Haisla Nation Chief Councillor Crystal Smith during a press conference announcing that the Cedar LNG project has been given environmental approval in Vancouver, Tuesday March 14, 2023. CP Images photo
‘Now we are working together to make our own opportunities as owners and developers of the resource’
Growing up in the 1980s, Crystal Smith felt supported and nourished by her community, the Haisla Nation along the shores of Kitimat, British Columbia. But at the same time, she also sensed the outside world had placed some limitations on her future.
“I enjoyed a wonderful childhood with a solid foundation and lots of love, especially from my grandma Cecilia Smith. She raised me because I lost my mother and stepdad at a young age. But it wasn’t popular to be Indigenous when I grew up,” says Smith.
“A lot of people would talk about how Indigenous people were not expected to be successful. That kind of talk really affected my confidence about what I could be.”
Smith, now the Haisla Nation’s elected chief councillor, never wants children in her community to feel those constraints.
Her community has seized on a major opportunity to build prosperity and resiliency for future generations. The Haisla Nation is a partner in the proposed $3.4 billion Cedar LNG project, the world’s first to have Indigenous ownership. A final go-ahead decision for the project to proceed is expected by the middle of this year.
Smith, who has served as board chair of the First Nations LNG Alliance since 2019, has already seen tangible changes in her community since the project was announced.
“It’s hard to put into words about the impact on the ground in terms of how this opportunity has affected our members in their lives,” she says.
“We were just interviewing candidates to serve as board directors on our economic development corporation and one candidate, who is from our community, just amazed me with how far he has come in terms of pursuing his education and how much his career has progressed.”
The town of Kitimat on British Columbia’s west coast. LNG Canada site in background. Photo courtesy District of Kitimat
Of her own career, Smith says she knew since college that her future was in serving the community. She started working in the Haisla band administration in 2009 and was first elected chief councillor in 2017.
“I was lucky because my family really pushed me to seek an education after high school, so I took the business program at Coast Mountain College. I also helped that I had mentors in my community, including my father Albert Robinson, who served as an elected Haisla councillor, and Ellis Ross (now an elected MLA in B.C), who was very inspiring in terms of his vision as chief councillor and encouraged me to take the step into elected office,” Smith says.
“When I came back to the community from school, I knew I would end up working in our band office. I wanted to see more opportunities for people in my community and LNG provides that.”
She already sees the benefits of the development, as well as the Haisla Nation’s participation in the LNG Canada project, within her own family including for her grandsons.
“Xavier is six and he goes to the same school I attended as a child. He gets to learn parts of our culture, our teachings, as well as the value and importance of family and community. There’s more of an emphasis on our language and culture in the curriculum, which really makes me happy. Luka, who just turned two, will also attend that school when he’s old enough,” Smith says.
“I want programs and services to meet our needs, not the level of government’s needs. And we need to make sure that it is sustainable not just for my grandsons or their peers but for seven generations beyond this one.”
Cedar LNG is coming closer and closer to fruition, with all permits in place and early construction underway.
An eight-kilometre pipeline will be built connecting the recently completed Coastal GasLink pipeline to deliver natural gas to the floating Cedar LNG terminal located along the Douglas Channel near Kitimat.
The facility will be capable of producing up to three million tonnes of liquefied natural gas every year, which will be transported by carriers through the Douglas Channel to Hecate Straight, using the existing deepwater shipping lane, to reach customers in the Asia-Pacific region.
Powered entirely by renewable energy from BC Hydro, Cedar LNG will be one of the lowest carbon intensity LNG facilities in the world. Its so-called emissions intensity will be 0.08 per cent CO2 per tonne, compared to the global average of 0.35 per cent per tonne.
Rendering courtesy Cedar LNG
Up to 500 people will work on the project during the peak of construction. Approximately 100 people will be working at the facility full-time during operation, which is expected to start in the second half of 2028.
Smith says the benefits of the project will extend beyond the 2,000 members of the Haisla Nation.
“This work has really helped us reconnect with other Indigenous communities along pipelines and shipping routes,” she says.
“When I was growing up, our communities never had the opportunity to come together because we were separated by the territorial boundaries imposed by the Indian Act. And we were fighting each other for financial scraps from Indian Affairs.
“Now we are working together to make our own opportunities as owners and developers of the resource. That’s very empowering and the most important part. Participating in developing these resources provides independence. It’s the only solution for my nation and other Indigenous communities.”
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Northern Gateway ($7.9 billion), cancelled in 2016
These projects were cancelled due to regulatory challenges, environmental opposition, and shifting political decisions on both sides of the border. This left Canada without key infrastructure to support energy exports.
For years, companies have tried to build the infrastructure needed to move Canadian oil and gas across the country and to sell to global markets. Billions of dollars have been invested in projects that never materialized, stuck in regulatory limbo, weighed down by delays, or cancelled altogether.
The urgency of this issue is growing.
Last week, 14 CEOs from Canada’s largest pipeline and energy companies issued an open letter urging federal leaders from all parties to streamline regulations and establish energy corridors, warning that delays and policy uncertainty are driving away investment and weakening Canada’s position in global energy markets.
The U.S. recently imposed tariffs on Canadian energy, adding new pressure to an already lopsided trade relationship. According to the 2024-2025 Energy Fact Book from Natural Resources Canada, the U.S. accounted for 89% of Canada’s energy exports by value, totalling $177.3 billion. This leaves the economy vulnerable to shifts in American policy. Expanding access to other buyers, such as Japan, Germany, and Greece, would help stabilize and grow the economy, support jobs, and reduce reliance on a single trading partner.
At the heart of this challenge is infrastructure.
Without reliable, efficient ways to move energy, Canada’s ability to compete is limited. Our existing pipelines run north-south, primarily serving the U.S., but we lack the east-west capacity needed to supply our own country and to diversify exports. Energy corridors (pre-approved routes for major projects) would ensure critical infrastructure is built fast, helping Canada generate revenue from its own resources while lowering costs and attracting investment.
This matters for affordability and reliability.
Our research shows engaged women are paying close attention to how energy policies affect their daily lives — 85 per cent say energy costs impact their standard of living, and 77 per cent support the development and export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to help provide energy security and to generate revenue for Canada.
With increasing concern over household expenses, food prices, and economic uncertainty, energy corridors have become part of the conversation about ensuring long-term prosperity.
What are energy corridors, and why do they matter?
Energy corridors are designated routes for energy infrastructure such as pipelines, power lines, and transmission projects. With an energy corridor, environmental assessments and stakeholder consultations are completed in advance, allowing development to proceed without ongoing regulatory hurdles which can become costly and time consuming. This provides certainty for energy projects, reducing delays, lowering costs, and encouraging investment. They are also not a new concept and are applied in other parts of the world including the U.S.
In Canada, however, this isn’t happening.
Instead, each project must go through an extensive regulatory process, even if similar projects have already been approved. Energy companies spend years trying to secure approvals that don’t come to fruition in a reasonable time and as a result projects are cancelled due to sky-rocketing costs.
“Getting regulatory approval for energy transportation projects in Canada takes so long that investors are increasingly looking elsewhere,” said Krystle Wittevrongel, director of research at the Montreal Economic Institute. “Energy corridors could help streamline the process and bring back much-needed investment to our energy industry.”
Jackie Forrest, executive director at the ARC Energy Research Institute, pointed out that the time it takes to get projects approved is a major factor in driving investment away from Canada to other countries.
“Projects are taking five or more years to go through their regulatory review process, spending hundreds of millions if not a billion dollars to do things like environmental assessments and studies that sometimes need to be carried out over numerous seasons,” she said.
The cost of missed projects
Over the past decade, multiple major energy projects in Canada have been cancelled or abandoned. Among them:
Keystone XL ($8 billion), cancelled in 2021
Energy East ($15.7 billion), cancelled in 2017
Northern Gateway ($7.9 billion), cancelled in 2016
These projects were cancelled due to regulatory challenges, environmental opposition, and shifting political decisions on both sides of the border. This left Canada without key infrastructure to support energy exports.
LNG projects have faced similar setbacks. More than a dozen LNG export proposals were once on the table, but these same issues made most of these projects not viable.
Meanwhile, the United States rapidly expanded its LNG sector, now exporting far more than Canada, capturing global markets that Canada could have served.
“Ten to 15 years ago, there were about as many LNG projects proposed in Canada as in the U.S.,” said Forrest. “We have not been able to get those projects going. The first Canadian project is just starting up now, while the Americans are already shipping out far more.”
She cited a report that shows LNG development in the U.S. has added $408 billion to GDP since 2016 and created 270,000 direct jobs.
“That’s a major economic impact,” she said. “And Canada hasn’t been able to take part in it.”
The case for energy corridors: Creating prosperity, keeping costs in check
Energy corridors could help Canada build long-term prosperity while addressing affordability, job creation, and energy reliability.
“More efficient infrastructure reduces supply chain delays, helping to lower consumer energy costs and related expenses like food and transportation,” said Wittevrongel.
Wittevrongel notes that projects that cross provincial borders face both provincial and federal impact assessments which leads to duplication of effort and delays. Reducing this overlap would shorten approval timelines and provide more certainty for investors.
“One of the ways to improve this process is having the federal government recognize provincial environmental assessments as being good enough,” she said. “There has to be a way to balance that.”
Forrest said investors have already taken note of Canada’s high project costs and long approval timelines.
“TC Energy just built a pipeline to connect the BC gas fields with the West Coast that cost about twice as much as originally expected and took a lot longer,” she said. “Meanwhile, they recently completed a $4.5-billion natural gas project in Mexico under budget and ahead of schedule. Now they’re looking at where to put their next investment.”
Forrest explained that energy corridors could help de-risk infrastructure projects by front-loading environmental and stakeholder work.
“If we just had a pre-approved corridor for things like pipelines and transmission lines to go through, where a lot of this groundwork had already been done, it would really reduce the timeline to get to construction and reduce the risk,” she said. “That would hopefully get a lot more capital spent more quickly in this country.”
The path forward
Without changes, investment will continue to flow elsewhere.
“Energy corridors can go a long way to restoring Canada’s attractiveness for energy transportation and infrastructure projects as it cuts down on the lengthy bureaucratic requirements,” said Wittevrongel.
And Forrest agrees.
“We need to pick key projects that are going to be important to the sovereignty and economic future of Canada and get them done,” Forrest said. “I don’t think we can wait for long-term legislative reform — we need to look at what the Americans are doing and do something similar here.”
Energy corridors are about ensuring Canada remains competitive, lowering costs for consumers, and creating the infrastructure needed to support long-term economic prosperity.
For engaged women, this translates into a stronger economy, lower costs, and more reliable energy for their families.
“The two areas that this will be felt for every family are in lower energy costs and also in lower grocery or food prices as transportation of these things becomes easier on rail, or exporting grain reduces the price, for instance, ” said Wittevrongel.
Whether policymakers take action remains to be seen, but with growing trade pressures and investment uncertainty, the conversation around energy corridors is needed now more than ever.
A majority of Americans say it is more important for the U.S. to establish energy independence than to fight climate change, according to new polling.
The poll from Napolitan News Service of 1,000 registered voters shows that 57% of voters say making America energy independent is more important than fighting climate change, while 39% feel the opposite and 4% are unsure.
Those surveyed also were asked: Which is more important, reducing greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change, or keeping the price of cars low enough for families to afford them?
Half of voters (50%) said keeping the price of cars low was more important to them than reducing emissions, while 43% said emissions reductions were more important than the price of buying a car.
When asked, “Which is more important, reducing greenhouse gas emissions or reducing the cost and improving the reliability of electricity and gas for American families?”, 59% said reducing the cost and increasing the reliability was more important compared to 35% who said reducing emissions was more important.
The survey was conducted online by pollster Scott Rasmussen on March 18-19. Field work was conducted by RMG Research. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points
Dan McCaleb is the executive editor of The Center Square. He welcomes your comments. Contact Dan at [email protected].
The town of Kitimat on British Columbia’s west coast. LNG Canada site in background. Photo courtesy District of Kitimat
