The B.C. Supreme Court is set to weigh in on two legal challenges filed over the provincial government's decision to allow a liquefied natural gas pipeline project to go ahead on a 12-year-old environmental review.
Two petitions take aim at the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline after the government deemed the project "substantially started," meaning it wouldn't need a new environmental assessment.
The pipeline's construction was authorized in 2014, and a deadline to start it was extended to 2024, spurring the court challenges from Gitxsan Hereditary Chief Charlie Wright and environmentalist groups opposed to the project.
Wright says in legal submissions that the challenge isn't about opposing the pipeline itself, but rather the route it's expected to take through "one of the last remaining untouched areas" of his home territory without proper consultation.
Environmental opponents to the pipeline, the Kispiox Valley Community Centre Association, the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition and a local resident claim the project has not been substantially started.
Shannon Lea McPhail with the Skeena coalition says in a statement that the project stalled for a decade and the work to satisfy the substantial start condition was "last minute," alleging the province appeared willing to "bend over backwards … to keep this zombie project alive."
The cases are scheduled to be heard together for six days in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
