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Distributed for University of British Columbia Press

Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance

Tar Sands, Social Movements, and the Politics of Energy Infrastructure

A powerful exploration of how Indigenous nations and grassroots coalitions challenged major pipeline projects, reshaping energy politics and environmental resistance in Canada.

In the late 2000s, when the oil sands industry proposed expanding its capacity to transport fossil fuel products, an unprecedented coalition of Indigenous nations and communities, environmental non-governmental organizations, grassroots groups, and municipal governments mobilized in response. Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance explores how these social movements challenged powerful corporate and government interests and reshaped the politics of energy infrastructure. Amy Janzwood investigates campaign coalitions that were formed to oppose two mega pipeline projects: the expansion of Trans Mountain, which was ultimately completed; and Northern Gateway, which was never built. Drawing on a wide array of documents and in-depth insider interviews with oil executives, senior government officials, coalition organizers, and lawyers, she analyzes the strategic alliances and tactics that have empowered – and attempted to thwart – these movements. Overall, Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance is an ambitious study that underscores the power of campaign coalitions to sustain resistance and shape government policy and industry practices.


248 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2025

Economics and Business: Economics--Agriculture and Natural Resources

Political Science: Public Policy

Sociology: Social Change, Social Movements, Political Sociology


Reviews

"Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance is the definitive account of anti-pipeline campaign coalitions in Western Canada over the last fifteen years, their strategies and influence, as well as their limitations and potential future trajectory. It is an important intervention that deserves to be widely read."

Tyler McCreary, Department of Geography, Florida State University, and author of Indigenous Legalities, Pipeline Viscosities: Colonial Extractivism and Wet’suwet’en Resistance

"With an extensive assessment of multiple pipeline cases, Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance provides an excellent set of analyses for thinking about the politics, the factors driving the changes in the ways pipelines are sited and approved, and the mixed results that have emerged in Canada over the past decades."

Stephen Bird, Carsey School of Public Policy, University of New Hampshire, and author of Energy Conflict in North America

"Amy Janzwood has taken on one of the most pressing and contentious issues of our time—the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure as the climate crisis deepens. Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance is a deeply reported and compelling account of how social movements built and sustained opposition to the Trans Mountain and Northern Gateway oil sands pipeline projects, contributing to lengthy delays and cancellation. As shifting global dynamics invite new pipeline proposals and revive others, this timely book is both hopeful and cautionary."

Sarah Cox, author of Signs of Life: Field Notes from the Front Lines of Extinction and Breaching the Peace: The Site C Dam and a Valley’s Stand Against Big Hydro, winner of a BC Book Prize and finalist for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing

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