The average home in British Columbia uses around 10,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year.

There are approximately 2.2 million homes in B.C. This means the province needs to make sure the grid has enough energy to supply about 22 billion kilowatt hours every year to keep those homes warm and the lights on.

And that’s just for homes. It doesn’t include all the electricity needed for industry, businesses and a rapidly expanding electric-vehicle market.

In B.C., the average resident pays around $100 a month for electricity, roughly $1,200 per year for those 10,000 kilowatt hours.

Residential rates just went up on April 1, when BC Hydro increased its rates by 3.75 per cent. That’s partly to start paying off some of the sunk costs the government has already invested in building new power infrastructure. 

Electricity demand is only going to rise over the coming decades, as B.C. tries to reduce its use of fossil fuels while also bringing a whole lot of industrial projects onto the grid.

So where will all this energy come from, where is it going — and who will pay for it? There’s much we don’t know (yet) but here’s what we do.

First, let’s clear up a couple of things about the units of measurement — because utility companies use a variety of terms to describe electricity generation, output and consumption.

Kilowatts, megawatts and gigawatts represent an amount of power, at a single point in time. 

1,000 kilowatts is one megawatt. And 1,000 megawatts is one gigawatt.

Add the word “hours” to the end of any of those units and it describes how much of that power gets used up (or is generated) over time. Kilowatt hours is the unit most British Columbians will encounter, on their monthly bills, so while the others are useful to know we’ll stick to that measurement as much as possible.

Take a fridge, for example. If yours sucks up about 200 watts per hour (a large, older fridge might use twice as much) that means you’ll use around 1,750 kilowatt hours per year to keep the milk fresh. To meet the demand of millions of fridges, power producers need to make sure they have enough capacity to send all that electricity across the province every day. 

Ensuring there’s enough electricity to go around is getting expensive for the B.C. government — and the taxpayers that fund it.

B.C.’s newest source of hydroelectricity, the Site C dam, produces about 5,100 gigawatt hours (GWh) per year, or 5.7 billion kilowatt hours. It added about eight per cent more power to the province’s existing grid.

Site C cost around $16 billion.

Site C added about eight per cent more power generation, or 5,100 gigawatt hours (GWh), to the provincial grid. Graph: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal

BC Hydro doesn’t expect to pay off the costs of building Site C until 2094, 70 years after the project began producing electricity.

Now, the province is planning to invest at least $6 billion to build the first two phases of the North Coast Transmission Line, a network of around 450 kilometres of high-voltage power lines spanning the northwest. The B.C. government says it is building the line to “enable development” of mining and LNG projects. A third phase is proposed, for power lines heading north to service mines and Ksi Lisims LNG. If that happens, the final cost for the transmission network could rival Site C.

LNG Canada, under construction in Kitimat, B.C., in 2023. Photo: Marty Clemens / The Narwhal

To state the obvious: this is a lot of public money. It’s hard to grasp just how big these numbers are. Understanding the difference between one million and one billion, expressed in time, might help. 

One million seconds is about 11.5 days. One billion seconds is more than 30 years.

So when the estimated cost of the first two phases of the North Coast Transmission Line doubled from $3 billion to $6 billion in 2025, that’s like jumping from 90 years to 180 years.

On top of infrastructure investments like Site C and the transmission lines, B.C. spends public money enticing private companies to build big industrial projects. Those subsidies are eventually reflected in residential utility bills — and in other ways across the economy. 

Take the push to grow the province’s LNG industry. Last year, the B.C. government coughed up $200 million to connect Cedar LNG, a liquefaction and export facility being built in Kitimat, to the grid.

Or take LNG Canada, the country’s first major liquefaction and export facility, also in Kitimat. It received a suite of subsidies, including reduced rates for the small amount of hydroelectricity it uses, as well as tax credits and an exemption from B.C.’s industrial carbon tax for the first two years of operations. Between the provincial and federal governments, public investments in LNG Canada are estimated to be almost $4 billion.

In the years ahead, homes and businesses in B.C. are going to need more power. BC Hydro predicts annual demand for electricity is likely to climb from 58,400 gigawatt hours in 2025 to more than 87,600 gigawatt hours by 2050. These amounts are way too big to wrap your head around if we convert them to kilowatt hours, but let’s just say it’s a lot.

BC Hydro predicts annual demand will rise by around 50 per cent over the next two decades. Graph: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal

The more things we need to plug into the grid, the more power the grid needs to be able to deliver. The sooner we plug things in, the faster BC Hydro has to find ways to meet that demand.

Electricity demand in B.C. could rise even faster if the province prioritizes providing power to industries, which are eager to portray their products as “clean” or “green” in an increasingly climate-conscious market. LNG facilities that plan to power their operations with B.C.’s electricity are already advertising their products as “low carbon” and “net zero.”

B.C.’s history of abundant, cheap and low-emission electricity has been hailed as one reason the province is well-positioned to supply LNG to countries like South Korea and Japan.

But liquefying natural gas requires an enormous amount of energy. As a liquid, methane takes up a fraction of the space that it does as a gas, making it viable for transport overseas. That process requires not just chilling the gas, but supercooling it, which LNG Canada does by burning gas to power massive turbines. But other approved facilities, like Ksi Lisims LNG and the aforementioned Cedar LNG, want to use electricity instead. Hence, the new power line with a multi-billion dollar price tag.

So how much power does all this industrial infrastructure need?Well, Ksi Lisims, a floating LNG facility proposed for B.C.’s North Coast requested the equivalent of around 5,200 gigawatt hours, or 5.2 billion kilowatt hours, from BC Hydro.

That’s more than the electricity output of the Site C dam potentially going to power just one project.

The Site C dam near Fort St. John, B.C. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Cedar LNG expects to use up to 1,800 gigawatt hours, or 1.8 billion kilowatt hours.

Powering just those two LNG projects could use up to the equivalent electricity that would keep power flowing to 700,000 homes.

Providing electricity to just two LNG projects would use up all of Site C’s power, or more than the equivalent energy used by more than 500,000 average homes. Graph: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal

All that electricity isn’t free, of course. But it is cheaper for industrial users. Residential customers currently pay $118.70 for the first 670 kilowatt hours they use in a month.

That climbs to around $140 for each additional 1,000 kilowatt hours. Small businesses pay about the same as heavy-use households. 

But for larger businesses it’s the opposite: the more they use, the less they pay.

Large industrial customers — consumers that use more than 550,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year — pay $67.90 per 1,000 kilowatt hours, slightly over half the residential rate.

So what does all this mean for the average British Columbian?

Well, to keep the lights on in homes across the province over the coming decades, B.C. will continue to build out more power capacity. It will also keep trying to find ways to use industrial revenues to balance the government’s budget, so homeowners don’t have to pay (much) more per kilowatt hour consumed. But the province is up against the clock — and a moving target. 

Less than six months after releasing a new forecast for electricity demand, BC Hydro now anticipates needing to supply an additional 2.7 billion kilowatt hours to its customers. The LNG industry is identified as a driving force behind that increase.

A flare stack at the LNG Canada facility in Kitimat, B.C. Photo: Marty Clemens / The Narwhal

Because B.C. relies heavily on hydroelectric dams, the province’s ability to meet demand with power produced domestically is subject to droughts. When this happens, the province imports electricity from its neighbours, including Alberta.

Whether on monthly bills or in other ways spread out across the economy, taxpayers are paying for provincial support of massive industrial projects, including the push to get those projects on the grid. Those hidden costs could eventually surface on utility bills or through cuts to other government services.

Either way, future British Columbians will pay for decisions made today about how to make sure all that electricity keeps flowing through the wires.

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Avi Bryant grew up in a middle-class neighbourhood in Vancouver. By the time he was 30, he was well on his way to becoming a millionaire. 

He calls his path “sheer luck” — but it’s more nuanced than that. Bryant got lucky, sure, meeting the right kinds of friends and acquaintances (executives at Twitter, for example) at the right times. He also made good business and financial choices, including taking stock options in lieu of some of his pay while at Stripe, that eventually propelled him into the so-called one per cent.

Now, instead of kicking back and sipping martinis with the economic elite, he’s joined a growing chorus of wealthy individuals calling for nations to stop catering to the ultra-rich. In fact, he says, Canada needs to tax the rich more — a lot more.

Doing so could change the lives of all Canadians, he says, and help the country accelerate its transition away from fossil fuels. With more tax dollars at its disposal, the federal government would be in a position to make major investments in electrification, solar projects and more. 

Enter the Patriotic Millionaires, a newly registered federal lobbying group that Bryant belongs to, which is advocating for changes to the country’s tax regime. 

From his home on Galiano Island, B.C., Bryant told The Narwhal why he believes Canada needs to target its wealthiest citizens, and some of what it can do with the proceeds.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you tell us about yourself? Did you grow up wealthy?

We were kind of typical middle class. I certainly did not grow up in a wealthy household. At the same time, I grew up in what felt like a very privileged household where there was lots of education, lots of books around, lots of support, a very safe neighbourhood with lots of resources. I didn’t grow up in anything that felt like poverty or lack of privilege, but it certainly was not wealth. 

I ended up doing a computer science degree at [the University of British Columbia] and got into the tech world after graduating, starting a small company in Vancouver. We’re talking early 2000s, kind of post dot-com bust. I made a lot of connections with a lot of people who turned out to be useful people to know. In 2010, we ended up selling the company to Twitter, which was starting out at that time. That considerably changed our financial situation. It also meant that we moved down to San Francisco for a couple of years and made a lot more connections.

Avi Bryant made millions as an early investor and employee at Stripe. Now, he lives near Vancouver and advocates for higher taxes on high earners and people with wealth. That extra revenue could help drive a transition to clean energy, he argues. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Someone who I had met in Vancouver, in those early startup days, I got to know a lot better when we were in San Francisco: Patrick Collison, who started a company called Stripe. I joined Stripe in early 2013, when that company was still, again, very small. I mean, it was 40 people or something at that point. That company then grew to be thousands of people and worth hundreds of billions of dollars. As an early employee, I had effectively been an early investor and that was just sheer luck. There was no way to predict that my tiny percentage of Stripe was going to end up being worth a large amount of money. 

I left Stripe in 2019, feeling like [my wife and I] had this responsibility to do something with our time and resources that was not just motivated by profit and commerce, that was more about having an impact on the world.

Why do you want to be taxed more?

Society is better off if everyone has their basic needs met and I see that as a function of government. Obviously, Canada has lots of social services … but I believe the government can and should be doing more — and that’s going to require more money. I think the obvious place to get that money is from taxing people who have a lot of it. 

[It’s] about the marginal utility of money: if you’re living on $20,000 a year and you lose 10 per cent of that, you’re losing $2,000 — that’s a big deal. If you’re living on $3 million a year and you lose 10 per cent of that, you’re down $300,000. So what? It’s not going to change your lifestyle. 

We do have progressive taxation. We increase the percentage you’re taxed as you make more, but the top bracket starts at around $260,000. So we don’t distinguish between someone who’s making a quarter-million a year and someone making $2.5 million a year, or $25 million a year. Those situations are very different.

From my point of view, there’s an obvious opportunity to increase taxes on the people who are making millions of dollars a year. There’s also an opportunity to increase taxes on people who hold scarce, valuable resources. Land is the obvious one here. If we’re using land so someone can have a beautiful, 200-acre waterfront estate … I mean, fine, but let’s tax the shit out of it.

I think we have an opportunity to do that without particularly changing people’s lifestyles. It’s not going to make them move out of the country. That’s just not going to happen. They’re here because they want to be here. I’m here because I want to be here. I can afford to pay a lot more in tax than I do without changing my lifestyle and that money can be used to improve the lives of other Canadians.

You touched on the typical argument against this idea: if Canada puts those things into place — vacation home taxes and other types of taxes targeting the wealthy — then those people will just take their money and go elsewhere. What would you say to that?

The only other thing I would say is good riddance. Ultimately, for the handful of people who’d say, “If you raise taxes on the wealthy, I’m going to move to Barbados,” — it’s like, okay, fine. Like: bye Felicia.

Bryant dismisses the argument that wealthy people will leave Canada if taxes go higher. Canada “is the best place to be living,” he says. “And that’s true whatever the tax rate is.” Photo: Tim Smith / The Narwhal

Canada is a wonderful place to live. I could live anywhere I want. This is where my family chooses to live, because we truly believe that this is the best place to be living. And that’s true whatever the tax rate is.

Do you think this proposition, that the government adjust its tax systems, would create benefits for climate and ecosystem health?

One of the functions of government is to do large-scale investment, often infrastructure investment. I think climate is one area we can and should be making large-scale investments. We should be taking a page from China’s book and building very large-scale solar power plants to shift load away from fossil fuel plants. We should be investing in more efficient transportation, like train networks. We should be electrifying as quickly as we can — because we have to.

“Electric cars have been successful,” Bryant says. “But trucking, marine, aviation … These are all things that currently depend heavily on fossil fuels.” Photo: Jimmy Jeong / The Narwhal

The key climate fight here is we know how to transition our electrical production off of fossil fuels. But we also need to shift the demand for things that are currently not electric to electric — and transportation is a big piece of that. Obviously, electric cars have been successful. But trucking, marine, aviation … These are all things that currently depend heavily on fossil fuels. I very much see that as a government function, making investments in shifting those loads from fossil fuel to electricity.

So by taxing the rich, you add more money into the government’s capability to invest in infrastructure — which it can allocate as subsidies and investments to support climate mitigation projects?

Exactly. I think we should be taxing the rich and we should be using that money to invest in, broadly speaking, electrification projects. From a climate point of view, I think that’s the best thing we can be doing — and just doing everything we can to move off of oil. Alberta is going to fight us tooth and nail, but let’s find a way to transition that economy to a renewable economy. If we have to sink a lot of federal money into it, that’s worth doing, because our dependence on fossil fuels is bad for everyone.

In 2025, renewable energy met 9.7 per cent of Canada’s total electricity demand, according to the Canadian Renewable Energy Association. Photo: Aaron Hemens / The Narwhal

Do you think philanthropy plays a role in solving these bigger existential problems?

I do. With the government, we’re kind of entrusting all of our collective money and the government, as a result, tends to be quite risk-averse. The government doesn’t want to put a lot of capital into something that might fail and they get blamed and they won’t get re-elected or whatever. I think that caution is actually quite appropriate with public money, but at the same time when they do decide it’s worth doing something, they can do it on a very large scale. 

I think philanthropy can be the other side of that coin, which is to say individual philanthropists can take risks with their money and explore ideas that are not as proven. And then, hopefully, having proved some of them right, the government can come in and scale that up. So I think that’s worthwhile. That said, does that philanthropy need to be tax deductible? I don’t really think so.

Who are the Patriotic Millionaires?

Patriotic Millionaires is an organization that began in the U.S. It’s a very focused advocacy organization of people who have wealth who are asking for higher taxes on people who are wealthy. [They] opened a sort of sister organization in the U.K. and last year opened a Patriotic Millionaires in Canada. My wife and I are both members and she is now on the board.

I can see some opposition from powerful minorities, but I think most people can get behind the idea of everyone paying a fair share.

And yet the capital gains exclusion that was on the table for former prime minister Justin Trudeau came off with Prime Minister Mark Carney. Speaking for myself, not the organization, we need to understand why that is. It seems to me the loud minority won that fight. I don’t understand the politics there, but I think that in order to figure out what to do next, we need to understand.

Prime Minister Mark Carney backpedalled on his predecessor’s proposal to increase the capital gains inclusion rate, arguing that Canada needed to incentivize business investment and ensure entrepreneurs are rewarded for taking risks. Photo: Kamara Morozuk / The Narwhal

I was listening to a podcast on fashion, of all things, about tariffs and the economy and this idea that we need to tax the wealthy more. They put it in this framing of “join us.” 

Like, “You guys are off in this little corner and having to hide your money and put it in all these different places and do these different things to avoid being like the rest of us. Come be like the rest of us; join us.” I’m curious for your thoughts on that.

One part of our story is that wealth was a relatively new thing for us and there was a period of a few years where we were really trying to hide from our friends and neighbours how wealthy we were. There’s kind of a social norm there, right? You don’t talk about money. And the dissonance there was so hard.

It feels so much better to be much more open about this with people — and, yeah, to join them. We live on Galiano Island: it’s a small community, it’s a tight community. It’s much better to have those close relationships with people in honesty and solidarity.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This investigation is a collaboration between The Narwhal and Point Source, a U.K.-based investigative journalism organization.

Summary

• LNG Canada burned 350 million cubic metres of gas in 2025, more than the estimated highest source of LNG flaring emissions in the world in 2024.
• The high levels of flaring call into question environmental claims made about the facility, which government officials have repeatedly said produces the cleanest LNG in the world. 
• Ongoing problems at the plant, which hopes to double production by building a second phase, could persist for three to five years.

An LNG facility in Western Canada burned more gas in 2025 than any other liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility on record in 2024, raising concerns about Canada’s claim it’s producing the cleanest LNG in the world. 

Burning excess methane gas, or flaring, is a normal safety procedure at liquefaction facilities. It releases greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide as well as emitting dangerous pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and small particulate matter, which affect human health. The LNG Canada facility in British Columbia flared 350 million cubic metres of gas in 2025, according to figures submitted to the provincial regulator and analyzed by The Narwhal in partnership with U.K.-based journalism organization Point Source. That means Canada’s first major LNG facility is one of the highest sources of LNG flaring emissions globally.

The flaring volumes reported by LNG Canada to the regulator are around 50 per cent higher than estimates for the world’s most polluting LNG export terminals in 2024, according to data that was used as the basis for the World Bank’s most recent Global Gas Tracker report.

The data was published by the Earth Observation Group at the Colorado School of Mines, a research team that specializes in producing nighttime satellite imagery to track gas flaring.

According to the group’s estimates, Nigeria’s Bonny Island LNG terminal was the highest-flaring facility of 2024. It burned an estimated 234.4 million cubic metres of gas, closely followed by the Arzew-Bethioua terminal in Algeria, which burned 233 million cubic metres.

Global flaring data from LNG facilities operating in 2025 have not yet been published but the Canadian facility will be among the world’s top sources of flaring at LNG terminals, according to Mikhail Zhizhin, a researcher at the Payne Institute for Public Policy in Colorado. Zhizhin was instrumental in the development of technology to monitor gas flaring from space.

“If the flaring data that has been supplied by LNG Canada to the regulator is accurate, it puts the facility amongst the highest flaring LNG facilities in the world,” Zhizhin said in an interview.

In an emailed statement, LNG Canada attributed the flaring to the facility being at an early phase and said it will be infrequent during normal operations.

The high volume of flaring from the $40-billion Canada-based facility raises new questions about ongoing problems with some of the terminal’s key mechanical components — and concerns about what it could mean for the local community, Kitimat, B.C. 

According to government data, LNG Canada flared a minimum of 127,900 cubic metres of gas every day in 2025, with the daily average being much higher: almost one million cubic metres. The worst month for flaring was June 2025, when the facility burned almost 110 million cubic metres. The data show 3,648 million cubic metres of gas were sent to LNG Canada last year, meaning almost 10 per cent of all gas transported to the terminal was burned off without being used for power or exported.

“This is definitely high,” Christopher Doleman, an LNG and gas specialist at the U.S.-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said. “Proponents may argue that it is regular during commissioning, but the several instances of unplanned flaring by the company suggest that this is out of the ordinary.”

Some of those unplanned flaring events included flames reaching heights of 90 metres, roughly the size of London’s Big Ben, along with plumes of black smoke settling over the community.

The town of Kitimat, British Columbia, where the LNG Canada facility was built, is home to around 8,000 people. Photo: Marty Clemens / The Narwhal

The export plant sent its first shipment of LNG overseas on June 30, 2025.

Flaring at LNG Canada has consistently exceeded allowable amounts permitted by the provincial government. According to the regulator, LNG Canada — owned by Royal Dutch Shell, Petronas, Korea Gas, PetroChina and Mitsubishi — has been flaring at levels that are “not consistent” with government permits, meaning the facility has been breaking provincial regulations for several months.

In January, The Narwhal revealed an “integrity issue” with the facility’s flaring equipment resulted in LNG Canada burning significantly more gas than expected — and it could take three to five years to fix. The issue was identified shortly after the LNG plant started testing its equipment in late 2024, but the government regulator did not learn about the problem until April 2025. 

Company officials have since met with local politicians but have failed to provide the public with details of why the issue might take so long to fix.

LNG Canada declined to answer this question, though the spokesperson said “we continue to tune the equipment to real-world conditions.”

“In normal operations at LNG Canada flaring will be related to infrequent activities such as maintenance, planned turnarounds and facility upsets,” the spokesperson wrote.

‘Completely untrue’: experts question environmental claims about Canadian LNG

Analysts believe the high flaring levels at LNG Canada raise serious questions about environmental claims that have been made about the facility.

Last summer, the premier of British Columbia, David Eby, said gas processed at the Kitimat terminal is the “lowest-carbon LNG in the world.”

Discussing why energy-importing countries would benefit from purchasing fuel processed at the facility, he said: “They should be using Canadian LNG that’s produced ethically, that promotes environmental protection, as well as high-quality labour standards and safety standards.”

Shell CEO Wael Sawan similarly said last year that LNG Canada would be “one of the lowest carbon projects anywhere in the world.”

Speaking in India in March, Prime Minister Mark Carney said: “Canada is well-positioned to contribute as a reliable supplier of the world’s lowest-carbon, responsibly-produced LNG from our West Coast.” 

Eby declined an interview request and did not respond to questions about the current state of the facility. Shell did not respond to questions. Carney also declined an interview request and referred questions to the federal Energy Ministry, which did not respond by publication time.

Doleman said the new information calls these environmental claims into question. 

“This flaring data undermines the claims that are being made about the facility producing low-carbon LNG,” he said in an interview. “Statements that have been made by officials saying that the LNG is the cleanest in the world now seem to be completely untrue.”

LNG Canada said high levels of flaring are normal during the start-up phase of a project of this type. The spokesperson said air quality data recorded in Kitimat show levels of nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide remained “consistently low” in 2025.

“LNG Canada continues to prioritize the safety of its people, the community and its assets, to support safe and responsible operations,” the spokesperson wrote.

Construction of the $40-billion LNG terminal took around five years, connecting British Columbia shale gas reserves to pan-Pacific shipping routes. The first shipment left the Canadian facility on June 30, 2025. Photo: Marty Clemens / The Narwhal

There is significant uncertainty about the true volumes of global gas flaring due to the difficulty of measuring emissions via satellite. Recent research by the Colorado School of Mines has suggested the true levels of flaring from the world’s LNG facilities may be significantly higher than previously estimated, Zhizhin said.

The fact that LNG Canada flared a significant volume of gas every single day in 2025 is unusual, according to researchers. A peer-reviewed paper published last September found LNG terminals in a start-up phase have a 90 per cent chance of flaring less than six days a year and only a 10 per cent chance of flaring for as many as 255 days in a single year.

Laura Minet, lead author of the paper and head of the Clean Air Lab at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, explained “the probabilities are based on what has been happening in other facilities around the world between 2012 and 2022.” She said the frequency of flaring at LNG Canada does not appear to be typical, especially compared to LNG facilities that have moved from commissioning into regular operations. But, she said, because companies around the world aren’t required to track how much gas is flared, getting accurate data can be challenging.

“The fact that LNG Canada is saying the technical issue is going to take three years to fix is concerning,” Minet added. “It raises questions over what is getting prioritized and where the likely environmental and health impacts from this pollution fit into those priorities.”

Doleman agreed.

“The operators and project proponents should tell people why this plant is flaring so much and tell them exactly how they are going to address this issue,” he said.

LNG markets subject to instability as U.S.-Israel war on Iran continues

The ongoing global energy crisis in the wake of the U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran in late February has seen the price of LNG more than double for some importers and led to windfall profits for some exporters. 

A second phase of the LNG Canada project, which would double output from the plant, was recently given federal support and placed on a list of projects deemed to be of national importance. The consortium of companies behind the facility are actively seeking investment in the expansion.

The U.S. is currently the world’s largest LNG exporter, followed by Australia and Qatar. Geopolitical instability caused by the war in the Middle East — which saw Qatar halt LNG production in March — could influence importing countries like South Korea and Japan as they balance energy needs.

However, the current wave of high prices could have lasting impacts on demand for LNG as importing nations look to cheaper alternatives, Doleman said. Recently, a planned LNG import terminal in China was cancelled by state-owned Sinopec, which reallocated its investments to the development of domestic gas reserves. In New Zealand, plans for an import terminal are being reconsidered as the country’s government weighs the financial risks. 

“The current high price environment is killing long-term demand for LNG around the world and it is going to be interesting to see how things pan out for the [Canadian] facility over the coming years,” Doleman said.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Summary

• Alaska-caught salmon are more likely to be found in B.C. grocery stores than salmon caught in-province, partly because the Alaskan fishery is so much bigger than B.C.’s.
• Alaskan fisheries have also been more successful at obtaining certification as sustainable operations, even though some experts claim Alaskan fisheries are depleting salmon populations.
• Indigenous fisheries in B.C., such as the one owned and operated by Lake Babine Nation, prioritize sustainable harvests, and their products can still be purchased — though maybe with a little extra effort.

We’re trying out staff-written summaries. Did you find this useful? YesNo

Walk into a grocery store in British Columbia and you’ll likely see bright red sockeye salmon for sale, one of the province’s most iconic foods. You might assume the sockeye was caught fresh in B.C. — but it’s far more likely the fish was caught by Alaskan fisheries, and frozen before it reached this store.

Buying Canadian products is a top priority for many people, especially in the face of U.S. tariffs and annexation threats. Some Canadian conservation groups argue Alaska fisheries are unsustainable. So why is salmon from Alaska so much more common? 

A major challenge is volume: Alaska caught 194.8 million salmon in 2025 and 103.5 million in 2024. Some of those salmon would have spawned in B.C., Washington and Oregon — though it’s hard to say exactly how many of those would have returned to B.C. specifically. The catch includes all five species of wild Pacific salmon: sockeye, coho, Chinook, chum and pink. 

Meanwhile, B.C. caught 2.9 million salmon in 2025 and 2.4 million in 2024. 

Those are just commercially caught and retained salmon. Critics are concerned about how many fish are caught in commercial bycatch — those unintentionally caught while targeting other species. Recreational fisheries have an impact, too; catch-and-release can kill significant numbers of fish.

A Lake Babine Nation fisher loads freshly caught salmon into a community member’s truck at Lake Babine’s fish counting fence.

Alaska’s salmon fisheries also have something B.C. salmon fisheries don’t: a globally recognized certification that tells stores and consumers its fish are caught sustainably. The Marine Stewardship Council certification faces some criticisms from conservation groups, but having it helps get fish on shelves and into shopping baskets.

So, why don’t B.C. salmon fisheries have it? How do we find B.C. salmon in stores, and how could there be more of it? What’s the most sustainable? Read on.

Why does Alaska have a leg-up on B.C. in selling salmon?

Alaska catches more salmon, which means it can sell them for less. Smaller fisheries pay more to process and ship fish to the store. The sheer volume also means frozen Alaska-caught salmon is available all year.

Big grocery stores “don’t necessarily care about the story,” Brittany Matthews, chief executive officer of Talok Fisheries in central B.C., says. “Price is going to win every time.” And Talok, owned and operated by Lake Babine Nation, can’t compete on price alone. “That’s what we’re fighting with, to add that care, to add that story, to add the power of an Indigenous product on the shelves and make people think about it versus just grabbing the Alaska fillet,” Matthews says.

And Alaska’s Marine Stewardship Council certification can act as a golden ticket, selling the message to stores and consumers that the fish is sustainably caught. “Major retailers, almost bar none, want [that] certification,” Greg Taylor, fisheries advisor to Talok, explains.

Fish caught by Lake Babine Nation ready for processing.

The Marine Stewardship Council says, globally, fisheries responsible for 19 per cent of the world’s total marine catch have its certification. Getting it requires fisheries to go through a rigorous auditing process.

Due to climate change, forestry and overfishing, B.C. salmon fisheries “no longer produce the volumes to satisfy the Canadian market,” Taylor says.

The fact no B.C. salmon fisheries are certified “says a lot about how poorly our fisheries are managed,” Taylor argues.

Conservation groups have pointed out flaws in the Marine Stewardship Council certification program.

Smaller B.C. fisheries may choose not to take on the task and additional costs of meeting stringent reporting requirements — meaning they are less likely to be stocked in stores.

In 2019, the Canadian Pacific Sustainable Fisheries Society pulled the B.C. fisheries it represented out of the program, since it was likely to fail an upcoming audit, largely because of a lack of good data on the health and abundance of salmon.

Separately, conservation groups have argues the Marine Stewardship Council sometimes certifies unsustainable fisheries. In 2024, a group of Canadian conservation groups formally objected to Alaska salmon fisheries being recertified, but were unsuccessful. They argue that while Canada has been cutting down allowable salmon catch, Alaska is catching too many.

“Alaska’s indiscriminate harvest is preventing the recovery of vulnerable Chinook, chum, sockeye, coho and steelhead that are headed for Canada,” Aaron Hill, executive director of Watershed Watch Salmon Society, said in a statement about the objection.Misty MacDuffee, biologist and wild salmon program director with Raincoast Conservation Foundation, argues the Alaskan Chinook fishery “deprives endangered southern resident killer whales of their primary food source.”

A young grizzly fishes for salmon just below the Babine River counting fence.

Broadly, salmon are struggling. Lake Babine Nation paused its Ts’etzli food fishery in 2024 due to salmon struggling in shallow, warm water of the Babine River. “They’ve had a food fishery there for 8,000 years, and they stopped it two years ago because of climate change,” Taylor says.

Concerns about the Marine Stewardship Council’s certifications go beyond salmon: in March, the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition objected to the Marine Stewardship Council’s decision to recertify the Antarctic krill fishery.

The council’s Canada program director, Kurtis Hayne, says certifications are led by independent experts and include stakeholder input and peer review. The council itself does not lead assessments. Certification requirements include effective management and responsiveness to environmental conditions.

“We are confident in the credibility and outcomes of [our] assessment process,” he said in an emailed statement.

Where do these sustainability concerns about commercial practices come from in the first place?

In the open ocean, most commercial salmon is caught using purse seines and gillnets, which can scoop up non-targeted species, including from endangered stocks. Marine fisheries often catch salmon when they are still far away from their spawning grounds, and in B.C., operate on Canada’s best projections of what returns may be — but in reality, returns can be lower or higher than expected. If they’re lower, there’s no way to un-catch those fish.

Salmon have lost habitat due to development and are impacted by flooding, drought and warming water temperatures. Meanwhile, federal monitoring has declined, leaving spotty data for many populations.

Scientists and conservationists see the value in what First Nations have done for millennia: selectively fishing close to spawning grounds, a sustainable management practice called a terminal fishery. These in-river fisheries enable close monitoring of how many have returned to spawn.

Talok Fisheries, where Matthews is chief executive officer and Taylor is an advisor, is a terminal fishery that is preparing to apply for Marine Stewardship Council certification with support from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Matthews says.

“Indigenous-produced, sustainably harvested, selectively caught — they hit all the buttons to what a sustainable fishery should be,” Taylor says.

The council told The Narwhal the Quinsam River pink salmon in-river fishery has nearly finished its assessment to be certified as well.

So how can a B.C. fishery compete with Alaska?

Talok salmon is stocked at Costco, Sobeys and Thrifty Foods, thanks to its partnerships with distributors North Delta Seafoods and Premium Brands. It also sells fish through Authentic Indigenous Seafood, a collective that shares processing and shipment costs across Indigenous fisheries. These partnerships have been essential and gave Talok the chance to explain its selective practices, Taylor says.

Otherwise, “for small producers to get into Loblaws or Sobeys is next to impossible,” he says, because the fees are too high and it’s hard to compete with bigger fisheries that can beat them on pricing.

Talok is one of the biggest commercial sockeye operations in B.C., but it still relies on just a couple boats and a beach seine net hauled by the nation’s members who remove fish by hand traditionally. That means a smaller carbon footprint than a fleet of fishing vessels on the ocean, Taylor argues.

During roughly the first two weeks of the season, Talok sees the brightest red salmon. They “have beautiful meat colour early on in our lake harvest,” Matthews says. When processed for the store, they don’t have the “shiny silver skin” buyers love. Alaska “floods the market” with silver-skinned, whole fillets, and has ample fish caught early “before any other B.C. inland fisheries have the opportunity,” she explains. Top that with the price, grocery stores are “going to take the Alaska fish — hand over fish,” she says.

After two weeks at Talok, the fish gets paler. Matthews explains those pale fish are harder to sell to grocery stores but are great for smoking.

The paler fish are sold internationally to be processed into food like fish flakes. The roe from these fish is also good quality, but there’s a limited market for it in B.C., Taylor says.

Alaska’s Bristol Bay sockeye fishery, which is Alaska-origin, is the world’s largest sockeye run. “Even in weaker years, Alaska still dwarfs B.C.’s total output,” Matthews says, and that “sets the tone for pricing, market expectations and buyer relationships.” 

Meanwhile, B.C. has smaller, more variable runs, “chronic” conservation issues and time restrictions. “Markets hate inconsistency — Alaska offers the opposite,” she says.

At the Lake Babine Nation counting fence, people count each fish that goes by. Once a million salmon have passed the fence, the nation can begin fishing commercially.

Talok targets enhanced stocks, which are boosted through hatchery programs, not sensitive wild stocks. Those enhanced stocks return to specific spawning channels.

“If you reduce harvest rates on the coast, all those surplus fish end up at the spawning channels,” Taylor says. This means Talok can target different stocks appropriately, which is good for populations, and also efficient: “like shooting fish in a barrel.”

People count the fish passing the Babine fish fence. Once a million fish pass the fence, they get the green light to fish commercially. It’s prep, wait, then “fish like crazy” in the roughly four weeks they have, Matthews says. Last year they caught 191,872 salmon, according to Taylor.

“We will never fish until we know we have a healthy number to sustain the channels,” Matthews explains. Fisheries and Oceans Canada allows a specific number of these enhanced salmon to enter the spawning channels to maximize productivity in the habitat, and then closes a gate to the channel. Talok harvests fish still heading to that channel, which would have died with their spawn in them if they weren’t harvested. Matthews says the fishery leaves enough for the eagles, the bears and the river system while preventing too many from going to waste.

There’s some debate around spawning channels, since surplus stranded fish can affect productivity of the surrounding habitat. Taylor believes they ultimately should be removed, but it’s best to catch the surplus fish while they’re there. If removed, resources in those spawning channels, like flow control, could be directed to recovering wild streams instead, and Talok could catch a smaller yield.

So why do Alaska fisheries have this designation if B.C. fisheries have found it hard?

First is the capacity to meet monitoring and auditing requirements. Then comes the contention over whether the designation is applied fairly. Alaska and B.C. have interception fisheries, meaning they catch fish in the ocean before they reach their home waters in another country, not in their own jurisdiction. 

Alaska’s constitution requires fish to be maintained on a “sustained yield principle” in its own state, basically meaning “don’t deplete it.” But it allows a fishery to intercept fish returning to Canadian rivers where salmon stocks are experiencing depletion.

“It’s frustrating to see them wipe out the stocks that we have — and then also in the grocery store chain market, to compete against the Alaska fisheries is tough,” Matthews says.

Talok Fisheries tries to use as many fish as possible and reduce waste. Early season salmon are sold to stores for their bright red colour, and later salmon are great for smoking, Brittany Matthews says.

Taylor says “it’s appalling” for Alaska to apply a different standard to B.C. fish and the Marine Stewardship Council “is letting them get away with it.”

Though Taylor objects to this discrepancy he sees, he compliments Alaska for setting escapement goals for its own salmon stocks (meaning how many adults “escape” being caught and return to spawn). Most B.C. salmon stocks don’t have escapement goals. 

“You have to give Alaska credit for managing their own fishery. They do a much better job than Canada does — except when it comes to fishing our populations that are passing through their waters,” he says.

What does Alaska say?

Forrest Bowers, the Alaska Department of Fish & Game’s director of the division of commercial fisheries, says Alaska sells more fish partly because it has more salmon generally, and the vast majority of salmon caught spawn in Alaska. He agreed the Marine Stewardship Council certification helps get Alaska’s fish sold worldwide. He also points to the state’s escapement goals — the same ones Taylor commends — which prioritize sustaining populations into the future “over all other uses of salmon, including harvests.”

Bowers adds that Canada transferred allocation from commercial to recreational fisheries. In some parts of B.C., the recreational fishery catches more than the commercial.

In an emailed statement, Bowers said the cross-boundary fisheries are managed under the Pacific Salmon Treaty, and “a minute amount” of Alaska’s harvest would spawn outside the state. He says Alaska carefully monitors catches of Canadian-origin salmon to meet treaty requirements, “often forgoing harvest opportunity on our own stocks.”

Alaska’s commercial sector is made up of marine fisheries, though they can still be close to a river’s mouth. Pink and chum are its biggest catches. Bowers says in-river fisheries are not viable for Alaska because salmon spawn in thousands of waterways that aren’t connected by roads and would require airplane access.

“Attempting to harvest millions of pink and chum salmon in-river is not only impractical, but it would also lead to lower quality food products since pink and chum salmon sexually mature quickly in fresh water,” he says. He adds commercial operations in-river could lead to conflict with recreational and subsistence fisheries.

Salmon are integral to local economies, First Nations and non-Indigenous communities and habitats, Brittany Matthews points out.

How many Canada-origin fish is Alaska actually taking?

Taylor says the reality is “no one knows what that number is.” It takes several years to finalize annual estimates, and even then, specific numbers are difficult to obtain because they would require extensive genetic testing to be completely sure, he explains. Alaska gave The Narwhal a preliminary catch estimate of 260,000 B.C. salmon in 2025 (excluding some fisheries managed separately under the treaty) but said it doesn’t typically generate those estimates. Other observers think it could be much higher.

The Pacific Salmon Commission, which implements the treaty, told The Narwhal “there are no straightforward answers” in tallying a cumulative number of how many fish each nation intercepts from the other. Estimates of each salmon run are made separately because they “come with important caveats that make summing them together across fisheries and species problematic.”

What does Canada’s fisheries department say?

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (commonly called DFO) was not able to arrange an interview, despite repeated requests made several weeks in advance of publication. In a statement the department said it’s up to fisheries to apply for the Marine Stewardship Council certificate, but it supports applicants by providing data on stocks and compliance and explaining conservation measures.

The department says that while no B.C. salmon fisheries currently have the designation, B.C.’s groundfish trawl fishery has the certification for 16 groundfish species and the offshore hake and halibut fisheries are certified as well.

While the certification affects grocery store decisions, Fisheries and Oceans Canada says it “does not alter [the department’s] regulatory authority or consultation obligations.”

I want to support B.C.-caught salmon — what can I do?

Smaller, locally-owned shops may be more likely to carry B.C. salmon, and you can search and ask around for what B.C. fish is carried by bigger stores. You can find local fisheries in your area and see how you can support in-river operations. Fisheries and Oceans Canada responds to questions from civilians, and the Pacific Salmon Foundation and Pacific Salmon Commission have lots of public data so you can find out which stocks are doing well and which are struggling.

On the larger scale, protecting Pacific salmon relies heavily on co-operation between Canada and the U.S. The two countries signed an agreement in 2024 to suspend fishing of Yukon River Chinook for seven years, so such agreements are possible. Contacting your elected representative is one way to add your voice to the issue. You can also decide how you’re able to support local initiatives to restore salmon habitat and improve monitoring and share information among your peers.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Summary

• A tiny village in Newfoundland and Labrador could become the site of a major floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility
• Amid talk about exporting LNG from the east coast, some community members look to Kitimat, B.C., home to Canada’s first major LNG facility 
• Residents of the village of Fermeuse, home to about 300 people, may be tempted by the prospect of jobs but one Kitimat, B.C., resident warns: “The noise, pollution, traffic and burden on the infrastructure is not worth it”

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About an hour’s drive from St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, the little fishing village of Fermeuse sits on the shores of a deep harbour, sheltered from the tempestuous North Atlantic. Atop a hill overlooking the village, eight slow-turning turbines harvest energy from the nearly ever-present wind that flows from the open ocean. Generations of fishers have plied the waters off the coast, harvesting cod, crab and numerous other species.

More than 5,000 kilometres away, on the northwest coast of British Columbia, the town of Kitimat, B.C., is newly home to Canada’s first major liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility. LNG Canada started operations here last year, lighting up the night sky with its noisy and bright flare stack and welcoming a stream of supertankers to the deepwater channel that connects the community with pan-Pacific shipping routes. Years in the making, the LNG export project has undeniably changed life for those who live alongside it.

Fermeuse could be facing similar changes.

When the Atlantic cod fisheries collapsed in the 1990s — putting more than 35,000 people out of work across Newfoundland and Labrador — many left the village in search of good paying jobs, including in the province’s booming oil and gas sector. Now, as nearby offshore oil developments like Bay Du Nord get a boost from the federal government and the province eyes new revenues from the sector, the sleepy village of around 300 residents could become the focal point for an influx of new industry.

Once home to a thriving fishing industry, the village of Fermeuse, N.L., suffered severe economic downturn after the Atlantic cod fisheries collapsed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A smattering of fishers still call the harbour home, heading out every year from its protected waters to harvest crab and other species. Photos: Paul Daly / The Narwhal

Crown LNG Holdings Ltd., under the name of its Newfoundland affiliate, Fermeuse Energy, plans to develop a swath of the harbour to support several projects, possibly including a liquefied natural gas processing and export terminal. The company is approved for a marine base but has not yet submitted an official proposal for an LNG plant. In late January, Fermuese Energy signed an agreement with Hanwha Ocean, a South Korean shipbuilding company and expert in offshore facilities, to “jointly advance the Newfoundland and Labrador LNG development project in Canada.”  

“If the political will and the community support comes along, then we will move ahead with the project by the end of this year or next year,” Swapan Kataria, CEO of Crown LNG, told The Narwhal in an interview.

Valerie Walsh, whose family has lived in Fermeuse for generations, said many in the community are tempted by an idea that “our sons and daughters who moved away for work will maybe move back to Fermeuse” to build the LNG project.

“It’s a sought-after harbour,” she said, explaining it’s protected from the open water and safe for large boats. “It could be really rough in the North Atlantic, but boats can come in here and they’re protected.” 

But Walsh is worried residents will be seduced by industry without knowing what they’re really signing up for.

“I don’t know if it’s because the fishery collapse just took the wind out of everybody’s sails and they’re just waiting for the saviour to come along, which is oil and gas,” she mused. “[The company] can make it seem safe. They can make it seem a lot of things. I think this will be the end of the harbour and any natural thing for us. … There will be no whales coming in anymore, no puffins, no fishery, no boats, no anything.” 

“I don’t know that the community really understands it.”

Valerie Walsh fears the impact of building an LNG project in Fermeuse, N.L., would change life for residents of the area, including wildlife populations in and around the harbour. Photo: Paul Daly / The Narwhal

Details about the potential LNG project are vague, but the company has said plans could include a 380-kilometre pipeline along the ocean floor, trenched for part of that distance to protect it from icebergs, connecting untapped offshore gas reserves to the village. There, a floating liquefaction facility could supercool the gas, reducing its volume for marine transport to overseas destinations. Kataria said the facility, if built, would process and export up to 10 million tonnes of LNG per year. The company acknowledged an LNG project would bring change to the community and said if anything were to move ahead, public consultations and stakeholder engagements would be held.

“We are only approved for a marine base and I think it’s important to qualify that in order to avoid any future confusions,” Kataria said. “We are certainly there to service the offshore growth in the industry.” 

How the LNG project fits into the picture is that those same offshore areas are home to “a lot of gas reserves which nobody is going after,” he said. “We are connected with the industry, and we feel that there is gas which can be monetized.”

‘We don’t know what’s going to happen’: locals question how Fermeuse LNG would impact community

On the north coast of B.C., the massive LNG project was under construction for about five years, employing locals and flooding the community with thousands of out-of-town workers. It now employs around 300 people and will provide the community with $9.7 million in annual taxes for the first five years of operations.

Kitimat residents have experienced months of disruption to their daily lives since LNG Canada started flaring activities in late 2024. Flaring is the burning of excess or waste gas, a normal part of operating a liquefaction facility. In Kitimat, flaring has at times exceeded 90-metre-tall flames, about the height of London’s iconic Big Ben, in part due to an ongoing equipment issue. 

That causes light pollution, noise and emissions, as well as releases air pollution. Flaring at LNG facilities releases carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides, fine particulate matter and sulphur dioxide, all of which can have impacts on human health. For its part, LNG Canada in Kitimat says flaring is “safe, controlled and provincially regulated.” But that hasn’t stopped residents there from being concerned.

Flaring at LNG Canada, in Kitimat, B.C., has been ongoing since late 2024. Because of a persistent equipment issue, the plant has been feeding extra gas to the flares for months, at time causing the flames to reach 90 metres in height. Photo: Marty Clemens / The Narwhal

Walsh said she’s afraid ceding the harbour shores to an industrial hub for LNG and oil development would be a death knell for the villagers’ way of life.

“My father’s from here, his father and his father before that,” she told The Narwhal on a phone call. “We are literally closing the door on our way of life in this harbour if we let this industrial LNG come in.”

Brenda Aylward lives on the other side of the harbour from Walsh, where she raises sheep and grows vegetables while caring for her aging mother.

“It’s a fifth-generation farm and I’ve been involved pretty much my whole life,” she said. It’s a small farm-to-table operation she’s planning to expand — and she wonders what the impacts of an industrial project in the harbour would have on her livestock.

“I have fields that border the ocean,” she said, explaining the farm is just a few kilometres from the proposed industrial site. “Livestock are quite skittish, to noise and to light. Sheep are the most affected because they are the most skittish livestock.”

Brenda Aylward worries an LNG facility in the harbour will affect her livestock. Photo: Paul Daly / The Narwhal

She said she has questions about how LNG operations and related marine traffic could alter the flock’s grazing and breeding patterns. Research from animal behaviour expert Temple Grandin has shown stress in livestock can cause agitation, increased thyroid activity and spikes in cortisol.

“[Will] I have my lambs when market time comes?” Aylward wondered. “We don’t know what’s going to happen there.”

Fermeuse Energy did not directly address questions about potential impacts and said there will be an opportunity for community members to get answers.

“We certainly understand that there will be questions from the residents of the area,” Stephen Tessier, a spokesperson with the company, wrote in an emailed statement. “We (Fermeuse Energy) are still in the discovery stage and we need to have a handle on actual product and political will in Newfoundland and Labrador in order to proceed.”

Tessier said before the company submits an application, it will conduct engineering and environmental studies.

“Once that happens, there will be public consultations and stakeholder engagements where the residents can ask questions, clarify their doubts and choose to support the project,” he wrote. “We look forward to working with the towns and residents as this project moves forward.”

One of Aylward’s neighbours, Jenny Wright, has similar questions about potential impacts to the community.

“We live right on the water,” she said. “We bought a traditional old Newfoundland home and my husband is a house builder and he’s renovated every last piece of it.”

Jenny Wright said she doesn’t understand why the region isn’t investing more heavily in tourism and other sources of economic rejuvenation. Photo: Paul Daly / The Narwhal

She suggested the community should be looking at different options to create jobs beyond oil and gas.

“We are right on the East Coast Trail,” she said, referencing a 336-kilometre network of paths and trails, adding the region would be wise to capitalize on a growing tourism sector. “We can develop an economic plan here that is sustainable, like other towns in Newfoundland and Labrador have done, like Petty Harbour, who own their own fishery, have a co-operative plant and developed and promoted small businesses being around there — and then started a non-profit to educate people on the fishery.”

The former fish processing plant in Fermeuse, N.L., sits derelict. Jenny Wright imagines a future in which the plant gets new life and is co-operatively owned by locals. Photo: Paul Daly / The Narwhal

‘We depend on a clean coastline, clean water and a quiet environment’

Before the cod moratorium — an indefinite closure to the fishery implemented by the federal government in 1992 — came into effect, Fermeuse had a fish plant, too, and the harbour still supports an active fleet.

“Pretty soon — the end of March, early April — is the time for the crab boats going in and out,” Wright said. “Our first signs of spring are the fishery is up and going again. And then, of course, the whales that will come in shortly after that.”

She fears an influx of industry in the harbour would change everything.

“I’m exhausted with hearing everybody when they hear the word LNG go, ‘Oh, this is great, oil and gas is going to save us — it’s going to bring back jobs and all the young people, they’re going to come home and we’re going to flourish again.’ We’ve just done this over and over and over again, and we’re not learning from it.”

Walsh has been trying to get information about what the company wants to do — to little avail, she said — and help her community understand what’s at stake.

“Nobody can visualize it,” she said. “I don’t think they understand what it’s actually going to be like, physically, how the harbour will change. LNG is big money — a company can spin it whatever way they want. They can make it shiny and beautiful and never tell you the downsides.”

During construction of LNG Canada, housing for workers was built near the industrial site. Like a small town, complete with streetlights, roads, restaurants, medical care and other services, the work camp was fenced off from the surrounding community. Photo: Marty Clemens / The Narwhal

Kitimat’s story, some residents say, is a cautionary tale some places like Fermeuse can learn from.

“Expect all the promises they make never to materialize,” a Kitimat community member, who The Narwhal is calling James Smith to protect his family from repercussions, said. “And realize they often spend more effort trying to control the narrative than being transparent. You’re dealing with shiny on the outside, rotten to the core.”

Smith sent The Narwhal images of his property taken at night during recent overnight flaring activity.

“[My] house was lit up like daylight and shaking from the noise,” he wrote in a message accompanying the photos. “On top [of that] there was an ear-piercing whistle.”

Aylward, the sheep farmer, shuddered to think of her community changing so dramatically. 

“It’s devastating to think that something like that will come to this tiny little place,” she said. “We depend on a clean coastline, clean water and a quiet environment, for our food production and our lives. We do not want or need this here in our community.”

Brenda Aylward said an LNG facility is not welcome in the community. “We depend on a clean coastline, clean water and a quiet environment, for our food production and our lives,” she told The Narwhal. Photo: Paul Daly / The Narwhal

‘We already have the buyers’: Crown LNG says Fermeuse is well positioned to get gas to waiting markets 

Kataria agrees building an LNG facility in the harbour would mean significant change for residents of the fishing village.

“It is wrong of me to say that their life’s not going to change,” he said. “If you were looking at a peaceful water view, it is not going to remain the same. People’s expectations that the view is not going to change or the noise levels will not change or the traffic will not change, I think is wrong — because it will change. Industrialization will bring all those things.”

He said while the LNG development is in early stages, bringing industry to Fermeuse means jobs for a community that lost its base economy more than three decades ago.

“If I have the year right, it is 35 years plus [that] there has been no economic upswing in that community,” he said. “Let’s say it was a community of 1,500 people, or 2,000 people, gone down to 300. Do they need jobs? Do they need a change? I don’t know.”

“I think everybody understands that there is a give and take,” he added. 

Kataria said he’s optimistic about Prime Minister Mark Carney’s statements in recent months in support of LNG exports, but he hasn’t seen the political will to support an official proposal yet. 

If things do move forward, he said the main destination for exports from Newfoundland would be Europe, which continues, for now, to import fossil fuels to replace Russian gas since President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, but he also wants to tap into India’s “insatiable demand” for LNG. He noted the company could leverage an international loophole to get the gas there.

“There is a mechanism in place on international trading, where we could actually sell the cargo on the high seas to people taking it to Europe, and people bringing it from the other part of the world into Europe. We can take it from there and just hand it over to India.”

These kinds of high seas cargo swapping, or ship-to-ship transfers, are governed by rules set out by the International Maritime Organization — but the process is also used by the likes of the Russian shadow fleet, a cabal of shady shipping operators making vast sums of money by obscuring the origin of oil that would otherwise be heavily sanctioned.

LNG exports from Kitimat, B.C., are sent to destinations in Asia, like Japan and South Korea. Crown LNG CEO Swapan Kataria said a Newfoundland and Labrador export facility would ship to Europe or India. Photo: Province of British Columbia / Flickr

“We already have a licence for importing 7.2 million tonnes in India,” Kataria said, adding the company is currently working on approvals to build a five-million tonne import facility in Scotland. 

“We are LNG terminal developers,” he explained. “We are not coming to Canada to … build a project and wait for somebody to come and buy the product from us — we already have the buyers. We’re coming there because we need it. It’s the other way around.” 

Lloyd Parrott, Newfoundland and Labrador’s energy and mines minister, told The Narwhal he considers natural gas a “key priority” for the province but he’s waiting on an official proposal for an LNG plant in Fermeuse.

“The department has not received a formal request for support for the Fermeuse energy project,” Parrott wrote in an emailed statement. “Our government will always make time to meet with companies to discuss potential projects that have the potential to provide benefits to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.”

In Kitimat, Smith warned the promise of benefits may not be enough to offset the impacts of living beside an LNG plant.

“The noise, pollution, traffic and burden on the infrastructure is not worth it,” he said.

For her part, Walsh doesn’t want Fermeuse turned into an industrial hub.

“I just don’t want my community destroyed,” she said. “We’re at a crossroads. We’re caught up in this now. And I just don’t think it’ll be for the betterment of us, the people who live here.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

‘Na̱mg̱is Chief Ho’miskanis, Don Svanvik, is on the phone when I walk off the little ferry in Alert Bay, B.C.

“Standing water and wood is never good,” he says to the person on the other end. “I can come by after I drop my truck off, maybe tomorrow.” 

Svanvik, a hereditary chief and former elected chief, hangs up and tells me he was talking to someone in Port McNeill, B.C., about a support system for a totem pole he helped carve. 

“Usually we put them at the back,” he explains. He drives us to the ‘Na̱mg̱is burial grounds, where he wants to show me the steel braces at the backs of the poles there, overlooking the bay. The Port McNeill pole, he says, has a brace in the middle — which is aesthetically pleasing but not great at withstanding the weather.

Alert Bay is a quiet community on a little island near the northern tip of Vancouver Island. Sea otters and seals swim the semi-protected waters of the bay as eagles lazily circle above the trees at the top of the hill that climbs steeply up from the shoreline. The weather here can be relentless, especially this time of year. Winter storms batter the community with heavy winds that regularly knock out the power, sometimes for days on end. Svanvik says things have changed since he was young. Then, he says, the island would often be blanketed under deep snow for weeks at a time. Now, snow is a rarity and the storms are unpredictable, sometimes blowing in from the opposite direction to the prevailing winds.

As we drive around the island, we talk about stewardship and sovereignty and how the ‘Na̱mg̱is, who are part of the Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw, or Kwakʼwala-speaking peoples, made ‘Ya̱lis, a winter village on the little island, their permanent home. He says when the colonial government set up the reserve system and allocated land to settlers, ‘Na̱mg̱is were told they didn’t need it.

“I don’t know how many acres we have but it’s not much,” he says. “They said we didn’t need the land because we had the ocean.”

‘Na̱mg̱is Chief Ho’miskanis, Don Svanvik.

Winter here moves at a slow pace. Around 1,000 people, give or take, live on Cormorant Island, which is about four kilometres long and one kilometre wide. Little in the way of shops and restaurants are open and the town’s mayor, Dennis Buchanan, says it’s hard to attract businesses, in part because of the regular power outages.

“One year we had 21 power outages,” he tells me over a cup of coffee. “The grocery store here lost over $40,000 in product one time.”

Still, Buchanan says he wouldn’t trade it for anything. Arriving here in the 1970s, he fell in love with the place (and a woman) and never left.

Mayor Dennis Buchanan.

Once a bustling hub of the West Coast commercial fishing industry, the boats moored in Alert Bay now are mostly sailboats. ‘Na̱mg̱is recently bought a seine boat and local fishers still harvest herring, shellfish and other species.

Cameron lives with his cat Uno on a boat in the harbour. He says the cat just showed up one day, shortly after his dog passed.

At the far end of the bay, past the village of ‘Ya̱lis, a handful of derelict boats sit on the gravelly beach, tilted at crazy angles. Lorne Smith, a clam-digger, stands on the deck of one, tying off a rope. He says he’s hoping to salvage the radar mast when the tide comes in.

John Webster pulls up in his truck, poking around to see if there’s anything worth snagging for his boat. Among other jobs, he fishes up north with the Haida. The two joke with each other and tell me about the challenges of getting fish these days. Both remain hopeful about the future but there’s a wistfulness to their stories that says times are hard.

John Webster says he’s slowly restoring an old seine boat. When I ask him about the unexpected warmth of the day, he laughs and says he expects he’ll still have frozen fingers when he’s tying off nets to fish the herring at the end of February.

Lorne Smith, a commercial clam digger, salvages parts from a derelict boat beached near the village of ‘Ya̱lis.

While the fishing fleet here is a shadow of its former size, the ‘Na̱mg̱is and non-Indigenous allies are working to rebuild struggling fish populations and develop land-use plans that support sustainable forestry practices. Elected Chief Victor Isaac wasn’t available to meet in person, but tells me on a phone call the nation is making strides at getting the provincial government to respect ‘Na̱mg̱is sovereignty.

“Everyone was in their siloes before,” he says. “They didn’t listen to us, the stewards.”

He says things are slowly changing and people are coming together, listening at last.

‘Na̱mg̱is Big House, Gukwdzi. First raised in 1966, its enlarged front was redesigned and painted by Doug Cranmer in 1987. Ten years later, an arsonist set fire to the building, burning it down. It was rebuilt and reopened in 1999.

G̱ilakas’la (thank you) to the ‘Na̱mg̱is, stewards of all the places photographed for this story, and to everyone who made time to speak with me.

Updated on Feb. 13, 2026, at 8:44 p.m. PT: This story was updated to correct the location of a totem pole in Port McNeill, not Port Hardy. It was also updated to add context that the village of ‘Ya̱lis predates the arrival of settlers.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

For more than a year, LNG Canada has been troubleshooting problems with its flare stack in Kitimat, B.C. As The Narwhal reported, an “integrity issue” at the plant meant LNG Canada burned significantly more gas than expected, leading to increased noise and emissions for months on end. The problem could take up to three years to fix.

“It pisses me off — but it’s no surprise,” said James Smith, a community member whose name has been changed to protect his family from potential repercussions. “And it makes me say: ‘Okay, so what do we do about it now? How do we correct this?’ ”

Smith said he feels a sense of relief now the truth has come to light, because people have accused him of “being insane or being alarmist” whenever he complained about the noise.

“I can’t take a shit in my bathroom without my Apple Watch telling me I need hearing protection,” he said. “That’s a problem.”

It’s not just noise polluting the northwest B.C. community, however. 

LNG Canada, a consortium of companies led by multinational Shell, has been consistently flaring more than 15 times the amount of gas it would need to burn if its equipment was working as designed. Provincial data provided to The Narwhal shows the facility burned an average of 205,000 cubic metres per day between July 1 and Nov. 30, 2025. It was expected to only need to burn around 11,000 cubic metres per day.

LNG Canada has been flaring up to 15 times more gas than expected, documents reveal

“All I know is what I see every day: big clouds of black smoke floating over my house and flares keeping my backyard lit up all night long,” Kitimat resident Chris Godfrey told The Narwhal, adding he’s curious what LNG Canada will do now the data is public. “I don’t know what the people of Kitimat can do. They can sit and bitch about it and whine about it, but there’s nothing really we can do.”

District of Kitimat Mayor Phil Germuth said LNG Canada informed him about the issue, without specifying when he first became aware of the problem. He told The Narwhal he was unaware of many of the details, including the scale of the problem.

“They let us know a while back — I don’t know exactly when — the flare tips weren’t exactly operating as sold to them by whoever the manufacturer was,” he said in an interview following publication of The Narwhal’s reporting about the problems. “Yes, it’s a disappointment, but it’s something that couldn’t have been predicted, right? I mean, LNG Canada was as surprised as we were.”

District of Kitimat Mayor Phil Germuth said the flaring issue at LNG Canada is a “disappointment.”

When asked whether he felt the district should have shared more information about the flaring problem with the community, he did not directly answer.

“We don’t actually do communications for LNG Canada,” he said. “They do their own so it’s not really our thing to do.”

“Most people obviously realize that, hey, this is just part of the process of getting a plant up and running and you have to put up with a little bit of short-term inconvenience to get that 40 years of economic opportunities that it brings to the community and the province,” he added.

Cheryl Brown, a member of local environmental advocacy group Douglas Channel Watch, said she recalls representatives of LNG Canada being upfront about the problem during a technical meeting with the group. While the industry officials acknowledged the issue early on, she said they didn’t fully explain the extent of the problem nor talk about solutions. 

“How do they fix this? We meet with them in February, and that’s going to be my question,” she said. “Do you have to shut the whole place down? You can’t fix a flare with the other flares burning — that doesn’t make any sense at all. So how do you do this?”

Lucy McRae (left) and Cheryl Brown, with the Douglas Channel Watch, told The Narwhal they want to know how LNG Canada plans to fix the flaring equipment.

How to ‘gaslight people better’

Germuth said he believes the consortium adequately kept the public informed about flaring. 

“It’s unfortunate that maybe a little more information could have been given out,” he said. “Absolutely, that’s unfortunate — but here we are. They put their communications out to the community: ‘This is more flaring than we thought, here’s what it’s going to be, and on this day we’re expecting this height.’ … We think they’ve been fairly open and honest in that way, and doing as much as they can.”

Councillor Terry Marleau disagreed. 

Marleau directly questioned Teresa Waddington, a senior official with the consortium, during a council meeting last November, and said she didn’t give him proper answers. He said he thinks LNG Canada should have done more to ensure the public was informed.

“You’d probably do better with people and journalists and council and everybody else, if you talk about the facts,” he said. “What’s it going to cost them? Not a heck of a lot, if you actually just work on saying, ‘Here’s exactly what’s happening with those flare stacks and here’s what we’re trying to do.’ ”

He acknowledged Kitimat has a long industrial history and most residents, himself included, generally support industrial development, including LNG Canada.

“It’s a really big employer and it’s a really important part of our community,” he said. “But I also want to make sure we look after our environment and our community.” 

Built in the 1950s, the Alcan aluminum smelter is known locally as “Uncle Al.” The town’s connection to industry runs deep and councillor Terry Marleau said he believes LNG Canada should have been more open about the problems it was having.

“The downside is not as big as they think it is, by actually coming across really openly to our small community,” Marleau continued. “But we don’t control that. We can only try and work towards getting them to realize that.”

He said one resident he’s been talking with told him he’s unable to work because the flaring has impacted his sleep so severely.

“I find that horribly sad,” Marleau said. “It’s obvious that the noise is to do with the [flare] stack. It’s nothing else in the plant — they’ve said that. They’ve checked all the parts of the plant and the noise is to do with the stack.”

Smith’s experience has been the same. He’s frustrated by the paternalistic way the companies communicate.

“They say, ‘We’ve learned. We’re a better company.’ No, you’ve learned to try to gaslight people better, and you’ve learned to become sneakier, and how to control the narrative more,” he said. 

Smith pointed out recent reports of Shell and Mitsubishi, one of the other members of the consortium, looking to divest ownership of LNG Canada. The same report noted that Petronas, which also has significant stakes in natural gas wells near Fort St. John that supply the facility, already sold some of its shares.

“It’s like you realized you bought a Temu gas plant with AliExpress discount parts and you need to get out of it, because the liability risk is going through the roof,” Smith said.

“We will not comment on or validate speculation about our joint venture participants,” a spokesperson with LNG Canada told The Narwhal in an emailed statement. “For information regarding Shell or Mitsubishi’s respective interests, please contact those companies directly.”

Neither Shell nor Mitsubishi responded prior to publication.

Both Marleau and Germuth pointed out it’s in the consortium’s best interest to flare less gas — every cubic metre burned is less gas it can sell to buyers overseas. Germuth said that gives him confidence in the consortium to remedy the issue.

“It’s to their advantage to fix it as quick as possible,” he said. “We have no doubt they’re doing everything they can to rectify it, because it’s their bottom line. They’re burning gas that they don’t want to be burning. They’d rather be turning it into LNG. So, we’re confident they’re trying to find any way they can to alleviate this issue.”

Marleau echoed the thought and added he believes the consortium should also consider the costs of not being fully transparent with the residents most impacted by noise and emissions.

“I think you’d go a much further distance by actually owning up and talking about the problem,” he said. “Try and make life a little bit better in a community that you want to be part of for 30 or 40 years.”

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In the fall of 2024, LNG Canada fired up its flare in Kitimat, B.C., for the first time, burning off gas to test its systems. By December, company officials knew something was wrong.

Residents were also concerned, but had little explanation as 90-metre-high flames lit up the night sky and a deep roaring sound permeated the town.

More than a year later, complaints escalated enough that Kitimat District council sat down for a special meeting with Teresa Waddington, the deputy chief operating officer at LNG Canada. About an hour into the meeting, councillor Terry Marleau asked specifically about flare tips. The response from Waddington was jumbled.

“Uh, I’d say we’re, we’re reviewing the flare tips design,” she said. “We are looking long term at what else could we do other than just reduce flaring in order to make sure that we get to a better place.”  

A couple of minutes later, Marleau leaned into the mic: “So, is there an issue with the flare stacks themselves?” 

“It’s part of the learning curve of new equipment,” Waddington replied. “So on one hand, you know, great that we brought in a technology that gets such high levels of incineration, which results in less slippage of gas, which means you have lower [greenhouse gas emissions] overall, but on the same note, it’s not perfectly working.”

Just a few kilometres away from the nearest residential neighbourhood, LNG Canada had been feeding gas into its flaring system by a magnitude of more than 15 times the typical amount to compensate for what was described as an “integrity issue.” 

Flaring from LNG Canada has impacted Kitimat residents’ lives for more than a year. Until now, the public has been unaware that the size of the flame increased due to issues with the facility’s equipment. Photo: Marty Clemens / The Narwhal

Flaring is the burning of excess or waste gas produced during operations. Methane and other gases that escape the Kitimat facility during processing are sent up a metal tube that stands 122 metres high, where they meet a pilot flame and ignite, converting the raw gas into carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and water vapour. There are also often additional gases such as nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, volatile organic compounds and particulates released during the process. 

It’s a necessary safety protocol — if the flare is not designed correctly for the operating environment, the gas may not make it to the pilot flame and instead the flare can creep down the tube and melt the infrastructure. The solution is to increase the pressure, increase the volume of gas and increase the size of the flame. If all the gas is not fully combusted by the pilot, black smoke appears.

The Narwhal reviewed more than 2,000 pages of documents released through freedom of information legislation about the flaring issue in Kitimat. They showed how LNG Canada officials were discussing the flaring issues internally — and that they waited approximately four months to tell the provincial energy regulator. 

We also spoke with several industry insiders, former employees and local residents and analyzed publicly available permits and other government documents to piece together a timeline of events and impacts on the community. The documents reveal regulator and industry officials grappled with the issue for months while community members and local politicians asked questions about the flaring, some complaining about excessive noise and others expressing concerns about potential toxic emissions, black smoke and particulate matter. 

Among the documents is one prepared by the BC Energy Regulator, a government agency that oversees the oil and gas sector and other industries. It detailed an “emerging integrity concern related to one of LNG Canada’s flares” in April 2025, and noted LNG Canada said the issue would take three years to be resolved. 

In the meantime, the facility was “routing additional gas” to the flare to mitigate the problem, according to the document. The system should be fine to operate by burning 11,000 cubic metres of gas per day, but due to the issue it would need to burn at least 170,000 cubic metres daily, the document stated. Burning the extra gas would result in “a noticeable impact in the community with respect to noise, light and visual disturbance,” according to the regulator’s internal briefing note.

Internal government documents detailed how LNG Canada was feeding additional gas to its flaring system, resulting in a “noticeable impact” to noise, light and visual disturbance.

When asked about this document, a spokesperson with the regulator confirmed awareness of the issue and said the average numbers were even higher. LNG Canada reported flaring an average of “approximately 205,000 cubic metres per day between July 1 and Nov. 30, 2025,” the spokesperson said via email. 

The email included detailed data and showed that on Sept. 1, 2025, LNG Canada flared 1,708,649 cubic metres of gas, making it the highest single day, according to the data. 

The spokesperson did not answer questions about whether the government agency communicated the problem with flaring equipment to the public, instead explaining LNG Canada had “fully mitigated” the integrity issue by “ensuring additional gas is flowed through the flare tip facilitating appropriate combustion.” The regulator spokesperson added LNG Canada is required to notify residents and local authorities “regarding certain flaring events.”

The Narwhal asked LNG Canada several detailed questions about the integrity issue, including why it did not appear to communicate clearly with members of the public, but a spokesperson with the consortium declined to answer.

“The LNG Canada facility has been commissioning and is currently in its early operations phase,” the spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement. “Flaring during commissioning and early operations is a normal occurrence in any LNG asset. In regular operations, flaring activities and associated noise reduce significantly.”

BC Energy Regulator officials kept the flaring issue quiet for more than six months

Kitimat sits at the end of a long fiord, surrounded by mountains and subject to extreme weather. Dramatic shifts in air pressure, high winds and other local environmental factors exacerbate the problems LNG Canada faced with its flare. As The Narwhal previously reported, community members have documented black plumes of smoke from the flare and some residents living close to the facility have said their yards, houses and vehicles are often left covered in a thin film of black residue.

Kitimat residents living close to LNG Canada reported seeing black plumes of smoke from the flare and said the noise from the facility was disrupting their daily lives. Photo: Marty Clemens / The Narwhal

Sleepless nights, toxic smoke: life beside Canada’s first LNG export plant

According to the documents, LNG Canada — a consortium of foreign-owned companies led by Shell — first reported non-compliance with government permits in May 2025, citing increased emissions were required to mitigate the integrity concern. The company said a replacement part, called a flare tip, would be needed and it could take up to three years to fully integrate the new equipment, but interim changes could be made. The BC Energy Regulator responded, asking the company to clarify the environmental and health risks of any modifications and said the company might also need to apply to amend its Air Waste Discharge Permit.

In July, the regulator wrote to LNG Canada officials saying the company was on the hook for the additional emissions and needed to fix the problem. The reason, it explained, was that because the additional flaring was for the purpose of “long-term integrity management,” it was not considered a “process upset,” a designation that would exempt it from permit limits. The regulator also required the company to report any emissions exceedances. After the consortium successfully sent its first shipment of LNG overseas in late June 2025, the regulator also issued a requirement for LNG Canada to file daily reports and updates.

The regulator told The Narwhal the consortium filed six “monthly self-disclosures [related] to document flaring which is not consistent” with the facility’s permits and noted it has not issued any penalties for non-compliance. 

“The [BC Energy Regulator] does not disclose information with respect to any ongoing investigations that may be underway, but to date, no penalties have been issued to LNG Canada.”

The regulator also noted it ordered LNG Canada to contract a third-party assessment of air quality in July, which concluded “no measured adverse impacts to air quality from the increased flaring rate.”

“The [BC Energy Regulator] is engaging with LNG Canada to minimize flaring rates from all facility flares,” the spokesperson added.

Documents obtained by The Narwhal through freedom of information legislation reveal BC Energy Regulator officials were aware of problems with LNG Canada’s equipment in May 2025.

The Narwhal asked LNG Canada why it didn’t communicate the problems with the flare tip to the public. We also asked for clarification on the nature of the issue, its impacts on operations and the community, including noise, emissions and other issues raised by community members. The Narwhal asked what had been done to ensure residents were kept informed about the risks posed by faulty or inadequate equipment. 

LNG Canada did not directly answer these questions.

“We continue to remain focused on safely operating the facility and minimizing disruptions to the community,” the spokesperson wrote, adding the 37th shipment is scheduled to depart in the coming days.

“We continue to meet regularly with community members, First Nations, local stakeholders and government agencies to listen and respond to any concerns raised about our activities. LNG Canada extends its continued appreciation to the Kitimat community and to the Haisla Nation for their continued support.”

Between September 2024 and January 2026, LNG Canada posted more than 27 notifications of flaring events on its website and social media, some preparing the community for weeks or months of flaring.

“Flaring is a provincially regulated safety measure that ensures the controlled, efficient combustion of natural gas during specific operational phases,” LNG Canada regularly said in these notifications. “It is a critical part of safely operating a facility of this scale and is not expected to be routine during regular operation.”

But the consortium was not telling the public why the flare was so big nor explaining why so many “unplanned” flaring events were occurring. In early November 2025, for example, LNG Canada published a notification warning residents flaring would extend beyond the “originally anticipated timeframe.” It noted this would mean more “intermittent” noise and more emissions, without explaining why. 

Around the same time, the consortium offered to temporarily relocate some residents who had expressed concerns about the noise and emissions, if they agreed to “not make any complaints or raise any concerns or objections with respect to LNG Canada, the LNG facility or the works with any third parties, including but not limited to members of the media, the [BC Energy Regulator] or the District of Kitimat” related to flaring activities.

Don’t complain, get paid: Kitimat resident offered thousands from LNG Canada 

But complaints from residents continued to come in.

Just a few months ago, in that late November 2025 council meeting, Waddington addressed questions about the flaring from Marleau and other members of council. She was accompanied by a sound analyst hired to monitor ambient noise over Kitimat.

There had been more than 30 complaints from the town’s residents about unexpected noise since the LNG export facility started flaring excess gas a year earlier, Waddington said at the meeting. The council wanted to see the results of the consortium’s monitoring, understand the cause and hear how the company was managing the disruption.

Waddington assured Marleau, and council, the company was investigating.

“If you look at how the LNG Canada startup has gone, it’s actually been smoother than most,” Waddington concluded. “We are actually kind of setting the bar.” On Jan. 5, 2026, LNG Canada published its first notification of the year, of a week-long flaring event that had already begun.

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It took the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office more than four months to notify the public of an environmental infraction that happened during construction of a major liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Squamish, B.C. The records, posted to a government website on Dec. 30, show Woodfibre LNG was found to be out of compliance with government regulations in August, potentially imperilling juvenile salmon populations.

According to the records, Woodfibre LNG “failed to monitor for juvenile salmon during in-stream construction.” In response, the assessment office issued a notice of non-compliance. No fines have been levied against the company for the infraction.

A spokesperson with the assessment office said the delay in making the records public was in part due to the BC Public Service job action that spanned several weeks last fall and also because Woodfibre “submitted additional information, which took time to analyze.” 

“There need to be consequences for these companies,” Tracey Saxby, director of Squamish-based environmental watchdog, My Sea to Sky, told The Narwhal. “My understanding is that the consequences are not high enough for the companies to care. It’s easier for them to break the rules … and proceed on with business as usual, than to actually follow the rules and the laws and regulations.”

Saxby is concerned both the construction and operation of Woodfibre LNG will have major consequences for salmon and other species.

“We know from talking to scientists based in Russia that the noise pollution and the light pollution from these facilities will confuse and disrupt salmon migration patterns — and the Woodfibre LNG facility is located at a critical area on the salmon migration pathway into the Squamish River,” she said. “On the one hand, the government is spending millions of dollars to restore salmon habitat while another branch of government is approving destructive LNG projects that undermine all of that work and continue to threaten at-risk salmon populations.”

Tracey Saxby, co-founder of the local environmental group My Sea to Sky, says she’s worried about the impacts of the LNG facility on salmon and other species. Photo: Jennifer Gauthier / The Narwhal

Woodfibre LNG said the non-compliance was issued because the usual method of monitoring was “ineffective as the sub-surface water was too cloudy, which happens frequently due to the natural influence of turbid Squamish River discharge.” 

A spokesperson said in an emailed statement that when the first monitoring tool didn’t work, “qualified professionals” turned to “improved high resolution SONAR technology” and successfully continued monitoring.

“No harm to juvenile salmon was observed, and in-water work remained within permitted limits.”

The state of LNG in B.C. 

Construction of the LNG facility has been underway since fall 2023. When completed, the liquefaction and export plant will produce up to 2.1 million tonnes of LNG for export each year. It will receive natural gas from a FortisBC pipeline being built to connect to a network of pipelines and wells in B.C.’s northeast. Natural gas, which is mostly composed of methane, is primarily extracted from underground sources through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

The Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) is supportive of the project and led the first legally-binding environmental assessments of the LNG facility and corresponding pipeline between 2013 and 2015. The nation is working with the federal government and local environmentalists on restoring parts of the Squamish River estuary, long impacted by industrial activities.

Inside a 50-year journey to reopen the ‘lungs’ of the Squamish River

A spokesperson with Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw said the nation was unable to comment on the non-compliance because the relevant employee is on bereavement leave.

Woodfibre LNG, majority owned by Indonesian billionaire Sukanto Tanoto’s Pacific Energy Corporation, is the second major LNG export facility being built in B.C. Its much larger cousin, LNG Canada, began operating in Kitimat, B.C., last year. The province also approved Cedar LNG in Kitimat, which is currently under construction, and Ksi Lisims LNG, which will be built near the Nass River estuary in northwest B.C. The province’s support for the LNG export industry dates back to the early 2010s, when more than a dozen projects were first proposed.

A section of Finch Drive in Squamish, B.C., is closed as FortisBC installs part of its Eagle Mountain–Woodfibre gas pipeline, which is being built to supply the Woodfibre LNG facility. Photo: Jennifer Gauthier / The Narwhal

The environmental assessment office isn’t the only government body overseeing development of LNG projects and gas pipelines. The BC Energy Regulator is responsible for issuing permits and ensuring compliance with many laws and regulations intended to protect the environment and communities from harm. The regulator was originally called the BC Oil and Gas Commission and has special powers over several pieces of legislation.

But as The Narwhal previously reported, regulator officials don’t always enforce laws and regulations when they find companies aren’t in compliance with government rules. 

Woodfibre LNG said it is working with the assessment office to adapt its monitoring program.

“Salmon spawning is a regular occurrence at Mill Creek, which runs through our site, and we take care [to] preserve proper spawning conditions and to measure both the spawning and emergence events,” the spokesperson wrote.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

In 2019, B.C. unanimously passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. It was celebrated as a major step toward working with First Nations in a better, more equal way.

But a court ruling earlier this month seems to be contributing to a change of heart for Premier David Eby. On Dec. 5, the British Columbia Court of Appeal ruled the government’s obligations under the Declaration Act are legally enforceable. Eby is now arguing judges shouldn’t be setting the province’s reconciliation agenda. And he says he is willing to change the law to make sure they can’t.

“The work we do in reconciliation is to empower people, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, not to empower the courts,” Eby told attendees at a BC Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Dec. 10. 

“Last week’s court of appeal decision invites further and endless litigation,” he added. “It is the exact opposite of the direction we need to go: less certainty, not more; more conflict, not less.”

When the legislature resumes in the spring, Eby said the government will introduce amendments to the act to make things clear.

Merle Alexander, a lawyer who helped draft the Declaration Act, called the premier’s pledge to swiftly amend the first B.C. law co-developed with First Nations — one that passed into law with the full support of the legislature — troubling.

“[The Declaration Act] was a tacit agreement between the B.C. government and B.C. First Nations that the status quo wasn’t working and an agreement that we were going to change things together,” Alexander, a lawyer with Miller Titerle + Company, who specializes in Indigenous law, said.

“The idea that you could go back and unilaterally change some of its core purposes by yourself, with or without First Nations, to me, on the face of it, is extremely offensive.”

Two years after B.C. passed its landmark Indigenous Rights act, has anything changed?

Cynthia Callison, a partner with Callison & Hanna Law who has advocated for First Nations in B.C. for 29 years, called Eby’s vow to alter the Declaration Act a knee-jerk reaction.

“Every time a court has acknowledged Indigenous Peoples’ rights or tried to encourage reconciliation between the Crown and First Nations, there’s always a backlash,” Callison, who is a member of the Tahltan Nation, said in an interview. “It’s something to be expected.”

What is UNDRIP and why does it matter?

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) affirms the inherent human rights of Indigenous Peoples worldwide. It acknowledges those who have suffered and continue to suffer persecution, genocide, cultural erasure, marginalization and disproportionate impacts from resource extraction and climate change. In 46 articles, the declaration covers a range of basic rights that represent the “minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being” of Indigenous Peoples.

In other words, UNDRIP and B.C.’s equivalent legislation, are an acknowledgement of the basic rights of Indigenous Peoples, including the right to “free, prior and informed consent” about decisions that affect their lives and well-being.

B.C.’s Declaration Act was hailed as an important step on the path of reconciliation. From left to right: Terry Teegee, regional chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, and his wife, Joan Phillip, MLA and Indigenous Rights advocate. Photo: Province of B.C. / Flickr

When B.C.’s Declaration Act was introduced, the government stressed this did not amount to a veto for First Nations on issues like resource development. Instead, the government described the act as “a path forward” for relations between First Nations and the province. The idea was the legislation would hold the government accountable, in law, to its stated commitments on reconciliation.

In 2021, it was Eby, in his former role as attorney general, who put forward a change to the province’s Interpretation Act, which gives courts guidance on how to apply provincial laws and statutes. At the time, Eby said the changes would make it “explicit that the province’s preferred approach” is to have laws and regulations interpreted in ways that align with the United Nations declaration.

That same year, the Canadian government passed its own law to use the declaration “as an international human rights instrument that can help interpret and apply Canadian law.”

Callison believes it will be difficult for the B.C. government to insulate its laws from being held to a widely recognized international standard, especially one that the federal government upholds.

“Whether or not it’s legislated, it’s still something that courts are able to use in decisions. Maybe they’re not bound to it, but they still can recognize those principles,” Callison said. “The reason why Indigenous people wanted it to be legislated, I think, was because then it was clear that the court could use that standard.”

We’re suing the RCMP to fight for press freedom

In November 2021, photojournalist Amber Bracken was arrested by the RCMP while on assignment for The Narwhal. So we launched a lawsuit to take a stand for press freedom. Now, we’re in the middle of our trial.

The recent appeal court ruling concluded the Declaration Act has “immediate legal effect” on B.C.’s laws — not just the ones the province has decided to bring into alignment with the principles of UNDRIP.

“What the court did in the decision, unfortunately, is to say that at any time, any nation can come to court and apply to find a law invalid [under the United Nations declaration],” Eby said on Dec. 10. “And that was never the intention.”

But how a government hopes its legislation will be applied by the courts — as conveyed by ministers speaking in the legislature, for example — can only be secondary to the letter of the law, Alexander explained.

“The most important part of the interpretation is the literal words of the statute itself,” he said. 

Those laws lay out a process for legal reforms to be co-developed with First Nations, Alexander added, but don’t contain any language barring the courts from interpreting them.

What’s happened to date in the Gitxaała case?

The appeal court’s Dec. 5 decision was the result of a challenge to part of a 2023 B.C. Supreme Court ruling launched by the Gitxaała and the Ehattesaht First Nations. That ruling agreed with the nations’ claim that B.C.’s mineral claim staking regime did not fulfill the government’s obligations to consult with First Nations. It also concluded that B.C.’s Declaration Act was not legally enforceable, which is what the nations just successfully appealed.

Gitxaała hailed the appeal court’s ruling as “precedent setting.”

“Aligning all B.C. laws with the [United Nations] declaration and upholding the standard of free, prior and informed consent is the only pathway to the investor ‘certainty’ the mining sector seeks,” Gitxaała Chief Councillor Linda Innes said in a statement.

Gitxaała elected Chief Councillor Linda Innes (Lou Gagwelks) said the recent ruling is a win both for Indigenous Rights and for industry. Photo: Jimmy Jeong / The Narwhal

The case was brought forward by Gitxaała in 2021. Like many court cases that centre on infringement of Indigenous Rights, its scope was wide reaching — but its origins stemmed from environmental damages that occurred on Lax k’naga dzol (Banks Island) in 2015 and subsequent mineral claims staked there between 2018 and 2020. Banks Island, which Gitxaała refer to as their “bread basket,” is on B.C.’s northwest coast, south of the Skeena River estuary. 

B.C.’s Mineral Tenure Act is “colonial legislation” that dates back to the mid-1800s gold rush, the ruling stated. While the law, often called the free-entry system, has been updated and amended over the years, it still allowed for anyone to stake a claim on lands in B.C. without first asking permission from the landowner or First Nations. 

Mineral claims require First Nations consultation, B.C. Supreme Court rules

Callison described the appeal court’s ruling as a logical next step to address a legal infringement on Indigenous Rights that the province has been aware of for a long time.

“In this case, it’s quite obvious that this mineral tenure system, the free miner system, is inconsistent with Indigenous Peoples’ rights,” Callison said.

And fulfilling the requirements of the Gitxaała decision will create more certainty for First Nations and B.C.’s mining industry, Callison argued.

“They can’t complain that they don’t know what is culturally important to First Nations if it’s identified and if it’s been declared as a non-staking area.”

Naxginkw Tara Marsden, who works with the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, called the recent decision “pivotal.”

“A lot of our problems in resource management centre around these fundamental legislation like [the Mineral Tenure Act], where industry effectively gets unfettered access to the rights to resources,” she told The Narwhal. “But undoing the free-entry system, bolstered by the legal effect of UNDRIP, moves us away from that. It’s a paradigm shift, and can spill over into others.”

Naxginkw Tara Marsden, who works with the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, said the court ruling could be a ‘paradigm shift’ that provides certainty for resource companies and reduces potential conflicts on the land and in the courts. Photo: Jimmy Jeong / The Narwhal

How is the political world reacting to the Gitxaała decision?

The appeal court decision on the Gitxaała case isn’t the only one troubling the premier. During his address at the luncheon, Eby called the appeal court ruling and the B.C. Supreme Court’s decision in the Cowichan Tribes case “deeply troubling.”

Eby, the one-time head of the BC Civil Liberties Association, slammed provincial judges for issuing “dramatic, overreaching and unhelpful” decisions he claimed could destabilize the provincial economy.

“It’s hard to understate the damage that could be done or has already been done to public support for the delicate, critical and necessary work we have to do with First Nations in a province that was almost entirely settled without treaties, and in a country that has Section 35 of the Constitution,” Eby warned. 

“While this work is essential to our success, it could also be the undoing of our province as a place to do business.” Amending the Declaration Act and the Interpretation Act will make the government’s intentions clear, Eby told the audience, and prevent future court decisions from potentially destabilizing economic development.

Alexander believes the premier’s plan could have the opposite effect, potentially triggering more court cases from First Nations and thereby creating more uncertainty for resource extraction and other industries in the long run, while also damaging the province’s relationship with First Nations.

“People have very fragile trust in the government of the day, but when they so intentionally change legislation to ensure that there’s no objective party reviewing how they perform reconciliation, it seems very insidious.”

This year, B.C. passed legislation to fast-track the North Coast transmission line, renewable energy projects and yet-to-be-defined “provincially significant projects.” The B.C. government admitted it had not fulfilled its consultation obligations before introducing the legislation, which many First Nations forcefully criticized.

Eby’s vow to amend the Declaration Act could even stiffer opposition from First Nations leaders, Alexander warned.

“It’s hard to know how damaging it will be to reconciliation, because, in truth, Premier Eby himself has damaged reconciliation in the province so tremendously in the last year, it’s hard to measure,” he said. “There’s a lot of burning bridges already.”

Updated Dec. 16, 2025, at 11:08 a.m. PT: This story was updated to correct the spelling of Cynthia Callison’s law firm, Callison & Hanna.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Northwest B.C. is home to epic rivers, big mountains, a rugged coastline — and relatively few people. Its diverse ecosystems are inextricably intertwined with the cultures of the Indigenous Peoples who have lived here and stewarded the lands and waters for thousands of years, and continue to do so today. 

The staggeringly beautiful landscapes and rich cultures were what first caught my attention two decades ago — but it was the unpretentiousness of its communities that kept me here. 

Last month, Prime Minister Mark Carney was in Terrace, B.C., where he told the media and a small audience his government was sending something called the Northwest Critical Conservation Corridor to the newly formed Major Projects Office for review and potential fast-tracking. 

The word “conservation” next to the word “corridor” naturally made me think of a connected series of conserved areas. Maybe this meant protecting the migratory routes of imperiled caribou or declining salmon populations? Or perhaps it signalled the region’s sacred rivers and their sensitive headwaters would be preserved for their cultural and ceremonial significance. 

When I started asking questions, I found this “transformational strategy” (the federal government’s words, not mine) to be a bit more complicated.

Critical? Conservation? Corridor? 

Before we get into the details, a quick breakdown of the title.

Northwest B.C. is a loosely defined region that includes the communities and landscapes north of Prince George and west of the Northern Rocky Mountains. The strategy also mentions the Yukon, though it is unclear how the northern territory will be included.

Critical refers to so-called critical minerals, which are things like lithium, molybdenum and rare earth elements that play a part in the global transition away from burning fossil fuels. Much of what’s currently being mined in northwest B.C. is gold, which is not, in fact, a critical mineral.

Conservation appears to refer to pre-existing plans led by First Nations. More on this later.

Corridor here is open-ended and confusing — because there doesn’t appear to be one. What’s referenced or included in the plan, instead, is a few industrial and infrastructure developments that are already approved or underway, including liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, pipelines and hydroelectric transmission, as well as a handful of unspecific references to basic infrastructure like cell towers and highway improvements.

Grammar nerds, like me, might call “critical” in this title, appearing as it does next to “conservation” and without referencing mining or minerals, a misplaced or dangling modifier, confusing people into connecting two separate ideas. Political cynics, like me, might think that’s the point. 

The northwest B.C. strategy includes liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, like Ksi Lisims LNG. Exporting LNG means building pipelines across the region, like the 670-kilometre Coastal GasLink pipeline, completed in 2024. Photo: Matt Simmons / The Narwhal

What are we conserving? 

The prime minister’s announcement referenced the creation of a “conservation area the size of Greece.” Greece is about 130,000 square kilometres. Northwest B.C., depending on how you define it, is roughly twice the size. So is half the region slated for protection? Not exactly. 

Carney’s office declined an interview request and referred questions to the Privy Council Office, a non-partisan body that advises the prime minister. Pierre Cuguen, a spokesperson with the office, was vague on details but said the strategy will “focus on development of mining, energy and trade infrastructure” while also setting aside conservation areas to “help Canada meet its goal to protect 30 per cent of land and marine areas by 2030.”

Canada has committed to conserving “30 per cent of land and marine areas by 2030.” That goal is intended, in part, to protect fish and wildlife populations. Photo: Matt Simmons / The Narwhal

Cuguen did not specify areas that would be included, explaining plans will be developed in consultation with “stakeholders and Indigenous Rights-holders” and said “details on the approach are not yet confirmed.”

However, several Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas, or IPCAs, are already on the table in northern B.C. Taken together, four conservation plans proposed or declared by the Kaska Dena, Tahltan, Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs and Taku River Tlingit amount to an area more than half the size of the Mediterranean country home to spanakopita.

The future of conservation in Canada depends on Indigenous protected areas. So what are they?

The Kaska Dena IPCA, which has been in the works since at least 2019, called Dene K’éh Kusān, would protect 40,000 square kilometres of lands and waters. (It’s more on the northeast side of B.C., but technically the entire province is west of Ottawa, so we can let that slide.) The Tahltan plan includes protecting 10,000 square kilometres in three separate areas, including one known as the Sacred Headwaters, where Indigenous leaders and allies fought a protracted battle two decades ago to prevent Shell from drilling for coalbed methane and Fortune Minerals from developing an open-pit coal mine at the headwaters of the Skeena, Nass and Stikine rivers.

Meanwhile, Gitanyow declared a 540-square-kilometre-area protected in 2021, and has since proposed protection for another 88-square-kilometre area. Taku River Tlingit similarly proclaimed protection of the T’akú Tlatsini in 2023, conserving 60 per cent of the nation’s namesake watershed, or around 18,000 square kilometres, which has been heavily impacted by historic and modern mining activities.

Kechika River runs through Dene K’éh Kusān, a 40,000-square-kilometre area proposed for protection by the Kaska Dena. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

In 2021, the Gitanyow announced immediate protection of 540 square kilometres of land and water in northwest B.C., including Strohn Creek. Photo: Ryan Dickie / The Narwhal

Notably, IPCAs do not necessarily preclude industrial development such as logging and mining.

All four nations are currently involved in an expedited land-use planning initiative announced by the B.C. government in June, which also includes the Nisga’a Nation. The planning is intended to map and assess “areas for conservation of biodiversity, including wild salmon, caribou, sheep and other sensitive species, and cultural values” while also clearly identifying “areas open to potential development, including mineral exploration.” The process is intended to be completed by June 2026.

Where’s the other half of Greece intended for conservation, you might ask? Good question. We don’t know.

What about mining? 

While conservation appears to be part of the federal plan — and environmental advocates are cautiously hopeful this initiative will secure protections for delicate ecosystems in the region — it appears to be secondary to the government’s goals to rapidly expand and diversify the Canadian economy. This includes putting its weight (and financial subsidies) behind extractive industries like mining and fossil fuels.

The northwest is “home to the Golden Triangle, one of the world’s richest reserves of the minerals and metals that are essential for the energy transition as well as defence supply chains for Canada and our allies,” Cuguen told The Narwhal in an emailed statement.

The Golden Triangle refers to an area which has long been a hotbed of mining activity. Most of the mining here has been for gold, as its name suggests. Gold is currently fetching record prices on global markets. Its value has been steadily climbing for a few years and skyrocketed in 2025, passing US$4,100 per ounce in October. Gold is only minimally used in renewable energy technology such as solar panels and its role in the defence sector is primarily economic, with profits made from the precious metal used to offset the costs of extracting other minerals.

‘Metals are the new oil’: B.C. fast-tracks critical minerals projects to counter tariffs

In northwest B.C., there are four operational mines (Red Chris, Brucejack, Dome Mountain and Blackwater) and another three (KSM, Eskay Creek and Galore) in various stages of securing approvals, permits or investment. The strategy announced by Carney’s government and referred to the Major Projects Office includes only one mine, the already-operating Red Chris mine on Tahltan territory. 

Red Chris is a copper and gold mine currently owned by Newmont, an American gold mining corporation with headquarters in Colorado. Newmont is in the process of advancing plans to expand production and convert operations from open-pit mining to block-cave mining. This expansion is what the feds are interested in. 

How is this connected to LNG? 

You can’t talk about this “corridor” without talking about liquefied natural gas, or LNG. Because it’s not just mining on the government’s mind. At the Terrace, B.C., press conference, Carney championed the province’s success in getting its long-awaited LNG export sector off the ground. 

“We’re home to the world’s fourth largest reserves of natural gas, and we have the potential to supply up to 100 million tonnes annually of new LNG exports to Asia,” he said.

In the same breath, the prime minister named the recently approved Ksi Lisims LNG processing and export facility. Ksi Lisims is owned by Texas-based Western LNG in partnership with the Nisga’a Lisims Government.

Getting the fossil fuel to overseas markets will require building hundreds of kilometres of pipelines, in part, through this “conservation corridor.” Once it arrives on the coast, it will need to be cooled down to -162 C before it can be loaded onto tankers in its liquid state. 

In Kitimat, B.C., where liquefaction started this summer, some residents are reeling from the impacts of the operation. Flaring, which is when a plant burns off excess or waste gas, has been ongoing for more than a year now as the massive LNG Canada facility slowly gets up and running. The plant’s flare stack has lit up the night skies with a flame about as tall as London’s iconic Big Ben. 

LNG Canada in Kitimat, B.C., is Canada’s first major liquefied natural gas export facility. It has been conducting flaring activities since September, 2024. Photos: Marty Clemens / The Narwhal

This process also requires a lot of energy, which is where the North Coast transmission line comes in.

The transmission line would involve installing around 800 kilometres of new high-voltage wires across the northwest, in three stages. The wires, which require clearing wide swaths through forests and bisecting agricultural lands, would connect to the existing grid.

“Infrastructure investments under this strategy also link clean electricity to Canada’s ability to export LNG,” Cuguen wrote, adding the feds will be discussing how much money to throw at the plan “to ensure the potential of the region is achieved.”

But there’s a problem. Even with the wildly expensive Site C dam, it’s unlikely that B.C. can produce enough power to electrify LNG projects already on the books, let alone all the other industrial and commercial projects vying for power.

Corridor? What corridor?

In the statement sent to The Narwhal, Cuguen noted the northwest represents “one of Canada’s gateways to global markets through the Pacific Ocean.”

“This corridor will fundamentally transform the lives of thousands of Canadians, position Canada as a global leader in critical minerals and drive prosperity across the country,” Cuguen wrote, without explaining how or when the federal government expects this to happen.

In other words, the “corridor” probably has nothing to do with conservation. If the federal government wants to export more raw goods and resources to countries overseas, decreasing reliance on the U.S., it needs to lock in pathways across B.C.

The Privy Council statement also acknowledged northwest B.C. is “home to vibrant communities in a spectacular environment rich with mountains, glaciers, watersheds and coastal ecosystems.”

The looming question is how this influx of development will impact communities and sensitive ecosystems. If it comes to fruition, the strategy will certainly transform the lives of thousands of Canadians, but it remains to be seen which ones — and in what way.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.