The pipeline's estimated cost has ballooned to $35–44 billion, a First Nation is calling it a pipeline that's been 'tossed aside' without consultation, and the financing plan still doesn't exist.

Pacific Link's designation as Canada's first project of national interest was framed by Ottawa as a milestone — but the designation itself, officials have been careful to note, "does not guarantee that Pacific Link will be built." Several specific, unresolved problems explain why.

The cost has grown, and nobody's confirmed who pays

The pipeline's estimated cost now sits between $35.2 billion and $43.7 billion, a notably wide and expensive range for a project whose financing plan, according to a federal background note, is still "being developed" rather than finalized. Pacific Link has been included in the pitch book for the recent Canada Investment Summit, meaning Ottawa is actively marketing the project to outside investors rather than treating its funding as settled — a sign that, despite the national-interest label, the core question of who pays for construction remains genuinely open.

A specific, named objection worth understanding

The Coldwater Indian Band, based near Merritt, B.C., issued a sharp public statement calling the decision premature, with Vice-Chief Michael Smithers saying there is "anger in our community" and that Ottawa hasn't resolved longstanding disputes over the existing Trans Mountain pipeline's use of the band's reserve lands before green-lighting what he called "a third Trans Mountain pipeline through the Coldwater Valley." The objection isn't a generic environmental concern — it's specifically about an unresolved land-use dispute with an existing pipeline that predates Pacific Link, which the band argues should have been settled before a new project in the same valley was approved.

Carney has said the "real work" of Indigenous consultation begins now, with the federal government's own timeline targeting completion of consultations, environmental safeguards and financing arrangements by September 2027 — meaning the national-interest designation front-loads regulatory approval ahead of consultation rather than after it, a sequencing that's precisely what critics like Coldwater object to.

The economic case Ottawa is making

Citing Royal Bank of Canada estimates, federal officials project Pacific Link could generate roughly $20 billion a year in additional export revenue by allowing an extra one million barrels a day to reach Asian markets, materially reducing Canada's reliance on U.S. oil buyers — directly relevant given the current trade dispute's demonstration of how exposed Canadian energy exports are to a single customer. Industry groups like the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers have welcomed the designation specifically on those diversification grounds.

What businesses watching this should track

The practical signals worth following aren't the designation itself, which has already happened, but what comes next: whether a credible financing plan actually emerges before the September 2027 target, whether Coldwater's objection escalates into formal litigation (Conservative MP commentary has already floated the phrase "pipeline to the courts"), and whether Pembina Pipeline Corp.'s current 10%-stake commitment attracts additional private investment or remains the only confirmed private capital in the project. Any of those three stalling out would be a far more meaningful signal than the national-interest label itself about whether Pacific Link actually gets built on its stated timeline.