Earning the Social License to Build New Pipelines

Bill Forbes spent 19 of his 43 years in the pipeline business at Enbridge Canada, retiring in 2023. He is a professional engineer, a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan. Much of his work in recent years related to pipeline integrity - most importantly preventing spills of the products transported in his company's pipelines. 

There has been much discussion recently of the need to increase Canada's pipeline capacity, particularly to tidewater, to facilitate the diversification of our country's trading relationships. Many think it important to reduce our reliance on unreliable trading partners.

In the first decades of this century, a number of proposed pipelines failed to launch. Will new proposals fare better? What will it take to create the social license and political will to complete these new pipelines? Or are social license concerns likely to override the economic considerations which seem to have become more urgent?

Bill will reflect on his years of rebuilding what is now an industry-leading quality and process safety culture at Enbridge for the safe transportation of petroleum products and what he thinks it might take to assuage public concerns about his former company's business. He will address how these considerations affect the case for new pipelines in Canada.