Teck Frontier: Another Energy Company Runs for the Hills

Just when we thought Trudeau couldn’t possibly turn another potential Albertan energy project into a catastrophic failure, he yet again proves us wrong.

Last night, Teck Frontier withdrew its application for a massive oil sands mine in Alberta just days before the federal deadline to approve or decline the project. Teck has said it wrote off approximately $1.13 billion in sunk costs for the same reason Enbridge and TransCanada dropped their projects; an ever changing regulatory system imposed by the anti-resource, anti-Alberta Liberal government

I feel like a broken record on this issue; Alberta continues to be ignored while other regions of the country get money for sausage factories and billionaire donors to the Liberals get corporate welfare. We have one of the highest rates of unemployment in the country, almost two full percentage points higher than the national average. Cost of living is going up, taxes are going up, and small businesses are shutting their doors. In spite of a global rise in oil and gas investment, Canada has seen a sharp decline since the Liberals formed government. 

To put this decline in perspective, the Teck oil sands mine alone was expected to create an estimated 7,000 construction jobs, 2,500 operating jobs and about $12 billion in federal income and capital taxes.

Now it joins the club of over $120 billion dollars in energy projects that were cancelled due to Liberal hostility and incompetence. And Trudeau will do what he always does: Blame everyone other than himself. This project has been sitting on his desk since last July. Instead of approving it, he decided to sit like a deer in headlights while he watched billions of dollars burn away. 

We’re already losing Citadel Drilling, Encana, Chevron, and we’ve even heard that TransCanada had to change its name to attract investors who are wary of investing in Canadian energy. And now we’ve lost Teck.

This cannot continue. We cannot allow our energy sector, projects of vital provincial, national, and indigenous benefit, to be hijacked by anti-energy interest groups whose only real stake in these projects is a location to wave signs. Enough is enough. Let’s get Alberta back to work.