At a news conference wrapping up a trip to Berlin, Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said German companies have told him they are interested in Canadian liquefied natural gas, and his government wants to meet that demand — a reversal from the Liberals under former prime minister Justin Trudeau.
“The previous government made its decision based on the situation at the time. What we’ve been elected to do is respond to the realities today, taking into account what Canadians expect of us,” Hodgson said.
“And I would say the realities today are quite different than they were two or three years ago.”
He did not name the German companies, but told journalists that many buyers are prepared to trade the Canadian fossil fuel on the international market.
“They can take advantage of our production on the West Coast to supply German needs in the Atlantic,” Hodgson said.
“Three years ago, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine plunged Europe into the worst energy crisis since the 1970s,” Hodgson said.
“And Germany faced the hardest energy shock in generations.”
He said the current economic face-off with U.S. President Donald Trump is forcing Canada to “build a new economic and security relationship not only with the U.S., but with our allies around the world.”
At a meeting with former German chancellor Olaf Scholz in August 2022, Trudeau said a challenge around LNG was the “amount of investment required” and that “there has never been a strong business case” for exportation to Germany.
Hodgson said the major projects office, a key component of the Liberals’ C-5 legislation meant to fast-track project approvals, will be announced by the end of the week.
The office is meant to co-ordinate with provincial and territorial counterparts, to figure out, among other responsibilities, which jurisdiction would determine the environmental impact of a given major project.
“I am hopeful you will be quite pleased on Thursday or Friday with the announcement of the launch of the major projects office, the leadership of the major projects office and the plans for it,” he said.
Major projects office launching ‘Thursday or Friday’: Natural resources minister
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney had hinted a list of federally approved major projects would be released in the next two weeks, and include expansions of the Port of Montreal and the Port of Churchill in northern Manitoba, the latter specifically focused on LNG exports.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, however, criticized the government for being slow in launching the promised projects.
“Not only is there not a single shovel in the ground on any of these projects, there are not even firm proposals,” Poilievre said.
“Mr. Carney has been frantically jetting around the world doing photo ops and signing phony declarations that are unenforceable and have no money attached to them,” he said.
However, Carney’s words were welcomed welcomed by Jay Khosla, the executive director of economic and energy policy with the Public Policy Forum.
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“The world is asking us for this, not the other way around,” Khosla, an assistant deputy minister under both Trudeau and former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, said in an interview with CBC News.
“This kind of signalling can lead to a lot of success,” he said, while adding it is just a first step.
He said how smoothly the major projects office will be run is key to whether that success materializes.
“We need to be both efficient and effective. Timelines in that space matter. This government is saying timelines matter, so that’s terrific,” he said.
