OTTAWA — The Canadian government has offered Indigenous groups a collective 15 per cent ownership stake in the Trans Mountain pipeline, advancing a long-promised plan to give First Nations equity in the federally owned pipeline. In a letter to a First Nation along the pipeline’s path seen by The Canadian Press on Tuesday, a federal Department of Finance official said the equity investment would be equally distributed among participating groups “through a low-cost government-provided loan.” The letter said Ottawa will provide eligible groups with up to $100,000 for participation costs for expenses such as travel, office space and equipment through March 2028, while separately covering independent advisers to assist with due diligence. Details of the offer will be shared during a series of in-person meetings in Vancouver, Victoria, Kamloops and Edmonton planned for late October, the letter added. Ottawa bought the existing Trans Mountain pipeline, its expansion project and related assets for $4.5 billion in 2018 after Kinder Morgan investors raised concerns that regulatory uncertainty made the investment too risky. It later committed to exploring Indigenous economic participation in the expansion with the 129 Indigenous communities potentially affected by the project. The expansion began operations in 2024 and increased the Trans Mountain system’s capacity to about 890,000 barrels per day from roughly 300,000 barrels per day. Finance documents released that year said Ottawa planned to provide Indigenous groups with access to capital to acquire a stake in Trans Mountain. The documents said the Indigenous stake could be held collectively through a special-purpose vehicle, giving participating groups governance rights and a share of cash generated by the pipeline. Until now, however, the government had not publicly specified the size of the ownership stake it was prepared to make available. --- Brett Bundale, The Canadian Press This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 22, 2026.
