Amy听Janzwood鈥檚听newest book,听,听investigates campaign coalitions that were formed to oppose two mega pipeline projects: the expansion of听Trans Mountain, and the Northern Gateway, which was never built.听听
In her book, she explores how unprecedented coalition of Indigenous nations and communities, environmental non-governmental organizations, grassroots groups, and municipal governments challenged powerful corporate and government interests and reshaped the politics of energy infrastructure in Canada.听With discussions of pipelines resurfacing in the Canadian media in the past few weeks,听Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance听is an important read for those looking to better understand听the power of campaign coalitions to sustain resistance, influence government policy, and shape industry decisions.
We spoke to Professor Janzwood about the origins of her research, the importance of Indigenous resistance movements, and her work with the听Steering Committee of Women and Inclusivity in Sustainable Energy Research.听
Q: How did the idea for this book come about? How did you come to focus on the Trans Mountain and Northern Gateway pipelines?听
A:听听In the summer of 2014, protestors halted work on Enbridge鈥檚 Line 9B Reversal in north Toronto. Around the same time, Northern Gateway, Keystone XL, and Energy East were dominating the headlines, though media coverage often offered narrow, misleading or conflicting narratives. I started my PhD at the University of Toronto in 2015, and I later changed the focus of my research to examine these competing narratives and to make sense of complex economic, legal, regulatory, and socio-political dynamics surrounding pipeline development.
The book centers on two contested mega oil sands pipelines proposed through British Columbia: the Northern Gateway Pipelines project and the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX). Both projects sought to transport diluted bitumen from the Athabasca oil/tar sands in Alberta through British Columbia to coastal waters. And both attracted significant opposition from a range of actors. Enbridge鈥檚 Northern Gateway project was approved by the federal government in 2014 under Stephen Harper, and the Trudeau government approved Kinder Morgan鈥檚 TMX in 2016. There were also several important differences, including that Kinder Morgan was seeking to build a new pipeline alongside the existing Trans Mountain pipeline.
In 2016, a legal challenge, Gitxaala Nation v Canada, revoked the Northern Gateway project鈥檚 certificate based on the federal government鈥檚 inadequate duty to consult with affected First Nations. The Trudeau government chose not to redo the consultation efforts and instead dismissed the project and announced the tanker ban on BC鈥檚 northern coast. In the case of TMX, the resistance coalition essentially made the project unviable for Kinder Morgan, which the federal government now owns. I wanted to understand these outcomes more deeply, and in particular, the relationship between resistance movements, the regulatory process, commercial dynamics and political conditions.
Q: What will readers learn about the Indigenous nations and communities, environmental non-governmental听organizations听and grassroots groups that opposed the oil sands industry鈥檚 proposal to expand transportation of fossil fuel products? Which social movements do you cover in the book and what important roles have they played in advocating for indigenous and environmental rights?听
A:听In the early 2000s, both the Alberta and federal governments supported unlimited oil sands expansion. In response, environmental organizations and affected Indigenous communities built a transnational campaign to resist this growth. While opposition to the Northern Gateway and Trans Mountain Expansion pipelines emerged somewhat independently, both movements shared resources with the campaign against the tar sands.
For Indigenous nations and communities, self-determination and responsibilities to land and more-than-human relations were central, and these pipeline projects were seen as threats to Indigenous sovereignty, rights, responsibilities, and livelihoods. Coalition members also shared concerns about risks to marine environments and endangered species from increased tanker traffic and oil spills, and the climate consequences of locking in tar sands expansion.
The book traces how Indigenous nations and communities, environmental NGOs, and grassroots groups mobilized to resist these pipelines, raising fundamental questions about who benefits from extractive development, who bears its risks, and how decisions about land and energy futures are made. Their efforts are struggles over distributive, recognition, procedural, and ecological justice at the core of pipeline development and fossil fuel expansion.
Q: You conducted interviews with oil executives and senior government officials for this book. How did you approach these individuals for interviews and how did you integrate their perspectives into your research?听
A:听I conducted over sixty interviews, including with industry executives, regulatory and government officials, lawyers, municipal leaders, and representatives from NGOs, grassroots organizers and Indigenous-led organizations. I actually found it more challenging to arrange interviews with grassroots and coalition organizers, given their time/capacity constraints. Many industry executives were initially surprised 鈥� and often frustrated or angry 鈥� by opposition and were eager share their perspectives on the challenges of mega pipeline expansion. Their affective response reflected how, for years, pipelines been built, largely uncontested, until the mid-2000s when a wave of mega-project proposals emerged and began to face sustained scrutiny, delay, and in some cases cancellation.
I wanted to understand how different actors perceived key decisions in pipeline development and contestation. The industry and government interviews offered insight into internal decision-making and risk assessment, as well as the close relationships between industry executives and government decision-makers. I triangulated their accounts with other evidence, tracing areas of convergence, divergence and sometimes contradiction. This approach helped ensure that industry and government perspectives were situated in a broader political landscape where competing claims, interests, and worldviews are entangled in the fate of these pipeline projects.
Q: What kind of 鈥渟trategic alliances and tactics鈥� did you come across when researching anti-pipeline campaign coalitions? What can these alliances and tactics teach us about the future trajectory of climate activism?听
A:听Alliances between Indigenous nations and settler environmental organizations were central to sustained opposition in these movements. Such alliances are historically fraught in Canada, where environmental organizations have too often instrumentalized Indigenous rights to advance narrow goals. Through pipeline battles, environmental and climate justice movements have developed a deeper recognition of Indigenous sovereignty. However, Indigenous land defenders bear the extraordinarily high cost as targets of state violence. The strength and persistence of Indigenous-led movements, whose stories 鈥� such as those shared in by Rueben George, Sundance Chief and a member of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation 鈥� illustrate the deep connections between settler colonialism, Indigenous resurgence, ceremony, and pipeline resistance. Much work remains to be done to build and sustain .
Campaigns used many strategies and tactics, often in combination, that changed over time. These included participating in the regulatory process, legal challenges, media engagement, research, policy advocacy, electoral organizing, protests, civil disobedience, and Indigenous land and water protection. These efforts required broad-based movements that formed early on, were sustained for years through adverse contexts, and connected pipelines to broader issues, including Indigenous sovereignty, democratic participation, and the climate crisis, as well as the significance of regions like the Great Bear Rainforest. While the success of the social movement opposition was remarkable, it was by no means assured.
Movements also had to adapt to changing circumstances, including government efforts to suppress conflict by restricting participation in project review, changing the project approval process, or attacking project opponents. Recent federal and provincial legislative changes, such as the , that can weaken or bypass environmental laws and limit participation, reflect a broader trend of suppressing resistance to .
While movement victories 鈥� such as the cancellation of Northern Gateway, Energy East, and Keystone XL pipelines 鈥� show what broad-based campaigns can achieve, their outcomes are contingent on political context, coalition dynamics, and resources, which have changed dramatically. Still, lessons of resistance are essential as movements continue to confront the expanding extractive frontiers and environmental and social justice struggles, including those related to mining projects, fossil fuel expansion, and, most recently, data centres.
Q: Amnesty International has听stated听that the recent sentencing of a Wet鈥檚uwet鈥檈n leader and two other pipeline opponents sends a 鈥榗hilling message鈥� about Indigenous rights. What听impact, if any, will rulings like this have on resistance to pipeline projects in Canada, and Indigenous resistance in particular?听
A:听This case reflects a much longer pattern of criminalizing Indigenous land and water defenders in so-called Canada. Indigenous land and water defenders face disproportionately violent policing, including in struggles against TMX (see work by, for example, , , or ). This coercive dimension of the resource state is 鈥� state bodies like the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have long used surveillance and policing to try to silence Indigenous movements.
The RCMP鈥檚 Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) in BC was formed after the Standing Rock camp against the Dakota Access Pipeline and specifically in response to the construction of the TMX and Coastal Gaslink pipelines. C-IRG (recently renamed the Critical Response Unit) carried out against Wet鈥檚uwet鈥檈n land defenders and others resisting the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline, and is now under following hundreds of and allegations of human rights abuses and violations of Indigenous rights, as well as legal challenges. Raids and arrests of Wet鈥檚uwet鈥檈n land defenders before and after legislation to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in BC and federally are gross violations of these rights.
Importantly, the BC Supreme Court judge found RCMP/C-IRG officers and demonstrated 鈥�.鈥� While the judge suspended the implementation of jail time on the sentences for the three land defenders, this case is part of the expansive security state that reinforces colonial violence. Still, Indigenous resistance continues 鈥� Gitanyow and Gitxsan peoples continue to oppose the fracked pipeline in BC 鈥� reinforcing the impossibility of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and nations .
Q: Discussions of oil pipelines were a hot topic during the most recent federal election. As the climate crisis deepens, and a new generation of voters becomes increasingly concerned with the effects of the oil industry on our planet, how do you think future policy makers and politicians will approach the topic of pipelines and fossil fuels?听
A:听In 2021, the Canadian pipeline industry association quietly closed its doors, which was an important signal after years of struggle to build new pipelines, facing fierce and often Indigenous-led resistance, volatile markets, and changing political and economic conditions. Pipeline companies have shifted focus to other markets or incremental growth and are finding new ways to take advantage of their massive network of existing infrastructure.
However, in early 2025, politicians across Canada began talking again about resurrecting projects like Northern Gateway, Energy East, and Keystone XL. The re-election of Donald Trump has driven rhetoric 鈥� and resource nationalism more generally 鈥� to new heights. The recent Memorandum of Understanding between the federal and Alberta governments, with a commitment to a new bitumen pipeline, also represents the latest rollback of Canada鈥檚 climate policy. Nearly of the federal government鈥檚 climate plan has been abandoned or undermined. This deal creates more risk at taxpayers鈥� expense while . Yet while Canada moves backwards, other countries are their shift away from fossil fuels.
Q:听How did you come to be involved with the Steering Committee of Women and Inclusivity in Sustainable Energy Research (WISER), and how do your research interests align with their mission?听
A:听Women & Inclusivity in Sustainable Energy Research () is a global network of more than 200 women and non-binary researchers in the field of sustainable energy. The network brings together folks across disciplines and career stages from a wide range of backgrounds to increase the strength, visibility, and impact of gender-diverse energy scholars.
My involvement with WISER grew out of my research on the movements challenging fossil energy systems and my desire to better understand pathways that move us towards more just and sustainable energy systems. It鈥檚 been a joy and a source of energy to work with colleagues who share these commitments.
Transforming energy systems in ways that are more equitable, sustainable, and responsive to the needs of communities requires 鈥� and benefits from 鈥� . Today, as we are witnessing the rollback of equity, diversity, inclusion, and decolonization initiatives in many institutions 鈥� and renewed political attacks on both climate action and EDI efforts 鈥� networks like WISER are vital.
Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance听is through UBC Press.听
听