The Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline would feed the $10-billion Ksi Lisims LNG project, which is undergoing an environmental review.
A small portion of a natural gas pipeline route in B.C. began to take shape last August along a stretch of land on Nisga’a Nation territory, but the controversial project’s fate is yet to be determined from a legal perspective.
The Prince Rupert Gas Transmission project is facing a British Columbia Supreme Court challenge from three groups that argue that BC Energy Regulator overstepped its bounds when it decided last year to split the pipeline route’s Section 5 permit into two parts. One permit crosses Crown property (5A), and the other (5B) crosses Nisga’a land.
The Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, Kispiox Valley Community Centre Association and Kispiox Band allege that BCER’s goal was to fast-track the approval of a crucial permit to allow construction on Nisga’a territory.
The three petitioners are represented by Ecojustice, the country’s largest environmental law charity. They argue that BCER unfairly created Section 5B without completing a full assessment of PRGT’s cumulative effects, and are seeking a court order to quash the provincial regulator’s decision.
PRGT is co-owned 50-50 by the Nisga’a, which supports the regulator’s decision, and Houston-based Western LNG. They acquired the project from Calgary-based TC Energy Corp. in mid-2024.
The 750-kilometre pipeline is estimated to cost up to $12-billion to build. It would feed the $10-billion Ksi Lisims LNG project, which is undergoing an environmental review in hopes of becoming Canada’s second-largest facility for exporting liquefied natural gas.
The Ksi Lisims facility would be located on Nisga’a-owned property on the West Coast.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Michael Tammen is expected to issue his ruling by early 2026, after reviewing a series of documents filed between last summer and this spring.
Prime Minister Mark Carney, in his quest to make Canada an energy superpower globally, believes the federal government will be able to fast-track major resource projects. Last week, the House of Commons passed legislation aimed at spurring industrial plans deemed to be in the national interest.
The Prince Rupert Gas Transmission project is co-owned 50-50 by the Nisga’a Nation.Jesse Winter/The Globe and Mail
But the B.C. court case over the plight of PRGT serves as a harbinger of how regulatory decisions that clear the way for construction can still be subsequently challenged.
“At issue in this petition is the BCER’s decision to allow construction to start on Section 5B of the PRGT project without an up-to-date cumulative effects assessment,” Ecojustice said in seeking a judicial review.
While construction of the pipeline project’s Section 5B on Nisga’a territory started last August, other portions of PRGT would be within 15 kilometres of Kispiox. That community, located within the Gitxsan Nation, is represented by Kispiox Band.
The elected band council “is concerned about the cumulative impacts of development from PRGT along with other industrial activities,” said Kolin Sutherland-Wilson, Kispiox’s elected chief councillor, in an affidavit.
The respondents are the regulator and PRGT.
The regulator said it exercised reasonable discretion by allowing construction on Nisga’a territory.
“The facts underlying the BCER’s decision on the Section 5B permit are unique,” according to a filing by lawyers for the regulator. “The petition is not a reasonable and effective means of bringing the issue before the court.”
Michael Shepard, a vice-president at the regulator, said in an affidavit that the BCER has wide-ranging authority, including the power to “issue a permit, impose conditions on a permit, amend, refuse to issue.”
Lawyers for PRGT maintain that the Section 5B decision is justified: “The Nisga’a Nation asserts sovereign jurisdiction over cumulative effects assessments under the Nisga’a Treaty.”
Pipeline project backed by Nisga’a Nation seeks to win over other Indigenous groups
PRGT originally received a B.C. environmental assessment certificate in 2014, and won approval for a five-year extension in 2019, giving the project until last November to substantially start pipeline construction to prevent the certificate from expiring.
Earlier this month, the head of B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office ruled that PRGT has been substantially started, paving the way for further construction on the project.
The BCER decided in April, 2024, to grant the permit for Section 5B, but it wasn’t publicly announced until three months later, Skeena Watershed co-executive director Shannon McPhail said in an affidavit.
“Conditions in the Skeena Watershed and in Northern B.C. have changed since 2014 from climate change with warmer waters, increased wildfires and drought, which has negative impacts on human health, salmon and other fish runs, water availability and quality, and air quality,” she said.
The PRGT route was intended to extend nearly 900 kilometres from northeastern B.C. to Lelu Island near Prince Rupert, and supply natural gas to Pacific NorthWest LNG. But Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas cancelled the Pacific NorthWest joint venture in 2017.
Ksi Lisims, which hopes to start exporting natural gas in liquid form to Asia in 2029, is backed by the Nisga’a, Western and a group of gas producers named Rockies LNG.
LNG Canada will become the country’s first export terminal for the fuel when it begins shipments to Asia from Kitimat, B.C., within days.