How Trump’s threatened tariffs could push forward the PRGT pipeline and put at risk Indigenous land defenders

Published by Brent Patterson on January 27, 2025January 27, 2025

Photo: “Maas Gwitkunuxws Teresa Brown at her camp and dog sanctuary, situated a few dozen metres from the projected right-of-way of the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline.” Photo by Mike Graeme, November 27, 2024.

We are following the on-the-ground resistance by Indigenous land defenders to the construction of the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) fracked gas pipeline on Gitanyow, Gitxsan and Nisga’a territories in British Columbia.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose up to 25 percent tariffs on Canadian exports, possibly as early as February 1. Trump, as the BBC reports, has also “said the US does not need Canadian energy, vehicles or lumber as he spoke to global business leaders at the World Economic Forum [on January 23].”

This situation has revived in media reports the idea of the Northern Gateway pipeline (a proposed project that would send bitumen from Alberta to the north coast of British Columbia for export overseas) and the Energy East pipeline (a previously proposed oil pipeline from Alberta to New Brunswick).

The Business Council of Canada, an advocacy organization of chief executive officers, also says: “Getting more product to tidewater … would provide Canada with more soft power on the world stage and reduce our economic dependence on the U.S. …Building new export pipelines in Canada will be a complicated business no matter which government is in power, so best to stick with the projects where the initial legwork has largely been completed: Prince Rupert Gas Transmission and Northern Gateway. Get these built by 2030.”

And Canada’s National Observer lead columnist Max Fawcett has commented: “[There is the need for] new energy infrastructure that reduces our dependence on America and increases our access to world markets… Northern Gateway is dead, but what about a different project — built by Ottawa and owned entirely by impacted Indigenous communities — that helped ship Canada’s oil to global markets? What about a similar project heading east to feed refineries in Quebec and the Maritimes?”

The Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline

The environment assessment certificate for the PRGT pipeline expired on November 25, 2024, and, as Nick Gottlieb has explained, a decision is pending on whether it will receive a “substantially started determination” that would extend its 10-year-old environmental approval certificate or go through a new environmental assessment process under modern environmental laws.

The Narwhal has reported: “The Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline is likely to be the first major project decision facing Tamara Davidson [from Skidegate on Haida Gwaii], B.C.’s new Minister of Environment and Parks.” The Pipeline Technology Journal notes that “a decision is expected by March 2025.”

The “mandate letter” from British Columbia’s premier to Davidson, posted on January 16 of this year, says: “Direct the Environmental Assessment Office to work with key permitting ministries to develop specific measures that will expedite authorizations and permitting for major projects. Bring proposed measures forward for Cabinet review within six months.” This could imply approval of the PRGT project.

PRGT, a pipeline backed by Trump’s allies

On January 22, Kai Nagata, the communications director for Dogwood, wrote: “Last week [the New York City-based investment company] Blackstone revealed its stake in Western LNG, the shell company promoting Ksi Lisims and the PRGT pipeline. …Blackstone’s CEO is Republican mega-donor Steve Schwarzman, who poured $39 million into the 2024 race in support of Trump’s agenda. A close advisor to the president since 2016, Schwarzman is betting big on a continent-wide expansion of LNG exports. Other PRGT investors include the Jefferies Group, run by billionaire CEO Rich Handler, and Apollo Global Management. Apollo’s CEO Marc Rowan was short-listed by Trump for the position of Treasury Secretary, while its board chair Jay Clayton is nominated as the new U.S. Attorney for Manhattan.”

Land defenders resist the PRGT pipeline

Back on August 29, 2024, CBC reported: “Gitanyow hereditary chiefs and a group of young Indigenous people have blockaded a forest service road in northern B.C. in an attempt to prevent pipeline construction workers from passing through their territory.”

By November 25, 2024, the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs posted: “We will continue our on the ground presence with new cabins, a new Indigenous Protected Area, and on-going monitoring conducted by Wilp members and the Lax’yip Guardians.” And Hereditary Chief Deborah Good Watakhayetsxw posted that on January 26 they would be meeting to discuss: “[The] time for restart on the Checkpoint against pipeline and who will do the work.”

Further reading: Gitanyow and Gitxsan resistance to the PRGT pipeline continues as decision on fate of megaproject expected in March 2025 (PBI-Canada, December 3, 2024).

Meanwhile, the Office of the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs released a statement on January 21 that said they would be meeting with the Ministers of Indigenous Relations and Public Safety, as well as with the Attorney General, to call for “an immediate independent review” of the “militarized RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] unit” that “terrorizes land defenders” and to highlight that they “want the militarized RCMP CRU [Critical Response Unit formerly the Community-Industry Response Group/C-IRG] to be dissolved”.

Gitxsan Nation Wilps Gwininitxw member Ankhla Jennifer Zyp has previously commented: “We’re worried, for sure, that we’re going to be met with the same violence [as seen against the Wet’suwet’en]…”

As a result of Trump’s statements about migrants and drugs crossing the US-Canada border, the RCMP has now deployed Black Hawk helicopters on the border. In the event of a militarized raid against land defenders opposed to the PRGT pipeline (as seen against Wet’suwet’en land defenders resisting the Coastal GasLink pipeline in January 2019, February 2020 and November 2021), these helicopters could be made available to the CRU.

March-April decision

As noted above, The Pipeline Technology Journal notes that “a decision [on PRGT] is expected by March 2025.” There is also the suggestion that the decision could come at the end of April. Northern Beat reports more generally that the decision will be made “this spring.”

We will continue to follow this.

Map.

Map of Gitanyow territory.