B.C. Green Party Leader Emily Lowan is raising concerns on behalf of North Coast residents about the Ksi Lisims LNG project.
Critics say the project could have significant environmental impacts. While Ksi Lisims LNG is expected to have net-zero emissions by 2030, construction and flaring phases could result in high levels of pollution. A study conducted by the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) said that flaring is among the highest emission phases of an LNG plants life cycle.
Another concern of the Ksi Lisims LNG is the ownership group. Ksi Lisims is partly owned by an American Company with ties to U.S. President Donald Trump, said B.C. Green Party Leader Emily Lowan.
“Ksi Lisims LNG is American owned all the way down, and I’m very concerned that the profits and the resource ownership is handing more power and money to oligarchs in Trump’s inner circle.” she said. “The terminal is owned by Western LNG, a Texas based firm in Houston, and it’s backed by companies like Apollo Global Management and Blackstone, which are companies that have bankrolled Donald Trump’s campaigns and continue to be close advisers.”
The project is one of the projects slated for fast-tracking through the Major Projects Office (MPO). When Announcing the referral to the MPO Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Ksi Lisims will create thousands of skilled careers. But Lowan challenged that claim, pointing to reports that the floating LNG terminal will be built in Asia.
“All the high paid jobs are overseas. This is a terminal that’s built in Korea and is going to be floated over. So it’s using Korean steel and all those high paid engineering jobs are overseas. And it’s just going to be local people cleaning the factory floor at this point. I think there’s a real illusion about the kind of jobs that this will create.”
The Ksi Lisims LNG project is facing legal battles with both the Nations of Lax Kw’alaams and Metlakatla who say their concerns were not heard during an environmental impact assessment of the project. Despite the opposition, the project is still going through much to the dismay of the First Nations bands. Despite the opposition, the project is moving forward, which Lowan said is disappointing.
“The surrounding nations will bear the brunt of the impacts of of this project. they’re not seeing the profits and they’re only going to bear the cost so I’m pretty dismayed at some of the stonewalling around their legal challenges and the opposition that they’ve faced. And to put it into context, the this government is well aware of these legal challenges and yet they just passed a fast tracking law that will ram this project through those territories by approving and fast tracking the transmission line that will electrify the operations.”
