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Canada’s Indigenous Peoples Eye Big Energy Deals, Await Trudeau Loan Promise

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From EnergyNow.ca

By Rod Nickel, Nivedita Balu, and Alistair Bell

Trudeau’s government will release its budget April 16 and has said it will include plans to guarantee loans for Indigenous communities investing in major resource projects.

Canada’s First Nations are eyeing their biggest opportunities yet to invest in multi-billion-dollar energy projects from pipelines to power lines, hinging on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau keeping a promise this spring to make the deals easier to finance.

Trudeau’s government will release its budget April 16 and has said it will include plans to guarantee loans for Indigenous communities investing in major resource projects.

The government, which is trying to cut greenhouse gas emissions, has not said whether oil and gas projects will be included but if they are then they would represent some of the biggest Indigenous investment opportunities, from the government-owned Trans Mountain oil pipeline to TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline.

At least 38 Canadian energy projects were announced with Indigenous investment between 2022 and 2024, ranging in value from C$13 million to C$14.5 billion ($10.69 billion), according to the Fasken law firm, which has worked on some of the projects.

Enbridge is willing to sell Indigenous stakes in all types of assets, including North America’s biggest oil pipeline network, the Mainline, said executive vice-president of liquids Colin Gruending, adding that a Mainline deal would be complex because it crosses the Canada-U.S. border.

“Being open to all forms of energy, I think that’s important,” Gruending said of the federal guarantee. “If we’re going to involve more nations quicker, we need to open it up.”

The federal government will update next steps for a loan guarantee program in its budget, said Katherine Cuplinskas, spokesperson for the finance minister. She did not answer questions about the program’s dollar value or whether it would include oil and gas projects.

For energy companies, Indigenous partnerships provide capital infusions and a way to speed projects through approval from provincial governments that in some cases require First Nations equity.

A federal loan guarantee would allow First Nations to borrow at favorable rates, enabling them to profit, said Niilo Edwards, CEO of First Nations Major Projects Coalition, an Indigenous-owned organization that is advising First Nations on 17 projects worth a combined C$40 billion.

“A lot of (First Nations) are presented major investment opportunities that may be in the hundreds of millions of dollars and just don’t have the capital themselves,” Edwards said.

Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario offer provincial guarantees and British Columbia is developing one.

Banks already profit from advising and lending to First Nations and energy companies on deals but are eager for a federal guarantee to free up capital on a bigger scale.

“Provincial/federal loan guarantee programs with clear parameters could create a powerful force for accelerating capital into Indigenous-led projects,” said Michael Bonner, head of Canadian business banking at Bank of Montreal.

Many recent First Nations resource deals involve electricity and renewable energy.

BC Hydro is talking with an Indigenous coalition about buying 50% of its northwest transmission line expansion.

Wind and solar deals are also happening, such as Greenwood Sustainable Infrastructure’s C$200-million solar farm in Saskatchewan, announced in January, which will be at least 10% owned by Ocean Man First Nation.

Spain-based EDP Renewables, which built an Ontario wind farm in 2021 with 50.01% ownership by Piwakanagan First Nation, has multiple Canadian projects under development and is looking for more.

With First Nations knowledge and support, projects advance faster, said EDP North American CEO Sandhya Ganapathy. “Canada is super-high on our radar.”

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba and Nivedita Balu in Toronto Editing by Alistair Bell)

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Daily Caller

Blackouts Coming If America Continues With Biden-Era Green Frenzy, Trump Admin Warns

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Audrey Streb

The Department of Energy (DOE) released a new report Monday warning of impending blackouts if the United States continues to shutter power plants without adequately replacing retiring capacity.

DOE warned in its Monday report that blackouts could increase by 100% by 2030 if the U.S. continues to retire power plants without sufficient replacements, and that the electricity grid is not prepared to meet the demand of power-hungry data centers in the years to come without more reliable generation coming online quickly. The report specifically highlighted wind and solar, two resources pushed by Biden, as responsible for eroding grid stability and advised that dispatchable generation from sources like coal, oil, gas and nuclear are necessary to meet the anticipated U.S. power demand.

“This report affirms what we already know: The United States cannot afford to continue down the unstable and dangerous path of energy subtraction previous leaders pursued, forcing the closure of baseload power sources like coal and natural gas,” DOE Secretary Chris Wright said. “In the coming years, America’s reindustrialization and the AI race will require a significantly larger supply of around-the-clock, reliable, and uninterrupted power. President Trump’s administration is committed to advancing a strategy of energy addition, and supporting all forms of energy that are affordable, reliable, and secure. If we are going to keep the lights on, win the AI race, and keep electricity prices from skyrocketing, the United States must unleash American energy.”

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All regional grid systems across the U.S. are expected to lose reliability in the coming years without the addition of more reliable power, according to the DOE’s report. The U.S. will need an additional 100 gigawatts of new peak hour supply by 2030, with data centers projected to require as much as half of this electricity, the report estimates; for reference, one gigawatt is enough to power up to one million homes.

President Donald Trump declared a national energy emergency on his first day back in the Oval Office and signed an executive order on April 8 ordering DOE to review and identify at-risk regions of the electrical grid, which the report released Monday does. In contrast, former President Joe Biden cracked down on conventional power sources like coal with stringent regulations while unleashing a gusher of subsidies for green energy developments.

Electricity demand is projected to hit a record high in the next several years, surging 25% by 2030, according to Energy Information Administration (EIA) data and a recent ICF International report. Demand was essentially static for the last several years, and skyrocketing U.S. power demand presents an “urgent need” for electricity resources, according to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a major grid watchdog.

Wright has also issued several emergency orders to major grid operators since April. New Orleans experienced blackouts just two days after Wright issued an emergency order on May 23 to the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), the regional grid operator covering the New Orleans area.

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Alberta

COWBOY UP! Pierre Poilievre Promises to Fight for Oil and Gas, a Stronger Military and the Interests of Western Canada

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Fr0m Energy Now

By Maureen McCall

As Calgarians take a break from the incessant news of tariff threat deadlines and global economic challenges to celebrate the annual Stampede, Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre gave them even more to celebrate.

Poilievre returned to Calgary, his hometown, to outline his plan to amplify the legitimate demands of Western Canada and not only fight for oil and gas, but also fight for the interests of farmers, for low taxes, for decentralization, a stronger military and a smaller federal government.

Speaking at the annual Conservative party BBQ at Heritage Park in Calgary (a place Poilievre often visited on school trips growing up), he was reminded of the challenges his family experienced during the years when Trudeau senior was Prime Minister and the disastrous effect of his economic policies.

“I was born in ’79,” Poilievre said. “and only a few years later, Pierre Elliott Trudeau would attack our province with the National Energy Program. There are still a few that remember it. At the same time, he hammered the entire country with money printing deficits that gave us the worst inflation and interest rates in our history. Our family actually lost our home, and we had to scrimp and save and get help from extended family in order to get our little place in Shaughnessy, which my mother still lives in.”

This very personal story resonated with many in the crowd who are now experiencing an affordability crisis that leaves families struggling and young adults unable to afford their first house or condo. Poilievre said that the experience was a powerful motivator for his entry into politics. He wasted no time in proposing a solution – build alliances with other provinces with mutual interests, and he emphasized the importance of advocating for provincial needs.

“Let’s build an alliance with British Columbians who want to ship liquefied natural gas out of the Pacific Coast to Asia, and with Saskatchewanians, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who want to develop their oil and gas and aren’t interested in having anyone in Ottawa cap how much they can produce. Let’s build alliances with Manitobans who want to ship oil in the port of Churchill… with Quebec and other provinces that want to decentralize our country and get Ottawa out of our business so that provinces and people can make their own decisions.”

Poilievre heavily criticized the federal government’s spending and policies of the last decade, including the increase in government costs, and he highlighted the negative impact of those policies on economic stability and warned of the dangers of high inflation and debt. He advocated strongly for a free-market economy, advocating for less government intervention, where businesses compete to impress customers rather than impress politicians. He also addressed the decade-long practice of blocking and then subsidizing certain industries. Poilievre referred to a famous quote from Ronald Reagan as the modus operandi of the current federal regime.

“The Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases. If anything moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

The practice of blocking and then subsidizing is merely a ploy to grab power, according to Poilievre, making industry far too reliant on government control.

“By blocking you from doing something and then making you ask the government to help you do it, it makes you reliant. It puts them at the center of all power, and that is their mission…a full government takeover of our economy. There’s a core difference between an economy controlled by the government and one controlled by the free market. Businesses have to clamour to please politicians and bureaucrats. In a free market (which we favour), businesses clamour to impress customers. The idea is to put people in charge of their economic lives by letting them have free exchange of work for wages, product for payment and investment for interest.”

Poilievre also said he plans to oppose any ban on gas-powered vehicles, saying, “You should be in the driver’s seat and have the freedom to decide.” This is in reference to the Trudeau-era plan to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035, which the Carney government has said they have no intention to change, even though automakers are indicating that the targets cannot be met. He also intends to oppose the Industrial Carbon tax, Bill C-69 the Impact Assessment Act, Bill C-48 the Oil tanker ban, the proposed emissions cap which will cap energy production, as well as the single-use plastics ban and Bill C-11, also known as the Online Streaming Act and the proposed “Online Harms Act,” also known as Bill C-63. Poilievre closed with rallying thoughts that had a distinctive Western flavour.

“Fighting for these values is never easy. Change, as we’ve seen, is not easy. Nothing worth doing is easy… Making Alberta was hard. Making Canada, the country we love, was even harder. But we don’t back down, and we don’t run away. When things get hard, we dust ourselves off, we get back in the saddle, and we gallop forward to the fight.”

Cowboy up, Mr. Poilievre.

Maureen McCall is an energy professional who writes on issues affecting the energy industry.

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