Something has shifted in the Canadian psyche. Not long ago, the climate crisis dominated water-cooler conversations, shaped federal election outcomes, and placed the environment firmly atop the country’s policy agenda. Today, that urgency has quietly given way to a harder, more immediate set of worries and a major new poll is putting numbers to what many Canadians already feel.
The Angus Reid Institute, releasing survey data on Monday, found that 61 per cent of Canadians now want economic growth to be the defining priority in federal energy policy a striking reversal from 2019, when a majority of 55 per cent held the environment in that top spot.
The findings land at a turbulent moment. American tariffs have rattled Canadian exporters. The war in Iran has sent global energy markets into a spin. And a new federal government under Prime Minister Mark Carney is navigating the thorny politics of pipeline expansion a conversation that, just a few years ago, would have drawn far heavier opposition.
Alex Walker of Environmental Defence acknowledged the economic anxiety driving the shift, but cautioned against reading pipeline profits as a broad public windfall. With oil prices elevated by the Iran conflict, Walker estimated the energy industry was on pace to rake in $90 billion in profits over the next year a figure that, he warned, wouldn’t necessarily find its way into average Canadians’ pockets.
The most dramatic geographic story in the poll may be in British Columbia, historically the province most resistant to pipeline development. Almost two-thirds of British Columbians 65 per cent now say they support the recently approved $4-billion expansion of Enbridge’s Westcoast natural gas pipeline, compared with just 17 per cent who oppose it.
Kurl noted that opposition to pipeline projects in B.C. has been in steady retreat. Back in 2012, 57 per cent of British Columbians opposed the Northern Gateway pipeline. By 2025, that opposition had dropped to 32 per cent. A potential Alberta-backed oil pipeline enjoyed 56 per cent support in the province as recently as October 2025.
The political backdrop adds another layer of complexity. Carney met with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith last week to advance talks on a new Pacific coast oil pipeline and Smith emerged from the meeting with cautious optimism, though she noted unresolved sticking points, including the timeline for Alberta’s adoption of a $130-per-tonne industrial carbon price.
Carney himself described a new pipeline as “more probable than possible,” signalling that the federal government sees a realistic path forward so long as it can be paired with emissions-reduction technologies like carbon capture and storage.
Not everyone is convinced the economics hold up over the long haul. Thomas Green of the David Suzuki Foundation warned that a pipeline of this scale could take up to a decade to build, by which point global energy markets may have fundamentally changed.
Public confidence in the government’s handling of pipeline development also appears to be growing if modestly. The share of Canadians who believe Ottawa is taking the “right amount” of action rose from 23 per cent in 2019 to 31 per cent today. Meanwhile, those who think the government is doing “too little” have barely budged, sitting at 48 per cent compared to 50 per cent seven years ago.
The big unknowns, Kurl pointed out, remain First Nations consultation, pipeline routing, and whether a private proponent will step up to anchor the Alberta project. Without one, Green fears the venture could become a costly public liability.
The survey was conducted online between April 24 and 28 with 2,360 Canadian adults drawn from the Angus Reid Forum. As an online poll, it carries no formal margin of error, per the standards set by the Canadian Research Insights Council.
