TC Energy and ATCO meet with Mexican president at G7 summit in Canada to advance Plan México megaprojects

Published by Brent Patterson on June 18, 2025 June 18, 2025

Video still: Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum meets with Canadian prime minister Mark Carney at the G7 summit in Canada.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney met with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on June 17 at the 2025 G7 Leaders’ Summit in Kananaskis, Alberta.

President Sheinbaum also met separately with the Business Council of Canada that represents 170 companies in Canada. Mexico News Daily notes: “Meeting attendees included senior executives from companies such as TC Energy, WestJet Airlines, Palliser Furniture, ATCO [engineering, logistics and energy], BRP [manufacturing] and Element Fleet Management, all with established operations in Mexico.”

The Calgary Herald further reports: “Canadian firms see opportunities to increase investment in Mexican energy, said [Ottawa-based] Business Council of Canada CEO Goldy Hyder after meeting with President Claudia Sheinbaum. Executives from major [Calgary-based] pipeline builders ATCO and TC Energy were present at the sit-down with the Mexican president at the G7 summit in Kananaskis.”

Calgary-based ATCO provided “workforce housing and operational support services for three camps in the Haisla territory in support of construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline” and is seeking to build the 200-kilometre Yellowhead Mainline pipeline from the hamlet of Peers to Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta.

And Calgary-based TC Energy built the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory and is the largest Canadian investor in Mexico.

The Calgary Herald article further notes: “TC Energy’s 700-kilometre Southeast Gateway Pipeline is soon expected to begin delivering up to 1.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas produced in Texas to southern Mexico.”

The Southeast Gateway (Puerta del Sureste) pipeline will connect to the Jáltipan-Salina Cruz Gas pipeline to transport gas across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the proposed Salina Cruz LNG export terminal.

In February 2023, La Jornada Veracruz reported that campesina, Indigenous peoples and environmental groups protested in Sierra de Santa Marta against the Southeast Gateway pipeline “to demand an end to the criminalization and persecution of their leaders.”

On February 15, 2025, several coastal communities of the indigenous Nahua and Nuntaj++yi’ municipalities of Pajapan, Tatahuicapan and Mecayapan in southern Veracruz also protested against this pipeline.

Plan México

Mexico News Daily adds: “According to Sheinbaum, the meeting [with Canadian companies] focused on showcasing Plan México, the government’s blueprint to turn Mexico into one of the 10 largest global economies.”

The Wilson Center has explained that Plan Mexico has “13 goals” and “entails a portfolio of 277 billion dollars in national and foreign investments.” The “sector specific goal” of “energy” notes: “Increase the generation capacity from 356 terawatt hours to 413 terawatt hours: with gas, renewable, solar and wind energy. There are 145 proposed projects to be developed by the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).”

In January 2025, the Heinrich Böll Foundation cautioned: “Plan Mexico, recently presented, generates uncertainty and concern among communities and organizations due to the intention to promote mining projects in the country, favor investments by companies such as Grupo México, whose criminal negligence has caused irreversible damage to the environment and health, which remain unattended and unpunished.”

In February 2025, Maira Olivo, the coordinator of the Territory, Rights and Development programme at the Fundar Centre of Analysis and Research, also noted: “The Plan has generated concern among communities and environmental organizations, in the first place, due to the lack of detailed information regarding the portfolio of private investments and the 100 industrial parks that make it up. In addition, the plan is announced in a context in which mining exploration work is intended to return to the private sector, which will mean a setback with respect to the protection of the rights of communities and the environment achieved in 2023 with the approval of the reform of the Mining Law.”

Civil society demands

In advance of the G7 summit, the C7 (Civil 7), “an official engagement group of the Group of 7 (G7)” that “represents positions from global civil society” had called on the G7 to “adopt and enforce mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation, while protecting human rights defenders”, to accelerate “implementation of the 2011 UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights”, and to “counter the global crackdown on civil society by adopting diplomatic, financial, and legal measures to safeguard activists, independent media, and human rights defenders.”

The W7 (Women 7), another engagement group, had also highlighted: “The G7 must take a firm stance against the criminalization of dissent, the rollback of the rights of women, girls and 2SLGBTQIA+ people, and the shrinking space for civil society, ensuring that foreign and domestic policies align with human rights principles.”

Official G7 statements reflecting these principles are not apparent following the Kananaskis summit.

Land and environmental defenders

In September 2024, Global Witness documented that 203 land and environmental defenders had been killed in Mexico between 2012 and 2023, including 18 defenders in 2023. Front Line Defenders has further noted that 32 human rights defenders were killed in Mexico in 2024.

Peace Brigades International-Canada remains attentive to the risks faced by defenders specifically in the context of megaprojects, including mining, oil and gas, and hydroelectric projects, violating Indigenous rights.

The next G7 summit will take place in June 2026 in Evian-les-Bains, France.

Further reading:

PBI-UK and PBI-Canada webinar – Volunteering for Protection: Indigenous rights and the impacts of megaprojects (PBI-Canada, June 11, 2025)

TC Energy may have launched “geo-fenced” ad campaign to counter visit of Wet’suwet’en and Otomi land defenders to Toronto and Ottawa (PBI-Canada, July 3, 2024)