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Council of Canadians opposes LNG agenda in British Columbia

LNG

The Council of Canadians is opposed to the building of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminals and pipelines in British Columbia. There are currently 18 LNG terminals proposed to be constructed on the BC coastline along with numerous pipelines that would supply them with fracked gas.

– If just five of these LNG terminals were to be built, the facilities would release 13 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. The fracking and transport of the gas would generate an additional 15 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

– The gas needed for five of these LNG terminals would also require an estimated 582 billion litres of water from BC’s rivers, lakes and streams. And just five LNG terminals could require an estimated 39,000 new wells by 2040, the majority of which would likely be fracked.

– There are also serious safety concerns about the hundreds of tankers that would be transporting LNG on the Pacific Ocean with the building of even just a few LNG terminals. The risk of explosions on these carriers has led numerous U.S. cities to ban LNG tankers in their waters, just as West Vancouver recently voted to do.

– Numerous first Nations have expressed their opposition to these terminals and pipelines, including the Gitanyow First Nation, the Wet’suwet’en Tsayu Clan, the Lake Babine Nation, the Gitxsan land defenders and the Gitxsan hereditary chiefs Luutkudziiwus Xsim Wits’iin and Noola, the Unis’tot’en, as well as grassroots members of the Nisga’a Nation.

– And the provincial government had promised the LNG industry would generate as much as $100 billion in tax revenue over the next thirty years. But now that the industry won the corporate-friendly tax structure it sought, the finance minister is vague about tax revenues.

To oppose LNGs in BC, we:


  • organized the LNG Pipedreams, Fractured Futures and Community Resistance counter-summit in Vancouver

  • co-sponsored the LNG and Petro-State Politics event in Squamish

  • have spoken at public forum in communities including Ladner, Powell River and Courtenay

  • supported the Gitxsan land defenders who oppose the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline

  • worked with the Unis’tot’en action camp that opposes the Pacific Trail pipeline

  • are planning additional public events in Campbell River, Nanaimo and hopefully Port Alberni.

We are also supporting our chapters in their campaigns against LNG facilities near their communities, including in Delta-Richmond (where WesPac Midstream LLC wants to build a new LNG port and FortisBC plans to expand its Tilbury facility), Campbell River (where Quicksilver Resources wants their Discovery LNG export terminal) and the Vancouver, Nanaimo, Comox Valley and Victoria chapters which are all situated on the Strait of Georgia where the LNG would be transported in massive tankers.

We believe that a ban on the development of LNG terminals and pipelines is necessary in order to respect Indigenous rights, limit greenhouse gas emissions, defend the province’s freshwater sources, protect wild salmon, and protect communities and the coastline. The Council of Canadians has already called for a cross-country ban on fracking given its impacts on climate, water and communities. We stand with First Nations and non-First Nations communities across the province – from Squamish to Hazelton, Fort Nelson to Vancouver Island – that are concerned about the LNG agenda.