BC and Canada’s Frenzy For New Pipeline Benefits Billionaire Trump Allies

Unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-waututh) Nations (Vancouver) | June 5, 2024 — Organizations in BC and across Canada have responded to the BC Government’s approval of the substantial start application for the controversial 900-km Prince Rupert Gas Transmission Pipeline (PRGT), saying that the Province’s decision lacks free, prior and informed consent from all impacted Nations and ignores active court cases on the pipeline.

This decision extends the pipeline’s decade-old environmental assessment certificate, into perpetuity, despite opposition and legal action taken by the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, whose land the pipeline would cross to supply the proposed Ksi Lisims LNG export terminal in northern BC with fracked gas.

The project’s owners – the Nisga’a Lisims Government and Texas-based Western LNG began limited construction in August 2024. Recently, some of President Trump’s MAGA donors at Blackstone Inc. and Apollo Global Management made a significant investment in the project. The project’s owners cleared a small area of land in the Nisga’a Nation’s territory last summer, which was accepted as “substantial” construction.

Had the BC Government denied the proponents’ substantial start application, the 10-year old environmental assessment certificate would have expired, requiring a new environmental assessment before the project could proceed.

QUOTES

Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, Gwaii Lok’im Gibuu/Jesse Stoeppler, Co-executive director:

“Fossil fuel projects like PRGT, Coastal GasLink, TransMountain and many more leave Canadians on the hook with billions of dollars year after year. If you can’t live up to your own provincial climate emissions commitments, at the very least be accountable to Canadians when investing their future into non viable, foreign-owned energy projects, stop growing the corporate welfare system with billions of tax-funded subsidies that bring violence to our communities while systematically undermining the rule of law.”

Change Course, Dani Michie, Executive Director:

“Young people across the country are scared for our futures. As we face wildfires, floods and heat waves, our governments continue to green light destructive projects that set us further back on our climate goals. The decision to green light PRGT will devastate crucial salmon spawning territory, rivers, forests and Indigenous ways of life. Young people from coast to coast stand in solidarity with First Nations resisting this project. Until government, financiers, and all those with power respect the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous people we will continue to take action on our campuses and in our communities against this pipeline.”

Kispiox Valley Community Centre Association, Kathy Clay, President:

“The Kispiox Valley Community Centre Association, representing 250 residents of the Kispiox Valley north of Hazelton, is dismayed that the BC government has chosen to ignore the environmental, social, and climate perils of the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission Project (PRGT), and to also disregard the rights and concerns of Indigenous Peoples along the proposed pipeline’s route. The government has declared PRGT substantially started when the pipeline does not have a legally approved origin point or terminus, when minimal and rushed work was completed in 2024, and when several matters concerning the process are before the courts. Contrary to permit conditions, no cumulative effects assessment of the project was completed. This decision does not square with Premier David Eby’s pre-election pledge to British Columbians: “I’m deeply committed to both fighting the climate crisis while helping British Columbians with costs so they can afford and benefit from lower-cost clean energy alternatives.” Fracked gas and LNG are fossil fuels; they are not clean energy alternatives. Premier Eby is advancing the climate crisis. Granting a substantial start decision to PRGT is an act of profound environmental and social negligence that will result in lasting harm in British Columbia and beyond.”

Wilderness Committee, Isabel Siu-Zmuidzinas, Climate Campaigner:

“It’s completely unacceptable for the BC NDP to approve a decade old fracked gas pipeline permit without consent from all First Nations whose territories it crosses and when today’s climate reality is incredibly dire. By copying fast-tracking and fossil fuel expansion policies and giving handouts to U.S. billionaires, the BC NDP appears lockstep with Trump-style policies. This move does the opposite of ‘standing up’ to Trump and continues to take steps back on climate action and respecting Indigenous Rights.”

Sierra Club BC, David Quigg, Organizer:

“Premier Eby was right when he said, “We cannot continue to expand fossil fuel infrastructure and hit our climate goals.” Climate breakdown is at our doorstep, and we need to be building Canadian-owned renewable energy, not investing in foreign owned fracked gas projects and infrastructure that harm our communities and our chance at a livable future.”

Climate Action Network, Emily Lowan, Fossil Fuel Supply Lead:

“The BC government has made a terrible choice in allowing this pipeline to proceed. If it’s ever built, it will benefit Donald Trump’s billionaire allies and further erode the government’s credibility with Indigenous Peoples. There are active court cases underway that oppose the pipeline’s approval and the government is simply ignoring them. This project’s permits were due to expire six months ago and the project that has just been approved is radically different from the one that was permitted ten years ago. The government seems to have lost its way on climate, energy and reconciliation.”

Indigenous Climate Action, Eriel Deranger, Executive Director:

“We stand with the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs in their opposition to this project. Subsidizing new fossil fuel projects and not upholding Indigenous rights is indefensible. With peak global and domestic oil and gas demand expected to peak this decade, we must start building the clean economy of tomorrow rather than the pipelines of yesterday.”

Stand.earth, Sven Biggs, Canadian Oil and Gas Program Director:

“Approving new fracked gas pipelines in 2025 and denying climate science are two sides of the same coin. Premier Eby should already be aware of this, considering last year’s wildfires are still burning right here in B.C., but the recent actions of his government make it clear that B.C. no longer has any kind of credible climate plan. In order to get things back on track, Eby’s cabinet needs to stop making the problem worse by approving disastrous new fracked gas megaprojects.”

Dogwood, Ashley Zarbatany, Fossil Gas Campaigner:

“The B.C. government has decided to charge ahead with building another fracked fossil gas pipeline at the expense of our climate and in violation of First Nations’ rights. This pipeline is not only being contested in court by First Nations and local communities along the route, it is bypassing the requirement for a new environmental assessment (EA) that takes into consideration both the drastic proposed route change and the need to consult with all impacted First Nations. The B.C. government is demonstrating once again that it would rather serve the American owned fossil fuel industry than follow its own laws or respect DRIPA.”

Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, Dr. Melissa Lem, President:

“It is indefensible to approve yet another fossil fuel project in a province where hundreds of lives have been lost from climate disasters like heat waves, extreme flooding and wildfires in the last five years alone—and where consent has not been given by every Nation along the proposed route of the pipeline. Not only does approving PRGT threaten B.C.’s ability to meet its own carbon pollution targets, but it also threatens the lives and health of people living in the communities where even more gas will be extracted. Research ties fracking to higher risks of lung disease, heart disease, adverse pregnancy outcomes, cancer and mortality. True government leadership means protecting our health and rights by rejecting new fossil fuel infrastructure, not deliberately laying the groundwork for expansion of it.”

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Spokespeople available to media

• • Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, Shannon McPhail, Co-Executive Director
  • Dogwood, Kai Nagata, Communications Director
  • Indigenous Climate Action, Eriel Deranger, Executive Director
  • Canadian Association of Physicians For the Environment, Dr. Tim Takaro, physician-scientist in environmental medicine, public health and toxicology, and Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University.
  • CAN-Rac, Emily Lowan, Fossil Fuel Supply Lead
  • Say No To LNG, Andrew Dumbrille, Canadian Marine Shipping Campaign
  • BC Climate Emergency Campaign, Emiko Newman, Coordinator
  • Stand.Earth, Richard Brooks, Climate Finance Director

 

BACKGROUNDER ON PRGT

5 Things to Know About the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission Pipeline (PRGT)

1. The environmental assessment certificate for the 900-km PRGT pipeline was granted by the BC Government over 10 years ago and imposed a deadline of November 25, 2024 for the project owners to undertake sufficient construction on the project for it to be considered “substantially started.” Construction only started in August 2024 and almost no work has taken place other than project owners clearing a small area of land amounting to less than two per cent of work completed. The pipeline’s purpose is to bring fracked gas from northeastern BC to Ksi Lisims LNG, a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal on the west coast that has not yet received approval nor does it have a final investment decision. If the BC Government approves the project’s substantial start application, further legal action will be taken.
2. The PRGT project owners are Nisga’a Lisims Government and Texas-based Western LNG, with investment from U.S. private equity firms Blackstone Inc. and Apollo Global Management, which have close ties to President Trump. Blackstone’s  Canadian portfolio is valued at $20 billion, and last month Blackstone finalized its $7-billion minority purchase of Rogers Communications, a major Canadian telecom company. Western LNG is attempting to construct the PRGT pipeline for an American-owned terminal with an American construction firm (Bechtel), largely backed by U.S. Wall Street financiers, while the entire Ksi Lisims LNG terminal would be built in Korea by Korean workers with Korean steel.
3. If allowed to proceed, the PRGT pipeline would span northern BC, crossing 1360 waterways and five major watersheds. It would drill under the Babine, Skeena, Kispiox and Nass rivers, as well as along the seafloor to Pearse Island, despite this marine pipeline route not yet having approval from the BC Government. It would supply fracked gas to Ksi Lisims LNG, Canada’s second-largest LNG export project. If approved, Ksi Lisims would produce 12 million tonnes per year of LNG. This is slightly less than LNG Canada’s Phase 1, which begins commercial operations this summer when it will become the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in BC and one of the five largest carbon polluters in the country.
4. The greenhouse gas emissions – 4.6 Mt CO2e annually – associated with the proposed Ksi Lisims LNG project will not only destroy BC’s hopes of reaching its emission targets, but also Canada’s. They would be equivalent to adding more than one million gasoline cars to BC roads every year or burning five billion pounds of coal a year. The Ksi Lisims project would also include tankers, ranging from 140,000 to 217,000 m3 that transit between 280 and 320 times per year through Chatham Sound, Main Passage, Portland Inlet and into Portland Canal. These large international tankers contribute to local air and climate impacts and increased underwater noise, ocean pollution and potential for whale strikes.
5. Between August and November 2024, the proponent cleared a small area of land in the Nisga’a Nation’s territory. Work was authorized under a sudden permit change by the BC Energy Regulator that was described as an administrative amendment and without a cumulative effects assessment of the project, as required by BCER permits for the project. This enabled PRGT’s owners to carry out construction activities in an attempt to meet “substantial start” requirements that would allow the Certificate and other relevant permits to remain valid.
   • This matter is currently under judicial review in the BC Supreme Court, brought by Indigenous and non-Indigenous community groups in March, who assert that the legally required cumulative effects assessment was not conducted prior to construction.
   • The original certificates and permits were issued in relation to a pipeline that would supply fracked gas to a floating LNG facility located near Prince Rupert. However, PRGT’s owners are seeking to reroute the pipeline to supply the yet-to-be-approved Ksi Lisims LNG facility in a new location: 80 km north of Prince Rupert, on Pearse Island near the border with Alaska. This new terminus location was not considered in the original environmental assessment and PRGT is still waiting for the BC Environmental Assessment Office to approve the necessary changes to the pipeline route.

CAPE media contact

Reykia Fick, Communications Director, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), 647-762-9168, media@cape.ca