On October 30, leaders from Canada and the European Union gathered in Montreal and agreed to study exporting liquefied natural gas to Europe. That same day, the head of a US$23-billion project to ship Western Canadian gas from Quebec’s North Shore was on a ferry crossing the St. Lawrence River.

“Europe needs gas. If it doesn’t come from the East Coast, it will come from the West,” Yves Crits, chief executive of Kino Aski LNG, told The Narwhal in what he said was his first media interview. West Coast liquefied natural gas, or LNG, bound for Europe will cross the congested Panama Canal, he noted, unless it can find a shorter route through Quebec.

Crits was returning from Baie-Comeau, about 400 kilometres downriver from Quebec City, where he had been meeting with local communities about the proposal and the pipeline that would be connected to it. “We’re in the information phase,” he said. “We want to develop the project with the community.”

But Kino Aski’s planning seems to be further along than that. A presentation the company prepared for the federal government months ago, obtained by The Narwhal, already mapped three possible pipeline routes: through Atikamekw territory, farther north toward Cree lands or along the path of GNL Québec’s defunct pipeline proposal. The presentation also proposed launching environmental studies and the regulatory process by mid-October, a target that has come and gone.

When The Narwhal asked about the pipeline routes in the presentation, Crits said they were rough corridors drawn without accounting for environmental constraints. A new route developed more recently does, he said — though he noted it did not yet take into account the input of Indigenous communities and will be adjusted through further talks.

The project would pipe mostly fracked gas from Western Canada through roughly 1,000 kilometres of new pipeline to Baie-Comeau, where floating facilities would liquefy up to 15 million tonnes a year. That would make it one of the largest LNG export projects in the country, larger than B.C.’s Ksi Lisims LNG (12 million tonnes a year), Cedar LNG (about three million) and Woodfibre LNG (about two million). Kino Aski is pitching itself as “low carbon,” saying it plans to build wind turbines across the province to sell energy to Hydro-Québec, which it says would offset its energy use. No regulatory process has begun for Kino Aski LNG.

Yet Ottawa is already pitching the project to investors. A federal prospectus prepared for the Canada Investment Summit, hosted by Prime Minister Mark Carney in Toronto in September, promoted Kino Aski’s “ultra-low-emission LNG” and invited investors to take an equity stake.

In response to The Narwhal’s questions, Natural Resources Canada said inclusion in summit materials “does not constitute government approval, endorsement or a determination regarding a project’s viability.”

Still, that doesn’t sit well with Lucien Wabanonik, Chief of the Anishnabe Nation of Lac Simon, whose territory lies along one of the proposed pipeline routes. “It’s a mistake to sell something without having the consent or approval of our communities or our neighbours,” he said in an interview conducted in French.

Every nation along pipeline route has been invited to be a founding shareholder: energy executive

The Baie-Comeau LNG project first surfaced as a secretive proposal from Norwegian company Marinvest Energy, which had a non-disclosure agreement with Ottawa, as The Narwhal reported in March. Crits said Marinvest then approached the Atikamekw Nation, the territorial government for three Atikamekw nations: Wemotaci, Opticiwan and the most populous, Manawan, where Crits, a Belgian energy executive, has worked with the community for about a decade. Relaunched in August and marketed as “First Nations-led,” the project is now majority-controlled by the Atikamekw Nation Council, with Marinvest as a minority partner.

Two Marinvest executives, Greg Cano and Harald Vartdal, remain on the board of the joint venture, Kino Aski LNG Inc., according to Quebec’s business registry. But Crits indicated the Norwegian company’s stake will be diluted in upcoming fundraising rounds. “The Marinvest project is dead,” he said. “We’re going with an Indigenous philosophy.” So far, the Atikamekw Nation has been an eager partner. The nation responded to a request from The Narwhal but was not able to make someone available for an interview before publication time.

“Kino Aski LNG represents a unique opportunity to demonstrate that our communities can be leading economic partners while protecting our lands, our values and our future,” Atikamekw Grand Chief Constant Awashish said in an August statement. Awashish was reelected in September with 70 per cent voter support.

But other nations along the route in Quebec say the Atikamekw Nation doesn’t speak for them. Asked whether Atikamekw’s endorsement changed his view, Wabanonik answered: “Not at all. The objective is still the protection of our land.”

In an October statement, the Innu First Nations of Essipit, Mashteuiatsh and Pessamit said, in French, that they had neither consented to the project nor given Kino Aski a mandate to “speak on their behalf,” and called for a pause. Essipit did not respond to a request for an interview by publication time. Crits said Kino Aski has met with Innu leaders several times, and that they “are not against the project” but want more information.

The Innu have been here before. In 2015, Mashteuiatsh, Essipit and Pessamit signed a collaboration agreement with GNL Québec, which proposed a similar terminal in the Saguenay region. In 2021, the nations walked away, citing their opposition to fracked gas —  fracking uses large volumes of water and is known to cause earthquakes and significant emissions — and the company’s failure to show its LNG would replace dirtier fuels. Quebec and Ottawa rejected the project in 2021 and 2022, citing emissions, impacts on Innu communities and risks to belugas. Lac Simon was opposed then, too. “At the time, the community was completely against this kind of project because of its impact on the land, the water, the air and the climate,” Chief Wabanonik said in an interview.

Crits rejects the comparison to the GNL Québec terminal, saying communities have been involved from the beginning this time and that, unlike the Saguenay site, Baie-Comeau lies east of the belugas’ main summer range. But LNG carriers are among the largest ships on the ocean, and 15 million tonnes of LNG a year would mean hundreds of tanker trips through waters used by other whales.

The CEO said Kino Aski is offering the Innu nations a stake — and that every nation along the proposed route has been invited to become a founding shareholder. That would mean benefits agreements, jobs and contracts, modelled on Western Canadian projects such as the Haisla Nation’s Cedar LNG. The company’s presentation to Ottawa calls this offer “economic reconciliation” and estimates the project would pay $8 billion in dividends to its shareholders over its first 10 to 12 years of operation.

But that model depends on the neighbouring nations saying yes. Wabanonik called the offer “the carrot at the end of the stick.” 

“It’s not the financial aspect that interests us,” he said. At a recent community assembly, families whose lands lie along the route called the project unacceptable, Chief Wabanonik said.

Kino Aski is ‘a major project for Canada’: CEO

Despite the scale of the proposal running through its territory, Lac Simon learned of the project through the news and had to approach the developer for information, Wabanonik said. That’s not what Ottawa says should come first. Indigenous Peoples need “good information” early and should help co-develop projects, Rob Van Walleghem, general counsel and vice-president of Indigenous affairs at the Major Projects office, told members of Parliament on the House of Commons environment committee on Oct. 27. When asked about Lac Simon learning about Kino Aski through the news, the CEO said Kino Aski did not communicate earlier because it did not have much to say, and noted the Atikamek election kept the nation busy.

Natural Resources Canada’s spokesperson Miriam Galipeau said Kino Aski has not entered any federal review process or been referred to the Major Projects Office, and that Indigenous consultation would be part of any federal review. Crits said the project is by nature “a major project for Canada,” for Quebec and for Indigenous communities in the East, and that the company intends to seek referral to the office “at some point.”

Once the route is set, Crits said, “it will be up to the communities to make their decisions.” Asked whether Kino Aski would proceed without approval from every nation whose territory could be affected, he didn’t answer. But nothing in federal law guarantees First Nations that final say. In 2025, the Carney government passed the Building Canada Act, which paves the way to fast-track projects deemed in “the national interest,” a concept that has yet to be defined. It requires affected Indigenous communities to be consulted — but not that they consent. Bill C-39, now before Parliament, would go further, letting Ottawa designate entire “regions of national interest” and consolidating Indigenous consultation.

The question of consent also runs through the Atikamekw nation, where some members have asked whether Wemotaci, Opitciwan and Manawan were consulted before the Grand Chief endorsed the project. Along with the territorial government, each community has its own band council and Christian Awashish, a former Chief of Opitciwan (no relation to the Grand Chief), said in August the pipeline “will not happen.” Awashish did not respond to a request for an interview by publication time. In an August Facebook post, he called for more transparency, arguing the territorial council can’t commit community lands — in Opitciwan’s case, he wrote, only the band holds constitutionally recognized Aboriginal Title.

Corporate records reviewed by The Narwhal show Kino Aski Inc. is controlled through a sovereign fund the territorial council created in March, with the three band council chiefs on its board. Kino Aski Inc.’s own board has just two members: Constant Awashish and Yves Crits.

Kino Aski hopes to capitalize on changing geopolitics and its ‘low carbon’ approach

As it pushes the Baie-Comeau project under the new structure, Kino Aski is banking on a shift in public opinion. In 2021, the Quebec government rejected another LNG project, GNL Québec, after widespread opposition. But in December 2025, 67 per cent of Quebec respondents said they supported Marinvest’s LNG project, according to an Ipsos poll commissioned by the Montreal Economic Institute. The think tank, which receives part of its funding from the oil and gas industry, concluded that social acceptability is now there.

“The geopolitical context has completely changed,” Crits said. Kino Aski’s presentation to Ottawa argues that Europe will need new suppliers: Norway’s production is expected to decline, and Russian gas is to be banned by the end of 2027. The new Canada-EU commitment to studying LNG exports pledges to consider both sides’ climate goals, which could make Europe’s long-term appetite uncertain: the European Union’s top diplomat told The Narwhal in February that Europe will “give priority to clean energy sources,” amid a global LNG glut.

Kino Aski markets its LNG as “low carbon,” and its presentation to Ottawa set a goal of carbon neutrality. Up to a third as much energy as is exported is used to prepare gas for shipping: first, compressing gas through a pipeline, then chilling it to -162 C and liquefying it, according to the document. In the United States and Qatar, that energy usually comes from burning gas, which is largely made up of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Kino Aski would use Hydro-Québec power instead, offset by new wind farms. But its carbon-neutral claims cover only processing, not methane escaping from tankers — or the emissions from burning the gas in Europe.

For Wabanonik, those larger impacts are exactly the problem. Lac Simon’s concerns go beyond its own territory, to the cumulative effects of development on land, water, air and the climate, he said. “It’s false to believe that only First Nations will live with these impacts,” he said. “It’s society in general.”

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