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Canada wallows on LNG sidelines, paralyzed by Ottawa’s onerous regulatory system

Published

2 years ago

7 minute read

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Lee Harding

Mitsotakis said Greece has built a major facility outside the city of Alexandroupolis to process incoming LNG tankers. He said Greece will pump LNG to the rest of Europe and needs more at home as the country abandons coal.

When it comes to fossil fuels, the world wants what Canada’s got. The problem is, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau doesn’t care.

Fresh proof came with the recent visit of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the first Greek leader to come to Canada in more than 40 years.

According to the office of the Prime Minister Trudeau, Mitsotakis was simply here to march in Montreal’s Greek Independence Day Parade, discuss “shared interests” and cut the ribbon as Greece purchased Canadian-made firefighting planes.

But, during an interview with CTV, Mitsotakis said his country would “of course” like to start importing Canadian liquified natural gas (LNG).

“We are a big entry point for LNG, not just for the Greek market, but also for the Balkans, for Eastern Europe. Theoretically, we could even supply Ukraine,” said Mitsotakis.

“In principle, yes, we are very interested in obtaining LNG at competitive prices.”

Mitsotakis said Greece has built a major facility outside the city of Alexandroupolis to process incoming LNG tankers. He said Greece will pump LNG to the rest of Europe and needs more at home as the country abandons coal.

Much of Europe’s energy has traditionally come from Russia or Middle Eastern autocracies. More than a decade ago, author Ezra Levant made the case for Canada’s “Ethical Oil” as a better alternative. Canada’s status as a democratic state that respects human rights and extracts oil with a minimal environmental footprint is as good as it gets. Mitsotakis, a Harvard-educated investment banker, understands that quite readily today.

“Canada is a country (for) which we share so many values,” said Mitsotakis. “I think we see eye-to-eye on many of the challenges that we face.”

Still, there was no mention of energy exports in Trudeau’s public comments regarding Mitsotakis, nor in official government communications about the visit.

Mitsotakis can take little consolation that his treatment is not unusual, as true as that may be. In the past 18 months, both the Japanese prime minister and the German chancellor returned home without official assurances that Ottawa was eager to offer bulk quantities of Canadian LNG.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida came to Canada in January, 2023 making no secret of his “high expectations” to reach an LNG export agreement with Canada.

In August 2022, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz came to Canada hoping to reach an LNG deal. “Canada is our partner of choice,” Scholz said at the time.

Somehow, Trudeau said at a press conference with the German leader that there was no “business case” for LNG exports to Europe. Instead, he took the chancellor to an empty field in Newfoundland that was the chosen site for a future Canadian facility to export carbon-neutral hydrogen.

That will help Germany a little, but not nearly enough. The country turned to Qatar and signed a 15-year LNG export deal.

Canada is currently the world’s fifth largest producer of natural gas. But, as is the case with oil, facilities to sell it overseas are very limited. Canada has no LNG export facilities currently operating. Any LNG exports to Europe would have to go through a US export terminal.

Kitimat, BC will open a major export facility in early 2025, but plans to build an LNG pipeline to ports on the East Coast have fallen apart due to high costs.

On Monday, Alberta Energy Minister Brian Jean said “onerous” regulatory procedures were more to blame.

“With massive natural gas reserves, Canada can no longer wait on the LNG sidelines, burdened by an onerous regulatory system. Our allies and trading partners need us. We must have more LNG export facilities approved and built,” Jean said in a statement.

Jean is right. Canada has scuttled one opportunity after another during the Trudeau era, first by smothering pipeline development in onerous regulations. The Northern Gateway pipeline was the only one the nation banned, citing environmental concerns off the coast of northern B.C., despite the fact that 50 tankers passed the same waters every day with exports from Alaska.

Other proposals, such as the Energy East pipeline, were held up in red tape until its proponents decided the project wasn’t worth it. A 30,000-page application went for not, as did the hope that refineries in the Maritimes could refine Canadian products instead of those from the Middle East.

The trans mountain pipeline was also bound up until the government bought it, after which its progress still went painfully slowly. Years late and six times over-budget at a cost of $34 billion, the “long delayed” pipeline is finally ready for crude deliveries.

Bill C-69, dubbed by former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney as the “No More Pipelines Act”, was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada last fall. The development is welcome but cannot restore lost time.

Canada remains poorly positioned to capitalize on another historic opportunity–the European thirst for oil as it tries to distance itself from Russia. Unfortunately, this problem seems more convenient to Ottawa than not. The Canadian government seems more interested in having zero carbon emissions even if that means zero economy. Too bad that makes zero sense.

Lee Harding is a Research Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

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CAPP calls on federal government to reset energy policy before it’s too late

Published on October 26, 2025

By

CAPP CEO warns that Canada’s energy advantage is slipping away through incrementalism and policy paralysis

The productivity fix starts with pragmatism

Lisa Baiton, President and CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), told the B.C. Business Summit 2025 that Canada is in danger of squandering its global energy advantage through hesitation and half-measures. Representing the upstream oil, gas, and LNG producers that account for more than 20 percent of Canada’s total balance of trade, she said the sector directly employs 450,000 Canadians and supports more than 900,000 jobs nationwide.

“Our industry contributes over one-fifth of Canada’s entire balance of trade,” Baiton said. “Yet we’re operating in a global environment where state actors like Russia, China, and OPEC are weaponizing resources, controlling markets, and coercing trade. Even our closest ally, the United States, is reminding us that we can’t rely on a single customer.”

She argued that the world’s energy order is shifting in ways Canada has been slow to recognize. “Institutional investors are now talking less about energy transition and more about energy addition,” she said, citing Blackrock’s Larry Fink. “Global energy demand is rising across the north and south — and with the AI revolution driving new consumption — we’re going to need all forms of energy for decades to come.”

Baiton said that despite encouraging words from Ottawa about the importance of natural resources, policy still lags reality. “We have a prime minister who recognizes the role of oil and gas in national security and Indigenous reconciliation, but words alone don’t attract capital. Without a clear policy reset, Canada will miss the investment window.”

Incrementalism will be the death of us

Baiton’s warning was blunt: Canada’s productivity crisis and its policy gridlock are converging into a national risk. “We’ve woken up to the threats, but we’re falling back into our usual Canadianism — plodding along,” she said. “This window of opportunity won’t stay open long, and incrementalism will be the death of Canada.”

She said a “pragmatic policy reset” is required, one that reflects the resources Canada actually has and moves with speed. “Supernaturalism will be our death,” she said. “We have to get out of our own way.”

Baiton called for an overhaul of policies built during a previous decade aimed at making oil and gas “existential.” Canada, she said, now has a government that understands “you can’t have national security without energy security,” and that the resource sector is key to funding the military and rebuilding economic strength.

Oil and gas: Canada’s fastest path to growth

She pointed out that Canada ranks last among OECD nations in growth and competitiveness, and said oil and gas is “the only sector that can be leveraged fast enough” to reverse that trajectory. The industry, she added, is already a national leader in Indigenous partnerships.  It’s the largest employer of Indigenous peoples, the largest user of Indigenous supply chains, and a growing field for Indigenous private equity ownership.

But without a policy reset, Baiton said, that progress will stall. “We need to take on key policies like the proposed emissions cap, which is already scaring investors, and fix permitting timelines that run nine to sixteen years. In Germany, it took three years to build three LNG import terminals. In Canada, one project can take 21 years from discovery to dollar.”

The message from Baiton was clear: Canada must rediscover the discipline to build, not just talk about building. The productivity fix starts with speed, pragmatism, and confidence in Canada’s own energy advantage.

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Business

Trans Mountain executive says it’s time to fix the system, expand access, and think like a nation builder

Published on October 26, 2025

By

Mike Davies calls for ambition and reform to build a stronger Canada

A shift in ambition

A year after the Trans Mountain Expansion Project came into service, Mike Davies, Senior Director of Marine Development at Trans Mountain, told the B.C. Business Summit 2025 that the project’s success should mark the beginning of a new national mindset — one defined by ambition, reform, and nation building.

“It took fifteen years to get this version of the project built,” Davies said. “During that time, Canadian producers lost about $50 billion in value because they were selling into a discounted market. We have some of the world’s largest reserves of oil and gas, but we can only trade with one other country. That’s unusual.”

With the expansion now in operation, that imbalance is shifting. “The differential on Canadian oil has narrowed by about $13 billion,” he said. “That’s value that used to be extracted by the United States and now stays in Canada — supporting healthcare, reconciliation, and energy transformation. About $5 billion of that is in royalties and taxes. It’s meaningful for us as a society.”

Davies rejected the notion that Trans Mountain was a public subsidy. “The federal government lent its balance sheet so that nation-building infrastructure could get built,” he said. “In our first full year of operation, we’ll return more than $1.3 billion to the federal government, rising toward $2 billion annually as cleanup work wraps up.”

At the Westridge Marine Terminal, shipments have increased from one tanker a week to nearly one a day, with more than half heading to Asia. “California remains an important market,” Davies said, “but diversification is finally happening — and it’s vital to our long-term prosperity.”

Fixing the system to move forward

Davies said this moment of success should prompt a broader rethinking of how Canada approaches resource development. “We’re positioned to take advantage of this moment,” he said. “Public attitudes are shifting. Canadians increasingly recognize that our natural resource advantages are a strength, not a liability. The question now is whether governments can seize it — and whether we’ll see that reflected in policy.”

He argued that governments have come to view regulation as a “free good,” without acknowledging its economic consequences. “Over the past decade, we’ve seen policy focus almost exclusively on environmental and reconciliation objectives,” he said. “Those are vital, but the public interest extends well beyond that — to include security, economic welfare, the rule of law, transparency, and democratic participation.”

Davies said good policy should not need to be bypassed to get projects built. “I applaud the creation of a Major Projects Office, but it’s a disgrace that we have to end run the system,” he said. “We need to fix it.”

He called for “deep, long-term reform” to restore scalability and investment confidence. “Linear infrastructure like pipelines requires billions in at-risk capital before a single certificate is issued,” he said. “Canada has a process for everything — we’re a responsible country — but it doesn’t scale for nation-building projects.”

Regulatory reform, he added, must go hand in hand with advancing economic reconciliation. “The challenge of our generation is shifting Indigenous communities from dependence to participation,” he said. “That means real ownership, partnership, and revenue opportunities.”

Davies urged renewed cooperation between Alberta and British Columbia, calling for “interprovincial harmony” on West Coast access. “I’d like to see Alberta see B.C. as part of its constituency,” he said. “And I’d like to see B.C. recognize the need for access.”

He summarized the path forward in plain terms: “We need to stem the exit of capital, create an environment that attracts investment, simplify approvals to one major process, and move decisions from the courts to clear legislation. If we do that, we can finally move from being a market hostage to being a competitor — and a nation builder.”

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