LNG Canada Phase 2 Is the Jobs Ledger Eby Can’t Wave Away
Kitimat just showed what happens when a major project finally reaches yes. The question is whether Eby can make the next one easier to build.
LNG Canada’s Phase 2 final investment decision in Kitimat gives David Eby a jobs story he will want to stand beside. Voters should let him — but only if he also accepts the accountability lesson sitting underneath it.
LNG Canada says its joint venture partners have taken a final investment decision on the Phase 2 expansion, adding two LNG processing trains inside the existing Kitimat facility and doubling total production capacity from 14 million to 28 million tonnes annually. The company also says it has commercial agreements connected to expanding Coastal GasLink capacity through five new compressor stations.
The jobs ledger is concrete. LNG Canada estimates up to 4,000 construction jobs in Kitimat at peak construction, about 2,100 jobs tied to the compressor-station work, and about 90 additional full-time roles plus 150 contractor positions once complete. The BC Construction Association, which welcomed the decision on October 1, says Phase 1 involved more than 50,000 Canadians and Coastal GasLink construction employed more than 25,000 people.
The Indigenous economic-participation ledger is also specific. LNG Canada says five neighbouring First Nations — Gitga’at, Gitxaała, Haisla, Kitselas and Kitsumkalum — have an option to invest up to $1 billion in an entity that will purchase the future Phase 2 LNG storage tank. The Prime Minister’s Office describes the agreement as an Indigenous equity opportunity tied to a 225,000-cubic-metre tank.
Those are claims and estimates from the project, industry and federal government. They still deserve scrutiny on cost, emissions, power, procurement, local impacts and enforcement. But they are also the kind of measurable, private-sector economic activity B.C. cannot replace with press conferences.
That is where Eby’s campaign rhetoric meets the worksite. His campaign launch promised to build an economy less dependent on the United States, open new markets, build infrastructure and grow industries while training British Columbians for skilled-trades jobs. LNG Canada Phase 2 is exactly the sort of file that tests whether those words mean faster, more predictable project delivery — or just better campaign scenery after years of uncertainty.
The fair question is not whether Eby can pose near a project that reached yes. The fair question is whether his government can explain what it learned: which permit steps worked, which ones dragged, what Indigenous partnership model can be repeated, what power and infrastructure commitments taxpayers face, and how the next mine, port, transmission line, mill or energy project avoids getting stuck in a fog of process.
B.C. needs paycheques, exports and construction capacity. If Eby wants credit for the jobs ledger in Kitimat, he should publish the major-project playbook that gets the next ledger written faster — with clear timelines, clear costs and clear accountability before voters are asked for another mandate.