Roberts Bank Terminal 2 Expansion Project

On April 20th, 2023, the federal government approved a dramatic expansion of the Port of Vancouver: a new three-berth container terminal called Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (RBT2).

In June 2024, Georgia Strait Alliance, alongside our allies at David Suzuki Foundation, Raincoast Conservation Foundation and Wilderness Committee, represented by Ecojustice, legally challenged the project’s approval through a judicial review.

Our lawyers argued that the approval is unlawful because a project cannot be deemed “justified” under environmental assessment legislation when it is contrary to the Species at Risk Act.

Since then, the landscape for major projects in Canada has changed dramatically. With the Building Canada Act (Bill C-5), the federal government has rewritten the rules governing how major projects are approved and regulated, introducing fast-tracked approval processes and sweeping changes to environmental oversight that weaken environmental safeguards, public accountability and meaningful Indigenous consultation.

In July 2026, the Major Projects Office proposed that RBT2 be designated as a project of national interest. And today, we know RBT2 is expected to become more than a container port: the newly announced Pacific Link bitumen pipeline would run from Alberta to Roberts Bank Terminal 2, dramatically increasing the industrial pressures facing the Fraser River Estuary and Salish Sea.

A big biodiversity threat

The $3.5 billion expansion project is right at the heart of the Fraser River Estuary, one of North America’s most biodiverse areas. If the expansion is built, it will add an additional 2.4 million 20-foot shipping containers every year to the waters of the Salish Sea.

The project’s approval came despite significant public opposition from environmental groups, scientists, labour unions, and thousands of Canadians. It also ignored the large body of evidence, including the government’s own Independent Review Panel, indicating that the project will have lasting and irreversible adverse environmental effects that will further endanger Southern Resident orcas, wild Pacific salmon, and one hundred more already at-risk species. Millions of birds also face colossal threats as they migrate along the Pacific Flyway, and heavily depend on the Fraser Estuary habitat.

This project will threaten highly biodiverse and at-risk habitat the size of 330 football fields, furthering the unprecedented biodiversity crisis, while increasing tanker traffic, underwater noise, oil spill risk, and climate destabilization.

Putting the economy, at all costs, above the environment is the reason we’re experiencing such alarming biodiversity loss and impacts from climate change.

Image: Jason Puddifoot

Effects on Southern Resident orcas

Image: Adobe Stock Images

With only 72 individuals left in the wild, Southern Resident orcas are already critically endangered and suffering from a variety of anthropogenic threats that are actively impeding their recovery, including insufficient food, underwater noise and toxic contamination. There is no doubt that RBT2 will put unnecessary pressure on this fragile species by increasing underwater noise in their critical habitat, which will further impede their ability to find food, communicate and travel, while also destroying important habitat for their prey, wild Pacific salmon.

The situation for Southern Resident orcas is dire and Roberts Bank Terminal 2 will only make it worse.

“Decisions like these are putting immense pressure on the [72] southern resident orcas left in the wild and increasing their chances of extinction.”

~ quote by Lucero González Ruiz, in the National Observer: Feds face court challenge over Metro Vancouver port expansion that will endanger killer whales

Effects on Pacific Salmon

Image: Fernando Lessa

RBT2 would also deleteriously modify the functional habitat that juvenile and other salmon depend on to survive during their big migration to the ocean and then back to their natal streams and rivers. The criticality of this is severely amplified as eighty-five percent of critical salmon habitat in the Fraser river is already no longer accessible.

Destruction of functional habitat changes the use of those lands and waters and is one of the greatest threats to at-risk species and a principal driver of biodiversity loss globally.

“The devastating approval of the RBT2 expansion project makes the fear many of us have of seeing the Southern Resident orcas and wild pacific salmon go functionally extinct during our lifetimes so much more real”

~ quote by Lucero González Ruiz, on CTV News – Longshore union sides with environmental groups opposed to Delta terminal expansion

Environmental Assessment

In March 2020, the panel responsible for the environmental assessment of the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project publicly released their recommendations. The panel concluded that the development will result in a “significant adverse effect” on endangered Southern Resident orcas and several other at-risk marine species. The report also concluded that the proposed development has the “potential to change various aspects of Indigenous current use and cultural heritage resources”.

Read a summary of the Federal Review Panel’s key findings here.

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