The Teck Frontier mine was killed by the Liberal’s regulatory bullying

After a long ten-year-long approval process for the Frontier Mine Teck has decided, two days before a federal decision on its approval was set to be given, to cancel the project themselves.

The CEO of Teck, Don Lindsay, released a letter justifying the company’s decision to stop the $20 billion project, despite their apparent decade of interest in pursuing the project.

In his letter, Lindsay said that “The promise of Canada’s potential will not be realized until governments can reach agreement around how climate policy considerations will be addressed in the context of future responsible energy sector development,” going on to say, “Without clarity on this critical question, the situation that has faced Frontier will be faced by future projects and it will be very difficult to attract future investment, either domestic or foreign.”

Many on the left have taken to mean this as Teck was troubled by the lack of climate action by the government of Alberta as the issue when it comes to climate change, but that doesn’t seem to make much sense based on the leadup to the cancellation.

What many of those leftwing politicians who wish to blame the Alberta UCP’s lower environmental goals may be missing is that Lindsay’s apply far better to the federal Liberal party itself.

The Liberal government had not even come to a consistent position on the Teck Frontier mine, preferring to keep its life or death up in the air, while the Canadian Energy Regulator, and their Environment and Climate Change Ministry review panel decided in favour of the project.

The Liberal government’s uncertainty on energy development likely scared Teck into pulling out of the Frontier mine. Even if the Liberal government approved the project on Tuesday, there might have been even more barriers to the actual construction of the project imposed by the Liberals.

Companies have to make a profit from their ventures, and if more regulations, taxes, and restrictions are placed on them in the future, the Frontier mine could have become a financial loser for Teck due to potential longterm government intervention.

It feels like regulatory bullying to companies like Teck, and they won’t put up with it forever.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, who had been a staunch supporter of the Teck mine, stated that overregulation and the allowance of radical environmentalist protesters are scaring away energy investment. 

Energy projects in Canada may still be profitable ventures, but with a seemingly endless series of hoops and barriers to jump in order even to begin a project, why wouldn’t energy companies invest in the United States instead?

Even if the Liberal government acted as hardline environmentalists without apparent and robust regulations, businesses could, at the very least, understand the standards. Instead, companies like Teck are fleeing the Canadian economy out of fear of gaining project approval and then later having the carpet pulled out from under them.

The Liberal leader is not merely anti-energy development in many ways, but in doing so, they are incompetent and confusing in the eyes of investors in Canada’s economy. 

One of the tragedies in Teck’s decision to cancel the Frontier mine is just yesterday two more Indigenous bands approved of the project. 

The issue is that Teck has seen with projects like Coastal Gaslink Indigenous approval or energy projects mean very little to the Liberal government, and they will still allow fake Indigenous movements to stall the country’s economy for weeks.

To further rub salt in the wound of pro-energy Canadians, Prime Minister Trudeau this morning finally made a substantial commitment to removing the railway blockades and getting the economy back to normal.

Canada is experiencing a slow, stagnant economy while the United States is having one of the best times of growth that it has ever had. 

The difference between Canada and the US is not due to any disparity in natural resources, manufacturing potential, or even tax rates – Canada has an apparent leadership deficit to the US.