This article originally appeared in the Financial Post.
For decades, the Strait of Hormuz has been a strategic choke point through which a significant share of the world’s energy passes. Countries that depend on that energy are hostage to whoever controls the strait.
Canada has suffered its own version of a strategic choke point. Not from hostile naval forces, but through a sustained campaign of activism — supported in part by international funding networks — that has focused on British Columbia’s ports, pipeline corridors, railways and export terminals. In the past, these efforts have involved intimidation and violence and have successfully blocked projects.
The latest of these campaigns seeks to frighten residents of Northern B.C. about what activists claim are the health dangers of liquefied natural gas. Its real aim is to prevent Canadians from exporting, and energy-insecure nations from accessing, Canada’s over 400 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves.
To be sure, activist harassment is not the same thing as the outright war we see unfolding in the Middle East. But its impact can be equally serious and strategic. In their recent statement, the G7 nations encouraged “the diversification of energy supply routes in order to reduce global vulnerability to the Strait of Hormuz,” and welcomed “the potential for Canada to deliver significant additional capacity to global markets in the coming years.” But that won’t be possible if activist groups succeed in creating choke points within British Columbia.
Activists often claim to be promoting the interests of local communities. But communities pay the price when activist campaigns destroy some of the best opportunities available to them to end poverty and create a new future. A recent study commissioned by Energy for a Secure Future, the organization I chair, includes analysis of the economic and social trajectory of the 20 municipalities and 20 First Nations communities along the 670-kilometre corridor from the Montney basin to the coast in Kitimat B.C. The analysis shows that from 2016 through 2021 — in other words, before the construction of LNG Canada Phase I and the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline — corridor communities trailed the B.C. average on important social and economic metrics, including household income, housing quality and post-secondary attainment (including trades).
The economic stimulus provided by those two projects brought improvement in all these areas, as would Cedar LNG and, from the federal major projects list, LNG Canada Phase II and Ksi Lisims LNG. Construction of LNG Canada and Coastal Gaslink drove overall regional benefits including: 75,700 jobs and over $11.7 million invested by companies in skills training, workforce development and pre-employment programs; over $2 million in contributions for local hospitals and medical equipment; roughly $3.6 million to support home renovation and purchasing; and an increase in average household income in the corridor communities from $78,000 a year in 2015 to $105,000 a year in 2024.
Anti-development activists often claim to be defending the interests of First Nations but between 2019 and 2023, the various agreements and partnerships related to these projects led to an increase of 159 per cent in own-source revenues for the 20 First Nations in the project corridor. In 2023, these new revenues made up 36 per cent on average of the operating budgets of First Nations and were directed to greater investments in education, economic development and community services.
Now that the pipeline is operating, 16 of the First Nations on the pipeline route are able to exercise their option for a 10 per cent equity stake in the Coastal Gaslink pipeline, bringing additional revenues. The Haisla Nation’s majority-owned Cedar LNG project, whose gas will be delivered through the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline, will complete construction and begin operations soon. Five First Nations, including Haisla, recently signed on to an LNG Canada Phase II asset ownership opportunity.
In a “no-project” scenario, these benefits are lost. So is the possibility that Canada can help free our allies from the weaponization of energy by Russia and Iran. For many communities, the opportunities that major resource projects provide come along perhaps once in a generation, if that. When campaigns choke off these opportunities, there is rarely a substitute.
As governments identify new nation-building infrastructure, the familiar patterns are already re-emerging. Coalitions that successfully opposed previous developments are mobilizing once again.
British Columbia remains the country’s indispensable Pacific gateway with half the transit time to Asian markets compared to our competitors. If that gateway instead becomes a strategic bottleneck, Canada won’t just lose individual projects; it risks surrendering decades of life-changing economic opportunity to competing jurisdictions.
We need to organize now to preserve opportunity and defeat the coming blockade.
Shannon Joseph, an Energy Forum Fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, is chair of Energy for a Secure Future.
