Landowner’s pipeline appeal survives Ovintiv’s bid for early dismissal

A B.C. landowner kept the opportunity to challenge pipelines across her property after the Energy Resource Appeal Tribunal rejected Ovintiv Canada ULC’s bid to end her appeal without a full hearing. In Jessica Greenlees v. BC Energy Regulator, 2026 BCERAT 2, decided February 20, 2026, the tribunal found that her objections concerned both the pipelines and the proposed wellsite they would serve.

The decision dismissed Ovintiv’s summary-dismissal application, not Greenlees’s appeal. It did not revoke the pipeline permit, order the wellsite moved or decide whether the regulator had properly considered her concerns on the merits.

Separate permits, connected infrastructure

The BC Energy Regulator issued the pipeline permit on January 21, 2025. The proposed pipelines would cross Greenlees’s land to connect an existing wellsite to a proposed new wellsite on another property. Three existing pipelines already crossed her land, and their authorization was not disputed.

The reasons recorded that Ovintiv had not yet applied for the separate permit needed to construct the new wellsite. During consultation about the pipelines, Greenlees said she would agree to their construction only if the proposed wellsite were moved. She also raised concerns about safety, loss of land use and the route across her property.

Ovintiv argued that her real objection was to the new wellsite, which the regulator had not approved in the decision under appeal. It said the tribunal therefore lacked jurisdiction and could not grant the remedy she wanted. Both Ovintiv and the regulator also maintained that her earlier concerns had received due regard and that newly raised pipeline concerns could not sustain an appeal.

Greenlees responded that she had already objected to both the wellsite and the pipelines. Her appeal sought a change to the wellsite location that would reroute or alter the pipelines, rather than challenging the future wellsite in isolation.

A high threshold for ending the appeal early

The tribunal placed the burden on Ovintiv to establish, on a balance of probabilities, that the appeal fell outside its jurisdiction. It adopted a high threshold for summary dismissal on jurisdictional grounds: only clear cases should lose the opportunity for a full hearing, particularly in an administrative appeal process intended to be accessible to self-represented landowners.

The tribunal rejected the narrow reading of Greenlees’s objections. Her conditional agreement to pipelines was before the regulator, and her notice of appeal referred to the pipelines, loss of forested land and temporary loss of land use as well as the wellsite. Those concerns related to the pipeline decision actually made.

The tribunal also rejected the argument that the appeal had no reasonable prospect of success. Whether the regulator gave due regard to Greenlees’s concerns was central to the merits. At this preliminary stage, the question was narrower: was it clear that the appeal was bound to fail? The tribunal found that her concerns were not new and that the merits should be heard.

Pipeline remedies remained available

The tribunal agreed that it could not order relocation of the proposed wellsite as a stand-alone remedy in this appeal. No decision approving that site had been made as part of the pipeline permit. But that limit did not eliminate its authority over the pipelines themselves.

The two locations were connected: the pipelines had to reach the proposed wellsite, and changing one could change the other. The tribunal found that Greenlees’s requested remedy was at least partly responsive to the pipeline decision. Its statutory options to confirm, vary or rescind that decision, or send it back with directions, remained available.

The tribunal identified a practical problem with postponing the dispute to a future wellsite appeal. A later wellsite decision would not necessarily authorize the pipelines again. Unless the pipelines were specifically incorporated into that decision, an appeal from it would not reopen their presence or location. Challenging the pipeline permit was therefore the available route for disputing those matters.

Ovintiv’s application was dismissed on all asserted grounds. The ruling preserved a merits hearing without deciding that Greenlees’s safety or environmental objections were proven, and without bringing an unapproved wellsite decision into the appeal. It establishes neither a later permit outcome nor the infrastructure’s present construction or operating status.