The high-profile nature of Canada’s controversial Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project is hurting the country’s mining industry, says industry association president Pierre Gratton.
“That is casting a pall, a cloud over Canada as an investment destination,” said Gratton, president and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada. “We really need to get some resolution around Trans Mountain, get access to tidewater and move forward as a country thereafter, because it’s affecting the rest of the resource sector, I think, quite negatively.”
Gratton was the latest executive to tell Greater Vancouver Board of Trade members that Canada’s competitiveness on the world stage is slipping.
On top of trade uncertainty, commodity price volatility and issues concerning taxation, the former head of the Mining Association of British Columbia said capital that could be coming to Canada is instead flowing to mining jurisdictions like Australia and Chile.
In 2017, investments in mining accounted for 37% of total foreign direct investment (FDI) in Australia, a share worth nearly $300 billion. The same year, mining-related FDI into Canada was worth just over $28 billion, or 2.5% of total Canadian FDI. Australia has also overtaken Canada as the world’s second-largest mining supplier.
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