerate incentives for zero‑emission transportation and home heating.
  • Uphold Canada’s global commitments to climate justice and solidarity.

Through this submission, ORCIE affirms that fiscal choices are moral choices, shaping whether our public resources strengthen communities and safeguard creation or or continue to underwrite industries that deepen ecological and social risk.

Read the full letter here:

ORCIE_Pre-Budget_Submission_2026Download