PMO Pipeline Polling Needs Public Receipts

Taxpayer-funded polling should inform government. It should not become a private political dashboard for a billion-dollar pipeline pivot.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new pipeline push may be popular. That is not the accountability problem. The problem is that Canadians are learning, after the fact and through access-to-information documents, that internal government polling helped guide the political path to this pivot.

Global News reported that the Privy Council Office’s weekly polling program asked Canadians about new or expanded oil pipelines during negotiations between Ottawa, Alberta and British Columbia. The program is run by public servants, but Global reported that it is supervised by partisan PMO staff and that political staff help design the questions. That distinction matters. Public money should not quietly produce a private partisan map for the Prime Minister’s Office.

The results were politically useful. Two November 2025 live-agent polls of 2,000 Canadians found 67 per cent support for new or expanded pipelines, including majority support in every region. A longer question that mentioned ecosystem corridors, habitat impacts, leaks and spills still found 62 per cent support. After the Canada-Alberta memorandum of understanding, a Dec. 1–7 poll of 1,000 Canadians found 53 per cent thought the agreement was a good decision, with a plurality in every region.

Conservatives should not be embarrassed that Canadians support energy exports. A serious country builds infrastructure, sells to global markets and stops letting one foreign customer dictate the terms of its prosperity. But a serious country also tells taxpayers when government polling is being used to validate a major policy turn, especially when the same policy could put public money at risk.

That risk is real. Global also reported that Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced a new Alberta-to-B.C. coast pipeline as a private-public partnership, with Canada and Alberta described as equal partners and Trans Mountain Corporation expected to plan and construct the line. Asked about taxpayer money, Carney framed the project as an investment, while Global noted the existing Trans Mountain project rose from a $4.5-billion federal purchase in 2018 to more than $35 billion by startup in 2024.

That history is why polling receipts are not a side issue. If the PMO saw broad support, did cabinet also see the cost-overrun scenarios? Did ministers receive a full risk memo before selling the public-private model? Were Indigenous consultation risks, B.C. environmental liability funds, tariff pressures, toll assumptions and debt treatment weighed alongside the voter-friendly polling numbers?

Carney wants credit for a dramatic pipeline pivot. Fine. Then publish the ledger. Canadians should be able to see not only that the policy polled well, but who wrote the questions, who saw the answers, how the answers shaped decisions, and what taxpayers may be asked to underwrite next.