Everyone Called It Canada's $34 Billion Mistake. Now It's Building Another

On October 1, 2026, Pacific Link became Canada's first project of national interest: one million barrels of oil a day from Alberta to the B.C. coast, following almost the same corridor as Trans Mountain. That pipeline opened in May 2024 after costs climbed from $6.8 billion to about $34 billion, and many called it one of the worst deals in Canadian history. So why build the same thing twice? The story runs from Leduc No. 1 in 1947 and the first line of 1953, through Kinder Morgan walking away in 2018, the Coquihalla, the 2021 floods and the Burnaby Mountain tunnel, to the tankers that now turn west to Asia. The answer is one number. Companion book: The True North Files, scan the QR code in the video. AI thumbnail and some AI illustrations; some scenes are dramatised and Imagine 2040 is a concept, not a forecast. Figures from public reporting (Trans Mountain Corporation quarterly results, Canada Energy Regulator, Government of Canada, Government of Alberta, CBC, S&P Global Platts, Reuters, BNN Bloomberg). Cost figures for Pacific Link are estimates. Chapters: 0:00 The Second Pipe 1:20 The First Pipe 2:58 Sixty Years in One Pipe 4:26 The Company That Walked Away 6:21 The Price Tag 7:41 Building It Twice 9:01 The Mountains 10:20 The Flood 11:35 The Tunnel 13:12 The Dock 14:11 The Tankers Turn West 15:46 Pacific Link 17:27 Imagine 2040 18:45 The Answer Image credits (Wikimedia Commons): CC BY 2.0: Wintry conditions on the Coquihalla Highway (Ruth Hartnup); Coquihalla Summit Approach (Kevin Teague); Thar Peak from the Coquihalla Summit Area (kcxd); Needle Peak from Nak Peak (Kevin Teague); Delta British Columbia (Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK); Delta British Columbia 2 (Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK); Elizabeth May 4164 (Kitchener-Conestoga Greens from Waterloo Region, Canada); Elizabeth May 4097 (Kitchener-Conestoga Greens from Waterloo Region, Canada); Elizabeth May 5676 (Laurel L. Russwurm from Canada); Kinder Morgan (Laurel L. Russwurm from Canada); STOP KINDER MORGAN RCMP (Mark Klotz); Pipeline construction in Canada (Jason Woodhead); Trans Canada Keystone Oil Pipeline (shannonpatrick17 from Swanton, Nebraska, U.S.A.); OJ PIPELINE SKID MOUNTAIN (Jason Woodhead); Trans Mountain Pipeline (David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada); Pipeline and Mountains Alaska Oil Pipeline (Malcolm Manners from Lakeland FL, USA). CC BY 2.5: Brosen luckylady gdansk (Brosen). CC BY 3.0: Mark Carney in 2020 - Climate Finance (CarletonU, Faculty of Public and Global Affairs); British Columbia ) Alberta, Yellowhead Highway - panoramio (qwesy qwesy). CC BY 4.0: 2018-08-31 01 KIRKEHOLMEN - IMO 9553402 - Vancouver BC CAN (Gordon Leggett); BC Highway 5 (South Yellowhead) near Hwy 1 Trans Canada Hwy (Kiyoteru Awaji). CC BY-SA 2.0: Jim Prentice and Danielle Smith - 15859947050 (dave.cournoyer); Mark carney davos 2010 (Flickr user World Economic Forum). CC BY-SA 3.0: Oil tankers (Cgmartin9780); Siwash Rock (Jeff Macleod); Tunnel boring machine KTF 280 (2008) (Jochen Teufel). CC BY-SA 4.0: Skagit River flooding in downtown Mount Vernon, WA - Nov 17, 2021 (SounderBruce); Syncrude oil sands mine works, Mildred Lake, Alberta (Dicklyon); Tim-at-protect-the-inlet (anonymous photographer); Coquihalla Highway Summit (FabioAHB); Walterdale Bridge into downtown Edmonton, Alberta, 2026-09-26 (Chris Woodrich); Edmonton Skyline July 2020 (Matthew Boonstra); Edmonton Skyline 2020 (Matthew Boonstra); 20201012 SpeedPipes HorizontalDirectionalDrilling DSC04955 PtrQs (PtrQs); Vancouver (BC, Canada), Vancouver Centerm Terminal -- 2022 -- 1858 (Dietmar Rabich); Vancouver (BC, Canada), Vancouver Centerm Terminal -- 2022 -- 1848 (Dietmar Rabich); Roberts Bank Superport end of the pier (Ymblanter); Roberts Bank Superport from the ferry (Ymblanter); South Thompson River - Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada - July 1990 (Giorgio Galeotti); 2012 Eurotunnel tunnel boring machine 01 (Bärbel Miemietz); 2012 Eurotunnel tunnel boring machine 02 (Bärbel Miemietz). Other Commons images are public domain or CC0. Stock: Pexels, Pixabay, Magnific. SFX: YouTube Audio Library and royalty-free packs. Maps: Natural Earth.