To the Environmental Assessment Office:

As residents of B.C. we respect the right of the Nisga’a people to develop their land and resources as they see fit.

But the international oil and gas companies behind the Ksi Lisims LNG (liquified natural gas) proposal have an agenda that affects all of us. If approved, the impacts would reach far beyond Nisga’a territory.

The terminal alone would consume the entire power output of the Site C dam. We all have to pay for that dam — plus new transmission lines — on our BC Hydro bills.

If used for oil and gas projects, that electricity will not be available for heat pumps or electric vehicles. That means delaying the province’s transition away from fossil fuels.

The nearby Lax Kw’alaams Nation is strongly opposed to the LNG terminal because of its climate impacts, which threaten ocean life including wild salmon runs. We share that concern.

Supplying gas to Ksi Lisims would require another TC Energy pipeline through old growth forest and hundreds of streams and rivers, including the Babine, Skeena, Kispiox and Nass.

That means more destruction, division and conflict, as police and private security repeat the Coastal GasLink playbook in northern B.C.

If built, the pipeline and thousands of new fracking wells would vent raw methane into the atmosphere for decades to come. That leakage makes LNG worse for the climate than burning coal.

Now is not the time to build more oil and gas megaprojects. Our cost of living is high enough without propping up the profits of fossil fuel companies.

For the sake of our communities, the water we depend on and the province’s climate plan – please reject the Ksi Lisims gas terminal and expand renewable energy instead.