Filing comes as Canada advances LNG expansion while committing $1.2 billion to protect oceans from growing marine traffic
GSA and seven co-filers, including Indigenous leaders, health and environmental organizations from Canada, Germany and South Korea, today filed a formal complaint alleging Export Development Canada (EDC) failed to meet international standards for responsible business conduct in its financing of billions of dollars in maritime LNG infrastructure.
Between 2017 and 2024, EDC directed an estimated $1.6 billion to $2.65 billion toward LNG tankers, vessels, export terminals and associated pipelines. With limited disclosure around individual transactions, the complaint says the full extent of this financing “remains obscured.” Including additional transactions through 2026 with potential LNG links, the complaint estimates EDC’s maritime LNG financing could total as much as $3.05 billion.
The complaint alleges EDC provided financing with limited public disclosure and without adequately assessing the full climate, environmental, human rights and financial risks of LNG infrastructure.
These include:
- Impacts on Indigenous rights, territories and coastal communities, including projects proceeding without Free, Prior and Informed Consent; negative impacts on traditional hunting, fishing and harvesting; risks to food and water; disruption of cultural and spiritual sites; and threats to Indigenous and coastal livelihoods that depend on healthy lands, waters and marine ecosystems
- Increased impacts from tanker traffic, underwater noise, vessel strikes and environmental contamination on at-risk Pacific marine species, including endangered Southern Resident killer whales, threatened Northern Resident killer whales, North Pacific humpbacks, a species of special concern, and at-risk Pacific salmon populations.
- Proposed LNG export routes through Atlantic and Arctic waters could expose additional at-risk whale populations, including North Atlantic right whales, St. Lawrence belugas and Western Hudson Bay belugas, to those same risks
- Climate and human health impacts, including lifecycle greenhouse gas and methane emissions and exposure to toxic pollution associated with fracking and flaring
- Financial risks to Canadians, including the possibility that publicly backed LNG infrastructure becomes underused or stranded as global energy markets change, leaving Canadian taxpayers on the hook
The complaint comes days after Ottawa pledged $1.2 billion to protect Canada’s oceans, while championing advancing LNG expansion that will increase tanker traffic and the very marine risks the government is spending billions to address.
A leaked Canada-EU summit statement reported by Politico reveals the two governments are considering a “feasibility study” into Canadian LNG exports to Europe, even as questions remain about whether the full impacts and risks of existing LNG infrastructure and its public financing are being adequately assessed.
The complaint warns of financial risks for Canadian taxpayers as EDC finances decades-long LNG infrastructure amid a wave of new global supply, weakening demand and rising costs. It argues these conditions could leave LNG infrastructure underused or stranded, exposing the federal government to financial losses.
As a Crown corporation, EDC has committed to following the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Responsible Business Conduct, including standards on due diligence, human rights, environmental impacts and disclosure. The complaint alleges EDC failed to meet those standards.
The complaint was filed with Canada’s National Contact Point (NCP) for Responsible Business Conduct, the federal dispute-resolution mechanism that reviews alleged non-observance of the OECD Guidelines.
EDC is being called on to stop financing LNG projects without rigorous, transparent due diligence and full lifecycle environmental, human rights and financial risk assessments, and to use its influence to reduce harms associated with existing LNG investments.
Public financing of LNG is facing growing scrutiny around the world. 60 groups have previously urged Canadian public financiers to stop funding LNG. Wet’suwet’en leaders filed a complaint against the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) over its financing of LNG Canada in 2025, while complaints involving LNG financing have also been pursued in the United States, South Korea and Japan.
Quotes
Chief Na’Moks, Hereditary Chief of the Tsayu (Beaver Clan), Wet’suwet’en Nation
“This complaint should be a warning to Canada and to every Nation with LNG development on the horizon. The impacts do not stop at the end of a pipeline. They cross our territories, reach our coasts and follow the tankers out to sea. When public institutions finance LNG without looking at the full chain of impacts, Indigenous Nations and coastal communities are left carrying the consequences. Canada cannot keep financing expansion first and dealing with Indigenous rights, environmental damage and marine impacts afterward.”
Jesse Stoeppler, Member of Wilp Spookwx and Executive Director, Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition
“This complaint raises serious questions about why a federal Crown corporation is putting more money behind LNG as global supply surges and long-term demand becomes increasingly uncertain, while helping drive an expansion that carries real consequences for Indigenous communities and increases tanker traffic, underwater noise and threats to whales and critical marine habitat from coast to coast to coast. Canadians deserve to know who will be left carrying those risks when these projects fail to deliver what’s promised by industry and governments.”
Andrew Dumbrille, Co-Director, Equal Routes
“Canada cannot spend billions protecting whales, preparing for spills and managing underwater noise while its own Crown corporation finances the infrastructure driving more LNG tanker traffic without fully accounting for those impacts. EDC has directed billions of dollars toward maritime LNG infrastructure, yet Canadians are still being kept in the dark about the full extent of that financing. Canadians deserve to know the full environmental, human rights and financial risks being taken using Canadian tax dollars.”
Sascha Müller-Kraenner, CEO,. Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH, Environmental Action Germany)
LNG is a risky investment and a bet against our future, no matter what Export Development Canada claims. We therefore stand firmly behind Equal Routes’ complaint against EDC, urging it to halt all financing of LNG projects globally. EDC should use its public funds to champion just energy transition projects, setting an example for its German peers like Euler Hermes. We urge EDC and Euler Hermes not to grant any export credit financing or guarantees for fossil fuel investments and instead reorient to supporting a cleaner future based on renewable energy.”
Joojin Kim, CEO, Solutions for Our Climate
“Canada is making long-term LNG bets based on assumed global demand, especially in Asia. Meanwhile, Korea and Japan, two of the world’s largest LNG importers, have adopted energy plans that significantly reduce the role of fossil-fuels in their future electricity mix. Japanese buyers are already reselling record volumes of LNG they don’t need at home. Building decades-long export infrastructure on that assumption is a financial risk, not a safe bet. This filing, like the complaint we brought forward in Korea earlier this year, is part of a broader effort to ensure public financial institutions do not finance LNG infrastructure in one country while ignoring impacts that extend across borders and oceans. Whether the money comes from Seoul, Tokyo or Ottawa, the principle is the same: public institutions must conduct rigorous due diligence before putting public money behind long-lived fossil fuel infrastructure.”
Alex Walker, Energy Analytics Program Manager, Environmental Defence Canada
“If Canada wants to be taken seriously on the world stage, it must adhere to international standards on responsible business conduct. Right now, it is falling short. For years, federal Crown corporations have poured billions of dollars into the fossil fuel industry, despite repeated government commitments to phase out this practice. Meanwhile, Canada is warming at twice the global average, with growing wildfires, floods, and extreme weather events devastating communities. Responsible business means protecting people and the planet. Canada must be held accountable for its failure to do so.”
Beatrice Frank, Executive Director, Georgia Strait Alliance
“The Salish Sea is not a sacrifice zone. Public funding should help accelerate a just and resilient future, not increase risks to one of the Pacific coast’s most important marine ecosystems. With billions in public-backed financing involved, Canadians deserve transparency and confidence that the full environmental, climate, and Indigenous rights impacts—including risk of extinction to the critically endangered Southern Resident killer whales—have been properly assessed.”
Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, Dr. Richard van der Jagt
“LNG isn’t just an energy or economic issue—it is a health issue, from beginning to end. From toxic pollution from fracking and flaring to the climate impacts of methane, LNG puts people’s health at risk at every stage of its lifecycle. Indigenous nations and others are disproportionately harmed. Financing infrastructure that damages the natural systems we depend on for our health and survival is ecocide. We are seeing lives lost and the consequences will be felt for generations—all while safer, cheaper renewable energy is readily available. Public money should not be financing preventable harm. EDC needs to account for the full health impacts of LNG, from the fracking well, to the tanker, to the atmosphere.”
OTTAWA on the unceded territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin Nation