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A FLYING FERRY?
SPARKING IMAGINATION
Learn about a demonstration of an all-electric passenger ferry
Local creates SparkBlocks toy
THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2025
S Q U A M I S H C H I E F. C O M
JUDGE REJECTS ‘FLOATEL’ CHALLENGE AGAINST WOODFIBRE
A federal judge has rejected a legal challenge against Woodfibre LNG’s plan to house workers on the floatel STEFAN LABBÉ
news@squamishchief.com
A
federal judge has turned down a legal challenge against Woodfibre LNG over an approval to repurpose a cruise ship housing workers brought in to build a major liquefied natural gas facility near Squamish. The advocacy group Citizens for My Sea to Sky had sought a judicial review of a federal decision that granted the company the ability to amend its environmental authorizations to accommodate the parked ship, dubbed the “floatel.” The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada had approved Woodfibre LNG’s request under the federal Environmental Assessment Act. In court, My Sea to Sky argued that decision was unreasonable and failed to properly address the heightened risk of gender-based violence that arises when a large number of construction workers are housed near small or remote
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FILE PHOTO/VIA WOODFIBRE LNG
The floatel, the MV Isabelle X, is moored at the Woodfibre LNG site.
communities. The group also claimed the decision breached procedural fairness by failing to hold a public comment period before making the decision, and failed to consider how the decision would impact human rights protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In his decision released June 20, Justice Sébastien Grammond found the federal agency had acted reasonably and balanced Charter
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rights. The judge also rejected the notion that procedural fairness had been breached, ruling there was no legal duty to allow the public to weigh in on the matter. “If procedural fairness did not require the Agency to provide My Sea to Sky with an opportunity to make submissions, My Sea to Sky cannot create such a duty simply by asking,” wrote the judge. Woodfibre LNG is building the gas processing
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facility at the site of an abandoned pulp and paper mill on Howe Sound. Once finished, it will receive gas from extraction sites in northern B.C. A pipeline is currently under construction to bring the required gas the last 47 kilometres from Metro Vancouver. Construction is currently estimated to be completed by 2027. In 2012, the Impact Assessment Agency WOODFIBRE: Continued on 3