on Haisla territory. “LNG Canada is the first company that has asked our elders what we would like to see,” she says. “LNG is the first company to invite elders to view the plant. LNG is the first company that has shown us respect, treated our land with respect.”Construction is now underway on LNG Canada’s massive $17-billion export terminal and more than 5,000 construction workers and contractors have descended on Kitimat and the surrounding areas.
There has been some grumbling from local contractors, too, about all the out-of-province subcontractors, from Alberta and elsewhere, frustrated that larger companies won many of the contracts. Across the channel from the town of Kitimat, the Haisla are in desperate need of teachers and the band has been unable to hire an addictions counsellor since the last one left earlier in the pandemic.
That’s why it came as a huge relief for many when energy producers began to seriously explore the possibility of constructing LNG export facilities in Kitimat. Three major LNG export projects slowly emerged from a list of more than a dozen proposals, two — LNG Canada and Kitimat LNG — located in Kitimat and one, Woodfibre LNG, in Squamish.
Chevron Corp. eventually pulled the plug on its joint-venture Kitimat LNG project in 2021, followed swiftly by its partner, Australian-based Woodside Energy Group Ltd. This disappointed locals who had hoped to see a decade or more of sustained construction activity, with Kitimat LNG ramping up just as work began winding down on LNG Canada.