Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his German counterpart, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, appeared to pour cold water on the idea of shipping Canadian natural gas to Europe when asked about the proposal Monday.
At a news conference in Montreal, the two leaders instead suggested that their priority is developing cleaner energy sources, like green hydrogen, in Canada for export to Europe to help solve the continent’s energy crunch.
While not ruling out a role for Canadian natural gas in alleviating Europe’s energy shortage, Trudeau said there isn’t a clear business case yet for building a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal in Saint John or elsewhere.
Trudeau said natural gas would have to be shipped by pipeline from the gas fields of Western Canada to a still-unbuilt liquefaction terminal on the Atlantic coast.
It would be a costly undertaking and might not be a prudent investment, given Europe’s commitment to a rapid transition to a cleaner economy, Trudeau said.
WATCH | Trudeau talks clean energy with German chancellor:
Trudeau talks clean energy with German chancellor
9 hours ago
Duration 1:48
During a bilateral meeting in Montreal with German Chancellor Olaf Sholz, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed how Canada can lead the world in producing clean energy.
“One of the challenges around LNG is the amount of investment required to build infrastructure for that,” he said.
“There has never been a strong business case because of the distance from the gas fields, because of the need to transport that gas over long distances before liquefaction.”
Trudeau said private companies are investigating whether such multibillion-dollar investments would be worthwhile in this “new context.”
The war in Ukraine has upended the global energy market.
Russia, a major supplier of natural gas to Europe, has been accused of holding back some of its supply to retaliate against crippling sanctions imposed by Western countries, including Germany, over its unprovoked attack on Ukraine.
To reduce Europe’s reliance on Russian gas, observers have floated the idea of shipping some of Canada’s abundant natural gas across the Atlantic to terminals in Germany.
But because Canada has been slow to develop proposed LNG sites in the Atlantic provinces, it’s unlikely this scenario will materialize any time soon.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz take part in a welcome dinner at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto on Aug. 22, 2022. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Trudeau said Canada will push ahead with LNG projects that are already under construction on the country’s West Coast, terminals that will supply gas to another energy-starved region: Asia.
With more gas coming from Canada, other major suppliers, like Qatar, would have a freer hand to send their product to Germany and other European countries, he said.
“Right now, our best [solution] is to continue to contribute to the global market, to displace gas and energy that then Germany and Europe can locate from other sources,” Trudeau said.
Trudeau said the conflict in Ukraine and the energy supply shocks it triggered show “the world needs to accelerate its ending of dependency on oil and gas in general” and transition to clean sources. Trudeau said that, in the coming years, Canada will position itself as a “key supplier to the world in a net-zero economy.”
Scholz said Germany is interested in helping Canada develop its hydrogen production capacity — it’s still a nascent industry with very little production underway — so that it can eventually tap into that resource.
Trudeau and Scholz will travel to Newfoundland and Labrador on Tuesday to meet with companies there that are pitching new hydrogen projects that eventually could feed energy to Europe.
Germany is interested in “green” hydrogen — a form of fuel that is produced through electrolysis with no resulting emissions.
People inspect a transparent model of the hydrogen-powered Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell at the 2015 Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto. (Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press)
In a recent report, Canada’s environment commissioner, Jerry DeMarco, found that the actual annual production of hydrogen in Canada is only about 3 megatonnes — almost all of it being “grey” hydrogen, a dirtier form that produces roughly double the emissions of natural gas.
The commissioner said there are doubts about whether hydrogen can play any sort of meaningful role in Canada in the short term because very little of the necessary infrastructure — like hydrogen pipelines and liquefaction plants — is in place.
Green hydrogen is also prohibitively expensive. A gigajoule of natural gas costs about $3.79 to produce, while a gigajoule of green hydrogen costs over $60 if it’s produced using electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar, the commissioner found.
But Scholz said rapid technological innovation is possible and hydrogen could soon be a crucial source of energy for major industrial economies.
“What we’re doing at this time is scaling them up, which would really change the world of industry and production globally,” he said.
“This is like all other industrial processes from the past. It starts slowly but then there is a moment where, from one day to the other, there is a big scaling up because so many different industries have decided they need to change.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
