Former B.C. Premier Christy Clark says that a failure of federal leadership led to Teck Resource Ltd.’s decision to walk away from building the $20-billion Tech Frontier oilsands mine in Alberta.
“They can’t seem to figure out if they’re on the side of of growing the economy and middle class jobs, or if they’re on the side of trying to stop all emissions from Canada,” said Clark, who was Liberal premier of the western province from 2011 to 2017. She is now a senior advisor at the law firm Bennett Jones.
“It really just means that there’s a lot of instability, and nobody wants to invest when they don’t know what the risk is going to be,” she told The Current’s Matt Galloway.
The federal government was due to decide this week whether the $20.6-billion, 260,000-barrel-per-day (39.7 million litres) mine could go ahead, but the Vancouver-based company withdrew its application in a surprise move Sunday. The company had estimated the mine would have created 7,000 construction jobs, and 2,500 operating jobs.
In an open letter about the decision, Teck CEO Don Lindsay cited the ongoing debate over climate policy in Canada.
A mining shovel fills a haul vehicle at the Shell Albian Sands oilsands mine near Fort McMurray, Alta. The Frontier oilsands mine would have been located between Fort McMurray and Fort Chipewyan (The Canadian Press/Jeff McIntosh)
“Unfortunately, the growing debate around this issue has placed Frontier and our company squarely at the nexus of much broader issues that need to be resolved. In that context, it is now evident that there is no constructive path forward for the project,” he wrote.
Clark said it was the “wrong debate” to try to choose between protecting the environment and promoting jobs and growth at home. She argued that resource development in Canada could also help the environment on a global scale — because it would be produced alongside efforts to minimise emissions.
“What Teck would be offering the world with the Frontier project would be a whole heck of a lot better for the world, in displacing coal and dirty forms of energy in Asia,” she said.
“Yes, it would raise emissions profiles in Canada, but overall, around the world, around the globe — which is what we really should be thinking about — it would really have a big impact in lowering that.”
Teck’s Frontier oilsands project was planned for northern Alberta. The company pulled its application for the project on Sunday. (CBC News)
Decision to withdraw was ‘market-based’
Julia Levin, the climate and energy program manager for Environmental Defence, agreed that there is a lack of cohesion in the approach to fighting climate change at the provincial and federal level.
“It’s bad for Canadians, it’s bad for the environment, and it’s bad for the economy,” she told Galloway.
Chris Hall says the bigger question now is about Canada’s investment climate after a major resource project is called off. 6:06
But she said Teck’s decision was primarily a market-based one, because “investors are just no longer willing to place their money into these expensive and high-carbon projects that are incompatible with climate action.”
She disagreed with Christy’s assertion, arguing that Canada has “spent years trying to both grow our fossil fuel sector, and also lead on climate, and those things are incompatible.”
“But it’s not incompatible to have a thriving economy and a healthy climate,” she said.
“We just need to manage a transition into a low carbon economy.”
She said Canadian businesses, and the public, needed a “climate test” to bring clarity to how decisions about resource extractions are made.
The projected emissions of a project could be judged against Canada’s climate targets, in the wider context of other projects, she explained.
“We map out that pathway, and then when we have project decisions, we know from the onset whether these are compatible with our climate goals,” she said.
“And whether they’re economically viable in the world that actually does limit global warming to below 1.5 degrees.”
Written by Padraig Moran, with files from CBC News. Produced by Idella Sturino, Matt Meuse and Ines Colabrese.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
