Canada should not end its Arctic drilling ban, warns former environment minister

As the federal government opens the door to lifting Canada’s moratorium on Arctic oil-and-gas drilling, a former environment minister says it’s not worth the risk.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has confirmed news reports that he’s consulting with northern governments and Indigenous communities about whether to keep the ban in place. 

Finance Department spokesperson Marie-France Faucher told the Toronto Star that  $11 million earmarked in the federal budget for Arctic offshore oil-and-gas governance is, in part, for “consideration of potentially lifting the current moratorium.”

But at this point, Carney says, it’s “absolutely not in any way, shape or form a decision about lifting the moratorium. It is a respectful engagement.”

Steven Guilbeault, who served as Canada’s environment minister between 2021 and 2025, says Arctic drilling is a bad idea. Here is part of his conversation with As It Happens host Nil Köksal. 

Mark Carney says this is all just about consultation with northern communities to find out what they think about potentially lifting this moratorium, this drilling ban. What’s wrong with that? 

If that’s all that it is, then I’m a very happy person. Unfortunately, in the Toronto Star article … there is a finance official who says, on record, that it is potentially to open up oil-and-gas exploration and exploitation in the Arctic. 

WATCH | Carney on the Arctic offshore drilling moratorium:

Budget’s offshore gas funding ‘absolutely not’ a decision to lift Arctic drilling moratorium, Carney says

Prime Minister Mark Carney says $11 million earmarked in Budget 2026 for Arctic oil and gas governance is part of a 2023 co-management agreement with Inuit leadership in the region. ‘It is absolutely not — in any way, shape or form — a decision about lifting the moratorium,’ Carney said.

For you, what are the biggest risks to opening up the western Arctic to oil and gas, potentially? 

We hardly have acceptable technologies to clean up oil spills in normal water conditions…. We have no technologies to clean up oil spills where sea ice is involved. There are none. 

There are a lot of oil spills happening all around the world at just about any given day of the week … so the question is not: Will there be an oil spill in the Arctic if we start doing that? The question is: When and how much?

And it’s a very fragile ecosystem, an ecosystem that we’re still learning so much about. And there’s so many things we don’t understand yet about the fragility of the Arctic ecosystem. 

Then there’s the issue of whether or not, five years, 10 years down the road —  because, really, this is what we’re talking about in terms of timeline, if something like that would happen — will there still be a growing demand for oil around the world? 

In 2025, one in four vehicles sold in the world was an electric vehicle. By the end of this year, 2026, they will likely be one in three vehicles now that just about everywhere in the world, solar and wind are cheaper to produce electricity than coal or even natural gas. 

So I think it begs the question: Why would we do that? Why risk compromising the ecosystem of one of the most pristine places on Earth for something that, if there is an economic case for it, might be very short-lived?

When you say you’re hopeful that what Prime Minister Carney is saying, that this is about discussion at this stage and just discussion, that you would be pleased with that, I mean, are you suggesting that you’re not sure that he’s representing his plans accurately? 

I’m saying we have two contradictory statements here. 

We have, obviously, the prime minister saying this is just for consultation. And we have someone from the finance department on record saying, well, actually, no, the goal of what we’re doing is to exploit oil and gas in the Arctic.

I’m hoping that, in the meantime, the prime minister and the government came to realize that this will be hugely controversial. It’s going to be hugely controversial in Canada. It’s going to be controversial in the North. It’s going to be controversial internationally. 

I am heading to the UN conference on climate change in Turkey. I’ve been talking to people from all around the world who just can’t believe that Canada would even think about doing that.

The Arctic is partly Canadian for sure, but it’s an international territory. It’s a very powerful international symbol in terms of environmental safeguards and conservation. And I think that the international public outcry would be something we haven’t seen very often in Canada.