Tag Archives: TC Energy

Energy, Politics

Fossil fuel execs outlined a 7-part playbook to influence governments and media. Here’s what you need to know

By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

Last week, explosive claims made behind closed doors by a fossil fuel industry executive were made public. The claims — about how oil and gas giant TC Energy conducts its business — were made during an insider call at the company, which builds and operates crude oil and natural gas pipelines across North America.

The 42-minute spiel from Liam Iliffe, then a TC Energy executive, was part of a March “lunch and learn” session for 150 external relations employees across the continent. While the company said some of his claims were inaccurate and didn’t reflect how it operates, the leaked recordings have since made international headlines, sparked a probe from the B.C. government into his tactics and prompted harsh rebuke from politicians.

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Energy, Politics

Leaked TC Energy recording prompts B.C. to probe claims of outsized lobbying influence on government

By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma has asked a provincial watchdog to look into a series of bold claims about how an executive at a Canadian oil and gas giant — and former BC NDP political staffer — claimed the company had leveraged political connections to persuade the provincial government to significantly weaken its environmental policies.

“We’ve been given opportunities to write entire briefing notes for ministers and premiers and prime ministers,” a TC Energy executive was recorded saying in a leaked tape from March 2024, adding that sometimes “overworked and underpaid” public servants “just want the job done for them.”

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Energy

The door to B.C.’s liquefied natural gas export sector is about to open. Here’s what you need to know

Editor’s note: In February 2013, the Christy Clark government proclaimed “LNG development is poised to trigger approximately $1 trillion in cumulative GDP within British Columbia over the next 30 years.” Eleven years later, the list of ‘proposed or under construction projects’ has shrunk from 20 to 7. The only local proposal, Discovery LNG in Campbell River, is no longer on the list. 

According to Natural Resources Canada, “LNG Canada, in Kitimat, BC, will be Canada’s first large-scale LNG export facility once complete, aiming for first exports by 2025. The majority of the other projects target beginning operations between 2027 and 2030.”

By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

As Teresa Waddington proudly proclaimed LNG Canada is on track to wrap up construction in Kitimat, B.C., this year, the room full of hundreds of attendees at the BC Natural Resources Forum erupted in cheers.

“We are 90 per cent complete, bringing Canada’s first LNG export facility to life,” she said in mid-January, at the annual gathering of industry bigwigs and hopefuls, First Nations leaders, provincial and federal politicians and civil servants who had travelled from around the province to Prince George for the event.

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Energy

‘Hard to believe it’s real’: B.C.’s energy regulator repeatedly gave Coastal GasLink a pass on alleged environmental infractions

Editor’s note: Another account of how government regulators are not equipped to do their job and the resulting lack of oversight may be putting the public at risk.

By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

When officials from the BC Energy Regulator travelled to Wet’suwet’en territory in September 2022, they were planning a routine inspection of a fish-bearing stream.

Two years had passed since Coastal GasLink completed installation of a section of pipeline through the stream, a tributary of Tchesinkut Creek, near the community of Burns Lake in northwest B.C.

They discovered Coastal GasLink had never finished restoring the waterway and, for two years, pipeline construction had been impacting fish habitat. It was a mess. 

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Animals

The last 33 caribou: fighting for the survival of a Wet’suwet’en herd

By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

There’s a serene pocket of mountainous habitat in northwest B.C. where 33 caribou live, drinking from glacial-fed creeks and grazing on alpine lichens. Though it’s peaceful, they have nowhere to go. They’re surrounded.

They’ve been cut off from where they gave birth to their young and the tracts of land that supported them through the long northern winters by highways, hydroelectric dams, rail lines, clearcuts and farmland. The herd’s range has been fragmented for more than a century and faces imminent threats.

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