FLETCHER: Another natural gas pipeline battle shapes up in BC

Tom Fletcher has covered B.C. politics and business as a journalist since 1984. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s major projects plan continues to unfold as I predicted here Oct. 13, with federal approval for a new North Coast high-voltage electrical connection and what is still referred to as the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline.The route of BC’s second natural gas pipeline for LNG export has been changed. It doesn’t go to Prince Rupert any more, but to the village of Gitlaxt’aamiks, formerly known as New Aiyansh, the capital of the Nisga’a government.If it gets through the usual well-funded roadblocks of protest and legal challenge, the pipeline will supply the Ksi Lisims floating LNG plant that will process gas with electricity. Carney insists that our oil and gas exports be “low-carbon,” at least compared to Texas, Qatar, Russia and other gas-fired operators.At the last minute, Carney switched the location for his Thursday announcement from Prince Rupert to Terrace, which is about 100 km south of Gitlaxt’aamiks. As with his first announcement of “fast tracking” major projects, the latest pair of B.C. projects already have their main government permits..What he was really announcing was the next phase of a plan to establish an energy corridor to the Pacific and spend whatever amount of borrowed federal money it takes to do that. (Danielle is indeed on line one, waiting, as Carney joked a while ago.)The power line is popular, as it will twin an existing line running from Prince George to Terrace. That new supply allows construction of a second power line running further north, similar to the one that was completed in 2014 to open up mining in the northwest “golden triangle” that holds a majority of Canada’s copper reserves, plus gold and other precious metals.NDP Premier David Eby also needs to hook up a bunch of indigenous-owned wind farms to BC Hydro’s grid, which has likely added its last big dam and is already importing U.S. and Alberta power while turning away industrial users.The gas pipeline is currently the target of four lawsuits, targeting federal approval of Ksi Lisims and B.C.’s decision to extend the original permits issued to Prince Rupert Gas Transmission to supply a since-scrapped Petronas LNG plant.Opponents include the Lax Kw’alaams Band and Metlakatla First Nation, backed by international climate campaigners who are currently gathered in the Brazilian rainforest to avoid talking about China and India..Gitanyow hereditary chiefs have also moved to declare the Genada Indigenous Protected Area, which happens to block the gas pipeline route. They say is needed to ensure “food security … in the face of an ongoing climate crisis affecting ecosystems, fresh water availability and risk of catastrophic wildfire.”The almost identical rhetoric to that being deployed at the UN climate summit in Belem, Brazil is strictly coincidental, I’m sure. Next year you will likely hear celebrities begin to speak about the “Genada checkpoint” to halt global warming.When Eby staged his confrontational ‘protect our coast’ event in early November to protest Alberta’s oil pipeline plan, featured speakers were Haida Nation president Jason Alsop and Stewart Phillip, president of the anti-treaty Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. Phillip was typically hostile, arguing that “there is no such thing as natural gas” because hydraulic fracturing is used to extract it.Alsop was more measured. When he and Heiltsuk Chief Marilyn Slett were asked by Globe and Mail reporter Justine Hunter if their support for LNG development would change if an oil pipeline went through, both avoided the question. The event was to warn away oil tankers from the coast, not talk about LNG..A week later, federal Finance Minister Francois-Phillipe Champagne raised the prospect of an energy corridor while speaking to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce. Asian countries are are sampling Alberta synthetic crude now that the Trans Mountain expansion is delivering, but now is the time to talk about low-carbon LNG.Correction: Last week’s commentary erred in stating that the tiny Central Coast community of Bella Bella still depends on diesel to keep the lights on. It now gets hydro power from the former pulp mill dam and generating station at the ghost town of Ocean Falls, but still depends on barged-in fuel for all transport.Tom Fletcher has covered B.C. politics and business as a journalist since 1984.tomfletcherbc@gmail.comX: @tomfletcherbc

FLETCHER: Another natural gas pipeline battle shapes up in BC

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