We Stand with Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs in Opposing the Coastal GasLink Pipeline and Demanding Government to Government Negotiations

Coastal GasLink is a pipeline expected to transport up to five billion cubic feet of LNG per day. When burned, this will produce an estimated 585.5 million pounds of C02 each day, which is equivalent to the C02 emissions released from burning over 300 million pounds of coal, or driving more than 59,000 passenger vehicles for a year.

The pipeline passes through Wet’suwet’en Territory.  There is no treaty for their land.  All five clans of the Wet’suwet’en have unanimously opposed oil and gas pipelines on their territories and have not provided free, prior, and informed consent to Coastal GasLink. RCMP tactics against Wet’suwet’en members have been thrice denounced by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The criminalization of Indigenous people on their own unceded territory must end.  Beyond this egregious rights violation, the project threatens Canada and B.C.’s ability to ensure a safe, healthy climate for everyone—both now and in the future.

Learn more from this CBC podcast: Land Back

British Columbia permitted this pipeline by issuing an Environmental Assessment Certificate.  Subsequently the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change has issued dozens of  warnings, 16 orders, and levied two fines — penalties of more than $240,000 "for repeated non-compliance" — since construction on the pipeline started in 2019.  Each warning letter may involve several violations in different locations during an inspection visit to pipeline work sites.   Despite all that, BC extended the certificate and entered into a compliance agreement with CGL on July 13, 2022.  This was intended to bring CGL into compliance.  Yet, since then, new warnings have been issued on September 1 and 27, 2022; and October 14, 2022.