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Long Ignored Criminal Infiltration of Canadian Ports Lead Straight to Trump Tariffs

Published

10 months ago

16 minute read

Sam Cooper

Briefings to Liberal Government on Chinese Infiltration of Vancouver Port and Canada’s Opioid Scourge Ignored

Trump Tariffs Loom as Critics Decry Ottawa’s “Fox in the Hen House” Approach to Border Security

As President Donald Trump readies sweeping tariffs against Canada on Saturday—citing Ottawa’s failure to secure its shared North American borders from fentanyl originating in China—The Bureau has obtained a remarkable December 1999 document from a senior law enforcement official, revealing Ottawa’s longstanding negligence in securing Vancouver’s port against drug trafficking linked to Chinese shipping entities.

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The letter, drafted by former Crown prosecutor Scott Newark and addressed to Ottawa’s Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), urged the body to reconsider explosive findings from a leaked RCMP and CSIS report detailing the infiltration of Canada’s “porous” borders by Chinese criminal networks.

Titled “Re: S.I.R.C. Review in relation to Project Sidewinder,” Newark’s letter alleges systemic failures that enabled Chinese State Council owned shipping giant COSCO and Triads with suspected Chinese military ties to penetrate Vancouver’s port system. He further asserts that federal authorities ignored repeated briefings and warnings from Canadian law enforcement—warnings based on intelligence gathered by Canadian officials in Hong Kong, who initiated the Sidewinder review.

Newark also warned that Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s decision to dismantle Canada’s specialized Ports Police and privatize national port control had left the country dangerously exposed to foreign criminal networks, noting he had personally briefed the Canadian government on these concerns as early as 1996.

Addressing his letter to SIRC’s chair, Quebec lawyer Paule Gauthier, Newark wrote:

“As the former (1994-98) Executive Officer of the Canadian Police Association, I was assigned responsibility for dealing with the issue of the federal government’s changes to control of the national ports and policing therein.”

“This involved close examination of matters such as drug, weapon, and people smuggling through the national ports and, in particular, both the growing presence of organized criminal groups at ports and the ominous hazard control of those ports by such groups represented.”

Newark’s letter goes on to allege widespread failures in Ottawa that facilitated Chinese Triad infiltration of Vancouver’s port, revealing federal authorities’ reluctance to act on warnings from RCMP officer Garry Clement and immigration control officer Brian McAdam—former Canadian officials based in Hong Kong who had sounded the alarm, prompting the Sidewinder review.

Newark explained to SIRC’s chair that, during his tenure as Executive Officer of the Canadian Police Association, he prepared approximately fifty detailed policy briefs for the government and regularly appeared before parliamentary committees and in private ministerial briefings.

“I can assure you that in all of that time, no clearer warning was ever given by Canada’s rank and file police officers to the national government than what was done in our unsuccessful attempt to prevent the disbandment of the specialized Canada Ports Police in combination with the privatization of the ports themselves,” Newark’s letter to SIRC states.

The letter continues, noting that in October 1996, Newark met with Chrétien’s Transport Minister David Anderson—later addressing the Transport Committee—to highlight the imminent threat posed by Asian organized crime’s infiltration of port operations. Newark’s written briefing to the Minister underscored the gravity of the situation with a blunt question:

“Who exactly are the commercial port operators?”

Citing the Anderson briefing document, Newark’s letter to SIRC states that Anderson had been warned:

“We are, for example, aware of serious concerns amongst the international law enforcement community surrounding the ownership of ports and container industries in Asia and, in particular, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China. There is simply no longer any doubt that drugs like heroin are coming from these destinations through the Port of Vancouver, moved by organized criminal gangs whose assets include ‘legitimate’ properties.”

The Anderson briefing also referenced a British Columbia anti-gang unit report, titled “Organized Crime on Vancouver Waterfront,” which made clear that the Longshoreman’s Union had been infiltrated by the Hells Angels.

“The movement of goods through Canada’s ports requires an independence in policing that is impossible without public control,” the report warned.

It concluded:

“This report should be taken as a specific warning to this Government that, prior to downloading operational control over the ports themselves to private interests, Government be absolutely certain as to who owns what—and that it can continue that certainty with power to refuse acquisition of port assets in the future.”

Scott Newark’s letter to SIRC then turns to new intelligence—gathered from Canadian and U.S. officials—that further underscored the vulnerability created by Chrétien’s border policies.

“To now learn that law enforcement and public officials in Canada and the United States have linked a company (COSCO), granted docking and other facilities in Vancouver, to Asian organized crime, arms and drug smuggling is, to say the least, disturbing,” Newark’s December 1999 letter states.

“That this company, its principals, subsidiaries, and partners have been associated with various military agencies of a foreign government—agencies themselves identified by Canadian and American officials as having unhealthy connections to Triad groups—makes a bad situation even worse.”

Newark next addressed the broader implications of Canada’s failure to enforce border security, particularly in relation to the deportation of foreign criminals—a process he had sought to reform while serving with the Canadian Police Association.

Drawing on his experience, he described a deeply flawed immigration enforcement system, one that allowed individuals with serious criminal records to remain in Canada indefinitely. The problem, he wrote, was twofold: not only were foreign criminals able to enter Canada with ease, but authorities also failed to deport those with outstanding arrest warrants.

Newark recounted how, in 1996, a Cabinet Minister requested that he meet with Brian McAdam, a former senior foreign service officer in Hong Kong who had spent years uncovering organized crime’s grip on Canada’s immigration system. McAdam’s detailed revelations, he wrote, had directly led to the launch of Project Sidewinder.

Newark told SIRC that even after leaving the Canadian Police Association in 1998, he remained in contact with McAdam and other officials working to expose this vast and complex national security risk posed by foreign criminal networks.

It was this ongoing communication that led to an even more alarming discovery. Newark wrote that he was stunned to learn that Canada’s government had not only terminated Project Sidewinder but had gone so far as to destroy some related files.

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Newark suggests SIRC’s chair, in her review of Sidewinder, should determine whether “Sidewinder should not have been cancelled … why such inappropriate action was taken and at whose direction this was done.”

He concludes that SIRC should also freshly examine why intelligence reporting from the Canadian officials in Hong Kong, Brian McAdam and Garry Clement had been ignored in Ottawa.

Newark’s letter to SIRC says these failures to act on intelligence included the “Inappropriate granting of visas to Triad members or associates” and “Granting of docking facilities with attendant consequences to COSCO”—and “Failure of CIC and Foreign Affairs to respond appropriately to the various information supplied by McAdam and Clement in relation to material pertaining to Sidewinder.”

In an exclusive interview with The Bureau, Garry Clement, who contributed to investigations referenced in Newark’s letter, corroborated many of its claims and provided further insight. Clement recalled his role in Project Sunset, a 1990s investigation into Chinese Triads’ efforts to gain control over Vancouver’s ports.

“I can remember having a discussion with Scott when he wrote that to SIRC because Scott and I go back a long time,” Clement said. “I knew about him writing on it, but I knew it was also buried.”

He described his own intelligence work during the same period:

“I wrote in the nineties when I was the liaison officer in Hong Kong, a very long intelligence brief on the Chinese wanting to basically acquire or build out a port at the Surrey Fraser Docks area. And it was going to be completely controlled by that time, with Triad influence, but it was going to be controlled by China.”

Clement expressed frustration that decades of warnings had gone unheeded:

“The bottom line is that here we are almost 40 years later, talking about an issue that was identified in the ‘90s about our ports and allowing China to have free access—and nothing has been done over that period of time.”

Newark’s urgent recommendation for SIRC to reconsider Sidewinder’s warnings on Vancouver’s ports was never acted upon.

“We still don’t have Port Police. We got nobody overseeing them,” Clement added. “The ports themselves, it’s sort of like putting a fox in the hen house and saying, ‘Behave yourself.’”

Finally, when asked about the Trudeau government’s claim this week that Canada is responsible for only one percent of the fentanyl entering the United States—a figure reported widely in Canadian media—Clement’s response was unequivocal.

“The fact that we’ve become a haven for transnational organized crime, it’s internationally known,” he said. “So when I read that, with the fentanyl—Trump is wrong in that there’s less than 1% of our fentanyl going to the United States. That’s a crock of shit. If you look at the two super labs that were taken down in British Columbia—I think there’s three now—the amount they were capable of producing was more than the whole Vancouver population could have used in 10 years. So we know that Vancouver has become a transshipment point to North America for opiates and cocaine and other drugs because it’s a weak link, and enforcement is not capable of keeping up with transnational organized crime.”

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That opinion is evidently acknowledged by British Columbia Premier David Eby, according to documents from Canada’s Foreign Interference Commission that say Eby sought meetings with Justin Trudeau’s National Security Advisor.

A record from the Hogue Commission, sanitized for public release, outlines the “context and drivers” behind Eby’s concerns, including “foreign interference; election security; countering fentanyl, organized crime, money laundering, corruption.”

The documents state Ottawa’s Privy Council Office—which provides advice to Justin Trudeau’s cabinet—had recommended that British Columbia continue to work with the federal government on initiatives like the establishment of a new Canada Financial Crimes Agency to bolster the nation’s ability to respond swiftly to complex financial crimes.

Additionally, the PCO highlighted that Canada, the United States, and Mexico were supposedly collaborating on strategies to reduce the supply of fentanyl, including addressing precursor chemicals and preventing the exploitation of commercial shipping channels—a critical area where British Columbia, and specifically the Port of Vancouver, plays a significant role.

Eby acknowledged the concerns again this week in an interview with Macleans.

“I understood Trump’s concerns about drugs coming in. We’ve got a serious fentanyl problem in B.C.; we see the precursor chemicals coming into B.C. from China and Mexico. We see ties to Asian and Mexican organized crime groups. We’d been discussing all of that with the American ambassador and fellow governors. That’s why it was such a strange turnaround, from ‘Hey, we’re working together on this!’ to suddenly finding ourselves in the crosshairs.”

Yet, despite Eby’s claims of intergovernmental efforts, critics—including Garry Clement—argue that nothing has changed. Vancouver’s port remains alarmingly vulnerable, a decades-old concern that continues to resurface as fentanyl and other illicit drugs flood North American markets.

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From Energy Superpower to Financial Blacklist: The Bill Designed to Kill Canada’s Fossil Fuel Sector

Published on November 26, 2025

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From Energy Now

By Tammy Nemeth and Ron Wallace

REALITY: Senator Galvez’s BILL S-238 would force every federally regulated bank, insurer, pension fund and Crown financial corporation to treat the financing of oil, gas, and coal as an unacceptable systemic risk and phase it out through “decommissioning.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney has spent the past weeks proclaiming that Canada will become an “energy superpower” not just in renewables but in responsible conventional energy as well. The newly created Major Projects Office has been proposed to fast-track billions in LNG terminals, transmission lines, carbon-capture hubs, critical-mineral mines, and perhaps oil export pipelines.  A rumored federal–Alberta Memorandum of Understanding is said to be imminent from signature, possibly clearing the way for a new million-barrel-per-day oil pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia’s north coast. The message from Ottawa is clear: Canada is open for energy business.  Yet quietly moving through the Senate is legislation that would deliver the exact opposite outcome.

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Senator Rosa Galvez’s reintroduction of her Climate-Aligned Finance Act, now Bill S-238, following the death of its predecessor Bill S-243 on the order paper, is being touted by supporters not only as a vital tool for an “orderly transition” to a low-carbon Canadian economy but also to be “simply inevitable.”  This Bill does not simply ask financial institutions to “consider” climate risk it proposes to re-write their core mandate so that alignment with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 °C target overrides every other duty.  In fact, it would force every federally regulated bank, insurer, pension fund and Crown financial corporation to treat the financing of oil, gas, and coal as an unacceptable systemic risk and phase it out through “decommissioning.”  For certainty this means to:

“(i) incentivize decommissioning emissions-intensive activities, diversifying energy sources, financing zero-emissions energy and infrastructure and developing and adopting change and innovation,

(ii) escalate climate concerns regarding emissions-intensive activities of financially facilitated entities and exclude entities that are unable or unwilling to align with climate commitments, and

(iii) minimize actions that have a climate change impact that is negative.”

As discussed here in May, the reach of the Climate Aligned Finance Act is vast, targeting emissions-intensive sectors like oil and gas with a regulatory overreach that borders on the draconian.  Institutions must shun financing and support of emissions-intensive activities, which are defined as related to fossil fuel activities, and chart a course toward a “fossil-free future.” This would effectively starve Canada’s energy sector of capital, insurance, and investment. Moreover, Directors and Officers are explicitly required to exercise their powers in a manner that keeps their institution “in alignment with climate commitments.”  The Bill effectively subordinates traditional financial fiduciary responsibility to climate ideology.

While the new iteration removes the explicit capital-risk weights of the original Bill (1,250% on debt for new fossil fuel projects and 150% or more for existing ones) it replaces those conditions with directives for the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) to issue guidelines that “account for exposures and contributions to climate-related risks.”  This shift offers little real relief because mandated guidelines would still require “increased capital-risk weights for financing exposed to acute transition risks,” and the “non-perpetuation and elimination of dependence on emissions-intensive activities, including planning for a fossil-fuel-free future.”

These provisions would grant OSFI broad discretion but steer it inexorably toward punitive outcomes. As the Canadian Bankers’ Association and OSFI warned in their 2023 Senate testimony on the original Bill, such mechanisms would likely compel Canadian lenders to curtail or abandon oil and gas financing.

In plain language, Ottawa would be directing the entire financial system to stop lending to, insuring or investing in the very industries that are central to Canada’s economic future. In addition to providing tens of billions in royalties and taxes to governments each year, the oil and gas sector contributes about 3–3.5% of Canada’s GDP, generates over $160 billion in annual revenue and accounts for roughly 25% of Canada’s total exports.

The governance provisions proposed in Bill S-238 are beyond the pale. Board members with any past or present connection to the fossil fuel industry would have to declare it annually, detail any associations or lobbying involving “organizations not in alignment with climate commitments,” recuse themselves from every discussion or vote involving investments in oil, gas or coal, and make these declarations within a Climate Commitments Alignment Report.  While oil and gas expertise is not banned outright, it is nonetheless ‘quarantined’ in ways that create a de facto purity test in the boardroom.  At the same time, every board must appoint at least one member with “climate expertise”.  Contrary to long-established principles for financial management, while seasoned energy experts would not be banned outright from such deliberations, they would effectively be sidelined on the very investment files where their expertise would be most valued.

The contradictions posed by Bill S-238 are simply breathtaking. The Major Projects Office is promising 68,000 jobs and CAD$116 billion in new investment, much of it tied to natural gas and oil-related infrastructure.  These new pipeline and LNG export projects will require material private capital investments. Yet under Bill S-238 any bank that provides the capital needed for the projects would face escalating, punitive capital requirements along with public disclosure of its “contribution” to climate risks that are to be declared annually in a “Climate Commitments Alignment Report.”   No MoU, Indigenous loan guarantee or federal permit can conjure financing out of thin air once Canada’s banks and insurers have effectively been legally compelled to exit the fossil fuel energy sector.

Current actions constitute a clear warning about the potential legal consequences of Bill S-238.  Canada’s largest pension fund is currently being sued by four young Canadians who claim the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is failing to properly manage climate-related financial risk.  Alleged are breaches of fiduciary duty through fossil fuel investments that are claimed to exacerbate climate risks and threaten ‘intergenerational equity’ with the demand that the CPP divest from fossil fuels entirely. The case, filed in Ontario Superior Court, demonstrates how financial institutions may be challenged in their traditional roles as stewards of balanced economic growth and instead used as agents for enforced decarbonization.  In short, such legislation enables regulatory laws to re-direct, if not disable, capital investment in the Canadian non-renewable energy sector.

In May 2024, Mark Carney, then Chair of Brookfield Asset Management Inc. and head of Transition Investing, appeared at a Senate Committee hearing. He lauded the original Bill, calling key elements “achievable and actually essential” to champion “climate-related financial disclosures.”  He noted that: “Finance cannot drive this transition on its own. Finance is an enabler, a catalyst that will speed what governments and companies initiate.” However, the new revised Bill S-238 goes far beyond disclosure.  Like its previous iteration, it remains punitive, discriminatory and economically shortsighted, jeopardizing the very economic resilience that Carney has pledged to fortify.  It is engineered debanking dressed up as prudential regulation.

This is at a time in which Richard Ciano described Canada as a land of “investment chaos”:

“While investment risk in the United States is often political, external, and transactional, the risk in Canada is systemic, legal, and structural. For long-term, capital-intensive projects, this deep, internal rot is fundamentally more toxic and unmanageable than the headline-driven volatility of a U.S. administration.

If the “rule of law” in Canada is meant to provide the certainty and predictability that capital demands, it is failing spectacularly. Investors seek clear title and dependable contracts. Canada is increasingly delivering the opposite. Investors don’t witness stability — they witness a fractured federation, a weaponized bureaucracy, and a legal system that injects profound uncertainty into the most basic elements of capitalism, like property rights.”

Bill S-238 is yet another example of how Canada is imposing unrealistic laws and regulations that contribute to investment uncertainty and that directly contradict policies proposed to accelerate projects in the national interest. While the Carney government trumpets Canada as a future energy superpower that produces and exports LNG, responsibly produced “decarbonized” oil and critical minerals, Bill S-238 would effectively limit, if not negate, the crucial financial backing and investments that would be required to accomplish this policy objective.

Rhetoric about nation-building projects is cheap. Access to capital is what turns promises into steel in the ground. This Bill would ensure that one hand of government will be quietly strangling what the other hand is proposing to do in the national interest.

Tammy Nemeth is a U.K.-based energy analyst. Ron Wallace is a Calgary-based energy analyst and former Member of the National Energy Board.

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Federal major projects list raises questions

Published on November 26, 2025

By

From Resource Works

Once more, we have to shake our collective heads at the (typical) lack of information from the government after the fanfare of announcements, news releases, and video clips.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s addition of seven new projects to the Major Projects Office (MPO) list of ventures to be accelerated came with a vague promise from the MPO.

Now, said the MPO, it will “work with proponents, provinces, territories and Indigenous Peoples to find the right way forward for these projects.”

The new projects include the Nisga’a Nation’s Ksi Lisims LNG project in BC (and its PRGT pipeline), BC Hydro’s North Coast Transmission Line (NCTL) and the related  “Northwest Critical Conservation Corridor,” plus mining projects in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, and an Inuit-owned hydro project near Iqaluit in Nunavut.

In all, a federal news release said, Carney’s announcements “represent more than $56 billion in new investment.” That’s in addition to “$60 billion for investments in nuclear power, LNG, critical minerals, and new trade corridors” that were announced in September.

Carney said: “Unlocking these resources . . .  will attract hundreds of billions of dollars in new investment and create thousands of high-paying careers for miners, carpenters, and engineers across the country.”
And it’s all aimed at reducing Canada’s dependence on trade with the U.S. As journalist Thomas Seal of Bloomberg News noted: “The country sells 75% of its goods to the US and projects on the list so far aim to help change that: port developments to ramp up trade with Europe, LNG terminals to sell gas to Asia, and mines to exploit global demand for critical minerals.”

But what does “fast-track” actually mean?

Carney’s Terrace, B.C. announcement raised a so-far unanswered question: What will the addition of these projects to the federal fast-track list mean in practice?

What can, or will, Ottawa actually do to support these projects and help bring them to fruition?

Carney gave no details, but federal officials say the Major Projects Office will coordinate approvals for all components of the projects to accelerate timelines that could otherwise take years.

The MPO is supposed to fast-track resource and infrastructure projects deemed to be “in the national interest.” The new projects have not yet been designated as “in the national interest,” which would qualify them for special treatment in permitting and approvals. Instead, Carney and the MPO used the words “national importance” and “national significance.”

And some of the projects Carney announced are already in progress, and it’s not clear what the MPO could do to move them along.

Does Ottawa plan to give the projects financial support?

The prime minister spoke of Ottawa putting up “huge financing” but, again, gave no further information.

As he listed the additions to the MPO project list, though, the Canada Infrastructure Bank announced a $139.5-million loan to BC Hydro to support “the early works phase” of the NCTL power line.

Does Ottawa see a role for the MPO in negotiating with First Nations and Indigenous peoples that are opposed to one or more of the projects?

PM Carney: “Referring to the MPO, or the Major Projects Office, does not mean the project is approved. It means that all the efforts are being put in place from the federal government in order to create the conditions so it could move forward. But those decisions are taken by many parties, including, very much, First Nations.”

The prime minister’s announcement was the first since the appointment of an Indigenous advisory council that is to help the MPO integrate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, UNDRIP, into its decision-making.

Carney added that the “huge financing” he promised is aimed at encouraging Indigenous equity ownership of the projects.

Alex Grzybowski, CEO of the Indigenous organization K’uul Power, sees the North Coast Transmission Line as “a pretty solid investment,” but says First Nations would need to raise $275-$300 million to take equity shares in it.

To help First Nations get there, he calls on Ottawa to provide an investment tax credit, to increase the lending cap of the Canada Infrastructure Bank to $300 million from $100 million, and to provide “a federal loan-guarantee with a provincial backstop.”

Ksi Lisims LNG project

Ksi Lisims LNG is coming from a partnership of the Nisga’a Nation, Rockies LNG Ltd. Partnership and Western LNG.

The $10-billion project in northern BC would have two floating production platforms, producing for export 12 million tonnes of LNG per year. Natural gas for Ksi Lisims would come more than 750 km through the PRGT pipeline.

Ksi Lisims LNG says it hopes for construction to begin this year, with operations to start in late 2028 or 2029. It says it aims to be “net-zero ready” by 2030.

Charles Morven, secretary-treasurer for the Nisga’a Nation, said: “A lot of major work has taken place in the past five years, getting everything put together. This announcement gets us so very close to the finish line.”

And Eva Clayton, Nisga’a president, said: “We’re showing BC, Canada, and the world what Indigenous economic independence and shared prosperity can look like.” She spoke of “meaningful opportunities” for the Nisga’a — and for all Nations and communities in northern BC.

The Nisga’a Nation, a partner in Ksi Lisims LNG and its PRGT pipeline, says it is working with Indigenous communities to strike agreements, including equity stakes in the pipeline. A final investment decision on Ksi Lisims is expected early next year.

Environmental groups have also opposed the Ksi Lisims project, and the Union of BC Indian Chiefs cited environmental and climate concerns. But Carney said Ksi Lisims LNG will be one of the world’s cleanest operations, with emissions 94 per cent below the global average.

And the Nisga’a Nation said: “With our co-developers and Treaty Partners we will ensure this project reflects . . . our high standards of environmental protection.”

The prime minister said Ksi Lisims LNG will add $4 billion a year to the nation’s economy. And federal officials say Ksi Lisims could create thousands of skilled jobs, with Indigenous workers among them.

Said Carney: “LNG is an essential fuel for the energy transition. LNG can help Canada build new trading relationships, especially in fast growing markets in Asia. . . .

“Canada will be ready. We’re home to the world’s fourth largest reserves of natural gas, and we have the potential to supply up to 100 million tons annually of new LNG exports to Asia.”

And his announcement led the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers to say: “Canada is on a path to become one of the top five LNG exporters in the world.”

North Coast Transmission Line

The 450-km North Coast Transmission Line from Prince George to Terrace would feed clean hydro power to LNG projects such as LNG Canada and the Haisla Nation’s coming Cedar LNG project, and it would also power mining projects and regional communities.

Carney said the power line could eventually connect with Alberta and support reliability, clean power development and new industrial investment across the West. Carney also spoke the potential for a northwest trade and energy corridor running from British Columbia through the Yukon with future possibilities for connection into Alberta. But, again, he gave no details of any plans.

Later, BC Premier David Eby called the NCTL “one of the biggest, most transformational opportunities” in a century. BC says the power line “will be co-owned with First Nations and will provide BC’s 98% renewable energy to the northwest.”

The BC government says the next major steps for the NCTL include finalizing the route. It says construction is expected to start in the summer of 2026, with phased-in completion targeted for 2032-34.

BC legislation would allow First Nations equity in the project and the province also says it plans to direct the B.C. Utilities Commission to allow the project to proceed without needing to go through the usual hearing process, potentially cutting a year to 18 months off the completion date.

To help First Nations acquire equity in the NCTL, Alex Grzybowski, CEO of Indigenous K’uul Power, says three things are needed from government:

“The first and most valuable thing they could do is provide an investment tax credit. And actually that wouldn’t hit their books for six years, so from an immediate financing perspective, that might be the best. . . .

“The next best thing would be to increase the lending cap for the Canada Infrastructure Bank from $100 million to $300 million, and then we would be borrowing money at below Bank of Canada rates, and we would be able to lend that money into construction, which would lower the cost of construction, it would lower the cost for the ratepayers, and it would increase the benefits for the First Nations. . . .

“The third thing they could do is provide a federal loan guarantee with a provincial backstop.”

BC says the NCTL project is expected to create some 9,700 direct full-time jobs, contribute nearly $10 billion per year to GDP and generate approximately $950 million a year in revenues for provincial and municipal governments. BC says it will also help prevent two to three million tonnes of carbon emissions a year.

The NCTL power-line plan also raises key questions, including this: How will BC Hydro come up with the new power to feed into the line? We have seen estimates such as this: “By 2050, BC may need to double or triple its . . . power generation as transportation, buildings and industry are all or partially electrified. Current output is generated with 32 hydro dams. Can the province build another 32 or 64 hydro plants in under 30 years? Of course not, so where will all that power come from?”

And what will NCTL cost?  The first estimate from BC Hydro is $6 billion, but Hydro’s costs for the Site C power dam finished up at twice what it initially estimated.

A cautious shift from past policies

Once more, we have to shake our collective heads at the (typical) lack of information from the government after the fanfare of announcements, news releases, and video clips.

We naturally wonder if Ottawa’s promises will be matched by performance, but at least we see some much-needed departure from the anti-project policies of the past Justin Trudeau government.

As CEO François Poirier of TC Energy puts it: “The policy environment is becoming increasingly supportive.”

Heather Exner-Pirot of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute says the new Carney budget shows signs of a better mix of “carrot and stick” than did the Trudeau government. “The last budget was still in the ‘stick’ era. Finally, we’re in a ‘carrot’ era.”

And she adds: “At least under this government, the bad things have stopped happening. And I would say, even with this budget, some of the bad things are actually going away.”

Let us hope so.

Photo credit to the THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick.

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