Ottawa and Major Projects Office advised that granting new public funding to LNG projects violates Canadian Charter, risks lawsuits to follow

As government outlines 12 foreign- and American-owned LNG projects in recent Budget

VANCOUVER, BC | May 19, 2026 | The federal government, its ministers and Crown corporations—including the Canada Infrastructure Bank, Export Development Canada and the Major Projects Office—have been sent a legal letter advising that constitutional challenges under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms could follow if new or expanded public financing or subsidies are directed to large-scale fossil fuel projects, including Ksi Lisims LNG and/or LNG Canada Phase 2, or a new oil pipeline.

Ecojustice lawyers, on behalf of the British Columbia-based citizens group My Sea to Sky, urge Ottawa to carefully consider whether the laws, policies and actions it implements to enable and financially bail out fossil fuel projects with public money can be reconciled with Canadians’ Charter rights, in particular the right to life. Fossil fuels worsen the climate crisis and its impacts cause deaths, human rights violations, and aggravate the affordability crisis that Canadians are enduring.

“Judicial decisions increasingly link climate impacts with governments’ laws and actions, and the human rights obligations our governments owe to people under the Charter and international law. The Supreme Court of Canada has recognized that climate change poses an existential threat to human life in Canada and the International Court of Justice has called out fossil fuel subsidies explicitly as a potential ‘wrongful act’ under international law,” says Charlie Hatt, lawyer and climate program director at Ecojustice, citing rulings that point to serious and disproportionate effects on Indigenous communities and young people.

“It’s bad enough that Canada has continually failed to meet emissions reductions targets, but to use taxpayer money to fund climate harms is simply unconscionable, and we believe Canadian courts are ready to address this,” says Patrick Canning, lawyer originally retained by My Sea to Sky with lawyer Charlotte Chamberlain.

Fossil fuels are the main driver of the global climate crisis. Natural gas’ chemical name is methane, which is 80 times more potent at warming the climate than carbon dioxide. Federal definitions of low-carbon LNG rely on a narrow accounting of emissions that excludes the majority of the fossil fuel’s emissions, including upstream extraction, methane leakage, pipeline transport, and end-use combustion.

“Even if the wholly American-owned Ksi Lisims LNG project were to electrify its liquefaction, which impacts less than five percent, on average, of LNG’s total life-cycle emissions, it will still produce as much as half of British Columbia’s current yearly emissions,” says executive director of My Sea To Sky Tracey Saxby, noting that Ksi Lisims LNG is one of twelve LNG projects Ottawa identified in last month’s federal budget.

“These emissions figures assume that all goes according to plan. That hasn’t been the case at LNG Canada as we now know. That facility has been exceeding its air pollution discharge permits by up to 40 times for many consecutive months because of an ongoing operational defect,” adds Saxby.

Seven of the country’s LNG projects are located in British Columbia, including Ksi Lisims LNG, LNG Canada Phase 1 and 2, Cedar LNG, and Kitimat LNG, all in northern B.C.; Woodfibre LNG in Squamish; and Tilbury LNG in Metro Vancouver, a project that would affect the airsheds of residential neighbourhoods in New Westminster, South Vancouver, Richmond, Delta and Surrey.

While current fossil energy markets are highly volatile, there is a serious risk that by the time Canadian LNG comes online global markets may be in a period of structural oversupply. The Iran war is causing potential import markets to accelerate their transition to renewables as clean energy is less expensive, faster to deploy, and offers lower ongoing costs and energy security reassurance, which global fossil fuel markets simply cannot.

Notes to editors:

• Public financiers must respect Canadians’ Charter rights, including the right to life, liberty, and security of the person (s. 7), the right to equal protection under the law (s. 15), and non-Charter rights like the rights of Indigenous Peoples.
• The 100 percent American-owned Ksi Lisims LNG project faces federal lawsuits by the Lax Kw'alaams Band and the Metlakatla First Nation, and the project lacks consent from nearly half the Indigenous Nations consulted by the Province of B.C.
• The Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline—required to supply gas to the proposed Ksi Lisims project—faces two provincial legal challenges in B.C.
• The FortisBC Eagle Mountain-to-Woodfibre pipeline, which is being built to supply gas to the Woodfibre LNG project, is facing a provincial lawsuit by a member of Squamish Nation.
• Battery storage is the fastest-growing power technology today, with 40 percent more deployed worldwide in 2025, compared to 2024, and 80 percent of the new capacity was utility-scale, according to the IEA.

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About Ecojustice
Ecojustice uses the power of the law to defend nature, combat climate change and fight for a healthy environment. Its strategic, public interest lawsuits and advocacy lead to precedent-setting court decisions, law and policy that deliver lasting solutions to Canada’s most urgent environmental problems. As Canada’s largest environmental law charity, Ecojustice operates offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax.

About My Sea to Sky

My Sea to Sky is a people-powered environmental organization that was founded in 2014 to defend, protect, and restore Átl’ḵa7tsem / Howe Sound through science-based research, education, advocacy, litigation, and facilitating public engagement with governments. It is based in Squamish, British Columbia, 7 km northeast of Woodfibre LNG. www.myseatosky.org.