New data suggests the majority of Canadians support efforts to expand oil and gas development, including expanding and building pipelines — but within that data, their support shifts when it comes to the specifics of how to do that, according to Ipsos polling.
That finding comes as Prime Minister Mark Carney has been working to speed up the development of major projects, including new oil and gas projects in Canada amid the trade war, and after Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith reached a memorandum of understanding towards building an oil pipeline from Alberta to Canada’s West Coast.
A newly released Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News asked 1,500 adult Canadians in December how they were feeling about Carney’s oil and gas pipeline plans amid the trade war.
Eighty-three per cent of respondents said they at least somewhat agree that Canada should focus on expanding oil and gas exports to other countries beyond the United States because of the current trade war and U.S President Donald Trump’s tariffs, and 34 per cent of those said they strongly agree.
The majority of respondents — 68 per cent — also said they support building a new oil pipeline to the northern coast of British Columbia, but slightly prefer expanding the output capacity of infrastructure which already exists first, with support for that latter option at 72 per cent.
Ipsos noted the attitudes towards these oil and gas pipeline goals appear to be informed by the economic impact the trade war with the U.S. is having on Canada’s economy.
“This is an environment that wasn’t there for Stephen Harper, for example, when he was trying to build pipelines. Certainly, for Justin Trudeau, he was dead set against it, even though they did build the Trans Mountain Pipeline. But that wasn’t a building of a new pipeline, that was just doubling up capacity on one that already exists,” says Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs.
“This is the most favourable public opinion environment I can remember when it comes to building infrastructure around oil and gas.”
A total of 77 per cent of respondents said the trade war between Canada and the U.S. will permanently change the Canadian economy, of which 48 per cent said these changes will be negative and 29 per cent said the outcome will be positive.
Twenty-three per cent said the trade war will lead to no permanent change to Canada’s economy.
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Respondents in Quebec (64 per cent), Saskatchewan and Manitoba (54 per cent), and the Atlantic provinces (46 per cent) were most likely to say the trade war will permanently change Canada’s economy for the worse, though support for that sentiment was at or above 40 per cent in all other regions.
How did pipeline support vary?
When looking more closely at each region, the priorities among Canadians who participated in the study varied across different provinces.
Building new pipelines appeared to have less support across all provinces compared to expanding current infrastructure first, with the exception of Alberta.
Eighty-two per cent of respondents in Alberta said they support building a new northern BC pipeline to the west coast of Canada, while 74 per cent of Albertans said the priority should first be to expand the output of current pipelines.
Atlantic Canada showed a slight preference for increasing output of current pipeline infrastructure at 78 per cent, compared to 74 per cent of respondents who preferred building a new pipeline.
Meanwhile, Canadians responding from provinces like Manitoba, Saskatchewan and B.C. appeared split on which should be the priority. Comparing responses for these priorities from each province showed a difference of one per cent or less each.
Opposition to building a new pipeline was the strongest from respondents based in Quebec and Ontario, which also heavily favoured expanding infrastructure.
Fifty-three per cent of Quebecers and 66 per cent of Ontarians said they support building a new northern B.C. pipeline, while 63 per cent of Quebecers and 80 per cent of Ontarians said Canada should first expand current pipeline output before starting on building new ones.
Although most respondents said they support expanding and building new national oil and gas infrastructure projects amid the trade war, the majority are still concerned about increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Fifty-nine per cent said they at least somewhat agree that they are concerned about rising emissions as these oil and gas projects expand, including 13 per cent who said they strongly agree. Meanwhile, 28 per cent somewhat disagreed, and 13 per cent strongly disagreed.
Provinces were also divided in the poll when it came to the concerns of how expanding national oil and gas infrastructure would impact the environment with greenhouse gas emissions.
Quebec said they are most concerned about these associated environmental impacts, with 70 per cent of respondents in agreement. Atlantic Canada was next at 67 per cent, B.C. and Ontario each polled at 57 per cent agreement, 49 per cent in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, while Alberta was 43 per cent.
“We’ve seen climate change really, really drop down,” says Bricker.
“Given the trade relationship that we have with the United States, people are willing to compromise on climate change right now if it means that we can start exporting our oil and gas products to other parts of the world.”
These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between December 8 and 15, 2025, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 1,502 Canadians aged 18+ was interviewed online. Quotas and weighting were employed to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the Canadian population according to census parameters. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadians aged 18+ been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.
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