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# Ottawa misses its own tailings deadline
- URL: https://www.borealian.ca/oilsands-tailings-ottawa-delay/
- Published: 2026-10-16T18:01:32.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-21T05:25:50.000Z
- Description: The federal working group on treated oilsands water has run since January 2021, and the framework it targeted for the end of 2025 has not appeared. Ottawa owes Albertans a decision date before the province sets its own standards.
- Author: Grant
- Tags: Politics

Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin’s department set a target of the end of 2025 for a draft framework on releasing treated oilsands tailings water, and 286 days later, we are still waiting. 

## Ottawa's authority

Oilsands surface mines separate bitumen from sand with hot water, which leaves tailings, a mix of sand, silt, clay, residual bitumen and contaminated process water. Operators store them in ponds and reuse the water, and the stored volume has grown because the mines keep adding fresh water and capturing rain and snow, according to [Environment and Climate Change Canada](https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/managing-pollution/sources-industry/mining-effluent/oil-sands.html?ref=borealian.ca).

Subsection 36(3) of the Fisheries Act bars depositing a deleterious substance in water frequented by fish unless a federal regulation authorizes it. However, this regulation was never considered for oil and gas tailings ponds, as noted by the Ministry: “No such regulation is in place for oil sands mines, meaning there is currently no federal authorization to release oil sands process-affected water as effluent.” Alberta’s own approvals do not authorize release either, so the industry must wait until Ottawa provides a framework. The province’s [steering committee](https://www.alberta.ca/oil-sands-mine-water-steering-committee-recommendations?ref=borealian.ca) asked it in 2025 to expedite release standards.

The urgency rises as volumes of contaminated water continue to climb. The Alberta Energy Regulator reported about 1.4 billion cubic metres of fluid tailings and 400 million cubic metres of contaminated water in the ponds as of 2023, according to a federal [discussion paper](https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/managing-pollution/sources-industry/mining-effluent/oil-sands/discussion-paper-crown-indigenous-working-group-2025.html?ref=borealian.ca), and CBC reported that the regulator found tailings fluid grew by 50 per cent from 2014 to 2024.

## The department's deadline

The department and nine Indigenous communities set up the Crown-Indigenous Working Group on potential oilsands effluent regulations in January 2021, according to its [introductory paper](https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/managing-pollution/sources-industry/mining-effluent/oil-sands/crown-indigenous-working-group-engagement.html?ref=borealian.ca). That paper took comments until Oct. 6, 2023, a “What We Heard” report followed in May 2024, and the discussion paper came in March 2025\. The group has now run for more than five years.

The March 2025 paper set the deadline itself: “Completion of work on alternatives to release of treated effluent and a draft regulatory framework is targeted for the end of 2025.” The department’s effluent page, read on Oct. 13, lists nothing published after that paper. The page lists a contractor’s assessment of alternatives from November 2023, but no public document shows whether the alternatives work the 2025 paper targeted was finished or whether the group has made its recommendation to the minister.

The government has since added confusion. Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson told a news conference in Alberta in September that regulations would be developed by the end of 2027, CBC reported, and his spokesperson later told CBC he had misspoken and there is no timeline. Hodgson also said, “We will do the work to make sure we have the right regulations with respect to tailings ponds,” as CBC reported it. Dabrusin declined CBC’s interview requests, and her spokesperson gave no timeline.

## Does delay demonstrate care?

The department’s own defence is that the delay reflects care, because it has said that if regulations are needed it is “committed to taking the time necessary to meaningfully consult with Indigenous communities.” Several communities in and downstream of the mines “oppose the release of treated effluent under any circumstance,” the working group’s paper records. Mikisew Cree First Nation Chief Melody Lepine told CBC her community would accept treat-and-release only if its leadership were confident it would not harm health or the environment, “But we’re nowhere near that today.”

Consultation and a public deadline can coexist. Further, a published framework is also what Lepine’s test requires, since a community cannot judge whether release is safe without the standards and evidence a framework would contain.

## The case for a decision

Alberta Environment Minister Grant Hunter argues for action. “We cannot say to industry, ‘we want you to double production,’ and then not give them the tools to be able to do proper treat-and-release,” he told CBC, and Suncor vice-president Claire Greenwood said at a Fort McMurray energy conference that “treating and release is really critical to enabling the large-scale reclamation of these facilities.”

Ottawa cannot keep the question open while simultaneously asking the sector to produce [8 million barrels a day](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/analysis-danielle-smith-oil-production-double-9.7271664?ref=borealian.ca). Prime Minister Mark Carney listed the Pacific Link oil pipeline for fast-tracking at an event in Fort McMurray on Oct. 1, CBC reported, while the federal rule on the industry’s wastewater remained a question.

## What's next?

CBC reported that Alberta plans to set its own water-quality standards for tailings water release by the end of 2026\. If that happens before the feds publish their guidelines, Ottawa should be ashamed. The department responsible is failing to serve the area it regulates. While it can always decide to adopt, change or ignore Alberta's standards, it cannot ignore that it has fallen asleep at the wheel on an industry that represents one of the areas of leverage we have in the ongoing trade war with the U.S. It also reinforces western sentiments of alienation. Ottawa delays while Alberta jobs, investment, and growth wait or leave for more decisive jurisdictions. Minister Dabrusin must consider the cost of her delay.