Canada’s future prosperity runs through the northwest coast

From the Canadian Energy Centre

A strategic gateway to the world

Tucked into the north coast of B.C. is the deepest natural harbour in North America and the port with the shortest travel times to Asia.

With growing capacity for exports including agricultural products, lumber, plastic pellets, propane and butane, it’s no wonder the Port of Prince Rupert often comes up as a potential new global gateway for oil from Alberta, said CEO Shaun Stevenson.

Thanks to its location and natural advantages, the port can efficiently move a wide range of commodities, he said.

That could include oil, if not for the federal tanker ban in northern B.C.’s coastal waters.

The Port of Prince Rupert on the north coast of British Columbia. Photo courtesy Prince Rupert Port Authority

“Notwithstanding the moratorium that was put in place, when you look at the attributes of the Port of Prince Rupert, there’s arguably no safer place in Canada to do it,” Stevenson said.

“I think that speaks to the need to build trust and confidence that it can be done safely, with protection of environmental risks. You can’t talk about the economic opportunity before you address safety and environmental protection.”

Safe Transit at Prince Rupert

About a 16-hour drive from Vancouver, the Port of Prince Rupert’s terminals are one to two sailing days closer to Asia than other West Coast ports.

The entrance to the inner harbour is wider than the length of three Canadian football fields.

The water is 35 metres deep — about the height of a 10-storey building — compared to 22 metres at Los Angeles and 16 metres at Seattle.

Shipmasters spend two hours navigating into the port with local pilot guides, compared to four hours at Vancouver and eight at Seattle.

“We’ve got wide open, very simple shipping lanes. It’s not moving through complex navigational channels into the site,” Stevenson said.

A Port on the Rise

The Prince Rupert Port Authority says it has entered a new era of expansion, strengthening Canada’s economic security.

The port estimates it anchors about $60 billion of Canada’s annual global trade today. Even without adding oil exports, Stevenson said that figure could grow to $100 billion.

“We need better access to the huge and growing Asian market,” said Heather Exner-Pirot, director of energy, natural resources and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

“Prince Rupert seems purpose-built for that.”

Roughly $3 billion in new infrastructure is already taking shape, including the $750 million rail-to-container CANXPORT transloading complex for bulk commodities like specialty agricultural products, lumber and plastic pellets.

The Ridley Island Propane Export Terminal, Canada’s first marine propane export terminal, started shipping in May 2019. Photo courtesy AltaGas Ltd.

Canadian Propane Goes Global

A centrepiece of new development is the $1.35-billion Ridley Energy Export Facility — the port’s third propane terminal since 2019.

“Prince Rupert is already emerging as a globally significant gateway for propane exports to Asia,” Exner-Pirot said.

Thanks to shipments from Prince Rupert, Canadian propane – primarily from Alberta – has gone global, no longer confined to U.S. markets.

More than 45 per cent of Canada’s propane exports now reach destinations outside the United States, according to the Canada Energy Regulator.

“Twenty-five per cent of Japan’s propane imports come through Prince Rupert, and just shy of 15 per cent of Korea’s imports. It’s created a lift on every barrel produced in Western Canada,” Stevenson said.

“When we look at natural gas liquids, propane and butane, we think there’s an opportunity for Canada via Prince Rupert becoming the trading benchmark for the Asia-Pacific region.”

That would give Canadian production an enduring competitive advantage when serving key markets in Asia, he said.

Deep Connection to Alberta

The Port of Prince Rupert has been a key export hub for Alberta commodities for more than four decades.

Through the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund, the province invested $134 million — roughly half the total cost — to build the Prince Rupert Grain Terminal, which opened in 1985.

The largest grain terminal on the West Coast, it primarily handles wheat, barley, and canola from the prairies.

The Prince Rupert Grain Terminal. Photo courtesy Prince Rupert Port Authority

Today, the connection to Alberta remains strong.

In 2022, $3.8 billion worth of Alberta exports — mainly propane, agricultural products and wood pulp — were shipped through the Port of Prince Rupert, according to the province’s Ministry of Transportation and Economic Corridors.

In 2024, Alberta awarded a $250,000 grant to the Prince Rupert Port Authority to lead discussions on expanding transportation links with the province’s Industrial Heartland region near Edmonton.

Handling Some of the World’s Biggest Vessels

The Port of Prince Rupert could safely handle oil tankers, including Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs), Stevenson said.

“We would have the capacity both in water depth and access and egress to the port that could handle Aframax, Suezmax and even VLCCs,” he said.

“We don’t have terminal capacity to handle oil at this point, but there’s certainly terminal capacities within the port complex that could be either expanded or diversified in their capability.”

Market Access Lessons From TMX

Like propane, Canada’s oil exports have gained traction in Asia, thanks to the expanded Trans Mountain pipeline and the Westridge Marine Terminal near Vancouver — about 1,600 kilometres south of Prince Rupert, where there is no oil tanker ban.

The Trans Mountain expansion project included the largest expansion of ocean oil spill response in Canadian history, doubling capacity of the West Coast Marine Response Corporation.

The K.J. Gardner is the largest-ever spill response vessel in Canada. Photo courtesy Western Canada Marine Response Corporation

The Canada Energy Regulator (CER) reports that Canadian oil exports to Asia more than tripled after the expanded pipeline and terminal went into service in May 2024.

As a result, the price for Canadian oil has gone up.

The gap between Western Canadian Select (WCS) and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) has narrowed to about $12 per barrel this year, compared to $19 per barrel in 2023, according to GLJ Petroleum Consultants.

Each additional dollar earned per barrel adds about $280 million in annual government royalties and tax revenues, according to economist Peter Tertzakian.

The Road Ahead

There are likely several potential sites for a new West Coast oil terminal, Stevenson said.

“A pipeline is going to find its way to tidewater based upon the safest and most efficient route,” he said.

“The terminal part is relatively straightforward, whether it’s in Prince Rupert or somewhere else.”

Under Canada’s Marine Act, the Port of Prince Rupert’s mandate is to enable trade, Stevenson said.

“If Canada’s trade objectives include moving oil off the West Coast, we’re here to enable it, presuming that the project has a mandate,” he said.

“If we see the basis of a project like this, we would ensure that it’s done to the best possible standard.”

Related Topics:#CanadianEconomy #CanadianEnergyCentre #DeborahJaremko feature PortOfPrinceRupert ShaunStevenson

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Canada’s EV Mandate Is Running On Empty

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Trump Deals Biden’s EV Dreams A Death Blow

Energy / 6 hours ago

Unceded is uncertain

Automotive

Canada’s EV Mandate Is Running On Empty

Published on December 6, 2025

Todayville

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Marco Navarro-Genie

At what point does Ottawa admit its EV plan isn’t working?

Electric vehicles produce more pollution than the gas-powered cars they’re replacing.

This revelation, emerging from life-cycle and supply chain audits, exposes the false claim behind Ottawa’s more than $50 billion experiment. A Volvo study found that manufacturing an EV generates 70 per cent more emissions than building a comparable conventional vehicle because battery production is energy-intensive and often powered by coal in countries such as China. Depending on the electricity grid, it can take years or never for an EV to offset that initial carbon debt.

Prime Minister Mark Carney paused the federal electric vehicle (EV) mandate for 2026 due to public pressure and corporate failures while keeping the 2030 and 2035 targets. The mandate requires 20 per cent of new vehicles sold in 2026 to be zero-emission, rising to 60 per cent in 2030 and 100 per cent in 2035. Carney inherited this policy crisis but is reluctant to abandon it.

Industry failures and Trump tariffs forced Ottawa’s hand. Northvolt received $240 million in federal subsidies for a Quebec battery plant before filing for bankruptcy. Lion Electric burned through $100 million before announcing layoffs. Arrival, a U.K.-based electric van and bus manufacturer, collapsed entirely. Stellantis and LG Energy Solution extracted $15 billion for Windsor. Volkswagen secured $13 billion for St. Thomas.

The federal government committed more than $50 billion in subsidies and tax credits to prop up Canada’s EV industry. Ottawa defended these payouts as necessary to match the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, which offers major incentives for EV and battery manufacturing. That is twice Manitoba’s annual operating budget. Every Manitoban could have had a two-year tax holiday with the public money Ottawa wasted on EVs.

Even with incentives, EVs reached only 15 per cent of new vehicle sales in 2024, far short of the mandated levels for 2026 and 2030. When federal subsidies ended in January 2025, sales collapsed to nine per cent, revealing the true level of consumer demand. Dealer lots overflowed with unsold inventory. EV sales also slowed in the U.S. and Europe in 2024, showing that cooling demand is a broader trend.

As economist Friedrich Hayek observed, “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” Politicians and bureaucrats cannot know what millions of Canadians know about their own needs. When federal ministers mandate which vehicles Canadians must buy and which companies deserve billions, they substitute the judgment of a few hundred officials for the collective wisdom of an entire market.

Bureaucrats draft regulations that determine the vehicles Canadians must purchase years from now, as if they can predict technology and consumer preferences better than markets.

Green ideology provided perfect cover. Invoke a climate emergency and fiscal responsibility vanishes. Question more than $50 billion in subsidies and you are labelled a climate denier. Point out the environmental costs of battery production, and you are accused of spreading misinformation.

History repeatedly teaches that central planning always fails. Soviet five-year plans, Venezuela’s resource nationalization and Britain’s industrial policy failures all show the same pattern. Every attempt to run economies from political offices ends in misallocation, waste and outcomes opposite to those promised. Concentrated political power cannot ever match the intelligence of free markets responding to real prices and constraints.

Markets collect information that no central planner can access. Prices signal scarcity and value. Profits and losses reward accuracy and punish error. When governments override these mechanisms with mandates and subsidies, they impair the information system that enables rational economic decisions.

The EV mandate forced a technological shift and failed. Billions in subsidies went to failing companies. Taxpayers absorbed losses while corporations walked away. Workers lost their jobs.

Canada needs a full repeal of the EV mandate and a retreat from PMO planners directing market decisions. The law must be struck, not paused. The contrived 2030 and 2035 targets must be abandoned.

Markets, not cabinet ministers, must determine what technologies Canadians choose.

Marco Navarro-Genie is vice-president of research at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and co-author, with Barry Cooper, of Canada’s COVID: The Story of a Pandemic Moral Panic (2023).

Automotive

Trump Deals Biden’s EV Dreams A Death Blow

Published on December 6, 2025

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

President Donald Trump dealt the dreams of former President Joe Biden for an all-electric fleet of American cars a fatal blow on Thursday by terminating the onerous Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards Biden invoked in 2022 and further tightened in 2024.

“We’re officially terminating Joe Biden’s ridiculously burdensome, horrible actually, CAFE standards, that imposed expensive restrictions… It puts tremendous pressure on upward car prices,” Trump said during a press conference held in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon.

The Biden standards, which cranked down on allowable tailpipe emissions and raised industry-wide average car mileage to a stratospheric 50.4 miles per gallon requirement by 2030, were the centerpiece of his strategy to force American consumers to buy electric vehicles by intentionally forcing up prices for traditional internal combustion models.

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That’s right, America: Your government, led by Joe Biden’s autopen and the woke staffers who wielded it, intentionally and with malice aforethought drove up the prices of the gas powered cars you actually want to buy to try to force you to purchase electric models that poll after poll proves most of you don’t want. They did this all in the name of the global climate alarm religion, which far too many U.S. politicians use to justify a vast array of authoritarian actions.

The unbridled hubris involved in even entertaining this concept would have in the past been considered scandalous. Yet, today, it is completely in keeping with one of the central goals of the energy transition movement to drive up the costs of all traditional forms of energy to try to make the subsidized alternatives favored by the Democratic Party – wind, solar, and electric vehicles – competitive in the market. Activists in the climate alarm movement no longer even try to deny this goal – they proudly boast about it.

This was the real enterprise behind Biden’s ridiculous CAFE standards, and it is what President Trump interrupted on Thursday. It was just the latest in a series of body blows Trump and his officials have dealt the U.S. EV industry, one that could well prove fatal to many pure-play electric car companies and force major reallocations of capital budgets inside integrated automakers like Ford, GM, and Stellantis.

Naturally, the climate alarm activist community was outraged. “Trump’s action will feed America’s destructive use of oil, while hamstringing us in the green tech race against … foreign carmakers,” said Dan Becker, Director of the notorious far-left conflict group, the Center for Biological Diversity, according to the Guardian.

But here’s the thing: U.S. consumers don’t want to buy the alternative the climate alarm community and Biden administration were trying to force. Even with the attraction of Biden’s economically ruinous $7,500 per unit IRA subsidies, U.S. car buyers made clear their strong preference for big, full-size, gas-or-diesel-powered pickups and SUVs.

This reality is why Stellantis announced in September it was abandoning plans to introduce a full-size electric pickup to compete with Ford’s F-150 Lightning. Even worse for EV boosters, Ford has already cut back on production of the Lightning model, and is planning to eliminate it entirely soon, according to the Wall Street Journal. These decisions and plans were already underway long before Trump’s decision to rescind the CAFE standards, based on simple consumer demand.

Interestingly, many consumers believe Trump didn’t go far enough on Thursday, and that he should simply eliminate mileage requirements altogether. One commenter to my Substack newsletter writes, “why didn’t they just kill CAFE standards once and for all? From what clause in the Constitution does the federal government have the right to limit what type of car I can buy?…They should have just killed it outright.”

It’s a legitimate question: Why do federal regulators believe they have the right to control consumer behavior in the name of climate alarmism? In light of last year’s decision by the Supreme Court to rescind the Chevron deference – which helped facilitate the massive expansion of the federal bureaucracy for 40 long years – it’s a question that could be litigated in the months and years to come.

Joe Biden’s EV dreams are dead now, but that doesn’t mean the situation can’t possibly get even worse for the EV industry in America. Stay tuned.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.