Two Squamish community groups are in court May 28-30 opposing the floating workers' accomodation an LNG company is using to house staff building a plant approved a decade ago.
My Sea to Sky and Justice For Girls are challenging Singaporean-controlled Woodfibre LNG’s installation of a floating work camp — or floatel — in Howe Sound, an area declared a biosphere region by the United Nations in 2021.
“The environmental assessment process is broken,” said Tracey Saxby, My Sea to Sky’s executive director. “We are asking the court to find that the federal government followed an unfair process when it approved Woodfibre LNG’s work camp and failed to discharge their duty to protect human rights and the environment.”
My Sea to Sky asserts Woodfibre LNG docked the floating workcamp at the project site in Squamish in July 2024.
The groups are asking the court to review the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada decision to allow the floatel. The challenge is not against the liquefied natural gas project itself.
My Sea to Sky lawyer Patrick Canning told Federal Court of Canada Justice Sébastien Grammond May 28 that the group had applied for and had been approved for $2,900 funding to participate in a consultation and then heard nothing else.
“They had submissions they wanted to make but they were told to wait,” Canning said.
The issue, he said, revolves around a report allowing project modifications that was not subject to federal ministerial approval. That, he said, makes the situation conceivably not subject to judicial review, meaning the public has no recourse to the courts in such cases.
“The floating hotel was put in place as a result of that decision,” he said.
The project process
The groups said Woodfibre May 1 announced plans to accelerate the construction schedule by docking a second, larger floatel to house 900 workers, in addition to the 600-capacity worker accommodation of the first floatel.
That first floatel, the MV Isabelle X, is moored at the Woodfibre LNG project site located seven kilometres outside of Squamish.
On its website, Woodfibre said the requirement to house the project’s non-local construction workforce on the floatel was established through an amendment to the project’s environmental assessment certificate approved by the provincial government on Nov. 1, 2023.
“Subsequently, on Dec. 4, 2023, Skwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) approved an amendment to the Squamish Nation Environmental Assessment Agreement to support the floatel,” the company site said. “This second floatel will now undergo the same regulatory review process through multiple levels of regulatory oversight.”
The company said, “Workers enjoy safe and comfortable housing at the floatel without any negative impact on the community.”
The Woodfibre project was approved under a one-project, one-assessment’ process that allows Ottawa to substitute a B.C. environmental assessment for its own.
Victoria and Ottawa signed an agreement for the single process in September 2019.
Catherine McKenna, then-federal minister of environment and climate change, and George Heyman, then-provincial minister of environment and climate change strategy, spearheaded the shift.
They signed a bilateral agreement to co-operate on project reviews under Canada’s then-new Impact Assessment Act and British Columbia’s then-new Environmental Assessment Act.
Saxby said that has led to potentially destructive resource projects with less oversight.
“We’re dealing with fallout and confusion from the streamlined environmental permitting process, where the government treats public engagement as nothing more than a checkbox,” Saxby said.
She added that makes the current case important as it could affect how other projects are approved moving forward.
It was a Nov. 1 amendment to the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) decision that allowed the floatel.
The decision said Woodfibre applied for the floatel as the need for worker accommodation had changed. It said the application was reviewed by the EAO, IAAC, Squamish Nation, Tsleil-Waututh Nation, a project technical advisory committee and the public starting in November 2019 through early 2020.
Both District of Squamish (DoS) and Squamish Nation sought clarity on how the company would mitigate the potential for community conflict and restrict worker access to the surrounding community through the marine environment.
“To address the respective concerns, this new condition requires workers to reside at the floatel unless they were residing in the DoS prior to September 20, 2023,” the decision said.
But, as the District and Squamish First Nation had expressed concern about workforce housing, the EAO decision said the company “must establish a committee to regularly engage the community, no less than once per quarter, and consult with consultation parties identified in this condition, with participation from FortisBC, on issues that impact workforce housing, safety and community services.”
Still, Saxby suggested B.C. Premier David Eby and Prime Minister Mark Carney want to fast-track major projects.
“The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada effectively sidestepped its process to the benefit of a foreign-owned fossil fuel company,” Saxby said.
Woodfibre was the second to be approved under the single assessment process, the first being the Kitimat LNG Canada export terminal.
Canning said his client should have public interest standing to bring the challenge as it has been engaged with the project for years and that the project affects its members.
He said the agency said the floating workers' camp would not result in any additional environmental effects, an assertion the groups take issue with.
He said the case is one of procedural fairness.
“Regulators cannot overlook or ignore the human costs that come with LNG expansion for frontline communities,” said Skwxu7mesh Nation Elder Jackie Williams, one of the Justice For Girls’ applicants said.
“These should be the most important, especially for Indigenous women and girls because we’re at far greater risk of experiencing violence and human rights abuses,” she said. “It’s hard to understand how it’s possible that another, larger floating man camp could arrive when the community wasn’t able to express their concerns over the first one.”
The parties completed their submissions to the court May 29.
Grammond reserved his decision.
