The B.C. government has greenlit a controversial LNG megaproject on the North Coast.
The $20 billion Ksi Lisims LNG project will be located about 100 km north of Prince Rupert and will be powered through the BC Hydro grid.
It is also a partnership between the Nisga’a First Nation, Texas-based Western LNG and Rockies LNG Limited.
Both the provincial government and the federal government have signed off on the facility.
“The Nisga’a people are a remarkable and dramatic example of strength and resilience and fortitude and their work in government and in economic development is a testament to that,” B.C. Premier David Eby said at a press conference on Tuesday.
“This project will create 800 jobs during construction, more than 200 jobs ongoing at the site, $17 billion in contribution to the Canadian economy over the lifetime of the project.
“It will help young people build a future in the Northwest. It creates education, training, and other opportunities that wouldn’t exist in the absence of this project. It helps keep Nisga’a people on their land connected to their communities with employment and cultural opportunities that would not otherwise be there.”
However, four of six other First Nations asked to provide consent did not grant it, and numerous environmental groups are also opposed.
In a statement on its website, Ecojustice, on behalf of the Northwest Institute for Bioregional Research, the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, and the Wilderness Committee, said it participated in several public comment periods ahead of the decision, “pointing out serious flaws with the assessment of the Ksi Lisims LNG project, including a failure to adequately assess its climate impacts and the effects of powering the project with electricity.”
Ecojustice lawyer, Imalka Nilmalgoda, said, “The Ksi Lisims LNG project, which will export 33 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year, is fundamentally at odds with B.C.’s claims to be a climate leader. Environmental assessment laws exist to bring transparency and rigour to assessing the impacts of major projects, but we are not seeing that in the Ksi Lisims decision.”
Eby says he has “great faith” in the Nisga’a and its president Eva Clayton to deliver support through an “open spirit of engagement” with the other First Nations, adding that the project was designed to minimize environmental impacts.
“British Columbians are not going to stand by and watch Donald Trump build a dirty LNG facility on the coast of Alaska when we have the opportunity to build a low-carbon LNG facility partnership with Indigenous people in a way that provides billions of dollars for Canadians and British Columbians,” Eby said.
“We are going to build this country and we’re going to do it right and we want to make sure that it is Canadian products making it to market, supporting Canadians.”