Indigenous, community groups take BC Energy Regulator to court over PRGT pipeline approval
Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups are in court this week, arguing the BC Energy Regulator bent its own rules when it green-lighted construction of a new 800-kilometre gas pipeline for the LNG industry
Clearing for the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline started last fall. Groups allege the BC Energy Regulator bent its own rules to green-light the 800-kilometre pipeline to supply B.C.’s new liquefied natural gas industry.
A coalition of Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups is taking the BC Energy Regulator to court this week, claiming the regulator bent its own rules to green-light construction of the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline.
Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, Kispiox (Anspayaxw) band — a Gitxsan Nation elected government — and Kispiox Valley Community Association allege clearing work for the 800-kilometre pipeline began last August before a legally required assessment of the health of the land, water and wildlife was conducted. The pipeline will supply the planned Ksi Lisims liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project.
A four-day B.C. Supreme Court hearing begins tomorrow in Vancouver, after the groups filed for a judicial review last August.
“We have followed this project for over a decade now because it goes through some of the most critical salmon habitat [in the province],” Shannon McPhail, co-executive director of Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, told The Narwhal in an interview. “It’s going to impact water, it’s going to impact communities — all of these different issues were supposed to be assessed in a cumulative effects assessment.”
Shannon McPhail, co-executive director of Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, said her group and others are taking the BC Energy Regulator to court because they believe the regulator failed to uphold its legal responsibilities and is putting communities and ecosystems in danger. Photo: Marty Clemens / The Narwhal
The groups, represented by the environmental law charity Ecojustice, are arguing the BC Energy Regulator, a government agency largely funded by the oil and gas industry, changed the pipeline’s permit conditions to allow preliminary construction even though an assessment of the project’s entire footprint hadn’t been conducted.
In an emailed response to questions, the BC Energy Regulator said, “These matters are currently the subject of court proceedings and the BC Energy Regulator’s position is recorded in our submissions.”
The pipeline will run from Treaty 8 nations’ territories in northeast B.C. to the proposed Ksi Lisims LNG terminal near the mouth of the Nass River and the Alaska border. It will cross more than 1,000 waterways, including major salmon-bearing rivers and tributaries. Until last year, when the route was changed, the pipeline was slated to terminate in Prince Rupert, B.C.
The pipeline, formerly owned by TC Energy, the Calgary-based company that built the controversial Coastal GasLink pipeline, was originally approved in 2014. In 2019, the B.C. government granted TC Energy a five-year extension to its environmental assessment certificate, which was set to expire.
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In mid-2024, TC Energy sold the pipeline project to Texas-based Western LNG and the Nisg̱a’a Lisims Government. The Nisg̱a’a government and Western LNG also co-own the Ksi Lisims LNG export project which is currently undergoing an environmental assessment.
The pipeline’s environmental assessment certificate expired last November, which meant Western LNG and the Nisg̱a’a government had a limited window to get enough work done to secure a “substantially started” designation and lock in the project’s approval indefinitely. B.C. Environment Minister Tamara Davidson is expected to announce sometime this spring whether the government deems the PRGT pipeline is substantially started.
The expiring environmental assessment was likely behind the haste, McPhail said. “So they were moving faster than they probably would have liked and as a result, what seems to have happened is that they missed a few of the steps.”
Kolin Sutherland Wilson, Kispiox band chief councillor, said in a statement the groups are in court because the decision to start building the pipeline “was not only hasty but also skirted legal requirements.” He said the regulator “ignored the broader impacts by using outdated information and only focusing on small sections of the project.”
The BC Energy Regulator previously told The Narwhal an effects assessment for a small section of the pipeline, known as section 5b, “was completed by the Nisg̱a’a Nation, with respect to cumulative effects on Nisg̱a’a Lands.” The regulator said the requirement to conduct an assessment is isolated to each section of the pipeline for which permits were issued, meaning the proponent isn’t required to assess the entire project as a whole.
McPhail said the regulator’s statement contradicts the purpose of a cumulative effects assessment, which provides a holistic look at the impacts of past development, ecosystem health and the potential impacts of a proposed project in the context of development that could take place in the future.
“We are a resource extraction region,” she explained. “We’re good at it and there is a good way to do it and there are ways that you just don’t do it. The BC Energy Regulator seems to be exemplifying what you don’t do — and that is hurry things through important processes like a cumulative effects assessment.”
“It directly impacts me, it impacts my kids, my community, my family — not to mention water and land,” she added. “We are socializing the costs and privatizing the profits. I’m tired of these major industries making billions of dollars on the backs of Indigenous people and on the backs of communities who have made a living here.”
Wilson called for a complete and up-to-date assessment that takes into account the “true scale of potential harm” to communities like Kispiox, located 15 kilometres from the pipeline. “It’s crucial to ensure the safety and well-being of our communities against the very real threat of climate change.”
Updated on March 24, 2025, at 4:39 p.m. PT. This story was updated to include comment from the BC Energy Regulator that was received following publication.
Another year of keeping a close watch
Here at The Narwhal, we don’t use profit, awards or pageviews to measure success. The thing that matters most is real-world impact — evidence that our reporting influenced citizens to hold power to account and pushed policymakers to do better.
And in 2024, our stories were raised in parliaments across the country and cited by citizens in their petitions and letters to politicians.
In Alberta, our reporting revealed Premier Danielle Smith made false statements about the controversial renewables pause. In Manitoba, we proved that officials failed to formally inspect a leaky pipeline for years. And our investigations on a leaked recording of TC Energy executives were called “the most important Canadian political story of the year.”
Here at The Narwhal, we don’t use profit, awards or pageviews to measure success. The thing that matters most is real-world impact — evidence that our reporting influenced citizens to hold power to account and pushed policymakers to do better.
And in 2024, our stories were raised in parliaments across the country and cited by citizens in their petitions and letters to politicians.
In Alberta, our reporting revealed Premier Danielle Smith made false statements about the controversial renewables pause. In Manitoba, we proved that officials failed to formally inspect a leaky pipeline for years. And our investigations on a leaked recording of TC Energy executives were called “the most important Canadian political story of the year.”
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