TheTransCanada pipeline is a system ofnatural gas pipelines, up to 48 inches (1.2 m) in diameter, that carries gas throughAlberta,Saskatchewan,Manitoba,Ontario andQuebec. It is maintained byTransCanada PipeLines, LP. It is the longest pipeline inCanada.
Canada's population was booming during the 1950s, and energy shortages were becoming problematic.[1]Canadian companyTransCanada PipeLines Limited 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.[1]
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 1954C. D. Howe, a member of theCabinet of Canada 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 theFederal Power Commission 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.
The 1,090-kilometre section crossing theCanadian Shield 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 acrown corporation to build and own the Canadian Shield portion of the line, leasing it back to TCPL.
TheLouis St. Laurent 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 ofLiberal rule, and bringing in a government under Prime MinisterJohn Diefenbaker.[2]
The bill was passed and construction of the TransCanada pipeline began.
A stock trading scandal surroundingNorthern Ontario Natural Gas, the contractor for the Northern Ontario leg of the pipeline, also implicatedSudbury mayorLeo Landreville and Ontario provincial cabinet ministersPhilip Kelly,William Griesinger andClare Mapledoram between 1955 and 1958.[3]
The completion of this project was a spectacular technological achievement. In the first three years of construction (1956–1958), workers installed 3,500 kilometres of pipe, stretching from the Alberta–Saskatchewan border to Toronto and Montreal. Gas service toRegina andWinnipeg commenced in 1957 and the line reached theLakehead before the end of that year.
Building the Canadian Shield leg required continual blasting. For one 320-metre (1,050 ft) stretch, the construction crew drilled 2.4-metre (8 ft) holes into the rock, three abreast, at 56-centimetre intervals. Dynamite broke up other stretches, 300 metres (1,000 ft) 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.[4] Only in the early 1980s was its length finally exceeded by a Soviet pipeline fromSiberia to Western Europe.
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