TransCanada representatives were grilled over their verbal assurance of prioritizing local employees for the proposed Coastal GasLink pipeline by the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako (RDBN) board last week.
The pipeline proponent estimates that 2000 to 2500 jobs would be created during construction, and 16 to 35 permanent positions would be needed during operation.
“When we talk about the employment levels that we are going to have within our region, quite frankly having a verbal assurance that these contractors are going to prioritize hiring locals is not even remotely close to being enough,” said Telkwa Mayor Darcy Repen.
“At the time that these projects come through, and these companies come in, they will come with their crews, they’ll hire a few locals, build the project and leave,” he continued.
“I want to see numbers,” he added. “I want to see the number of positions that are going to be reserved for people from our region to be employed on this.”
Kiel Giddens, one of the two TransCanada representatives at the board meeting, said he shared those same concerns.
“Our project team knows that this has occurred in the past with pipeline projects, particularly with a lot of the construction units, where foremen will hire the folks that they know,” said Giddens.”As far as I know, this has probably never happened on a TransCanada project before because we want to make sure that there actually is preferential hiring built into our contractors’ hiring process,” he added.
TransCanada was invited to speak with the RDBN board because some directors have not been satisfied with the responses provided by the company so far. Over the past three years, the RDBN board has expressed several concerns with regard to construction and operation of the proposed pipeline, including issues associated with worker camps such as emergency response and waste disposal.
“Going back to the communications that we’ve had between the regional district board and your company regarding waste disposal, quite frankly I really felt that your responses were unnecessarily evasive,” said Mayor Repen to the TransCanada representatives last week. “You guys have done this over and over again.”
To that, Giddens said TransCanada has provided some waste disposal information as part of their environmental assessment process, which was provided to RDBN staff.
“We want to provide the most accurate data from our camp providers,” continued Giddens. “We’ve been working with our prime contractors and the camp contractors to make sure that we get that information to the regional district. That will continue.”
Burns Lake mayor contradicts RDBN board
Burns Lake Mayor Chris Beach, who sat on the RDBN board for the first time last week, contradicted board directors by praising TransCanada’s communication efforts.
“It seems like your company has gone out of their way to engage the community,” said Mayor Beach during last week’s RDBN meeting. “I just want to say that you guys have really gone beyond, and have done a great job with that. It’s really exciting to see how things are progressing.”
LNG Canada decision expected in 2018
In July of 2016, LNG Canada announced that due to the challenges of the current global energy market, their joint venture participants needed more time prior to making a final investment decision on their proposed export facility near Kitimat.As a result, construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline, which would supply gas to their project, was delayed.
TransCanada representatives told the RDBN board last week that they expect LNG Canada to make a final investment decision in 2018.Coastal GasLink has all the major permits it needs to start construction. Prior to LNG Canada’s decision, Coastal GasLink’s construction was expected to being in 2017.
Coastal GasLink proposes the construction of a natural gas pipeline from near Dawson Creek to near Kitimat, passing south of Burns Lake. The Burns Lake Band, Wet’suwet’en First Nation, Skin Tyee First Nation and Nee Tahi Buhn have signed pipeline benefits agreements for the proposed project.
