
The TransCanada pipeline is a system of
natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
pipelines, up to in diameter, that carries gas through
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
,
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...
,
Manitoba
Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
and
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
. It is maintained by
TransCanada PipeLines, LP
TC PipeLines, LP () is a publicly traded master limited partnership. TC Energy owns 25.48% of the outstanding units and controls the general partner. TC PipeLines, LP manages and owns natural gas pipelines in the United States including 46.45% of ...
. It is the longest pipeline in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
.
Creation
Canada's population was booming during the 1950s, and energy shortages were becoming problematic.
Canadian company TransCanada PipeLines Ltd. was incorporated in 1951 to undertake the construction of a natural gas pipeline across Canada.
The financing of the project was split 50–50 between American and Canadian interests.
Two applicants originally expressed interest in moving gas east: Canadian Delhi Oil Company (now called TCPL) proposed moving gas to the major cities of eastern Canada by an all-Canadian route, while Western Pipelines wanted to stop at Winnipeg with a branch line south to sell into the mid-western United States. In 1954
C. D. Howe
Clarence Decatur Howe, (15 January 1886 – 31 December 1960) was an American-born Canadian engineer, businessman and Liberal Party politician. Howe served as a cabinet minister in the governments of prime ministers William Lyon Mackenzie ...
, a member of the
Cabinet of Canada
The Cabinet of Canada (french: Cabinet du Canada) is a body of Minister of the Crown, ministers of the Crown that, along with the Canadian monarch, and within the tenets of the Westminster system, forms the government of Canada. Chaired by the ...
of a Liberal Government, forced the two companies to merge, with the all-Canadian route preferred over its more economical but American-routed competitor. This imposed solution reflected problems encountered with the construction of the Interprovincial oil pipeline. Despite the speed of its construction, the earlier line caused angry debate in Parliament, with the Opposition arguing that Canadian centres deserved consideration before American customers and that "the main pipeline carrying Canadian oil should be laid in Canadian soil". By constructing its natural gas mainline along an entirely Canadian route, TCPL accommodated nationalist sentiments, solving a political problem for the federal government.
The regulatory process for TCPL proved long and arduous. After rejecting proposals twice, Alberta finally granted its permission to export gas from the province in 1953. At first, the province waited for explorers to prove gas reserves sufficient for its thirty-year needs, intending to only allow exports in excess of those needs. After clearing this hurdle, the federal government virtually compelled TCPL into a merger with Western pipelines. When this reorganized TCPL went before the
Federal Power Commission
The Federal Power Commission (FPC) was an independent commission of the United States government, originally organized on June 23, 1930, with five members nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The FPC was originally created in 1 ...
for permission to sell gas into the United States, the Americans greeted it coolly. The FPC proved skeptical of the project's financing and unimpressed with Alberta's reserves.
Politics
The 1,090-kilometre section crossing the
Canadian Shield
The Canadian Shield (french: Bouclier canadien ), also called the Laurentian Plateau, is a geologic shield, a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks. It forms the North American Craton (or Laurentia), the anc ...
was the most difficult leg of the pipeline. Believing construction costs could make the line uneconomic, private sector sponsors refused to finance this portion of the line. Since the federal government wanted the line laid for nationalistic reasons, the reigning Liberals put a bill before Parliament to create a
crown corporation
A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn profit for the governmen ...
to build and own the Canadian Shield portion of the line, leasing it back to TCPL.
The
Louis St. Laurent
Louis Stephen St. Laurent (''Saint-Laurent'' or ''St-Laurent'' in French, baptized Louis-Étienne St-Laurent; February 1, 1882 – July 25, 1973) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 12th prime minister of Canada from 19 ...
government aggressively restricted debate on this bill to get construction underway by June 1956, knowing that delays beyond that month would postpone the entire project a year. The use of closure created a Parliamentary scandal. Known as the Pipeline Debate, this parliamentary episode contributed to the government's defeat at the polls in 1957, ending many years of
Liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
rule, and bringing in a government under Prime Minister
John Diefenbaker
John George Diefenbaker ( ; September 18, 1895 – August 16, 1979) was the 13th prime minister of Canada, serving from 1957 to 1963. He was the only Progressive Conservative party leader between 1930 and 1979 to lead the party to an electio ...
.
The bill was passed and construction of the TransCanada pipeline began.
A stock trading scandal surrounding
Northern Ontario Natural Gas
Northern Ontario Natural Gas was a natural gas company in Canada in the 1950s and 1960s, which was involved in a stock trading scandal that implicated Supreme Court of Ontario judge Leo Landreville, three Central Ontario mayors, and three members ...
, the contractor for the Northern Ontario leg of the pipeline, also implicated
Sudbury Sudbury may refer to:
Places Australia
* Sudbury Reef, Queensland
Canada
* Greater Sudbury, Ontario (official name; the city continues to be known simply as Sudbury for most purposes)
** Sudbury (electoral district), one of the city's federal e ...
mayor
Leo Landreville
Léo Landreville (February 23, 1910 – 1996) was a Canadian politician and lawyer, who served as mayor of Sudbury, Ontario in 1955 and 1956 Dorian, Charles (1961). ''The First 75 Years, A Headline History of Sudbury, Canada''. Arthur H. Stockwe ...
and Ontario provincial cabinet ministers
Philip Kelly,
William Griesinger
William Griesinger (June 20, 1895 – April 16, 1978) was a politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1945 to 1959 who represented the southwestern riding of Windsor— ...
and
Clare Mapledoram
Clare Edgar Mapledoram (March 10, 1903 – October 9, 1983) was a politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1951 to 1959 who ...
between 1955 and 1958.
Construction

The completion of this project was a spectacular technological achievement. In the first three years of construction (1956–58), workers installed 3,500 kilometres of pipe, stretching from the Alberta–Saskatchewan border to Toronto and Montreal. Gas service to
Regina and
Winnipeg
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...
commenced in 1957 and the line reached the
Lakehead before the end of that year.
Building the Canadian Shield leg required continual blasting. For one stretch, the construction crew drilled holes into the rock, three abreast, at 56-centimetre intervals. Dynamite broke up other stretches, at a time.
On 10 October 1958, a final weld completed the line and on 27 October, the first Alberta gas entered Toronto. For more than two decades, the TransCanada pipeline was the longest in the world. Only in the early 1980s was its length finally exceeded by a Soviet pipeline from
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
to Western Europe.
Incidents
* In late 1957, during a high pressure line test on the section of the line from Winnipeg to
Port Arthur (today called
Thunder Bay
Thunder Bay is a city in and the seat of Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada. It is the most populous municipality in Northwestern Ontario and the second most populous (after Greater Sudbury) municipality in Northern Ontario; its population ...
), about five and a half kilometres of pipeline blew up near
Dryden. After quick repairs, the line delivered Alberta gas to Port Arthur before the end of the year, making the entire trip on its own wellhead pressure.
*On 30 May 1979 an explosion caused evacuations in
Englehart, Ontario, about 200 kilometres north of
North Bay, Ontario
North Bay is a city in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is the seat of Nipissing District, and takes its name from its position on the shore of Lake Nipissing. North Bay developed as a railroad centre, and its airport was an important military ...
*On 1 December 2003, a rupture in the pipeline occurred at approximately (120 km south of
Grande Prairie
Grande Prairie is a city in northwest Alberta, Canada within the southern portion of an area known as Peace River Country. It is located at the intersection of Highway 43 (part of the CANAMEX Corridor) and Highway 40 (the Bighorn Highway), a ...
, Alberta). 14 hours later, another rupture and fire occurred 15 km downstream from the initial incident. According to TransCanada PipeLines, the breaks were immediately isolated, and any already escaped gas was allowed to burn off.
*On 20 July 2009, the Peace River Mainline in
northern Alberta exploded, sending 50-metre-tall flames into the air and razing a two-hectare wooded area. According to
CBC News
CBC News is a division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC.ca. ...
, reports about the causes and actual extent of the explosion were redacted from a January 2011 government report and were only fully revealed after a media inquiry in 2014.
*On 13 September 2009 a similar explosion to that of 1979 occurred, in
Englehart, Ontario, leaving a hole at the explosion site.
*On 19 February 2011, a pipeline explosion occurred just outside
Beardmore, Ontario, 190 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.
*On 25 January 2014, a fire broke out around 1:15 a.m. local time on the Canadian Mainline natural gas pipeline about 25 kilometres south of Winnipeg near
St. Pierre-Jolys, Manitoba. Five homes were evacuated as a precaution after the explosion.
See also
*
History of the petroleum industry in Canada
The Canadian petroleum industry arose in parallel with that of the United States. Because of Canada's unique geography, geology, resources and patterns of settlement, however, it developed in different ways. The evolution of the petroleum sector ...
References
External links
TransCanada PipeLines, LPNatural gas distribution in Canada
{{Canadian pipelines
Natural gas pipelines in Canada
Pipelines in Alberta
Pipelines in Saskatchewan
TC Energy
Transport buildings and structures in Manitoba
Transport buildings and structures in Ontario
Transport buildings and structures in Quebec