Tell Kevin Uebelein, CEO, Dénes Németh, Director of Corporate Communication, Dale MacMaster, CIO, Ben Hawkins, SVP, Infrastructure, Timber, and Renewable Resources, Peter Teti, Private Equity and Relationship Investing and Peter Pontikes, EVP, Public Equities to back out of their deal with Coastal GasLink and TC Energy

Dear AIMco,

I am writing to you today regarding your company’s decision to purchase a 65% equity interest share in the Coastal GasLink pipeline alongside KKR. This investment is not only a corrupt violation of Indigenous rights, but fails to adhere to the strategic response to climate change which your company has set forth. The Coastal GasLink pipeline project – by extension Site C Dam and the LNG Canada export terminal – does not constitute supporting lower carbon infrastructure or integrating consideration of an asset’s climate risk. In fact, global rises in methane leaks due to resource extraction have significantly increased the risk of climate collapse. In Canada, the oil and gas sector is the largest industrial contributor to methane emissions; British Columbia’s carbon output was already at an alarming 62 million tonnes in 2015, and estimates conclude that the project could increase its annual carbon pollution by 8.6-9.6 million tonnes by 2030. Furthermore, independent studies have shown that methane leaks in B.C.’s oil and gas industry were at least 2-2.5 times higher than the province’s own estimates.

Your corporation's partnership with KKR and TC Energy to fund the CGL pipeline reveals best environmental practices are truly of no concern for AIMCo when investing. The violent removal and arrest of Wet’suwet’en land defenders, the ongoing RCMP occupation of Wet’suwet’en yintah and harassment of its people, in which AIMCo is complicit, hardly sound like climate-resilient strategies to me. They are, however, genocidal tactics. Wet’suwet’en yintah is unceded and unsurrendered; sole jurisdiction of the territory falls to the hereditary chiefs who have given no consent for this project to be built. Despite this, during the global COVID-19 pandemic Canada, the RCMP, and CGL continue to invade a sovereign nation, committing an ongoing act of war all the while putting Indigenous lives and health further at risk. By funding the Coastal GasLink pipeline, AIMCo is aligning itself with an imperialist vision of Canada – one which is solely concerned with capital gain, the degradation of our planet, and upholding colonial structures. I, along with countless international supporters of Wet’suwet’en, demand that you drop out of this deal and cut all ties with CGL and KKR. Until that is done, we will not give up this fight.

Sincerely,