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 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.

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.

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.

“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.”

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?”

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.” 

“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.”

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Under heavy rain, an electronic sign by the side of the road in a small northwestern B.C. town warns passersby, “Flare height will vary.” It flashes to the next message: “Between 15 meters [sic] and 90.”

Kitimat, B.C., a coastal community about 1,400 kilometres north of Vancouver, is home to around 8,000 people — and Canada’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) processing facility. For the past 14 months, LNG Canada has been periodically burning excess or waste gas, a process known as flaring. At its highest, the flame is about as tall as London’s Big Ben or New York’s Statue of Liberty — not just the statue’s torch but the whole lady herself.

Speaking in the neighbouring community of Terrace, B.C., on Thursday, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced another LNG export facility — Ksi Lisims LNG — will be referred to the federal government’s newly established Major Projects Office. Projects flagged to the office are developments the Canadian government is endorsing as part of its efforts to diversify trade away from the United States, and considering fast-tracking through certain environmental and other approvals. 

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

Ksi Lisims LNG will be built about 200 kilometres north of Kitimat and supplied by the 800-kilometre Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline, yet to be built. At full capacity, it will export around 12 million tonnes of LNG per year.

Meanwhile, the flare in Kitimat has been impacting the lives of residents and raising concerns about health and climate impacts. On social media, some Kitimat residents are grieving the loss of the night sky, posting photos and videos of a dull orange glow looming over the town. Others worry about the impact of emissions on their health, citing research on toxins emitted during LNG operations. Many have compared the near-omnipresent flame to the “Eye of Mordor,” from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

Natural gas is mostly composed of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that is invisible and odourless. Methane, which is responsible for around one-third of global warming since the industrial revolution, traps 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. In other words, methane emitted now — or leaked into the atmosphere from industrial infrastructure — will directly increase the likelihood of climate disasters like wildfires, floods and droughts over the next two decades.

Burning excess gas, as LNG Canada is, reduces the amount of methane that ends up in the atmosphere by instead turning it into carbon dioxide and other toxins — meaning it still comes at a cost for locals, and the planet. 

LNG Canada — a consortium of foreign-owned fossil fuel companies led by multinational oil and gas giant Shell — maintains flaring activity is a regular part of start-up operations and says its emissions fall within provincial standards.

“Flaring is a provincially regulated safety measure that ensures the controlled, efficient combustion of natural gas during specific operational phases,” LNG Canada said in a public notification.

On Nov. 9, the consortium told the public that “flaring associated with the start-up … will be extended beyond the originally anticipated timeframe” and warned residents this would mean “intermittent” noise and emissions. LNG Canada previously offered to pay to temporarily relocate some residents living close to the flare, according to a leaked document reviewed by The Narwhal and confirmed by the consortium.

The facility is currently in its first phase, operating four gas-powered turbines that supercool the gas to -162 C, reducing its volume for transport. An already approved and permitted second phase would double the plant’s production, adding another four turbines, corresponding flaring facilities — and, presumably, more warnings to residents.

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.

LNG Canada offered thousands of dollars in financial compensation to at least one Kitimat, B.C., resident for their discretion around “additional incremental flaring and noise” from the gas liquefaction and export facility, according to a document reviewed by The Narwhal.

In return, the resident would agree 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 operations for around one week at the beginning of November.

The document, shared with The Narwhal by a source who asked that their name not be published, details how LNG Canada offered to pay more than $6,000 in estimated costs for the resident and their family to “relocate” around 200 kilometres away to Prince Rupert for a week — or stay and deal with the impacts. By signing, the resident would agree to “release and forever discharge LNG Canada and its affiliates, shareholders, owners, agents, staff and representatives” from any legal actions against the company, including if the plant’s operations during this period led to “depreciation in property value, or damage to land or property.”

As The Narwhal previously reported, noise and emissions that smelled like “burnt plastic or burnt Styrofoam” from the LNG plant have been disrupting some residents’ daily lives for the past several months. LNG Canada has been in its startup phase for more than a year and, since September 2024, has posted 25 notifications of planned and unplanned flaring events, where excess or waste gas is burnt off. The flame can reach more than 100 metres high.

LNG Canada did not directly answer questions about the details of the document but acknowledged it has “offered temporary relocation support to some residents during the start-up activity.”

“Flaring in this phase is a normal occurrence and can result in a period of elevated noise,” a spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement. “We continue to recognize that this may impact some residents living near the facility.” 

The spokesperson declined to specify how many residents have been offered compensation.

B.C. Premier David Eby declined to comment and referred questions to the Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions, which did not respond prior to publication.

LNG Canada is an estimated $40-billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project jointly owned by Shell, Petronas, PetroChina, Korea Gas and Mitsubishi. The consortium of companies started shipping overseas in late June.

Fossil fuel companies have long used financial compensation as a tool to win community support — and discourage opposition — to projects like pipelines and processing facilities.

TC Energy, the company that built Coastal GasLink, which supplies gas to LNG Canada, included a clause in one leaked impact and benefit agreement that required a First Nations band council to “take all reasonable actions to persuade [community] members to not take any action, legal or otherwise, including any media or social media campaign, that may impede, hinder, frustrate, delay, stop or interfere” with the pipeline project.

It’s rare, however, for the public to see such a contract.

The compensation offered by LNG Canada to Kitimat residents does not specify wages lost as a result of temporarily relocating to Prince Rupert.

The anonymous source told The Narwhal they are aware of other Kitimat residents who signed similar agreements with LNG Canada but not the amount they were offered. They said a decline in construction jobs now that the facility is built and operating means many locals are feeling the “strain.”

“Families are focused on keeping the roof over their heads, and food on the table,” they 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.

On the morning of Monday, Sept. 15, James Smith begrudgingly got out of bed to get ready for the day. The weekend, he told The Narwhal, had been hell.

“Even this morning, it was like 75 to 80 decibels inside my bedroom,” he said on a phone call from his home in Kitimat, B.C., referring to the noise. 

That’s like his bed was in the middle of a busy city street. 

The sound was from LNG Canada, the first major liquefied natural gas (LNG) export operation in the country. Ever since it fired up its gas turbines, compressors and flare earlier this year, some residents of the small northwestern community have had their lives upended.

“We maybe got two hours’ sleep this whole weekend,” Smith, whose name has been changed, said. “I’m just useless now.” The Narwhal knows his name but agreed to refer to him by a pseudonym to protect his identity and prevent potential repercussions to his family. Smith explained he felt it was necessary to protect his family in a town of around 8,000 people, where most are connected to or working for the LNG industry in some way and criticizing it publicly isn’t common.

A few days earlier, LNG Canada posted a notification to its website and social media channels, warning locals of a “planned flaring activity” as the facility restarted two of its four turbines. Flaring is burning off excess or waste natural gas, mostly composed of methane. The flame can sometimes get as high as 100 metres. 

“We anticipate increased noise and visible emissions from the flare,” the notification said. LNG Canada posted notifications related to flaring 23 times since September last year, some of which have included “unplanned flaring” events.

A spokesperson with the consortium of companies behind the project told The Narwhal “a new facility the size and complexity of LNG Canada requires a break-in period to stabilize, which is normal.” 

The companies behind LNG Canada are all from, and in three cases owned by, other countries: Royal Dutch Shell, by way of Shell Canada, Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas, the Chinese government’s PetroChina, South Korea’s KoGas, and the Japanese corporation, Mitsubishi. Together with North American pipeline giant, TC Energy, which built the Coastal GasLink pipeline that feeds the plant, the companies represent what has been called the largest private investment in Canadian history.

As the liquefaction plant gets going, “occasional adjustments, fine-tuning and restarts may initiate flaring activities outside of scheduled or planned events,” the spokesperson added. “These are typically brief and like all flaring activities, they are reported to the BC Energy Regulator and communicated to the public.”

Kitimat has been an industry town since it was settled in the 1950s to support the Alcan aluminum smelter, now owned by multinational mining giant Rio Tinto. Before moving west, Smith, who is a mechanical engineer and millwright, worked on some of the biggest energy projects in Canada. Kitimat offered him an alluring combination: the chance to make a decent salary running his own contracting team and easy access to good hiking, fishing and hunting.

“I moved here for the peace and quiet in the mountains,” he said.

When construction of LNG Canada started in 2020, most of his workforce evaporated as his employees went to work on building the plant. So he signed on, too. His skill set and expertise made him a perfect candidate, but after witnessing what he described as a “nightmare” of safety issues and endless problems with components sourced overseas, Smith quit working on the giant gas processing facility and went back to contracting.

LNG Canada did not directly respond to allegations of safety issues but said it is “committed to operating safely, transparently and in compliance with all provincial and federal regulations.”

With the LNG plant now running, Smith’s dreams of a quiet life are crumbling.

“I’m at a wit’s end with the noise and the smoke,” he said. “I built this house with my own hands. I dug the foundation, poured the concrete. I put everything I own, all my savings, into it. Now I can’t even sleep in my house, it’s so noisy.”

‘Worsening symptoms’: Kitimat registered nurse concerned increased reports of respiratory problems linked to flaring 

It’s not just the industrial noise concerning Smith and other Kitimat residents. As The Narwhal previously reported, flaring has meant a significant increase in emissions, affecting some neighbourhoods more acutely than others.

“At 2:45, my backyard was covered in grey smoke when I was cooking hot dogs,” Smith said. “You get this smell for a few seconds. It smells like burnt plastic or burnt Styrofoam.”

Another local, Chris Godfrey, told a similar story.

“I’m sitting in my backyard right now — I usually sit out here when the weather is nice — and I’m getting quite the diesel smell today,” he said on a phone call in early September. “That’s probably the best way to describe it, like your grandfather’s diesel pickup truck. I can send you video and I can send you sound, but I can’t send you smells.”

Godfrey, 63, was born and raised in Kitimat and said he supports industrial development, including LNG.

“Both of my grandfathers, my father, my uncles, my aunt, they all worked at Alcan, back to 1954,” he said. “My whole family used Alcan to put kids through university and to have the best life ever, because a lot of them came over here after the war and found a big, high-paying job.”

But the impacts from LNG Canada so far have been severe, he said, including shortness of breath when he’s out long distance running, black soot covering his property and vehicles, disrupted sleep from the noise and more.

“I can be sitting in my living room watching TV at night with all my windows wide open and I can smell diesel in my living room, and it’s coming from that plant,” he said. “Does it affect everybody in the community? No, it affects me because I’m three, four kilometres away from the plant.”

Smith is frustrated that he and his neighbours are impacted so heavily by an export operation and said Canada could make better use of its resources, suggesting the gas could have been used to displace diesel in places like Haida Gwaii instead of selling it to foreign countries. 

“I’m not anti-LNG,” he said. “I think exploiting our resources is good — but I think there’s better things to do with it than ship it off to China.”

District of Kitimat mayor Phil Germuth previously told The Narwhal the flaring has been a concern for some residents, but characterized it as the necessary cost of becoming the “LNG capital of Canada.” 

“Being a town that was built by industry, people understand that every once in a while, you’re going to have to put up with something to get the bigger goal in the end,” he said.

Germuth told The Narwhal he had nothing to add to his previous comments.

While relatively little is known about the short- or long-term health impacts of flaring, emissions from burning natural gas include “fine particulate matter, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides, all linked to adverse health outcomes,” according to a recent report on global flaring activity in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Sally Harvie, a radiologist and member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, said people living near fracking sites and export facilities are at higher risk of health impacts.

“Leaked gas and chemicals in the air near fracking sites and compressor stations, flaring and chemical evaporation pollute the air with substances like benzene, formaldehyde and fine particles,” she said at a recent press conference calling on the B.C. and federal governments to fund a health impact assessment of the LNG sector. “These are linked to asthma, heart disease, birth defects, childhood leukemia, neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases like autism and Alzheimer’s.”

“Is there going to be, in 40 years from now or 30 years from now, the incidents of cancer going through the roof?” Godfrey asked. “I was just reading something the other day that 95,000 people in the U.S. die a year from the petroleum industry. That’s a lot of people. Are we going to be that statistic here in Kitimat?”

Ankur Patel, a registered nurse in Kitimat, said he’s already hearing from residents about health impacts, especially seniors and those with heart disease. 

“I’ve heard first-hand accounts of worsening symptoms that coincide with heavy flaring from LNG operations,” he said at the press conference. “Kitimat is a town which has been touted as a marvel of nature and industry. It is now, due to LNG, proudly home to community notices of unplanned flaring events accompanied by noise, visible smoke and various particulate matter which are linked to exacerbations of respiratory illness and cardiovascular diseases.”

LNG Canada maintained its emissions are safe and said the “health of the community, our workers and the environment in which we operate remains our top priority.”

“Flaring is a provincially regulated and industry-standard practice that ensures natural gas is safely combusted rather than vented directly into the atmosphere,” the spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement. “Publicly available data from B.C. government monitoring stations in Kitimat show that levels of key pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide, have remained consistently low over the past year.”

‘A set of fucking cement shoes’

LNG Canada sent its first shipment to Asia at the end of June, marking Canada’s entry into the global liquefied natural gas market. This month, Prime Minister Mark Carney signalled the federal government’s support for an already-approved and permitted second phase, which would double production and add an additional eight gas turbines to the Kitimat facility. Earlier this year, the consortium of companies said they are in talks about whether to invest in the expansion.

Meanwhile, B.C. recently approved another major LNG export facility, Ksi Lisims LNG. That project — a floating facility that will produce up to 12 million tonnes per year, slightly less than the first phase of LNG Canada — will be built near the mouth of the Nass River, about 100 kilometres north of Prince Rupert. Both Carney and B.C. Premier David Eby celebrated the approval, touting natural gas exports as a much-needed boon to the economy.

For locals like Smith, the promise that this massive, export-focused LNG buildout will bring future prosperity to his community doesn’t seem worth the immediate impacts.

“A lot of the politicians, like Eby and now Carney, they’ve been convinced that this is their saviour, their life raft, when actually I think it’s a set of fucking cement shoes,” he 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.

Flames as high as a 30-storey building, ships nearly as long as the Eiffel Tower is tall, $40 billion dollars. Everything about LNG Canada is big — including its promises. 

Often referred to as the largest private investment in Canadian history, the megaproject connects B.C. shale gas reserves near the Alberta border to marine shipping routes on the northwest coast. More than a decade after the project was first approved, Canada’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector is finally up and running: LNG Canada sent its first shipment to Asia on June 30.

As exports start flowing overseas from the Kitimat, B.C., facility, two more liquefaction plants are under construction — Woodfibre LNG and Cedar LNG. Another, Ksi Lisims LNG, could be approved any day. The promise around all this industrial buildout has always been prosperity, but whether the industry can deliver, and for how long, is up for debate.

“An oversupply of LNG is widely expected, potentially starting as early as next year, with a massive wave of new projects coming online around the world, especially in the U.S. and Qatar,” Steven Haig, a policy advisor with the International Institute for Sustainable Development, told The Narwhal. “When it comes to the economic benefits of LNG, Canada is really late to the party — and that party is almost over.”

Haig and his colleagues recently penned a deep dive into the risks of locking in more LNG infrastructure, reporting that Canadian exports are unlikely to achieve “energy security for importers or economic resilience for exporters.”

“What we explain in our analysis is that we are very likely moving into a period of oversupply with lower prices — and those lower prices may well be below what projects need to break even,” Haig told The Narwhal. “If they run at a loss for too long, then they can become stranded assets, with economic implications for the people who work for these facilities or for communities that might become economically associated with them.”

‘Higher domestic prices for Canadian consumers’ are a possibility

As Canadian LNG — the liquid form of natural gas, which is mostly composed of methane and in B.C. is extracted primarily through fracking — starts making its way into international markets, British Columbians and Albertans could also see a spike in their heating bills, according to Deloitte Canada. As the Financial Post recently reported, domestic natural gas prices could jump up by 60 per cent this year, and climb even higher next year. 

Haig said if the price a company can get from exporting LNG is higher than it can get selling natural gas domestically, prices in places like B.C. and Alberta will go up. This happened in Australia, where domestic prices tripled as Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine sent shockwaves through the supply chain.

“LNG links regional gas markets together in the global LNG market,” Haig explained. “So a local supply disruption in one place can lead to skyrocketing LNG prices elsewhere.” 

“When those high prices are in effect, then it can become more profitable for a gas producer in Canada, for example, to export that gas to the international LNG market than to use that gas in Canada’s domestic gas market.” That, he said, can lead to higher domestic prices for Canadian consumers.

LNG Canada is now operating its first phase, which will produce up to 14 million tonnes of supercooled gas per year. It’s already approved and permitted to double production.

Teresa Waddington, LNG Canada’s vice-president of corporate relations, told The Narwhal earlier this month that talks are underway about whether or not to go ahead with the expansion. She said a final decision depends on a number of factors including “overall competitiveness [and] affordability.” LNG Canada did not respond to new questions from The Narwhal by publication time.

When the international consortium of oil and gas companies behind LNG Canada (Shell, Petronas, Korea Gas, PetroChina and Mitsubishi) first started courting Canada to develop an LNG export industry in B.C. in the early 2010s, they said it would boost the economy locally, provincially and federally. With recent trade threats from the U.S. government, that narrative is gaining traction again and politicians like B.C. Premier David Eby and Prime Minister Mark Carney are celebrating the sector as an economic saviour. 

Haig cautioned the narrative should be taken with a grain of salt.

“We’re seeing this big push towards LNG expansion to diversify Canada’s exports beyond the United States, but these are multi-billion dollar and multi-decade projects,” he explained. “Their long-term viability is a serious concern as global markets shift towards cleaner and more reliable energy sources, like renewables. Investing in LNG as a supposed transition fuel in the meantime would be a long, costly detour.”

‘It’s not too late’: Canada can reduce economic and climate risks by putting the brakes on LNG exports, expert says

Alongside promises of prosperity, LNG Canada and other proponents of the sector maintain the gas is a so-called “bridge” or transition fuel — a climate solution. The argument goes like this: burning gas to generate power is less harmful than burning coal, and B.C. exports will help countries like China substantially reduce their reliance on the “dirtier” fossil fuel. The first part is the subject of much debate, especially when the entire lifecycle of LNG is taken into consideration. The second — that Canadian LNG will displace coal — Haig said simply isn’t true. 

“Coal is cheap, renewables are cheap and LNG is not,” he said. “If we look at China’s power sector, for example, it’s renewables — not LNG imports — that are eating into coal’s market share. This is mostly because renewables are cheaper than LNG and because LNG requires expensive new infrastructure, such as re-gasification plants and pipelines, to connect consumers with supply.” 

China, while still responsible for about one third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, is outpacing the rest of the world by leaps and bounds in building renewables. In May this year, the country added the equivalent of 100 solar panels per second. As the Guardian reported in June, “China’s installed solar photovoltaic capacity has now surpassed 1,000 gigawatts for the first time, equivalent to half of the world’s total installed solar capacity.” 

Haig said Canada is at a crossroads as it decides whether or not to approve more LNG projects, but added, “it’s not too late.” 

“LNG exports can delay investments in renewables and generally increase global fossil fuel use, increasing global greenhouse gas emissions,” he said. “Doubling down on LNG projects would likely expose Canadians to more risk and volatility, not less.”

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.

The phone call to the B.C. premier’s office came on a Saturday in May 2023, one day after a scathing inspection report detailed multiple environmental infractions along the route of a major gas pipeline under construction in the province.

The report, issued by the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office, outlined damage to sensitive wetlands and other ecosystems on Wet’suwet’en territory in northwest B.C. It detailed howTC Energy allegedly failed to protect areas around its Coastal GasLink pipeline project from environmental impacts associated with construction and spring snowmelt.

As a result, the assessment office said in its report that it would keep stop-work orders on pipeline construction in place, potentially triggering delays and driving up costs on a multibillion dollar project already facing significant cost overruns. 

B.C. Premier David Eby’s office told The Narwhal it believes this report triggered the Saturday phone call it accepted from TC Energy executive Liam Illife, who recently resigned over comments he made during an internal call in March about the company’s outsized influence over governments.

Eby’s office said it didn’t keep records of what was discussed and declined to explain exactly what happened during that weekend phone call.

“The premier’s office would not discuss the enforcement activities or approach of the [B.C. Environmental Assessment Office], but companies will sometimes flag to government what their intended public response may be to such an event,” Eby’s spokesperson Bhinder Sajan told The Narwhal in an email.

“To be clear, we don’t have a specific record of the call, but given the timing you provided, we believe it may have been related to this event,” Sajan said, referring to the release of the report outlining Coastal GasLink’s environmental infractions and the assessment office’s decision to maintain stop-work orders on pipeline construction.

‘Call up the premier’s office on a Saturday’

Illife, a former BC NDP staffer, worked for various ministries in former B.C. premier John Horgan’s government between July 2017 and June 2022. Iliffe began lobbying the Eby government in April 2023, less than a year after leaving his government job.

The provincial lobbyist registry indicates Illife lobbied Don Bain, Eby’s deputy chief of staff, five times over 13 months. The filings also indicate Illife lobbied Eby’s office on the weekend immediately following the release of the inspection report about various pipeline infrastructure, including the Coastal GasLink project — considered by the oil and gas industry to be an important part of a plan to ramp up exports of fossil fuels and grow the Canadian economy.

The Coastal GasLink pipeline will supply natural gas for the new LNG Canada and Cedar LNG export projects on B.C.’s coast. Natural gas is a fossil fuel mostly composed of methane, which is 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period in terms of heating the planet. It is extracted mainly by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process that uses massive amounts of fresh water. Fracking activity in northeast B.C. is poised to escalate as the export projects get underway.

Calgary-based TC Energy described the phone call as lobbying activity, according to filings in a provincial registry.  

The B.C. government’s vague description of Illife’s weekend lobbying of the premier’s office leaves several stakeholders questioning whether fossil fuel executives have privileged access to government, including possible influence on the outcome of environmental inspections and enforcement activity.

“The fact that the company could call up the premier’s office on a Saturday and have a discussion about it is rather infuriating,” Shannon McPhail, executive director of Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, told The Narwhal. “I wish I had [had] that kind of access when I filed concerns with the various regulators, managers, agencies [and] ministries at both the provincial government and federal government level.”

Iliffe lobbied the government 12 times in total from the spring of 2023 to the spring of 2024 when he left his job, according to the provincial lobbyist registry. This includes lobbying Eby’s office five times.

The filing in the registry indicates one of the intended outcomes of Iliffe’s lobbying was the “development, establishment, amendment or termination of any program, policy, directive or guideline of the government of British Columbia or a provincial entity.”

While the registry doesn’t require lobbyists to disclose exactly what they discuss during their interactions with government officials, Iliffe and other TC Energy officials suggested on their internal call they succeeded in persuading different government officials to weaken some environmental policies and loosen regulations that may cut into the company’s profits.

Iliffe, the company and the B.C. government have all said some of the former TC Energy executive’s claims on the internal company call were not true, but they did not elaborate or specify which claims were unfounded. 

The Narwhal first approached the B.C. government in June with questions about Iliffe’s claims on the company recording. The premier’s office subsequently said it conducted an internal review of Iliffe’s claims about how the company had influenced the province and concluded they were false. The province’s attorney general subsequently asked a provincial watchdog to conduct its own review of lobbying activity by TC Energy.

Companies are allowed to lobby governments about public policy and decisions in Canada and governments generally keep track of the activity by requiring companies to report each interaction on public registries. In B.C., the registrar of lobbying is a watchdog empowered to enforce a lobbying transparency law and ensure lobbyists and public servants comply with the legislation.

Environmental assessment office inspections and regulatory orders are normally carried out and implemented without any involvement of elected officials. However, B.C. regulatory agencies charged with enforcement activities, including the environmental assessment office, are accountable to cabinet ministers who have some decision-making powers on regulatory matters.

Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Na’moks said he doesn’t see why TC Energy would talk to the premier’s office about an inspection conducted by compliance and enforcement officers with the environmental assessment office.

“Absolutely it’s improper … because that is an independent enforcement arm,” he said in an interview.

The premier’s office noted that Bain’s job required him to engage with representatives from industry, environmental groups, local governments and First Nations. Based on the deputy chief of staff’s “recollection, Mr. Iliffe would at times relay his company’s commitment to fully respond to issues raised by regulatory agencies,” Eby’s office said.

In an emailed response to questions, the B.C. Environment Ministry also said it is not uncommon for industry to update government officials about how companies are responding to inspections.

Eby’s office did not respond to questions about why it didn’t keep records of Bain’s weekend discussion with Illife. Bain declined an interview request about the lobbying, but the premier’s office emailed a statement on Bain’s behalf.

“I make recommendations about further engagement and all other recommendations based on the priorities of Premier Eby which are focused on the best interest of British Columbians,” Bain said in response to The Narwhal’s questions about his conversations with Iliffe.

In 2018, Bain was among at least five B.C. government staffers who allegedly engaged in the improper deletion of government records under former premier Horgan. The story came to light when requests made under freedom of information legislation revealed Bain and other senior staff had been deleting their sent emails for months, according to a report in Victoria’s Times Colonist newspaper.

At the time, the government said new staffers had been learning their roles and responsibilities, and had subsequently received training and would take a “more cautious approach to the management of email,” the newspaper reported.

Bain did not directly comment about his weekend phone call with Iliffe, which followed the inspection report.

“Throughout his time at TC Energy, I did not have any private meetings with Mr. Iliffe,” Bain said in the statement sent by the premier’s office. “On a few occasions, Mr. Iliffe and I spoke on the phone on issues relevant to TC Energy and my role as lead on various energy-related files including the sale of the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission line from TC [Energy] to the Nisga’a Nation.”

In March, TC Energy announced it was selling the transmission project, an approved gas pipeline, to the Nisga’a Nation. Construction of the pipeline, which will supply the proposed Ksi Lisims LNG project co-owned by the Nisga’a, is set to start in August.

‘A small class of political insiders who move back and forth between industry and government’

The absence of any records about Illife’s communications with the premier’s office leaves some stakeholders questioning whether the company was trying to circumvent the regulator.

“That could have been an email,” McPhail said. “And why would you need to keep the premier’s office updated when you have all these regulatory and management agencies whose responsibility it is to do that? We’re supposed to have this system in place to deal with this stuff — but what was very clear with Coastal GasLink is the system was broken at every single level.”

McPhail said she still hasn’t received answers to questions she put to officials with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the BC Energy Regulator and the BC Environmental Assessment Office in 2022 regarding potential impacts of pipeline construction on fish habitat.

B.C. Environment and Climate Change Strategy Minister George Heyman and the environmental assessment office both declined interview requests from The Narwhal about TC Energy’s lobbying activity.

In a statement, the ministry said the office operates independently from government and neither the office nor Heyman were aware of any of Illife’s phone calls to the premier’s office.

The environmental assessment office said it has conducted nearly 100 inspections along the Coastal GasLink pipeline route by air and ground since construction began in 2019, leading to multiple fines, more than 50 warnings and 30 orders, including 13 stop-work orders.

Drew Yewchuk, a former staff lawyer at the University of Calgary’s Public Interest Law Clinic, said he was not surprised TC Energy was able to access the B.C. premier’s office so readily. 

“Is having a lobbyist contact the executive branch to have an unrecorded discussion probably asking for special treatment good governance? No — but you don’t need a legal expert to tell you that,” he told The Narwhal. “It reflects the Canadian tradition of a powerful and secretive executive branch, and decision-making involving a small class of political insiders who move back and forth between industry and government.”

TC Energy did not directly respond to The Narwhal’s questions about the lobbying activity. Previously, the company told The Narwhal its role is to advocate for the changes needed to ensure energy security, job creation, affordability and sustainability and that the leaked calls included comments that portrayed a “false impression” of how it does business.

“We continue to engage policy makers and the public in an ethical and compliant manner while meeting our regulatory obligations, including lobbying registrations across various jurisdictions in Canada and the U.S.,” TC Energy senior vice-president of external relations Patrick Muttart said in a statement on June 26.

“We are proud of our company and the work that thousands of employees do each day to safely move, generate and store the energy that our families, neighbours and businesses rely on. We are driven by our purpose: delivering the energy people need, every day.”

When pressed for more details, the company said it had nothing further to add to its previous response.

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.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and B.C. Premier David Eby beamed with praise as they celebrated the Haisla Nation in late June.

The northwest B.C. First Nation and its business partner, Pembina Pipelines Corp., had just announced a final investment decision on their proposed fossil fuel project — meaning construction will proceed.

Haisla Nation has a 51 per cent stake in the project, Cedar LNG, while Pembina controls the remaining share. The project consists of a new natural gas liquefaction plant in Kitimat, B.C., which will receive gas shipped from the province’s northeast through the Coastal GasLink pipeline and cool it to liquid form at -162 C, reducing its volume for export.

Calling it the “first project of its kind,” Haisla elected Chief Councillor Crystal Smith said the liquefied natural gas (LNG) project is “trailblazing a path” toward economic independence.

Eby and Trudeau appeared to agree.

“Cedar LNG is a shining example of how natural resource development should work in our province — in full partnership with First Nations and with the lowest emissions possible,” Eby said in a video.

Trudeau echoed those remarks, calling the project and partnership “a model for economic reconciliation.”

“The world is evolving,” he said, also in a video statement. “The way we get our energy is evolving. The way we do business is evolving. Everyone involved in this project saw this and you all saw the opportunities that come with it.”

As political leaders lauded the decision, another business executive, François Poirier, was also celebrating the announcement. Poirier is CEO of TC Energy, the Calgary-based fossil fuel giant that built the Coastal GasLink pipeline, which will supply fuel for the Cedar LNG project.

In a statement, Poirier said the partnership between a First Nation and a fossil fuel company had “redefined the future of energy development in North America.” 

“Through Indigenous-ownership, Cedar LNG will create opportunities that will support Indigenous and local communities in northern British Columbia and deliver benefits to the world by meeting global demand for more secure, affordable and sustainable energy,” Poirier said, calling the project a “transformative moment for Indigenous-led energy projects in Canada.”  

While both Eby and Trudeau described the project as a “partnership” and a step toward reconciliation, TC Energy executives also discussed internally what this type of partnership means to them. The Narwhal has learned that in at least one case this included a conversation about how Indigenous communities and other stakeholders could be leveraged by fossil fuel companies as a “force multiplier” to increase the value of major projects and secure approvals from governments.

The Narwhal reviewed more than two hours of leaked recordings of internal TC Energy calls that took place in February and March and sent dozens of questions to the company and government about claims made by staffers working for the multinational energy corporation.

On one of the recordings of internal calls obtained by The Narwhal, Natasha Westover, a TC Energy staffer based in Vancouver who manages the company’s external relations team in B.C., described the political landscape on the February call.

“I know at least from our provincial government here that that is going to be the narrative going forward,” she said. “Indigenous LNG is going to lead in terms of public narratives for our governments in getting these projects approved.”

She did not respond to The Narwhal’s questions prior to publication. 

TC Energy did not answer specific questions about comments made on the recordings and told The Narwhal some statements made by one of the employees on the calls were “inaccurate” and “portray a false impression” of how the company does business. 

Patrick Muttart, TC Energy’s senior vice-president of external relations, said the company works to build trust with communities and apologized to “all our partners, stakeholders and rights holders for any impact on our longstanding relationships.”

“For us to build and operate major infrastructure projects, we need to earn the support and trust of local people and local communities,” Muttart wrote in a statement provided to The Narwhal. “That is what governments, Indigenous communities and the public expect from us and it’s the right thing to do.”

‘They can’t use me and my people’: Ontario chief carefully eyes possible partnership with TC Energy

Days after The Narwhal first published details of TC Energy’s recorded meetings, Chief Greg Nadjiwon of Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation in Ontario received a call from TC Energy officials. “They just called to make me aware that I’ll probably be contacted by The Narwhal about this,” he said in an interview. 

Saugeen Ojibway Nation, which includes Chippewas of Nawash and Saugeen First Nations, is currently deliberating offering a green light to another TC Energy project: a pumped storage and hydroelectric project in Meaford, Ont. Alongside TC Energy and energy officials, the nation has been informing their community members about the massive project to draw (or pump) nearly 7,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools worth of water in and out of Georgian Bay to generate and store electricity. 

TC Energy previously told The Narwhal the first people they approached about the project in 2019 was Saugeen Ojibway Nation. They’ve been talking ever since.

The First Nation is conducting its own environmental assessment to understand the impacts the project may have on and around the bay. In this process, Nadjiwon said he has always been “careful,” acutely aware of historically tense and unbalanced relationships between energy companies and First Nations. But watching a surge of energy investments, he’s also trying to change this relationship to benefit his community. 

But to Nadjiwon, the leaked recording illustrates why he must walk even more carefully in this relationship. 

TC Energy’s history with some Indigenous communities is fraught. To construct its Coastal GasLink pipeline, the company secured agreements with elected First Nations governments in northern B.C. but did not get consent from Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs. 

Opposition from the chiefs and their supporters led to years of conflict, and police and Supreme Court intervention. Widespread solidarity protests in early 2020 shut down Canadian ports and railways for weeks.

On the leaked recordings, Liam Iliffe — a TC Energy executive who resigned a few days after The Narwhal approached him in June for an interview — stressed the company’s success in building energy infrastructure hangs on Indigenous involvement. 

“All of this effort is for naught if there isn’t Indigenous support or at least Indigenous non-objection,” he said on a call in March. “A government of any stripe, in British Columbia particularly, is not going to push projects forward unless there’s Indigenous support.”

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, legislated both federally and in B.C., affirms Indigenous people’s right to self-determination and to provide free, prior and informed consent to any development on their lands. In other words, companies are required by law to gain Indigenous consent before they start building.

Iliffe used the word “validators” when talking about how the company should create relationships, including with Indigenous communities, that serve the company’s goals. 

“As cabinets go and governments go and decision-makers go, we always have to make certain that we’re shoring that up and bringing validators through our relationships with communities, Indigenous people, Indigenous leaders and the general public to government to ensure that the government is confident that they can make the positive decisions without affecting their voter base, which drives a lot of decision-making,” he said.

Dave Forestell, previously a senior federal Conservative political staffer who served in former prime minister Stephen Harper’s government, said on the call that company executives need to ask themselves, “How do we make it in the government’s interest to do something?”

“You think first about what would encourage somebody to consent or ideally support and advocate for this project,” Forestell said. He added the goal is to find ways to get Indigenous support “while preserving, or ideally enhancing, the economics of the project.”

“To be clear, what I mean is when you have early Indigenous support on a project, de facto the economics of the project are enhanced because one of the single greatest risks we face as a company is regulatory delays.”

Forestell did not respond to an interview request and emailed questions from The Narwhal.

Muttart, TC Energy’s senior vice-president, said the company believes Indigenous communities should benefit from projects.

“We also believe the projects of the future should be built by Indigenous employees, serviced by Indigenous businesses and owned by Indigenous Nations,” he said in his emailed statement. “Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples requires true participation in Canada’s resource economy.”

Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Na’moks told The Narwhal he believes First Nations leaders are sometimes used by fossil fuel companies to advance industry initiatives and suggested the comments on the recording are not surprising.

“When they start to refer to [Indigenous Peoples] as ‘validators’ they are taking the path of least resistance,” he said in an interview. He said fossil fuel companies are “targeting people that are in economic need,” thereby forcing First Nations into agreements. Once those agreements are secured, he said he has seen companies use Indigenous leaders to repeat industry talking points.

In the recording, Iliffe noted how TC Energy’s community outreach around the Meaford project in particular is paying off. “The tactics that we use to garner and gain support …  they work everywhere,” he said, providing examples also in B.C. “They’ve been used sometimes just to achieve non-objection … We find ourselves in places where often listening is the best tool so that we can adjust and align.” 

After hearing how Iliffe described Indigenous leaders as “validators” of energy projects, Nadjiwon said, “I don’t know the man, but he needs to validate all that.”

“This is our homeland. We want to be counted in. We want a place at the table, to be taken seriously. Not as validators.” 

Iliffe didn’t respond to The Narwhal’s questions asking for further context and clarification. But he told The Narwhal in a statement that some of his comments referred to events that did not actually happen. He did not confirm which parts of his comments were accurate.

TC Energy did not comment on the specifics of what Iliffe said about Indigenous engagement in Meaford. Since 2019, the company has sponsored bingo nights and information sessions with dinner for members of the First Nations. It has paid for bus tours to similar energy projects in Michigan and Massachusetts. It has also organized a boat tour of the bay and a visit to the project site. 

But Nadjiwon is clear: TC Energy has no influence over him, and he still trusts the company officials he has been speaking to, albeit with even more caution. 

“If I didn’t, I’d walk away,” he said. “I’m not a partner of TC Energy. We’re working toward that. Maybe. But I’m sure they have a fear that there could be a bump in the road that isn’t capable of being resolved … They’re under the microscope with Indigenous people, and they know that.”

“I’ve told them many times: they can’t use me and my people,” he added. “If there’s one bad apple on the tree, you don’t cut down the whole tree.”

TC Energy executive says Indigenous support is a ‘force multiplier’ for fossil fuel projects

B.C. is poised for the biggest fossil fuel boom in the province’s history. The BC NDP government, elected in 2017, has continually promoted the liquefied natural gas export industry, championing the LNG Canada project and offering billions of dollars in subsidies to some of the most profitable multinational oil and gas companies in the world. LNG Canada, a consortium of five multinational oil and gas companies, including Shell, will be the first liquefied natural gas export project in the country when it begins commercial operations next year in Kitimat.

Chief Smith, with the Haisla Nation, has long been a vocal supporter of the liquefied natural gas sector. She is a member of several organizations advocating for LNG development and worked to secure financial benefits for her community from the LNG Canada facility. 

In January, addressing attendees at the annual BC Natural Resources Forum in Prince George, B.C., she explained how those benefits and advancing the Cedar LNG project start to address an economic imbalance between settlers and Indigenous Peoples.

“Something I’m profoundly impacted by is our ability to fund the programs that really connect our people to their culture and our language, a language that has virtually disappeared in my generation,” she said. “We are reigniting our potential through culture and language and that is perhaps the most powerful thing of all.”

Smith did not respond to an interview request from The Narwhal.

An unidentifiable speaker on the leaked audio from TC Energy’s February call said Indigenous support for the liquefied natural gas sector is not unanimous in B.C. 

TC Energy recently completed construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline and is getting ready to start building its Prince Rupert Gas Transmission project, a 800-kilometre pipeline the company is in the process of selling to the Nisga’a Nation. TC Energy secured agreements with some First Nations governments along the route of the pipeline when it first sought — and received — provincial approval in 2014, but not all communities are supportive.

The unidentified speaker said U.S. President Joe Biden’s pause on liquefied natural gas exports was rippling into communities in British Columbia and asked Edward Burrier, a former White House staffer who is now TC Energy’s director of public policy, for advice.

“I support the B.C. team and so obviously we’re in the thick of it with LNG,” the speaker said. “As we go out and start to talk to nations again about the … Prince Rupert natural gas transmission line, we’re really having, in some instances, having problems getting traction with the nations. I think you’re bang on when you say the pause in the States is going to spur on, you know, give more power to people that don’t want to talk to us.”

Burrier characterized Indigenous involvement in fossil fuel development as a competitive edge industry can use to advance projects, describing his observations from the LNG 2023 conference that was hosted in Vancouver.

“Every CEO sits up there and talks about these LNG projects around the world and they all sound the same. But then Chief Crystal got up and said, ‘I’m with Haisla Nation and we used to have to manage poverty, now we have to figure out how to manage wealth.’ ” 

“That’s the force multiplier, to use one of the words of the hour, that we have on our side.”

Burrier did not respond to The Narwhal’s questions about his comments and the recordings.

— With files from Mike De Souza

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.

The Wall Street Journal is staying mum about an allegation it ran an editorial criticizing U.S. President Joe Biden using “really good content” supplied by a Canadian fossil fuel company.

The editorial, published in February, criticized a major climate policy announcement by the White House to pause permits for liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.

A few days later, a U.S. executive from Calgary-based TC Energy told colleagues during a “lunch and learn” call that the firm was involved in getting the editorial published. The call was internal, but The Narwhal reviewed a leaked recording.

On the call, Edward Burrier, TC Energy’s director of public policy, discussed how Biden’s announcement prompted the company to spring into action by reaching out to the newspaper.

“I wouldn’t say this much outside the walls of the TC tower, but this editorial wouldn’t have happened without our involvement,” Burrier said on the call. “Our communications team packaged that for the Journal editorial page and they went with it, … so some really impactful teamwork there.”

The editorial argued Russian media were “thrilled” about the pause, which it said would force Germany and other European countries to lift sanctions on Russian oil and gas. On the call, Burrier said an analyst working for the multinational fossil fuel company “dug through Russian-language media, got a sense of their reaction, worked to validate [and] bolster the research through a native Russian speaker and then our communications team packaged that for the Journal editorial page and they went with it.”

Later on the call, the analyst, Michael Oberman, told his TC Energy colleagues the editorial is “a great example of how you can kind of really change discussions across the continent if you have really good content.”

“Incidentally it took a lot of time to review many, many dozens of Russian-state propaganda media sources,” he added. “It was an interesting pastime. We have great people on the U.S., Canada and Mexico side who can kind of interact with key decision makers and say, ‘Look at this story.’ ”

Caitlyn Reuss, a spokesperson for the newspaper, which is published by Dow Jones, a unit of NewsCorp, said in an email, “We do not comment on sourcing and/or editorial processes.”

TC Energy did not respond to questions about the remarks made by Burrier and Oberman, but said in a statement the company engages with all levels of government and across every community where it operates in order to achieve its mission of delivering “secure, affordable and sustainable energy.”

TC Energy also said that some comments — made by at least one employee who is no longer with the company — were inaccurate and “portray a false impression of how we do business.”

Wall Street Journal editorial board speaks ‘for free markets and free people’

The Wall Street Journal says on its website its opinion pages are independent from its news department. “We speak for free markets and free people,” the newspaper’s website says of its editorial board.

“Our analyses represent our best independent judgments rather than our preferences, or those of our sources, advertisers or information providers,” reads the code of conduct the Wall Street Journal adheres to, adding, “Our opinions represent only our own editorial philosophies.” 

The members of the editorial board aren’t named on the Journal’s website: at many major newspapers, the board is a group of senior journalists who take turns writing opinions individually and together, which are published without individual bylines. This means there is no way for non-board members to know who exactly wrote a specific editorial and what their connections to sources or subjects might be.

The editorial TC Energy employees appeared to take credit for was titled “Biden’s LNG ‘Gift’ to Vladimir Putin.” It was signed by the newspaper’s editorial board on Feb. 15, 2024, 20 days after Biden’s LNG pause was announced. Citing several Russian media sources, it outlines an argument that frames the decision as a major political blunder and a boon to Russian oligarchs.

“President Biden is trying to strike a contrast with Donald Trump by promising to stick by America’s European allies. Perhaps he hasn’t heard Vladimir Putin’s media organs crowing that his administration has double-crossed Europe by halting permits for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects,” the editorial said. 

“Mr. Biden’s LNG export ban increases Mr. Putin’s economic leverage and it undermines the credibility of the U.S. as a reliable ally.”

Trump, Biden have presented vastly different visions for oil and climate

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 dramatically affected global energy security and supply chains. 

An International Energy Agency report on the war said it plunged the European Union into an energy crisis, with countries including the United States increasing LNG exports to replace Russian supplies. 

For his part, Trump described oil and gas as “the liquid gold under our feet” during the June 28 presidential debate against Biden.

In January, the Biden administration said in a press release it was halting LNG exports because “climate change is the existential threat of our time — and we must act with the urgency it demands to protect the future for generations to come.” Natural gas is about 95 per cent methane, an extremely potent greenhouse gas that is the second biggest contributor to global warming after carbon emissions.

“The U.S. is already the number one exporter of LNG worldwide — with U.S. LNG exports expected to double by the end of this decade,” the White House press release noted. “At the same time, the U.S. remains unwavering in our commitment to supporting our allies around the world. Today’s announcement will not impact our ability to continue supplying LNG to our allies in the near-term.”

This week, a Louisiana judge granted a preliminary injunction to put Biden’s decision on hold, in response to legal challenges launched by 16 Republican-led states, the Associated Press reported.

Biden’s stance on LNG exports has major implications for TC Energy projects — and the natural gas sector at large — according to executives heard on the leaked recording. Burrier and one other executive on the call said Biden’s pause had become an election campaign issue and they expected Trump would reverse it.

“It 100 per cent is an election campaign issue,” Burrier said. “The weekend when the pause was announced, Trump … was saying, ‘On day one I’m going to overturn that.’ ”

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 2017, Michael Evanoff was tapped by former U.S. president Donald Trump to serve as assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security. In his testimony to the Senate foreign state committee, he detailed his previous experience in the foreign service, noting he had completed eight overseas postings, four of which were designated high threat. 

“Among other things, I established the first [diplomatic security] liaison position with a U.S. military regional command, managed the largest Russian spy case and damage assessment in NATO history and designed a post-9/11 informant ‘walk-in’ program at our Islamabad embassy that contributed to the capture of Khalid Sheik Muhammad,” he said at the time.

Evanoff now works for TC Energy, a Calgary-based multinational fossil fuel company with offices in Houston and Mexico City. His official title is director of national security policy, geopolitical intelligence and research. From his home in Washington, D.C., the former Trump appointee uses his extensive geopolitical and military background to protect the company’s interests: crude oil and natural gas pipelines in Canada, the United States and Mexico, which earned TC Energy $11 billion in 2023.

A leaked recording of a February TC Energy “lunch and learn” session featuring Evanoff and his colleagues is now pulling back the curtain on internal company discussions, including its apparent strategies about how to influence governments, benefit from geopolitical crises and leverage existing relationships with a range of senior government officials — including the head of Canada’s spy agency.

The conversations, reviewed by The Narwhal, provide fresh insight into how some senior officials at the company believe they are locked in an existential battle as governments around the world move away from fossil fuels in an effort to address the climate crisis. They cover a wide range of discussions about international events that could seriously affect the business of TC Energy and other fossil fuel companies, such as President Joe Biden’s recent decision to pause new permits for liquefied natural gas exports.

“Our focus as a team is to look at what exposes us to hostile complex threats such as nation-states using asymmetric tactics, cyber-threats exploiting vulnerabilities, geopolitical uncertainties impacting global markets and supply chains and evolving regulatory challenges,” Evanoff said on the recording.  

While there is nothing unusual about a large multinational company recruiting top politically connected talent and prioritizing robust security measures to protect its assets, most details about their strategies are often tightly guarded secrets.

TC Energy did not directly respond to questions sent by The Narwhal about its team in Washington, D.C., and its influence in Canada. 

In an emailed statement, Patrick Muttart, TC Energy’s senior vice-president of external relations, said TC Energy was “disappointed” that recordings of its recent “lunch and learn” sessions “were released externally without authorization.” 

Muttart added TC Energy’s operations include providing energy to customers “in North America and around the globe” but did not elaborate on how the company gathers intelligence about geopolitical issues. 

‘On the battlefield trying to … protect the TC tower’

The recording appears to be from a presentation that took place on or around February 22, 2024. On the call, several TC Energy staffers based in Washington, D.C., spoke about how they support TC Energy’s external relations work across North America.

Julia Nesheiwat, a former U.S. military intelligence officer and homeland security advisor to Trump, said she and her colleagues are “on the battlefield trying to work every day to protect the TC tower.”

“Sometimes of course we’re on the defense and doing damage control and … making the best of those situations,” Nesheiwat, who is now TC Energy’s vice-president of policy and insights, said on the call. She added the company’s goal is to be proactive and stay “on the offense, when we’re taking it to our opponents.” 

Evanoff struck a similar tone. Opening with a military term, he described the team as a “force multiplier.” 

“We’re in challenging times here, we all know that,” he said. “The geopolitical intelligence and research team — the GIR team — is vital, and I would say paramount, in safeguarding … TC’s North American energy division.”

In response to The Narwhal’s questions, Muttart, the company’s senior vice-president,  explained the company’s mission was to deliver secure, affordable and sustainable energy that powers homes and businesses around the world.

“To achieve our mission, we engage with all levels of government and across every community where we operate,” Muttart said. “With governments, opinion leaders and policy-makers across jurisdictions, our role is to advocate for the changes needed to ensure energy security, job creation, affordability and sustainability. We do so for our colleagues, for our customers and for the communities where we operate. We do so with solid, robust and compliant practices and policies for engagement, while always looking for ways to improve.”

TC Energy executive discusses conversations with spy agency

On the February call, Evanoff said the company is actively working to influence global intelligence sharing. 

On the recording, he gave details of a meeting he said happened between company CEO François Poirier and Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) director David Vigneault at an intelligence summit in Palo Alto, Calif., in October 2023. The summit, hosted by U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation director Christopher Wray, brought together leaders of the Five Eyes intelligence partnership, a bloc made up of senior officials from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

“The [detection of] political threats that come out of [Five Eyes intelligence] are shared and … four countries are actually sharing that with the business community,” Evanoff said. “The fifth one, Canada, is unfortunately hamstrung with the CSIS Act law that stops CSIS from sharing actual security intelligence to Canadian companies. This is a miss, a huge miss, that’s been going on since 1984 — way before the internet.”

He said Poirier witnessed discussions between Vigneault and Wray in California that revealed “the sharing of information, especially with [the People’s Republic of China] and Russian threats, [is] not getting to our companies in Canada.” 

Evanoff said Poirier was “pretty charged” about finding a way to change this. According to the leaked audio, a conversation between the TC Energy CEO and the CSIS director ensued.

“The director of CSIS, David Vigneault, basically said, ‘I have a plan, will you work with me?’ ” Evanoff recounted. “And so [Poirier] absolutely said, ‘Yes, what can we do?’ ”

Evanoff alleged TC Energy analysts then supplied the CSIS director with a document supporting amendments to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act that would pave the way for the federal government to share classified security intelligence with industry. He said the approach was consistent with methods used in the United States in the 1980s, with a government department called the Overseas Security Advisory Council.

“We wanted to convey that to the Canadians, to the director. So he’s taken that advice from us to start this,” Evanoff said.

Evanoff said after meetings with the CSIS director and other intelligence officials, Poirier joined a Business Council of Canada committee on national security, and is now in regular contact with Vigneault. 

“Our CEO … co-chairs that with Mastercard CEO Canada and it’s something that we’re very proud of and we’ll continue to feed the information to him twice a year,” Evanoff said. “We believe this is great for TC. It’s also great for us to … be top of mind with the Canadian intelligence service and even with the National Security Justice Department and also with RCMP.”

Evanoff did not respond to questions from The Narwhal about his recorded comments.

Eric Balsam, a spokesperson with CSIS, declined an interview request, but confirmed in a statement that Vigneault and Poirier met in Palo Alto. Balsam said discussions between the two men occurred “in the context of strategic-level engagements with the Business Council of Canada” and its national security group co-chaired by TC Energy’s Poirier. Balsam said the security agency will continue to engage with the business community.

“CSIS works with its partners across the private sector to ensure they are aware of the threat environment and that they have the tools and information they need to protect their interests,” he noted.  

He also said the federal government launched public consultations on possible amendments to the legislation in November 2023 to ensure the spy agency has more tools to defend Canada against security threats including foreign interference.

Public consultations about updating the CSIS Act concluded in February, with a majority of participants agreeing the agency should have more tools to share information about threats with industry, universities, local governments and law enforcement as well as other potential targets. A report summarizing the consultations also said a minority of participants expressed concerns about whether any proposed changes would increase threats to privacy. Some also expressed “the need for strong oversight and accountability.”

President Biden and the ‘the battle to define natural gas’

On the February recording, former White House staffer Edward Burrier, now TC Energy’s director of public policy, told his colleagues Biden’s pause on liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, announced Jan. 26, 2024, is making waves across the industry. (On July 1, a Trump-appointed federal judge blocked Biden’s pause.)

He suggested the Biden administration implemented the pause as a response to worries about the upcoming election and explained how innovative techniques in extracting gas from underground shale reserves pushed companies like TC Energy into the spotlight.

“Thanks to the shale revolution, in just a few short years the U.S. went from importer to exporter of natural gas, becoming the number one last year, surpassing Qatar and Australia,” he said. “The success of [the] industry has definitely put it in the crosshairs of activists.” 

“President Biden has really struggled with key demographics: war in the Middle East, student loans, environmental activism,” he continued. “In some ways we’re kind of laughing but it is an eye opener: the White House had top officials meeting with 25-year-old TikTok influencers that were producing LNG videos. It’s through this prism that it’s clear this was entirely a political decision by the White House.”

He added he believes the decision was “facilitated by a group of activists and academics” and said the impact isn’t limited to the United States. 

“This decision isn’t just important to us but it’s reverberating around the world. Our allies are worried about U.S. leadership and our adversaries are doing a victory lap.”

Burrier noted on the call that Biden’s fossil fuel policies had become an election issue, and predicted  Trump, if elected, would overturn the pause on liquefied natural gas exports on day one of a new mandate.

He said he’s paying close attention to messaging from opponents of fossil fuel development, noting “the battle to define natural gas is on.”

Natural gas is a fossil fuel mostly composed of methane. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, over a 20-year period, methane is 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in terms of heating the planet.

In B.C., TC Energy recently completed the Coastal GasLink pipeline project which will transport the fossil fuel to the Pacific coast, to be converted into liquefied natural gas and shipped overseas. The oil and gas industry has proposed a number of LNG facilities along the coast to support more production and exports.

Proponents say the gas can help countries like China, Japan and Korea reduce reliance on other fossil fuels, such as coal. That argument is contested by climate scientists who maintain emissions and leaks during extraction, processing and transport make liquefied natural gas worse for the climate than coal.

Burrier isn’t buying it.

“I often wake up and kind of wonder if I’m on a different planet — reading studies that LNG is dirtier than coal is one of those moments,” he said on the internal call, referring to a study by a Cornell University professor who he described as “a long time anti-natural gas advocate.” He noted the paper wasn’t peer-reviewed.

“I grew up as a young staffer on Capitol Hill and the debate was about drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge,” he continued. “It was a major kind of fight. [There’s] not one Democrat who says that they’re for that. Keystone XL — these guys don’t even have to think about it. They said they’re instinctively against it. We are at this spot where we cannot let that happen for natural gas exports.”

‘Success of environmental activism’ in U.S. could inspire action in B.C., TC Energy exec worries

Canada’s first major liquefied natural gas export project is nearing completion. LNG Canada, which will be supplied by TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline, will start shipping the fossil fuel to Asia next year. 

“In the short term, in Canada, I think we’ll see some renewed interest in LNG Canada as Asian partners look to diversify,” Burrier said of the impact of the U.S. pause. “But I think if we’re talking about a real opportunity, we’d really have to see the Canadians — the federal government [and] the province — really ready to push through the next set of projects. And I think, to be honest, the Canadian government really doesn’t do competitive policy like that all that well.”

He cautioned the impacts of Biden’s pause could be more subtle.

“We do have to be worried that the success of environmental activism in the United States could be a jolt for their brethren in B.C.,” he said. “I know again that they’ve called for a pause of Canadian exports, which I always laugh to myself, since they’re still at zero right now.”

“I think we often have to remember that Canada’s aggressive climate policies can themselves present reliability of supply questions to our partners,” he added. 

Nesheiwat, the former Homeland Security advisor and now TC Energy vice president, said that’s one of the challenges her team helps to address.

In January, The Narwhal reported how TC Energy lobbied the federal government to exempt liquefied natural gas facilities from a proposed cap on heat-trapping pollution from oil and gas activities. At that time, a federal spokesperson said the government would not grant any exemptions, noting the LNG sector was expected to grow.

“In Canada, our team is dealing with stringent and evolving climate policies or regulatory inefficiencies,” Nesheiwat said on the leaked recording. “The fact is, as a company we’re often navigating these public perceptions and again across multiple countries and cultures.”

Burrier, Nesheiwat and other TC Energy executives spent much of their careers developing and influencing policy in the U.S. TC Energy did not respond to questions about why it hired a Washington D.C.-based team to influence Canadian policies.

‘We literally did the government’s homework for them’

Burrier said one example of “successful shots fired” in Canada was how the company lobbied the federal government around the Impact Assessment Act, legislation that gives decision-makers the means to consider environmental impacts when approving or rejecting major industrial development projects. The government is amending the act after the Supreme Court of Canada found it to be unconstitutional last fall, but Burrier suggested TC Energy was behind the government’s openness to changes that benefit industry. 

“As many on this call will remember, early last year the Canadian government had two sentences in their proposal saying that they wanted to make improvements on its permitting process,” he said in the recording. “We used that as our opening. We produced for government a deliberate, thoughtful, 20-plus-page paper with recommendations.” 

He explained TC Energy staffers based in the U.S. capital developed a case study for Canadian government officials that dissected how Germany “built three LNG import terminals in less than a year” by enacting special legislation.   

“We literally did the government’s homework for them,” he added.

Dixie Quintanilla, a spokesperson with the Impact Assessment Agency, said the federal government met with numerous stakeholders, including TC Energy, as part of the process to develop proposed amendments. 

She said the agency “did not receive any submissions from TC Energy on amendments to the Impact Assessment Act.”

When asked by The Narwhal about the claims, federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said Burrier’s statement is “an outrageous claim and it’s so preposterous.” At an interview during a conference organized by the Toronto Region Board of Trade on June 27, Guilbeault said TC Energy was one of 30 stakeholders and 60 Indigenous organizations consulted over the changes and that he didn’t believe the company had put its thoughts in writing. 

A spokesperson said the minister’s office “relied on the best available science and on the unbiased, high-quality advice of the Impact Assessment Agency” for amendments to the legislation. 

The Supreme Court ruling was “the only reason we made changes,” Guilbeault said. “To think that I would take my orders from a company on something like that? I think it’s someone who is grossly overestimating their importance and the role they played … It’s ridiculous.” 

Burrier also said he and his colleagues helped with efforts to weaken a “climate scheme that British Columbia was advancing.”

“I won’t bore you with the details here because it does get pretty technical but we helped … the team in B.C. with assessing the proposals and providing recommendations and, lo and behold, it worked,” he said. “The final recommendations came out and in the next few years we’ll see savings of hundreds of millions of dollars in compliance costs and it factors up to billions if you look out at 25 years from now.”

It appears he was referring to provincial regulations that restrict emissions from the oil and gas sector. On another leaked recording, a TC Energy executive who resigned after The Narwhal began its reporting said the company was successful in excluding “midstream” infrastructure — namely, pipelines — from the new rules. 

A spokesperson with the Office of the Premier in B.C. did not directly respond to the claim, saying only that the premier maintains a “clear and persistent commitment to B.C.’s climate plan,” which includes an emissions cap for the oil and gas industry.

— With files from Fatima Syed

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.