The Ben Mulroney Show - Ontario Unveils Proposed Route for Northern Shield Energy Corridor

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

GUEST:  Stephen Lecce, Minister of Energy and Mines If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. Well, normally, when we have this next guest on the show, he's the Minister of Energy and Mines for the province of Ontario, it's because we're talking about an Ontario-specific story.

And sometimes it's a story where it starts in Ontario with ambitions to then export something. elsewhere. But in this case, this is a decidedly national story. So before I dig into it, let's welcome to the show. Minister Stephen Leche, thanks for being here. Thanks so much, Ben. Good to see you. So we talk about, you know, you know, building the Canadian economy. And for that to happen, the entire, the entire country has got to get together. And all the premiers have to align on some pretty significant values and projects. So talk to me about the Northern Shield pipeline proposal and how

how we all fit into it, but specifically Ontario. Ontario's vision of building a pipeline from C to C, you know, invoking sort of the ideas of Sir John and McDonald that we want to be one strong unified country and economy. We have to have energy infrastructure that is sovereign to Canada.

Our challenge is that today the pipelines that connect Western fruit in Alberta to Sarnia, which is Canada's largest refinery capital and hub flows through America. and the Democratic governor of Michigan

and the American Republican president in the White House have both mused about shutting down energy infrastructure undermining our economy. And so it begs the question, why, as Canadians, do we depend on American infrastructure? Do we import energy when we're the third largest proven oil reserve on Earth?

And this is the type of critical thinking, I think, Premier Ford's bringing to the nation to say, we can do better, We can build it, we can mine it, we could refine it here at home. And that's why we brought forth this Northern Shield concept, connecting directly from Western Alberta's oil patch, getting right into Sarnia, where we have three existing refinery. We produce about 400,000 barrels a day.

And I think our government's instinct is we could do so much more and have been more energy sovereign and more self-reliad by doing this. Okay, so essentially the pathway would be like a fish hook. It goes through the prairie provinces. through Manitoba and then hook back down to the into southern Ontario once there and once turned into all sorts of things including jet fuel and I know the premier of of Alberta was talking about having a sovereign um a reserve a reserve um of a number of these fuels we saw the the impact of not having a jet fuel on hand just a few months ago and the impact that had on travel

So all good things. But once it's produced in Sarnia, it still has to go somewhere. And the most logical thing is America. But is that the plan? Would that be the plan? What do we want to do with it? So first of all, we want to process more of our oil at home. We are an importer.

50% of the oil that we bring into Ontario comes from line, line five, which is, it goes through Michigan. And their governor and the president of the United States have both talked about. undermining energy infrastructure and particularly shutting down that specific pipeline. And it fundamentally is a challenge. It's a strategic issue for the country and it's a vulnerability if we don't have a pipeline that is sovereign in its route. What we want to do is terminated in Sarnia because that's the country's existing petrochemical

and refinery hub so that we can do more domestic refinery and we could buy, purchase, and use more oil made in Canada. The secondary objective is a strategic oil reserve. We are the only G7 nation where our country does not have a government controlled or managed stockpile. If God forbid, Strait of Hormuz and another conflict and war shut down global supply, we have in and around 10 days of supply left in the country. A massive vulnerability, ironically, in a nation that has among the top three oil supplies on

earth. And so the premier and the government have said, look, let's be, let's think as a nation. Let's leverage the strengths of Canada and let's ultimately build that domestic capacity and particularly a supply that will guarantee and protect our economy from any type of global conflict or instability. Okay. So I've got two other issues that I want to address with you before we run out of time. This all sounds great except there is a glaring hole in the middle of the plan and that hole is the shape of Manitoba. because Wab Knoo, the premier of that province, says that he has not participated, nor will he participate in this gambit, because, as he said, this did not begin with indigenous consultation.

They are being brought in after the fact. How do you deal with the Wab Knew of it all? Well, I mean, the truth is we've had very positive engagements with the First Nations. This is not a fait of complete. This is a technical study that speaks about the actual route that could credibly be built as we work with the private sector and the First Nations to get it done. The early technical analysis of the route was something we need to do to prove to the country, to the investors and to First Nations that this is a viable concept,

not some abstract deck that we're talking about, but a credible plan that can be built and ultimately can be financed. The second element for Manitoba is that they really care about having a connection point to the point of Churchill. They see that as an important connection to tidewater, and they have a vision to scale that port and use it for essentially deploying energy products. It could be LNG or oil to emerging markets. We have said to the government of Manitoba that our plan actually allows for a secondary pipeline to connect to the port to help expand acts of tidewater water and to help end the landlocking of Alberta crude and get it to the world. So I actually think there's a pathway with Manitoba, there's good faith dialogue happening.

And as I say, we want to work in partnership with First Nations, as we have done in the Ring of Fire, five years ahead of schedule that was done with the First Nations, as we've done on critical minerals and mining and nuclear power, where we just announced the largest and the first nuclear investment of a First Nations ever in the small module reactor project. So there's lots of examples recently,

like the last couple weeks of partnership with First Nations. So I know we can do it again. My last question is, so we're in the feasibility study portion of this, of this route. It feels to me, based on what I'm seeing, that as this pipeline, if it were to go where we say it's going to go, it's going to go straight through sort of, I mean, is there any, is it going through Muscoca? Is it going through the sort of cottage country? And I got to think that there are a lot of people who, this wouldn't be, it's not in my backyard. It's not, but it's not in my, not in my lake.

How are you going to deal with the inevitable conversation that's going to come from a pipeline coming anywhere close to that very cherished area of just north of Toronto? Look, I mean, all communities are cherished and the natural environment is important for the government. If we care about the environment, we'll want to displace high carbon, you know, oil that's being. imported for some of the great dictatorships and authoritarian regimes of the world and leverage ethical Canadian energy that has indigenous engagement and the highest standards of environmental labor protections. I mean, for me, it's just, it's binary. It's either we're buying it from us or, you know, the Russians or the Venezuelans or the Iranians or a variety of other regimes that are countries that are just simply not living up to the gold standard. And so I think there is a way

we can build pipelines that are compliant with those standards, that we protect the natural environment, and that ultimately we protect the communities that the pipeline will go through. I mean, there are thousands of pipelines by nationally that crisscross the continents and the province and every one of those municipalities inevitably, and our commitment is to do so safely. But our aim as a government is to fix this challenge. This is the problem we are seized to end. that we are beholden to America. We are vulnerable to America because our pipelines have to go through Michigan

and we are importing energy from America. And for those of us that care strongly about our values and standing up to President Trump and thinking about a more truly sovereign, self-reliant Canada, the only way is to unlock the bounty of our energy that we have under our feet. And that applies for minerals to nuclear power and yes, very much to oil and gas.

And when we are a province like Ontario that produces a lot of the pipe and the steel and the lubricants, we have a huge industry around oil and gas and nuclear and likewise in hydro. And I just think for us, it's about jobs. It's about competitiveness. And it's about standing up for our values as Canadians. And I just don't think anyone out there would rather Vladimir Putin's natural gas or oil to prevail over ours. And that's sort of the choice, Ben. Yeah.

All right. Well, Minister of Energy in mind, Stephen Leche, we've got lots more to discuss on this. as it becomes, hopefully it becomes a reality. So thank you very much for that. And I don't know if you're back from the Stampede yet. Did you go to the Stampede? I physically did not go to Stampede, but I am in Calgary today. I'll be back tomorrow morning.

But 48 hours of hustle to make the case. No carbs at the breakfast. At the pancake breakfast, I see. Very smart, very smart, my friend. All right, take care. Thank you so much, Ben. Have a good day, guys.