From Resource Works

By Nelson Bennett

The Roberts Bank terminal expansion would generate 132,400 jobs across Canada, according to an economic analysis by the Port of Vancouver, generate $9.3 billion in wages, $16.3 billion in GDP and $32.7 billion in economic output. It was approved by the federal government in 2023 with 370 legally binding conditions. The environmental review process has gone on for about a decade now, and continues to get bogged down in a permitting morass.

Sometime this year, the Mark Carney government is expected to announce a list of major “nation-building” projects that it will help advance with its Bill C-5 fast-tracking legislation. These projects have been dubbed as PONIs – projects of national interest. Let’s hope this doesn’t turn into some kind of federal welfare scheme in which the taxpayer ends up footing the full bill.  “We should absolutely start with the ones where there’s already a private proponent, not a province seeking subsidies,” says Heather Exner-Pirot, senior fellow and director of energy, natural resources and environment for the Macdonald Laurier Institute.

I would argue that projects that facilitate exports — pipelines, rail, ports — ultimately provide the most economic value because it means increasing market access and getting a higher price for our commodities.  I think there’s a strong argument to be made that a new crude oil pipeline to the West Coast and infrastructure needed to develop Ontario’s Ring of Fire mining region are two nation building proposals that would have maximum economic impacts, and therefore should top the PONI priority list. “Energy projects or anything related to manufacturing-value added initiatives should be categorized as nation building projects,” says Ellis Ross, Conservative MP for Skeena-Bulkley.

We need to attract private capital to help build mega-projects. So let’s hope Alberta Premier Danielle Smith can find a proponent in the private sector willing to invest in the new pipeline to the West Coast. So far, it doesn’t look promising. Two Canadian midstream companies – Enbridge and TC Energy – have basically said they’re not interested in Canada anymore and are more focused on the U.S. now. And who can blame them? They wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on pipeline proposals – Northern Gateway and Keystone XL – that became deflated political footballs. But if Danielle Smith can find a private sector partner to build a new crude oil pipeline from Alberta to Prince Rupert, I think that should be a top priority for the Carney government. The Carney government will need to consider just how realistic some of the projects being proposed are. How close to shovel-ready are they? How quickly could they be built?

The federal government’s own criteria for designation of projects for federal support and fast-tracking include:

• projects that “strengthen Canada’s autonomy, resilience and security”;
• contributes to clean growth and climate goals;
• advances First Nations interests; and
• have a high likelihood of success.

To tick that “clean growth” box, Smith’s new pipeline would need to be paired with the Pathways Alliance’s $20 billion carbon capture proposal. That project has private capital behind it, so it’s essentially shovel-ready. While other Canadian premiers have publicly championed their own pet projects for consideration, David Eby appears not to have pitched any projects yet, at least not publicly. Maybe that’s a tacit admission that nation building designations are likely to be limited to one per region, and that a new pipeline to the West Coast – Northern Gateway 2.0 – is the most likely candidate for Western Canada. Or maybe he feels B.C. may not need the federal government’s help in advancing projects in B.C. like Ksi Lisims LNG and new mines – that these projects can be advanced without Ottawa’s help. And that may, in fact, be the case.

B.C. has its own fast-tracking legislation – Bill 15 – with 18 projects already designated. They include the Teck Resources Highland Valley copper mine expansion, Cedar LNG, and Enbridge’s Aspen Point natural gas pipeline network expansion. Just last week, Teck announced the sanctioning of its $2.4 billion project Highland Valley copper expansion project, with construction to start this month. “What B.C. did — I have to give them credit, for once — is they just made it easier for proponents already in the system. They didn’t subsidize, it didn’t cost them money, there is a private proponent, there is a business case. And they just made it easier. And this seems to me to be the right approach.”

In other words, apart from an oil pipeline to Prince Rupert, Exner-Pirot does not believe B.C. necessarily needs to put any PONIs in the federal race. “B.C. is in the enviable position of having great resources, of having LNG, of having tidewater access already,” she said. “They have tens of billions of projects all in the queue with private investors. The territories don’t have that, Manitoba does not have that, Atlantic Canada does not have that. “They shouldn’t really even need the feds. They just need them to get out of the way.”

If there is one major project in B.C. that might warrant a federal designation, it’s the Roberts Bank terminal expansion, Exner-Pirot said. The Roberts Bank terminal expansion was approved by the federal government in 2023 with 370 legally binding conditions.  The expansion would generate 132,400 jobs across Canada, according to an economic analysis by the Port of Vancouver, generate $9.3 billion in wages, $16.3 billion in GDP and $32.7 billion in economic output.

Surely this should qualify as nation-building, as it would facilitate the movement of Canadian goods and commodities to markets in the Asia Pacific.

But it has been in an environmental review process that has gone on for about a decade now, and which continues to get bogged down in a permitting morass. So if there is one project in B.C. that could use a federal designation for fast-tracking, it’s the Roberts Bank Terminal expansion, Exner-Pirot said. Otherwise, the only other PONI that B.C. would benefit from is Northern Gateway 2.0. “That would have the biggest GDP impact for Canada,” Exner-Pirot said. B.C. would benefit from billions spent on the B.C. portion of the pipeline. One need only look at the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project to see what kind of an economic juggernaut a major pipeline project can be, for Alberta, for B.C. and for Canada.

In terms of job creation, TMX generated an estimated 36,917 jobs — 16,476 in Alberta and 16,476 for B.C. – according to Energy Connection Canada. EY has estimated that TMX, which cost $31 billion to build, would generate $52.8 billion in economic activity, add $26 billion to GDP, pay $11 billion in wages, and generate $2.9 billion in tax revenue.

Over the next 20 years, it is expected to generate $17.3 billion in total economic activity and add $9.2 billion to GDP. Oil is Canada’s most valuable export, accounting for 19% of Canada’s total exports. When Alberta’s oil sector is thriving, Canada thrives.  Getting a private company to build the new pipeline will require the Carney government to scrap its West Coast oil tanker ban, oil and gas emissions cap, and essentially exempt it from the Impact Assessment Act, otherwise it just ain’t going to happen. As for some of the other major projects being proposed across Canada, like the Grays Bay road and port project and the Churchill port project, they certainly seem to qualify as nation-building projects, but would require massive amounts of public funding. “Those are all ones looking for the government to fund and build,” Exner-Pirot said. “Grays Bay has zero private dollars. They’re looking for 100% covered by the feds. “Is this just regional welfare? Is this an excuse to dole out money to different regions to buy votes? This is what it looks like.”

Nelson Bennett’s column appears weekly at Resource Works News. Contact him at [email protected].

Canada’s current approach treats Brotherhood-linked extremism as episodic — an audit here and there — without a cohesive strategy to counter its structural inroads into politics, community institutions, and advocacy networks. A U.S. designation will demand more

With Prime Minister Mark Carney’s surprise recognition of a Palestinian state still reverberating in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s pledge this week of ongoing legal work to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization sets up a direct test of whether Ottawa will align with its closest ally on a transnational movement long tied by American lawmakers to Hamas financing, radicalization, and political subversion — or risk deepening a posture critics say panders to an influential Islamist diaspora base in Canada’s largest cities.

“All of that is in the works,” Rubio told a reporter, referencing legislation on terror designations for the Muslim Brotherhood advanced to the House Judiciary Committee in June. The push follows a 2018 congressional hearing in which senior lawmakers and expert witnesses drew direct lines between Hamas, the Palestinian cause, and the Brotherhood.

At that hearing, Subcommittee Chairman Ron DeSantis described Hamas as “the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch,” noting its 1997 U.S. terror designation and a record of “thousands of rockets against Israeli civilians” and suicide bombings killing both Israelis and Americans.

“The Muslim Brotherhood is a militant Islamist organization with affiliates in over 70 countries, including groups designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S.,” DeSantis said, adding, “whether the Muslim Brotherhood writ large should be designated as a foreign terrorist organization has been the topic of debate here in Congress in recent years.”

He outlined Justice Department evidence that, in the early 1990s, the Brotherhood sought to build U.S.-based organizations to spread militant Islamist ideology and raise funds for Hamas, culminating in the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation’s 2008 conviction for providing material support.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, testified to a “revolving door” between Brotherhood leaders and designated terror groups, including Hamas, and argued that U.S.-based “legacy groups” function as political cover for violent affiliates.

During questioning, Rep. Paul Gosar pressed Jasser on the Holy Land Foundation’s role as part of the Brotherhood-created “Palestine Committee” to aid Hamas through charitable fronts operating in North America.

Many of these same charitable and political fronts, critics say, are expanding north of the border in Ontario and elsewhere — networks that Canadian leaders, including Carney, his predecessor Justin Trudeau, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford, have engaged with politically. Carney’s formal recognition of Palestinian statehood is likely to be seen in Washington through the prism of Hamas’s identity as the Brotherhood’s Palestinian arm.

National security experts such as Casey Babb of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute warn that the Brotherhood’s self-described “civilization-jihadist process” — outlined in a 1991 strategy memorandum entered as evidence in the Holy Land Foundation terror-financing case — aims to “eliminate and destroy Western civilization from within” and is now rapidly gaining strength, “materializing just north of the U.S. border.” Babb cites Canada’s “shockingly permissive immigration policies, multiculturalist ethos, and general complacency toward national security threats” as fertile ground for the Brotherhood’s ambitions.

In a recent New York Post column, Babb argued that in Canada, critical scrutiny of the Brotherhood’s influence — “for jihadist groups like Hamas and al Qaeda … and Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel” — is “almost entirely absent from public conversation or debate.” He also pointed to the role of state actors such as Qatar and Turkey in providing the resources and legitimacy needed to expand the Brotherhood’s reach across the West.

Canadian enforcement history supports parts of Babb’s assessment, particularly regarding charitable fronts flagged by federal investigators. Ottawa designated the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy–Canada (IRFAN-Canada) as a terrorist entity for transferring $14.6 million to Hamas-linked organizations. The CRA’s revocation of IRFAN’s charitable status in 2011, followed by RCMP raids in 2014, documented the operational ties.

More recently, the CRA has sustained a years-long audit into one of the country’s largest Muslim charities, alleging senior figures had links to an “apparent Hamas support network.”

Allies have acted more decisively.

Canada’s current approach treats Brotherhood-linked extremism as episodic — an audit here and there — without a cohesive strategy to counter its structural inroads into politics, community institutions, and advocacy networks. A U.S. designation will demand more: border measures, financial sanctions, visa bans, intelligence coordination, and possibly parallel listings under Canada’s Criminal Code or Special Economic Measures Act.

The implications extend beyond security cooperation. In Washington, a Brotherhood designation will sharpen scrutiny of Ottawa’s Palestinian statehood stance — especially if it emerges, that politically connected lobbyists, including current or former elected or government-appointed officials with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, have influenced Carney’s Liberals on the issue. Such findings could fuel congressional questions about Canada’s reliability as a security partner, with potential ripple effects on cross-border policing and counterterrorism financing.

For years, Ottawa has treated ideological affinity with the Brotherhood — absent direct material support for terrorism — as protected political and religious expression. The United States now appears ready to draw a bright red line. If Canada refuses to follow, it risks transforming the current standoff with President Donald Trump over deepening vulnerabilities in border controls and migration policy into an explosive break with Washington — a geopolitical rupture that could further erode the Western alliance and fracture North America’s security architecture.

And this, of course, would align with the Brotherhood’s stated divide-and-conquer objectives, as outlined in the strategy memorandum that surfaced in the Holy Land Foundation terror-financing case cited by DeSantis.

As reported by Babb in the New York Post, “the Muslim Brotherhood laid out its long-term strategy to conquer North America through what it called a ‘civilization-jihadist process’ aimed at ‘sabotaging’ and ‘eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.’”