Nothing says “out of touch” quite like promoting a new oil pipeline while wildfire smoke blankets much of Ontario, and Toronto records the worst air quality in the world.

Yet, that is exactly what Ontario’s government did two weeks ago.

On August 15, as Ontarians choked on wildfire smoke and Premier Ford was notably absent, Energy Minister Stephen Lecce was in Sarnia promoting an expansion of oil refineries to try and rationalize the Northern Shield Pipeline proposal—a crude-oil pipeline that would run from Hardisty, Alberta, through Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and cutting across Ontario. 

Maybe the irony has been lost that building more oil infrastructure would deepen our fossil-fuel dependency for decades and ever-accelerate the climate crisis. This is the very crisis that is intensifying extreme heat waves, droughts and dangerous fire conditions like the ones we’ve just been experiencing. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is clear that burning fossil fuels has unequivocally caused the climate emergency.

Two weeks ago, Ontario reported nearly 200 active wildfires covering approximately 188,000 hectares. First Nations and northern communities faced evacuations while firefighters battled to protect lives and homes. In Thunder Bay, the main city that homed evacuees, reported air quality readings twice as bad as Toronto’s. Extreme heat followed by toxic smoke is no abstract warning. It is our new climate reality.

That is why the last thing Ontarians need is another risky pipeline fantasy. We need a government protecting people from the climate crisis—the very threat another pipeline would worsen.

The provincial government is asking Ontarians to ignore that climate reality and embrace the Northern Shield Pipeline proposal instead. 

The speculative 3,300-kilometre pipeline could carry between 500,000 and 800,000 barrels of oil daily. Beyond political and oil-industry boosters, who is asking for this?

Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley has welcomed the project, since the proposal’s  beneficiaries would be Sarnia’s oil refining industry. Yet, the rest of the province would carry the broader environmental and climate risks while taxpayers are, according to the best indications, likely to be left with paying for the costly pipeline. 

Although the route remains conceptual, a corridor of this scale could cross forests, farms, wetlands, waterways and Indigenous treaty lands. Expanded refining would also bring more climate-warming emissions and toxic pollution to Southwestern Ontario. The benefits would be concentrated to a few, while the risks would extend to all of us.

When the sky turns orange and children are told to stay inside, promoting more oil is not leadership. It is climate denial in practice and it puts us all at risk.