B.C. Poll Finds 71% Back Natural-Gas Pipelines — With Liberal and Conservative Voters Nearly Aligned

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Pipeline politics have spent years dividing British Columbia, turning major energy projects into tests of regional loyalties, environmental priorities and party identity. New polling suggests natural gas may be moving onto different political ground. Research conducted by Fairview Strategy and released by Avatar Innovations found 71% of British Columbians support natural-gas pipelines, alongside strong backing for other energy infrastructure.

The results arrive as B.C. becomes a much bigger player in international gas markets, with LNG exports now leaving Kitimat and a nearly $4-billion expansion of the Westcoast pipeline system moving into construction. Yet the apparent consensus is not a blank cheque. Younger residents are less enthusiastic, climate questions remain unresolved, and Indigenous rights, environmental reviews and regulatory conditions continue to determine which projects can actually be built.

What the 71% Result Actually Says

The headline number is striking: 71% of respondents said they supported natural-gas pipelines, while 64% supported oil pipelines and 79% backed hydroelectric dams. More broadly, 64% supported building energy-export infrastructure, compared with 17% opposed. The poll was conducted by Fairview Strategy for Avatar Innovations, an energy-technology venture studio and investment fund. Researchers questioned 896 B.C. adults between July 6 and July 17, 2026, using an online panel and weighted the results to Canadian census benchmarks.

There is an important distinction behind the partisan headline. The published 74% support among federal Liberal voters and 71% among Conservative voters relates to the broader proposition of building export infrastructure to generate revenue for public priorities, rather than a published party-by-party cross-tab specifically for natural-gas pipelines. That still represents unusually close agreement between two electorates that often approach energy policy very differently. Because respondents came from an online panel rather than a probability sample, the reported 3.2-point margin-of-error figure is best understood as a comparison benchmark, not a conventional sampling-error estimate.

B.C. Is Already a Natural-Gas Pipeline Province

Natural-gas pipelines can sound like a debate about infrastructure that might someday arrive, but B.C. already contains an extensive network. The B.C. Energy Regulator counted 54,270 kilometres of regulated pipelines in its 2024 inventory. Natural-gas and sour-natural-gas lines accounted for roughly three-quarters of that total, carrying production from northeastern B.C. toward processing facilities, consumers and larger transmission systems. Many residents therefore interact indirectly with pipeline infrastructure whenever natural gas is used for heating, cooking or commercial operations.

That network also explains why regulation is more complicated than simply deciding whether B.C. “supports pipelines.” The provincial regulator oversees most pipelines contained within B.C., while pipelines crossing provincial or international borders fall under Canada Energy Regulator jurisdiction. Provincial approvals can still be required for matters such as Crown land, roads, water crossings and vegetation clearing. A new project can consequently face multiple layers of technical, environmental and rights-based review even when public opinion is favourable. The political question may be getting easier, while the regulatory work remains deliberately demanding.

The Westcoast Expansion Is the Real-World Test

The clearest test of B.C.’s changing mood is already under construction. The Sunrise Expansion Program will enlarge the southern portion of Enbridge’s Westcoast natural-gas transmission system. Federal approval covers 11 pipeline-looping segments totalling roughly 139 kilometres, along with additional compression and power infrastructure. The project is valued at nearly $4 billion in 2024 dollars and is designed to add as much as 300 million cubic feet of daily transportation capacity. Construction formally moved forward in summer 2026, with the system targeted for service in late 2028.

This is not a completely new corridor carved across the province. About 96% of the approved route parallels an existing right-of-way or another linear disturbance, an important distinction for communities weighing its footprint. The Canada Energy Regulator recommended approval subject to 47 conditions covering areas that include safety, construction, environmental monitoring and Indigenous participation. An earlier Angus Reid Institute poll, conducted in April, found 61% of British Columbians supported the Westcoast expansion while 17% opposed it. The new 71% figure therefore reinforces, rather than creates, evidence of a broader shift.

LNG Has Changed What a Westbound Gas Pipeline Means

For decades, Canada’s natural-gas export system was overwhelmingly oriented toward the United States. That geography began changing dramatically when LNG Canada loaded its first export cargo at Kitimat on June 30, 2025. The project’s first phase consists of two liquefaction trains with initial capacity of 14 million tonnes a year. Federal energy data show LNG Canada exported an average of about 0.295 billion cubic feet per day during 2025 when measured across the full year, despite shipments beginning only in June, with those volumes destined for East Asia.

That makes pipeline capacity in B.C. part of a larger trade-diversification story. The Sunrise expansion is partly intended to accommodate demand created by Woodfibre LNG near Squamish, which regulators expect to begin operating in 2027. Woodfibre has firm transportation requirements of roughly 300 million cubic feet per day, while the existing T-South network has been highly utilized. For communities along the route, the physical infrastructure remains local. Economically, however, a pipeline can now connect northeastern B.C. gas with customers across the Pacific rather than simply extending Canada’s long-standing north-south energy relationship.

The Partisan Agreement Is Real — but More Complicated Than It Looks

The new polling is noteworthy because the pro-development message reaches voters who normally disagree sharply. Among respondents grouped by federal vote, 74% of Liberal voters and 71% of Conservative voters backed the broader concept of building export infrastructure to fund public priorities. Provincially, the same proposition attracted support from 74% of B.C. Conservative voters, 65% of B.C. NDP voters and 57% of Green voters. That is a much flatter political landscape than the pipeline fights B.C. experienced a decade ago.

Other polling supports the larger trend while showing that project type still matters. Angus Reid found in the spring that 61% of British Columbians supported the Westcoast natural-gas expansion. Its July research into a proposed Alberta-to-B.C. oil pipeline revealed a noticeably wider partisan gap: 57% of Canadians who had voted Liberal in 2025 supported that project after considering arguments for and against it, compared with 85% of Conservative voters. In other words, B.C. has not entered a post-partisan era on energy. Natural gas, export diversification and existing-corridor expansions simply appear capable of attracting a broader coalition than some previous oil-pipeline proposals.

Affordability and Trade Exposure Are Rewriting the Argument

Economics appear to be doing much of the political work. In the Fairview poll, cost of living was the leading concern, cited by 29% of respondents. Fifty-nine per cent selected new tax revenue from resource and clean-technology exports as the preferred way to finance provincial priorities when compared with alternatives such as higher taxes, borrowing or service reductions. The release also reported that 60% became more supportive when energy development was connected with skilled-trades opportunities and the possibility of making homeownership more attainable.

There is a concrete economic backdrop to those opinions. B.C. produced an average 7.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day in 2025, accounting for roughly 39% of Canadian production. Canada exported about 8.6 billion cubic feet per day of conventional natural gas that year, excluding LNG Canada, with nearly all of it still going to the United States. LNG Canada’s new Asian shipments provide one of the first large-scale breaks from that dependence. In a period of U.S.-Canada trade friction, additional market access can therefore be presented as economic insurance as much as traditional resource development.

Climate and Safety Questions Have Not Disappeared

Broad support should not be confused with indifference to environmental consequences. The Fairview release says backing was weaker among British Columbians under 35, falling 18 points for that age group. B.C.’s latest complete greenhouse-gas inventory puts gross provincial emissions at 61.1 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent in 2023, about 6% below the 2007 level. The province’s 2025 climate accountability report also warned that oil-and-gas-sector emissions are projected to rise as natural-gas production increases and new LNG emissions enter the provincial total, even as methane reductions, electrification and lower emissions intensity provide countervailing improvements.

Pipeline safety creates another layer of scrutiny. The B.C. Energy Regulator recorded 37 pipeline incidents in 2024, of which 25 involved a release or spill. Eight releases involved natural-gas or sour-natural-gas pipelines, while corrosion remained the largest single cause of incidents across the network. Those figures help explain why approval conditions, integrity programs and post-construction monitoring remain central even when voters support development in principle. Public acceptance can alter the politics around a project; it cannot eliminate engineering risk, environmental consequences or the obligation to manage both over decades.

Indigenous Participation Is Becoming Part of the Ownership Model

One of the largest changes in the Westcoast system has happened not through a regulatory amendment but through ownership. In July 2025, 38 First Nations represented by the Stonlasec8 Indigenous Alliance completed a $736-million investment for a 12.5% interest in Enbridge’s Westcoast natural-gas pipeline system. The transaction was supported by a $400-million guarantee through the federal Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program. The Canada Energy Regulator describes the Westcoast system as extending more than 2,900 kilometres and capable of moving roughly 3.6 billion cubic feet of gas per day.

Equity participation, however, should not be treated as interchangeable with Indigenous consent for every expansion. Nations are distinct governments and rights holders, and interests can differ depending on territory, environmental effects and the project involved. For Sunrise, the federal Crown consultation process involved 73 potentially affected Indigenous communities over roughly two years. The regulatory record also identified cumulative impacts on Indigenous and Treaty rights and imposed conditions intended to address monitoring, contracting, cultural concerns and continuing engagement. Ownership can give participating Nations long-term economic exposure to infrastructure, but project-specific consultation remains a separate and essential requirement.

The Poll Changes Political Risk, Not the Permitting Math

A 71% support figure can matter enormously before a major project is proposed. Companies, governments and investors pay attention to whether infrastructure will encounter broad political resistance, and memories of cancelled or delayed Canadian pipeline projects still influence capital decisions. The Sunrise record illustrates the scale of the economic case proponents can present: regulators cited estimates of roughly $3.4 billion in Canadian GDP contributions, 20,700 full-time-equivalent person-years of employment, a peak construction workforce of up to 2,500 and approximately $394 million in B.C. provincial tax revenue.

Yet Sunrise also demonstrates why public backing is only one part of the equation. The federal review examined economics, environmental effects, species at risk, safety, Indigenous rights and cumulative impacts before approval was granted with 47 binding conditions. Provincial permits and continuing regulatory oversight remain necessary as construction proceeds. That may be the most significant message behind B.C.’s new polling. The debate appears to be shifting away from whether any pipeline development should occur and toward a more difficult question: which projects can demonstrate enough economic value, environmental discipline and community partnership to turn broad public openness into durable permission to build?

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