Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent appointment of eco-warrior Steven Guilbeault to the environment portfolio struck me as a boost to the renewed protests in British Columbia’s Wet’suwet’en territory against the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline (CGL).
CGL’s pipeline is, in youth’s crude parlance, a big freaking $6.6-billion project. More than half complete, by 2023, the pipe will run 670 kilometres from northeast B.C. to Kitimat on the West Coast, where LNG Canada is building an $18-billion terminal.
Export of the low-emission liquefied natural gas to Asia, which is being used to replace high-emission coal-fired generators, should begin in early 2025.
The project is an economic bonanza for everyone: billions in royalties to government over the Kitimat plant’s projected 40-year life; employment for thousands of Indigenous people; First Nations benefits agreements to fund new housing, skills training and cultural resources, not to mention $2.7 billion already awarded to First Nations and other locally owned businesses.