Photo: A National Indigenous Congress (CNI) banner rejects the TC Energy Southeast Gateway pipeline (gasoducto Puerta al Sureste) in Pajapan, Mexico. A second banner remembers the Indigenous Nahua environmental defender Samir Flores Soberanes who was murdered on February 20, 2019, for his opposition to the PIM megaproject. Photo by Lxs Altepee.
In “The Carney Pivot”, University of Calgary professor Anthony M. Sayers comments: “The Carney government has pivoted sharply to economic issues such as trade and fiscal responsibility.”
Mark Carney was sworn in as the Prime Minister of Canada on March 14, 2025, replacing his predecessor Justin Trudeau. Carney then formed a minority government following the general election that was held on April 28, 2025.
Professor Sayers notes in comparison to the Trudeau government, there has been a “sharp shift” to “economic concerns, including internal and external trade, housing supply and fiscal responsibility” as well as “the centrality of international affairs and emergence of defence as a priority.”
Indicative of this shift in tone that foreign policy is now to be seen primarily through an economic lens, Prime Minister Carney recently commented: “I wouldn’t describe our foreign policy as feminist foreign policy.”
Despite this shift, and furthermore despite Indigenous resistance and the climate crisis, both the Trudeau and Carney governments have supported the expansion of TC Energy pipelines in Mexico and Canada.
This can put Indigenous land defenders in Mexico at risk by the National Guard, the Navy, the Mexican Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena), the State Police, as well as other authorities and actors. Indigenous land defenders in Canada are attentive to repression by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and surveillance by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
Indigenous opposition to TC Energy in Mexico
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 Nuntajiiyi’ municipalities of Pajapan, Tatahuicapan and Mecayapan in southern Veracruz also protested against this pipeline.
Video still of protest on February 15, 2025. Conexiones Climáticas noted on Instagram: “15 coastal communities Nahua and Nuntajiiyi’ step up their legal resistance against this mega gas project that threatens their survival.”
And in June 2025, the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) in Mexico noted: “The coastal Indigenous communities of the municipalities of Pajapan, Tatahuicapan and Mecayapan [have filed] an injunction against the [TC Energy Southeast Gateway] gas pipeline … [an] imposed megaproject, which violates our right to self-determination in our territory, in this case maritime as Nahua and Nuntajiiyi’ indigenous peoples that we are to prevent them from implementing it.”
Construction of the pipeline was reportedly completed in May 2025 and according to the company will be supplying gas to several new Mexican Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) power plants by mid-2026.
Canadian government lobbied for Southeast Gateway pipeline
Earlier this year, Carl Meyer of The Narwhal reported: “Briefing notes obtained by The Narwhal, which were prepared for four meetings planned over 2022 and 2023 that centered on the Mexican business of TC Energy, show the government did weigh in on Mexico’s energy policy — in favour of a new pipeline. They include suggested messaging for civil servants, such as telling one senior official they could inform a Mexican governor they were ‘pleased’ to see ‘co-operation’ between TC Energy and the utility to build the Southeast Gateway pipeline.”
TC Energy and the Canada-Mexico strategic partnership
In June 2025, senior executives from TC Energy met with Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum during the G7 summit in Canada.
In August 2025, when Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand and Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne were in Mexico for high-level meetings, their talks included representatives from TC Energy.
And in September 2025, TC Energy Corp.’s Francois Poirier joined Carney’s delegation to Mexico.
It’s also possible that TC Energy will participate in the Team Canada Trade Mission to Mexico that will be led by Dominic LeBlanc, the Minister responsible for Canada-U.S. Trade, Intergovernmental Affairs, Internal Trade and One Canadian Economy, this coming Sunday, February 15 to Friday, February 20, 2026.
Fracked gas to Mexico
On September 16, 2025, The Globe and Mail reported: “Business Council of Canada chief executive Goldy Hyder [says] natural gas exports are one way Canada and Mexico could deepen two-way trade through the second-phase expansion at the LNG Canada export terminal.”
Toronto Star business columnist David Olive also commented that Alberta is interested in liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to Mexico and the refining of Trans Mountain pipeline crude oil into diesel and aviation fuels in Mexico.
And after the meeting between Carney and Sheinbaum in September 2025, Natural Gas Intelligence senior analyst Josiah Clinedinst commented: “Since LNG Canada is operational, it is possible for Mexico to import LNG from Canada to supplement what they’re getting from the U.S.-Mexico border via pipeline.”
Wet’suwet’en and Gitanyow land defenders
On November 13, 2025, TC Energy President and Chief Executive Officer, François Poirier welcomed the referral by the Prime Minister of the Ksi Lisims LNG and the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission Project to the Major Projects Office.
Poirier noted: “With Ksi Lisims LNG and LNG Canada Phase 2 elevated to the Major Projects Office, it is clear that natural gas infrastructure and projects are fundamentally aligned with Canada’s broader national interests.”
Wet’suwet’en land defenders oppose the LNG Canada Phase 2 terminal expansion that would require two compressor stations on their yintah (territory) to increase the flow of the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline (that was built by TC Energy without the consent of Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs).
Video still: Gitanyow Hereditary Chief Watahayetsxw.
Gitanyow land defenders oppose the construction of the Ksi Lisims LNG terminal that would be fed by the yet-to-be-constructed Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline on their lax’yip (territory).
On the day of the Prime Minister’s announcement that was welcomed by TC Energy, Gitanyow Hereditary Chief Watahayetsxw stated: “I’m blockading because there is not one level of government whether it be British Columbia or Canada that has come to talk to me. I did not give permission, I did not give consent for them to be here.”
We continue to follow this.
Additional reading
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 article, July 3, 2024).
Additional context
Calgary-based TC Energy is the largest Canadian investor in Mexico.
The Southeast Gateway is an extension of TC Energy’s existing Sur de Texas-Tuxpan pipeline. The Tuxpan-Tula pipeline has been opposed by the Otomi, Nahua and Tepehua communities grouped together as the Regional Council of Indigenous Peoples in Defense of the Territory of Puebla and Hidalgo.
TC Energy also owns and operates the Topolobampo and Mazatlán pipelines in northwestern Mexico. The pipelines supply power plants and industrial facilities in the states of Chihuahua and Sinaloa. The Rarámuri people in Chihuahua have had longstanding concerns about the Encino-Topolobampo pipeline.
This past November, El Heraldo reported: “The case of the TC Energy gas pipeline in Chihuahua has been a source of dispute for more than ten years. The ruling of the Agrarian Court orders the company to remove the facilities of communal lands in Témoris and compensate the inhabitants for the improper use of the territory. However, so far the Canadian company has refused to comply with the ruling, generating tension and discontent among the inhabitants of the region.”
TC Energy has reportedly encountered delays on the southern section of its Villa de Reyes pipeline in central Mexico due to land acquisition issues. Educa Oaxaca has previously noted that construction on this pipeline had been suspended due to Indigenous resistance.
