Tom Fletcher grew up in the Peace River region and has covered BC politics and business as a journalist since 1984.The provincial and federal governments have just given the green light to another LNG export terminal on BC’s north coast, one that will require construction of a second pipeline from the huge inland natural gas fields shared by northern BC and Alberta.LNG was a centrepiece of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s effort to kick-start his promised industrial building boom. He chose five projects that have largely passed the point of needing a “special projects office” to get them approved, one of them being LNG Canada’s second phase..EDITORIAL: Alberta’s bold stand: Citizenship markers on provincial IDs and the defence of provincial rights .Then within hours of each other on Monday, the BC Environmental Assessment Office and the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada issued permission for Ksi Lisims LNG to go ahead. That revives a gas pipeline route that was approved for the Petronas-led LNG plant near Prince Rupert a decade ago, then abandoned for a new Shell-led partnership now in operation as LNG Canada at Kitimat.This announcement was timed to provide a sense of momentum for Carney’s building program, along with the new federal housing corporation that was announced on the weekend. Both are premature, lacking detail and politically timed for the resumption of Parliament..A joint venture with the Nisga’a Nation and two private companies, Ksi Lisims is an attractive poster child for Carney’s plan. The Ksi Lisims announcement comes on the 25th anniversary of the Nisga’a Treaty, the first treaty in Canada’s modern history. The plant site is within the treaty lands formalized in that agreement, not in some contested territory. It will use electricity, not gas, for processing.And with a second pipeline to supply a floating LNG processing plant, it would be capable of producing nearly as much as LNG Canada phase one..BERNARDO: Criminals in the castle.But remember, this is a green light, Canadian style. The federal nod allows the project to “move to the next stage of seeking permits and authorization,” says a news release from Julie Dabrusin, Carney’s new Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Presumably, the new Calgary-based special projects office can help stick-handle through the rest of the bureaucracy.More permits aren’t the key obstacles to this project. As BC Premier David Eby noted at a ceremony in Vancouver on Tuesday, the Nisga’a and their corporate partners, Rockies LNG Limited Partnership and Western LNG Limited Liability Company, still have to decide if it will be financed..The province’s decision lists 23 conditions for proceeding, including a “gender and cultural safety plan” to be updated annually. And while the Ksi Lisims floating plant is proposed for undisputed territory, the same can’t be said for the pipeline route.On that, the BC Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) consulted with 10 different groups..EDITORIAL: Afraid to speak: Canada’s quiet majority is biting its tongue.“Participating Indigenous Nations were Gitga’at, Gitxaala, Kitselas, Kitsumkalum, Lax Kw’alaams, and Metlakatla, which had the opportunity to provide consent or lack of consent for the project,” the EAO said in a statement on Monday.“Gitga’at and Kitselas issued notices of consent for the project, and the EAO participated in dispute resolution with Lax Kw’alaams and Metlakatla, which did not consent. Kitsumkalum did not consent. Gitxalaa did not provide a notice regarding consent. Throughout the assessment, the EAO also consulted with Nisga’a Lisims Government as a treaty partner, and Haida Nation and Gitanyow and Gitxsan hereditary chiefs.”.This gives you the flavour of what’s involved in any kind of pipeline talks here in BC. A province that has committed itself to the UN indigenous rights goal of “free, prior, and informed consent” now faces a crucial project with at least four elected councils who haven’t consented, plus hereditary chiefs who may not agree with them when they do.And as we saw with the long battle over the Coastal GasLink pipeline supplying LNG Canada, local environmental organizations have aligned themselves with province-wide and international campaigners to try to block this project..EDITORIAL: Teachers who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination forfeit their right to teach .Leading the way is Ecojustice, formerly known as the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, to provide court challenges and legal hurdles. Joining them is the (formerly Western Canada) Wilderness Committee, which has shifted from its traditional anti-logging base to climate change. It warns that Ksi Lisims would “trample our communities and torch our climate goals.”Completing the vertically integrated protest ecosystem is the local group Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, which asserts that the province is “handing billions in taxpayer dollars to foreign-owned LNG companies” and “prioritizing American billionaires over the people who live here.”These billionaires are not identified, but this is a taste of the political climate awaiting anyone considering major investment in Western Canada.Tom Fletcher grew up in the Peace River region and has covered BC politics and business as a journalist since 1984. He lives in Victoria.X: @tomfletcherbc
