This column has spent five weeks cataloguing the gap between what Canada says about its energy ambitions and what it actually does. The missed MOU deadline. The IEA pledge dressed up as crisis response. The permitting timelines that still run two years when the world needs six months. The criticism has been fair because the record has warranted it.
So when Ottawa does something right, it deserves to be said clearly: the federal government's approval of Enbridge's $4 billion Sunrise Expansion Program is the right call. It is not a transformational decision. It does not solve the pipeline capacity problem or unlock a new export corridor to Asia. But it is a concrete yes on a concrete project at a moment when Canada badly needs to demonstrate that approvals are possible — and that is not nothing.
What Sunrise Actually Is
The Sunrise Expansion adds 11 new pipeline loops totalling 139 kilometres across B.C., two new compressor stations, and approximately 300 million cubic feet per day of additional natural gas transportation capacity to Enbridge's Westcoast Pipeline system. It is an expansion of existing infrastructure, not a new greenfield project — which is partly why the Canada Energy Regulator was able to recommend approval in January after finding the project in the public interest.
The timing matters for two reasons. First, Sunrise is strategically positioned to supply the Woodfibre LNG export facility, which is slated to begin operations in 2027. Woodfibre is one of the few Canadian LNG projects actually under construction. Without the Sunrise expansion, the gas supply chain feeding it would be constrained at exactly the moment global LNG demand is spiking due to the Hormuz disruption. Approving Sunrise is not just a pipeline decision — it is a decision that protects the economics of one of Canada's most advanced LNG export projects.
The Catch — and There Is Always a Catch
Enbridge applied for the Sunrise Expansion in May 2024. The CER recommended approval in January 2026 — nearly 20 months after the application was filed — and the federal government had 90 days from that recommendation to issue its decision, with a deadline of April 30. Construction is expected to begin in the second quarter of this year, with operations targeted for the end of 2028. From application to in-service: more than four years.
TC Energy's CEO François Poirier has been asking for six-month permitting timelines since at least CERAWeek in March. The Sunrise approval took 23 months just to reach a federal decision, and that was for an expansion of existing infrastructure with strong CER support and no serious Indigenous opposition on record. For a new-build project on a new corridor, the timeline would be considerably longer. The approval is welcome. The speed is not.
There is also a broader point about what Sunrise does and does not represent. It adds 300 million cubic feet per day of natural gas capacity within B.C. — meaningful for domestic supply and Woodfibre LNG, but not the transcontinental capacity addition that would give Canada genuine flexibility on global energy markets. The project the oilpatch and the Carney government both say they want — a new bitumen pipeline to tidewater — is still without a proponent, without a route, and without a timeline. Sunrise is a yes. It is not the yes the industry is waiting for.
Why It Still Matters
Canada's energy credibility problem is partly a perception problem. Global investors and energy buyers have watched Canada cancel projects, miss deadlines, and qualify every approval with so many conditions that the yes functions as a slow no. Each project that gets approved cleanly and on a reasonable timeline is evidence that the system can work — evidence that is currently in short supply.
The Sunrise approval, issued days before a federal election and weeks after Carney secured his majority through byelections, is also a political signal. It says that the incoming government — whatever its composition — is willing to approve infrastructure that the CER has already determined is in the public interest. That is not a high bar. But clearing it matters, particularly for the LNG Phase 2 decisions and the MOU negotiations that will define whether Canada's energy moment becomes real or remains rhetorical.
The oilpatch has been calling for action for years. Ottawa has finally given it one. It took 23 months and it feeds a single LNG facility. But shovels going into the ground in B.C. this spring is a better story than another missed deadline — and right now, Canada needs better stories it can actually point to.