Self-serving since it’s my industry, and it’s a bit niche — but Canada is genuinely leading in the “free world” on nuclear energy. We have the only SMR project in the world (other than Russia and China, to whom the west abandoned nuclear power supremacy decades ago, and who dominate the world industry). And we are now in early development of a huge new power plant in Ontario (Wesleyville) that could be one of the largest nuclear power plants in the world.
We could do a LOT more here. Our national nuclear power company, AECL, was struggling for decades before Harper finally sold it off (a rump organization remains in Ottawa to manage the IP) but much of the CANDU IP and personnel now work for AtkinsRéalis who are still marketing the CANDU.
Europe is rapidly pivoting away from their post-Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear bans toward embarking on massive nuclear new-build programmes. Germany isn’t there yet, but recent big government pivots happened in Belgium and Italy. And of course Poland has a huge programme to become a nuclear country.
All of this could be accelerated with Canadian leadership if we get serious about European trade links (and Europe and Canada fix Impact Assessment and permitting.)
To me it’s an obvious place where we could stake out a genuine world leadership position.
Ya Europe isn’t going to let Canadian reactor on their soil especially considering the presence of French reactor manufacturers on the continent. We missed the boat on Middle East and India - Europeans (French) and Americans are taking the lead there. Koreans are rapidly making inroads.
Most of political leadership needs to start looking beyond Europe like starting 5 years ago.
There are already multiple CANDU units in Europe, with some under refurbishment and now more beginning construction. So it’s wrong to say that Europe will never let a Canadian reactor on their soil.
(I agree we’ll never see a CANDU in France, though.)
Without getting too much into the weeds of the industry, there is also a lot that Canada can export other than tier-1 reactor technology. Our supply chain is active and growing because of our domestic programme. And there is an entire world of project and operational services that are very high-skill high-value exports. (The Trump admin only counting manufacturing as a “real” export notwithstanding!)
I also agree Asia can be a big opportunity too. The issue is that Russia and China are pretty unstoppable in much of the “unaligned” developing world (what we used to call the “third world” in its original Cold War political-alignment sense) and Korea is active elsewhere in the region. And Japan’s nuclear industry is slowly coming back to life, with Hitachi-GE and the ABWR, one of the most successful reactor models in history.
Lots of opportunity for Canadian leadership in this industry. It is an emerging massive opportunity. But I think Europe absolutely can be a big part of it, especially if we take Canada-Europe trade ties seriously and actually make hard tradeoffs (mainly dairy, as Mr. Gurney points out in the article here).
Russia is player but China becoming one is skeptical. There’s a lot of National Security concerns that come with China. It’ll be a massive misstep if we miss out on Asia.
Another industry where Canada has been a leader is hydrogen fuel cell technology and hydrogen production, with world-leading clusters based in BC, Ontario, and Quebec. However, most of the growth in those sectors has occurred by servicing markets in the rest of the world rather than Canada.
If Russia and China lead the world in nuclear reactors and the French don’t seem to be interested in exporting, shouldn’t we just buy reactors from China and Russia instead of trying to re-invent the wheel (a second time!) by creating, again, a home-grown industry that only Ontario is ever going to buy? (The SMR under construction at Darlington is an American Westinghouse design [Edit: sorry, my error: a GE-Hitachi design --Thx Geoff Olynyk] that uses minimally enriched uranium, not an unenriched CANDU, so that is a fundamental philosophical switch.)
While electricity from whatever source might well be a valuable export to the United States (and nowhere else), I don’t see Canadian nuclear reactors themselves to be a viable export industry. Where, what countries, are the market for expensive and potentially dangerous nuclear projects? Poor hot countries can make do with cheap solar because they can do without power at night when everyone’s asleep. Solar is really cheap if you don’t demand 24-hr power.
Mankind has held the answer to almost limitless and 100% "green" energy for almost a century now, and yet the only thing that holds us back are the fear mongers insisting it "must be" too dangerous to use. (Except no, it is not)
Canada should be consuming nuclear power everywhere hydro doesn't already exist and/or is not an option - ie: everywhere but Quebec and Manitoba.
Nuclear *is* safe, of course. Everyone knows that. Because technologically sophisticated societies have designed and built them to be safe. At great expense. They are potentially very dangerous if something goes wrong that the operating authority isn’t fully equipped to handle and the nation regulating them is in over its depth. Do you think Sudan could operate a nuke safely, even a CANDU which is inherently safer, if we just plonked one down in the desert and told them to go to it.
No country is going to buy nukes unless it has the expertise and the culture to build and operate them safely. They have to really want to and it doesn’t come cheap.
You can take this thinking too far. AECL focused on emerging markets back in the day and the CANDU units in eg Argentina have been just fine. Developing countries can become developed ones, particularly with more access to abundant energy.
Places like Sudan, obviously different. But nobody is seriously focusing on those markets other than Russia and China.
Why? Natural gas is cheaper measured as levelized cost of energy and doesn’t take 30 years to bring on line the way a nuclear plant does. The *only* reason to go nuclear today is because you believe Gross Zero (not net — there is no net) Emissions are an imperative for Canada to reach even if no other country does.
If you really believe Gross Zero is necessary, then just build windmills and live with unreliable electricity. Build them in China so the manufacturing emissions are booked there. International shipping emissions aren’t booked to any one country so they are “free” to us. And you can use electric trucks to drive the windmills from the docks to the installation site.
hey, I'm with you on the "LNG would be quicker" front - what I'm trying to call out here is that the eco-zealots seem to want to have this both ways.
What they're asking for is a magic solution which is completely green, but also reliable.
Presented with a solution which is EXACTLY that, they cry "no, not that way" and run away screaming about "potential" harms which have never really happened.
...also, there is no good reason a nuclear reactor should take more than a decade to build from proposal to power output. The ONLY reason for this is overt government interference.
The government regulators would say that the reason nuclear plants are safe is *because* the regulators oversee the design and construction so meticulously. And they entertain endless submissions from various activists seeking to show why the plant shouldn’t be built, including safety concerns. They *could* refuse to hear from these activists and shorten the approval process but then it would look like they were playing fast and loose with safety. Easy to say government interference is excessive and unnecessary. But very difficult to get the government to stop doing it. They are the government, after all.
Vogtle in Georgia took 30 years to get built.
Anyway, this is going down a rabbit hole over a niche issue that, all by itself, is not going to make Canada a world leader in anything, so I’ll join the groupthink and shut up now. Nuclear will take off, or it won’t, no matter what we say here.
My point is it doesn’t need to be a niche issue. Nuclear could be a substantial fraction of the world’s energy supply, and Canada could be a big part of that. It could also be a thought leader and actually help it take off globally.
What’s your alternative proposal for what Canada can and should lead on? Or are you just going to be a naysayer on everything?
Darlington SMR is a GE-Hitachi design, not Westinghouse.
I don’t think we should be buying Russian or Chinese reactor technology, and in any case it’s a geopolitical and security nonstarter for the time being (unless things go WAY wrong with the US and Canada somehow ends up in the Chinese sphere of influence even more than we already started to under Trudeau).
I’ve already indicated the countries that are embarking on nuclear new-build programmes where I think there’s a potential market for Canadian exports and a potential area where Canada can be a genuine thought leader (again, this is much broader than just CANDU technology). These markets have already realized that nuclear is not and has never been “dangerous” when compared to real-world alternatives.
Buying from Chinese and Russians, absolutely not. We will kill our local expertise and supply chain if we bought from either of them. It will a big Natsec disaster.
I think even dairy farmers are being pissed at their masters for being told to dump thousands of litres of milk because they surpassed their quotas.
I also know first hand of farmers who would love to be able to legally sell raw grass-fed milk from their regenerative farms, which are coincidentally way better for the environment, while being in the aggregate just as productive as industrial farms.
The dairy cartel needs to be burnt to the ground. Plain and simple.
Farmers will adapt. And we’ll all be better off for it.
Costco carries New Zealand butter, and it rapidly disappears from the cooler whenever they're able to get a shipment within the dairy quota. They also used to carry New Zealand cheddar at a price a bit lower than Canadian aged cheddar, and amazingly good. I don't think it's beyond the capability of Canadian producers to compete with the quality, but they don't because of the current supply management system.
Yes, I've had to deal with those fake shortages both at costco and local health food store where the grass fed stuff occasionally disappears for weeks/months only to suddenly reappear.
As things play out in the Canadian grain market, the inevitable is happening: mergers and acquisitions are reducing the numbers of grain merchants to place competitive bids on grains and oilseeds.
Bunge Inc. has a substantial holding in the G3 elevator and terminal operations and is now trying to acquire the Viterra assets.
This is bad news for farmers who will become serfs to a small group of international companies who will use their dominance to limit pricing opportunities.
Recipients of the UK state pension, many of whom moved to Canada to be closer to grandchildren, do not receive the indexation of that pension that is enjoyed by British expatriates who live in many other countries - including the USA. In fact, UK state pensions are frozen for pensioners living in most Commonwealth countries, including Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, and India, as well as other countries and territories. This is because while Canada and New Zealand have social security agreements with the UK, UK state pensions are still frozen for pensioners living there.
The most recent trade treaty discussion between Canada and the UK might have addressed this issue but the talks collapsed last year due to Canada’s refusal to open up on its protection of the dairy industry.
Fair comment that we haven't. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't. I've long thought that Canada simply needs to be a more serious country. We've been afforded the luxury of not having to have been but maybe this is the start of that changing? I do hope so. I also think that for much of the world who - if they thought of Canada at all - thought we were "just like the US," this current spate of lunacy south of the border has disavowed them of that. So a nation stepping forward with (in general) established good will and sounding like an adult might well fill an important and growing gap. But, who knows. Maybe we fall back into middling mediocrity before anything like that ever happens. But it *could* happen. And likely *should.*
We’ll become a serious country when we tackle the basics that brings prosperity - hard work that’s rewards with good housing, safe streets and flag defended by well motivated troops. None of that is going to happen if things don’t change quickly in the polls.
But that’s not what we’re discussing this election, nor are we? If those things mattered, then housing would be top issue, the sorry state of law enforcement (especially white collar crime), foreign interference and recruitment in the Armed forces would be an issue. But here we are and there is an entire class of Central Canadian boomers who think Trump is more important than basic governance.
No, we shouldn't. In fact we have to deal with those things as part of dealing with Trump.
But, I'm read a lot of people dismissively saying "we have more important things to worry about than Trump". You're not going to win this election on this messaging.
When I talk to people about the Canadian supply management on dairy , the most common response is I get is “ i dont want to buy American cheese”,
I then have to explain that you wont have to, maybe some farmers will go out of business, maybe, but what we will see is a competitive market that will be good for Canadians. and if Canadian dairy is great , why dont we share it with as many countries as we can?
Let the farmers grow their production and make more money exporting instead of just overcharging us so they can afford to update their barns or whatever, its a flawed system that has no growth potential beyond the Canadian supply.
This is one of many issues, but why not share ? Someone else mentioned nuclear , why not market that to the world ?
As a note , i am not advocating the US dairy industry , it has its own flaws , but to let one industry ( and a small one at that ) stand in the way of trade deals, or a bigger picture is very short sighted , ( and really the supply management is keeping them from growing also )
One more example , i have family members who milk sheep , if they want to make more money , they simply milk more sheep, grow their herd, find more markets to sell their product. Thats where we need to head , to much fear is about,
The big problem I have with the "I don't want to buy American cheese" rationale is that stuff mass-market domestic cheddar from Armstrong or Kraft really isn't any better than comparable US mass-market offerings from Tillamook or Kraft. However, the lack of supply management in the US means that you can *also* more easily find higher end products like Point Reyes cheese at supermarkets everywhere, unlike Canadian producers who struggle to expand beyond a small local footprint.
This is an old article, however New Zealand did away with their system back in 1984 , took 6 years to adjust , and there are still some subsidies today.
The problem is that the US, (and other countries) subsidize their dairy industry (this comes in the form of loans, tax treatment, and export programs). This means the international market for dairy is a "dumping ground". If Canada's dairy is going to stop playing solitaire and go to the international poker tournament, we might have to front them the buy-in the way so many other countries do.
The US government spends billions annually on dairy subsidies. If we want to advocate for ditching the quota, we should probably copy the American programs (Dairy Margin Coverage, Dairy Revenue Protection, Dairy Price Support Program, Federal Milk Marketing Orders, Environmental Quality Incentive Program and so on).
Canada has to get past the branch plant mentality. This innovation debilitating attitude is also perverted by the deeply entrenched near monopoly status granted to the major players in our economy. Railways, airlines, telecommunications and banking are heavily regulated and are bonafide money makers but inhibit the outside influences needed to inspire innovation and worldly leadership.
Why doesn’t Canada have at least ONE world acclaimed, cutting edge hospital? Where is our Mayo Clinic? Does our affections for public, state run healthcare inhibit leadership in international medicine?
Why can Israel be an international leader in many areas, and produce the IP gems that turn into money printing machines and yet Canada sells off our IP or stands around to have it pirated by others?
There are many questions here and no answers. Sorry. We have an institutional bias (attitude) that is getting in the way of leadership. Carney can’t change that overnight, but he can show us the way if he actually believes in it.
Far be it for me of all people to seemingly defend this Country's health-care system however, we actually do have at least one world acclaimed, cutting edge hospital: the Shouldice Clinic. People literally do come from as far away as Europe to be treated there. I was a patient there and it was by far the best health care experience I have ever had.
But this just reinforces the larger issue with our health-care system. Shouldice is a privately run facility (although if you are an Ontario resident you are still covered by OHIP or whatever we call it now). It should come as absolutely NO surprise that (a) it would be a privately run facility that would garner this reputation or (b) that very few people know of its existence since "private health care" is such a boogeyman for almost all politicians and media in this country. If Shouldice's existence was widely known it would be a big problem for those who reflexively react in terror at the prospect of private health care and vigorously attack any infidel who dare suggests considering any privatization.
The hidden gem that is the Shouldice Clinic exposes the hypocrisy of our leadership class. We can assume that many of our political leaders know about the existence of Shouldice Clinic and could even align themselves or their loved ones to the Clinic for excellence of care and timely treatment. All the while railing against “two tiered, American style healthcare.”
For Canada to have a Mayo Clinic or a Sloan-Kettering, we would have to market for-profit healthcare to foreigners and invite them to come to Canada for high-priced treatment. The Left and the healthcare unions, particularly the nursing unions, baulk at small-scale efforts tried here and there because they “deny a bed” to a Canadian on a waiting list. Which is true, because there are only so many nurses, doctors, porters, lab techs, MRI machines and administrators to go around.
Mayo does a lot of unreimbursed charity work, financed by high charges to the wealthy patients, but it is not Mayo’s problem if they don’t have a bed for a specific poor person, because the bed has a paying patient in it. The poor person can go to the county hospital. But a Canadian hospital trying to do that would be —and is, I know from experience— severely criticized and told by the government to stop doing it. Governments tell hospitals what to do, as instruments of social policy, in a way they can’t in the States. Canadians like it that way.
So international excellence, defined as paying customers coming from abroad, is simply impossible in our free-for-all-Canadians system.
The irony is that for all the railing away about the evils of “for profit” healthcare in Canada, the healthcare unions are all for capturing as much of the money floating around in the budgets as they can. Nobody is working at a loss with the exception of volunteers who willingly donate their time. Hospital staff are their own little business enterprises, and if the workplace conditions aren’t evened out by proper pay and benefits then they can head for another opportunity.
Excellent points on Canadian leadership. In response to Carney’s comments on free exchange of goods perhaps he has forgotten the strict Canadian controls on its telecommunications and banking industries, in addition to Supply Management, eg. telecommunications companies have to be 80% Canadian owned. My pet beef has always been Canada’s 245% tariff on British cheese, which I love. I don’t want to hear any complaints about Trumps tariffs, he’s doing what he thinks is best for US long term interests, against the hypocrisy of the so called international order. Canada being the leader in hypocrisy.
If your standard for not listening to complaints about any politician's actions is "he’s doing what he thinks is best for his country"... well then I hope you never complain about ANY politician in ANY country ever.
They ALL think what they're doing is the best thing for their country. (Trump, Trudeau... Pol Pot... all of them.)
A better standard is "is what they're doing **actually** a good idea".
Agreed. I also was given cause to pause when Carney said that. Purposefully too - as the ending punch line on a long rhetorical paragraph. But the time is now and that’s why so many of us had our vote parked with the Conservatives. ( if only …….) we need to lead on a number of domestic issues - like a plan to grow the economy, not just “ have a conversation”. Like a fully developed long term military procurement plan, a plan to deliver our crude to tide water and process our own LNG tor export. But most importantly in trade, since a trading nation we are, we must choose half a dozen industries where we have a natural advantage and focus hard on like our lives depend on it to build out those areas where we have a global comparative advantage. Potash, critical minerals, AI, LNG, nuclear. If we’re going to thrive as a nation we have to find the will to lead in specific areas of strength as a middle power. We can learn from the Germans, the Japanese, the French the Italians, the Taiwanese, Koreans - we all know what their specialized markets are.
Well spoken and thought out....... Canada has for the most part been that country that leads in wanting to "live well and let live" and nothing wrong with that, but is also that guy that when invited to a dinner party brings cheap wine and then drinks the other wine... All countries could take a lesson about how to mind your own business, keep eyes open to need and help when asked.......
Taking a high level view, a nation that has a mass freak-out, curls itself up into a ball, elects a leader based on personality rather than policy, along with his supporting cast of nodding donkeys (read, Cabinet and Members of Parliament), memory-holes the last decade, meekly acquiesces to the shuttering of Parliament during a "national crisis", and proceeds to re-elect the clown show government that has so ably broken Canada over that decade, has no hope of any kind of global leadership role, in any field of endeavour....other than being objects of pity and derision.
Well, we're leading in our race to the bottom of the list for real capital GDP growth in the OECD so there's that. Carney's Net-Zero ideology should seal the deal.
Carney said “ leadership in building a coalition of like minded countries that share our values “ . I believe that is not outside our grasp at all.
Also must leadership be defined by the USA’s type of leadership ? A coalition of like minded countries would be served well to have many leaders like we do now .
Denmark is the leader in social justice , Finland in happiness , Taiwan in healthcare , South Korea and Canada in education .
Wouldn’t Canada take to scolding those countries because they are closed uni-racial societies that don’t allow immigration of ethnically diverse foreigners and have no desire AT ALL to become vibrant multi cultural post-nation states like Canada. Wouldn’t they find us tiresome and stop inviting us to their leadership conferences?
Sure, it feels good to get in cheap shots against the United States, but it is the country that everyone in the world wants to move to if they want to get out of their own countries, so they must be doing something right. The incarcerations mostly involve the underclass armed with illegal guns, not regular people.
One of the challenges of finding like minded countries that share our values is identifying what exactly are our values. We struggle with many global issues with moral questions because we have large, diverse, and politically influential diasporas and are not unified. There may be some hope for us on matters that are purely economic, such as trade. Off the top of my head, the last time I can remember us showing leadership on a moral question what Mulroney on South African apartheid, where he received considerable push back from Thatcher, and more modest push back from Reagan. While Chretien made a wise decision to keep us out of the Bush Jr. Iraq war, it would be hard to describe that as an example of showing international leadership
Any movement for Canada to lead a coalition of nations has to pass four tests:
1). What will be its impact on room for spending on free health care?
2). Will the “Third House” exercise it’s Constitutional veto out of fear there will be less money for Treaty claims and general “funding”?
3) What if the other countries aren’t as sympathetic to 2SLGBTQ++ rights as we are? On trans ideology we are rapidly becoming an international outlier here and will soon be a laughingstock.
4) Please oh please don’t tell us that by stepping into the vacuum left by the Americans we will have to spend more on collective defence?
As the boss said, when he told Dilbert to run his exciting new business proposal past the legal department, “Well, that oughta be the end of *that*!”
I think Canada cannot lead because to lead, you need to nurture ambition. When was the last time Canada espoused her people’s (our people’s) ambition? I haven’t seen that in a while, especially in places where it matters and where we have natural advantages (like medical, metallurgy, construction, nuclear and pharmacology research)
Case in point, in the 1850s Central Canada looked west and saw it as a resource to feed the central Canadian consumers. That attitude hasn’t changed. Unless that changes and Canada sees potential that needs to be nurtured in every province, we won’t lead.
For killing off ambition, we only need to look at the interprovincial acrimony over pipelines and oil and gas production.
On one side is “let’s give ‘er”, led by innovation and an ambitious workforce. On the other side are the idealists who have no skin in the game but control the electoral process to ensure that the oil and gas industry is shuttered. After all, a green energy utopia is within reach they say.
It’s not just about oil and gas. In BC the Province spent billions subsidizing Taiwanese EV factory (that’s now halted) and made local innovators like Edison Motors jump through hoops for basic grants. As if that wasn’t enough, they threw the regulatory book on them. It’s only Edison motors persistence that they are still alive and innovating.
We talk big game about climate and climate leadership but kill our own ambitions through cronyism.
What is a “basic grant” that Edison Motors had to jump through the hoops for? Are companies viable in B.C. only if they get government grants? Shouldn’t investors put up the money themselves if they think their innovation has legs?
BC runs CleanBC Innovation fund that funds up to 1 million per project in green energy projects. Except to be eligible for that project, you need to abide by BC Govts DEI regulations - i.e. a DEI consultant has to certify your project as DEI complaint in your own dime.
The program is good and necessary. It is essentially an early venture funds to help upstarts buy material and components. If you want innovation, then you need some amount of Govt funding especially to help offload capital expenditure in new manufacturing ventures. Investors come later when some of that Capex has been taken care of and company needs expansions. Investors in this country can’t write off early ventures which have 70-80% failure rate (but they get insane returns of 500-1000% with the successful venture)
Mr. Carney has previously revealed where he wishes to lead the world. A green revolution, as demonstrated through his UN-backed Net-Zero Banking Alliance. An energy corridor? Powered by the wind and the sun. Sri Lanka, take two.
Perhaps we should first define what being "Canadian" means, from a cultural perspective? Jacques Parizeau summarized things in an inflammatory interview with CBC Radio (English) in the late '80s. Our former PM took a page from his book with the post-nation state description.
So, what belief system do we all share? Once we know ourselves, perhaps we can lead.
Self-serving since it’s my industry, and it’s a bit niche — but Canada is genuinely leading in the “free world” on nuclear energy. We have the only SMR project in the world (other than Russia and China, to whom the west abandoned nuclear power supremacy decades ago, and who dominate the world industry). And we are now in early development of a huge new power plant in Ontario (Wesleyville) that could be one of the largest nuclear power plants in the world.
We could do a LOT more here. Our national nuclear power company, AECL, was struggling for decades before Harper finally sold it off (a rump organization remains in Ottawa to manage the IP) but much of the CANDU IP and personnel now work for AtkinsRéalis who are still marketing the CANDU.
Europe is rapidly pivoting away from their post-Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear bans toward embarking on massive nuclear new-build programmes. Germany isn’t there yet, but recent big government pivots happened in Belgium and Italy. And of course Poland has a huge programme to become a nuclear country.
All of this could be accelerated with Canadian leadership if we get serious about European trade links (and Europe and Canada fix Impact Assessment and permitting.)
To me it’s an obvious place where we could stake out a genuine world leadership position.
Ya Europe isn’t going to let Canadian reactor on their soil especially considering the presence of French reactor manufacturers on the continent. We missed the boat on Middle East and India - Europeans (French) and Americans are taking the lead there. Koreans are rapidly making inroads.
Most of political leadership needs to start looking beyond Europe like starting 5 years ago.
There are already multiple CANDU units in Europe, with some under refurbishment and now more beginning construction. So it’s wrong to say that Europe will never let a Canadian reactor on their soil.
(I agree we’ll never see a CANDU in France, though.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cernavod%C4%83_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Without getting too much into the weeds of the industry, there is also a lot that Canada can export other than tier-1 reactor technology. Our supply chain is active and growing because of our domestic programme. And there is an entire world of project and operational services that are very high-skill high-value exports. (The Trump admin only counting manufacturing as a “real” export notwithstanding!)
I also agree Asia can be a big opportunity too. The issue is that Russia and China are pretty unstoppable in much of the “unaligned” developing world (what we used to call the “third world” in its original Cold War political-alignment sense) and Korea is active elsewhere in the region. And Japan’s nuclear industry is slowly coming back to life, with Hitachi-GE and the ABWR, one of the most successful reactor models in history.
Lots of opportunity for Canadian leadership in this industry. It is an emerging massive opportunity. But I think Europe absolutely can be a big part of it, especially if we take Canada-Europe trade ties seriously and actually make hard tradeoffs (mainly dairy, as Mr. Gurney points out in the article here).
Russia is player but China becoming one is skeptical. There’s a lot of National Security concerns that come with China. It’ll be a massive misstep if we miss out on Asia.
Another industry where Canada has been a leader is hydrogen fuel cell technology and hydrogen production, with world-leading clusters based in BC, Ontario, and Quebec. However, most of the growth in those sectors has occurred by servicing markets in the rest of the world rather than Canada.
If Russia and China lead the world in nuclear reactors and the French don’t seem to be interested in exporting, shouldn’t we just buy reactors from China and Russia instead of trying to re-invent the wheel (a second time!) by creating, again, a home-grown industry that only Ontario is ever going to buy? (The SMR under construction at Darlington is an American Westinghouse design [Edit: sorry, my error: a GE-Hitachi design --Thx Geoff Olynyk] that uses minimally enriched uranium, not an unenriched CANDU, so that is a fundamental philosophical switch.)
While electricity from whatever source might well be a valuable export to the United States (and nowhere else), I don’t see Canadian nuclear reactors themselves to be a viable export industry. Where, what countries, are the market for expensive and potentially dangerous nuclear projects? Poor hot countries can make do with cheap solar because they can do without power at night when everyone’s asleep. Solar is really cheap if you don’t demand 24-hr power.
"potentially dangerous"...???
Mankind has held the answer to almost limitless and 100% "green" energy for almost a century now, and yet the only thing that holds us back are the fear mongers insisting it "must be" too dangerous to use. (Except no, it is not)
Canada should be consuming nuclear power everywhere hydro doesn't already exist and/or is not an option - ie: everywhere but Quebec and Manitoba.
Lol, nuclear has killed far fewer people than all other energy sources combined, even accounting for the very rare accidents.
It's mind-boggling that it's an argument that still holds to this day.
I did an exposé in grade 11 on nuclear power (around '99 or so) and even my puny high-school brain knew the reality of nuclear energy 25 years ago.
Namely that it was extremely safe and that we knew how to dispose of the waste safely for as long as there as been commercial nuclear power.
Plus CANDUs are ALREADY being exported to other countries and have for decades, so there is a definite precedent there.
I don't love a lot about Ontario, but there is a lot to like about it's energy production and fondness for nuclear.
That and the Canadian Shield.
Nuclear *is* safe, of course. Everyone knows that. Because technologically sophisticated societies have designed and built them to be safe. At great expense. They are potentially very dangerous if something goes wrong that the operating authority isn’t fully equipped to handle and the nation regulating them is in over its depth. Do you think Sudan could operate a nuke safely, even a CANDU which is inherently safer, if we just plonked one down in the desert and told them to go to it.
No country is going to buy nukes unless it has the expertise and the culture to build and operate them safely. They have to really want to and it doesn’t come cheap.
You can take this thinking too far. AECL focused on emerging markets back in the day and the CANDU units in eg Argentina have been just fine. Developing countries can become developed ones, particularly with more access to abundant energy.
Places like Sudan, obviously different. But nobody is seriously focusing on those markets other than Russia and China.
Yes, I thought Leslie's comment was arguing a point that no one made before.
A bit odd to say the least.
Why? Natural gas is cheaper measured as levelized cost of energy and doesn’t take 30 years to bring on line the way a nuclear plant does. The *only* reason to go nuclear today is because you believe Gross Zero (not net — there is no net) Emissions are an imperative for Canada to reach even if no other country does.
If you really believe Gross Zero is necessary, then just build windmills and live with unreliable electricity. Build them in China so the manufacturing emissions are booked there. International shipping emissions aren’t booked to any one country so they are “free” to us. And you can use electric trucks to drive the windmills from the docks to the installation site.
hey, I'm with you on the "LNG would be quicker" front - what I'm trying to call out here is that the eco-zealots seem to want to have this both ways.
What they're asking for is a magic solution which is completely green, but also reliable.
Presented with a solution which is EXACTLY that, they cry "no, not that way" and run away screaming about "potential" harms which have never really happened.
...also, there is no good reason a nuclear reactor should take more than a decade to build from proposal to power output. The ONLY reason for this is overt government interference.
The government regulators would say that the reason nuclear plants are safe is *because* the regulators oversee the design and construction so meticulously. And they entertain endless submissions from various activists seeking to show why the plant shouldn’t be built, including safety concerns. They *could* refuse to hear from these activists and shorten the approval process but then it would look like they were playing fast and loose with safety. Easy to say government interference is excessive and unnecessary. But very difficult to get the government to stop doing it. They are the government, after all.
Vogtle in Georgia took 30 years to get built.
Anyway, this is going down a rabbit hole over a niche issue that, all by itself, is not going to make Canada a world leader in anything, so I’ll join the groupthink and shut up now. Nuclear will take off, or it won’t, no matter what we say here.
My point is it doesn’t need to be a niche issue. Nuclear could be a substantial fraction of the world’s energy supply, and Canada could be a big part of that. It could also be a thought leader and actually help it take off globally.
What’s your alternative proposal for what Canada can and should lead on? Or are you just going to be a naysayer on everything?
Darlington SMR is a GE-Hitachi design, not Westinghouse.
I don’t think we should be buying Russian or Chinese reactor technology, and in any case it’s a geopolitical and security nonstarter for the time being (unless things go WAY wrong with the US and Canada somehow ends up in the Chinese sphere of influence even more than we already started to under Trudeau).
I’ve already indicated the countries that are embarking on nuclear new-build programmes where I think there’s a potential market for Canadian exports and a potential area where Canada can be a genuine thought leader (again, this is much broader than just CANDU technology). These markets have already realized that nuclear is not and has never been “dangerous” when compared to real-world alternatives.
> shouldn’t we just buy reactors from China and Russia
Making ourselves dependent on Russia & Chinese tech... absolutely not. Not under ANY circumstances.
Buying from Chinese and Russians, absolutely not. We will kill our local expertise and supply chain if we bought from either of them. It will a big Natsec disaster.
I think even dairy farmers are being pissed at their masters for being told to dump thousands of litres of milk because they surpassed their quotas.
I also know first hand of farmers who would love to be able to legally sell raw grass-fed milk from their regenerative farms, which are coincidentally way better for the environment, while being in the aggregate just as productive as industrial farms.
The dairy cartel needs to be burnt to the ground. Plain and simple.
Farmers will adapt. And we’ll all be better off for it.
The wheat farmers have prospered ever since the Canada Wheat Board was disbanded.
New Zealand disbanded their dairy supply mgmt system, and their farmers have prospered ever since.
It would be no different for Canada - the dairy cartel is bad, and should be discarded ASAP.
Right, I forgot about NZ's 1980's mass liberalization leading to the best lamb in the world.
Costco carries New Zealand butter, and it rapidly disappears from the cooler whenever they're able to get a shipment within the dairy quota. They also used to carry New Zealand cheddar at a price a bit lower than Canadian aged cheddar, and amazingly good. I don't think it's beyond the capability of Canadian producers to compete with the quality, but they don't because of the current supply management system.
Yes, I've had to deal with those fake shortages both at costco and local health food store where the grass fed stuff occasionally disappears for weeks/months only to suddenly reappear.
As things play out in the Canadian grain market, the inevitable is happening: mergers and acquisitions are reducing the numbers of grain merchants to place competitive bids on grains and oilseeds.
Bunge Inc. has a substantial holding in the G3 elevator and terminal operations and is now trying to acquire the Viterra assets.
This is bad news for farmers who will become serfs to a small group of international companies who will use their dominance to limit pricing opportunities.
Recipients of the UK state pension, many of whom moved to Canada to be closer to grandchildren, do not receive the indexation of that pension that is enjoyed by British expatriates who live in many other countries - including the USA. In fact, UK state pensions are frozen for pensioners living in most Commonwealth countries, including Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, and India, as well as other countries and territories. This is because while Canada and New Zealand have social security agreements with the UK, UK state pensions are still frozen for pensioners living there.
The most recent trade treaty discussion between Canada and the UK might have addressed this issue but the talks collapsed last year due to Canada’s refusal to open up on its protection of the dairy industry.
Drat!
Fair comment that we haven't. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't. I've long thought that Canada simply needs to be a more serious country. We've been afforded the luxury of not having to have been but maybe this is the start of that changing? I do hope so. I also think that for much of the world who - if they thought of Canada at all - thought we were "just like the US," this current spate of lunacy south of the border has disavowed them of that. So a nation stepping forward with (in general) established good will and sounding like an adult might well fill an important and growing gap. But, who knows. Maybe we fall back into middling mediocrity before anything like that ever happens. But it *could* happen. And likely *should.*
We’ll become a serious country when we tackle the basics that brings prosperity - hard work that’s rewards with good housing, safe streets and flag defended by well motivated troops. None of that is going to happen if things don’t change quickly in the polls.
The polls don’t matter. Only the election does. But I hear you, for sure.
The things you call out are certainly worthwhile objectives - regardless of who is in power.
But that’s not what we’re discussing this election, nor are we? If those things mattered, then housing would be top issue, the sorry state of law enforcement (especially white collar crime), foreign interference and recruitment in the Armed forces would be an issue. But here we are and there is an entire class of Central Canadian boomers who think Trump is more important than basic governance.
That's kind of on Trump. Expecting people to ignore economic warfare and threats to sovereignty is naive.
So? Does that mean you ignore what’s been going on for a decade now? It need not be solely focused on Trump.
This country is unserious, if that’s the prevailing attitude. It’s decline is going to be terminal.
No, we shouldn't. In fact we have to deal with those things as part of dealing with Trump.
But, I'm read a lot of people dismissively saying "we have more important things to worry about than Trump". You're not going to win this election on this messaging.
When I talk to people about the Canadian supply management on dairy , the most common response is I get is “ i dont want to buy American cheese”,
I then have to explain that you wont have to, maybe some farmers will go out of business, maybe, but what we will see is a competitive market that will be good for Canadians. and if Canadian dairy is great , why dont we share it with as many countries as we can?
Let the farmers grow their production and make more money exporting instead of just overcharging us so they can afford to update their barns or whatever, its a flawed system that has no growth potential beyond the Canadian supply.
This is one of many issues, but why not share ? Someone else mentioned nuclear , why not market that to the world ?
As a note , i am not advocating the US dairy industry , it has its own flaws , but to let one industry ( and a small one at that ) stand in the way of trade deals, or a bigger picture is very short sighted , ( and really the supply management is keeping them from growing also )
One more example , i have family members who milk sheep , if they want to make more money , they simply milk more sheep, grow their herd, find more markets to sell their product. Thats where we need to head , to much fear is about,
The big problem I have with the "I don't want to buy American cheese" rationale is that stuff mass-market domestic cheddar from Armstrong or Kraft really isn't any better than comparable US mass-market offerings from Tillamook or Kraft. However, the lack of supply management in the US means that you can *also* more easily find higher end products like Point Reyes cheese at supermarkets everywhere, unlike Canadian producers who struggle to expand beyond a small local footprint.
Thats a good point, and likely something most people dont think about. I would love to see more competition in this area.
https://amp.tvo.org/article/lessons-for-canada-from-new-zealands-dairy-industry
This is an old article, however New Zealand did away with their system back in 1984 , took 6 years to adjust , and there are still some subsidies today.
No easy answer to this eh ? Man and that doesn’t make the news, neither systems are good.
I am going to see what New Zealand did , I believe they had sometime similar to Canada , but got rid of it. Unless i am mistaken…
The problem is that the US, (and other countries) subsidize their dairy industry (this comes in the form of loans, tax treatment, and export programs). This means the international market for dairy is a "dumping ground". If Canada's dairy is going to stop playing solitaire and go to the international poker tournament, we might have to front them the buy-in the way so many other countries do.
The US government spends billions annually on dairy subsidies. If we want to advocate for ditching the quota, we should probably copy the American programs (Dairy Margin Coverage, Dairy Revenue Protection, Dairy Price Support Program, Federal Milk Marketing Orders, Environmental Quality Incentive Program and so on).
Canada has to get past the branch plant mentality. This innovation debilitating attitude is also perverted by the deeply entrenched near monopoly status granted to the major players in our economy. Railways, airlines, telecommunications and banking are heavily regulated and are bonafide money makers but inhibit the outside influences needed to inspire innovation and worldly leadership.
Why doesn’t Canada have at least ONE world acclaimed, cutting edge hospital? Where is our Mayo Clinic? Does our affections for public, state run healthcare inhibit leadership in international medicine?
Why can Israel be an international leader in many areas, and produce the IP gems that turn into money printing machines and yet Canada sells off our IP or stands around to have it pirated by others?
There are many questions here and no answers. Sorry. We have an institutional bias (attitude) that is getting in the way of leadership. Carney can’t change that overnight, but he can show us the way if he actually believes in it.
Far be it for me of all people to seemingly defend this Country's health-care system however, we actually do have at least one world acclaimed, cutting edge hospital: the Shouldice Clinic. People literally do come from as far away as Europe to be treated there. I was a patient there and it was by far the best health care experience I have ever had.
But this just reinforces the larger issue with our health-care system. Shouldice is a privately run facility (although if you are an Ontario resident you are still covered by OHIP or whatever we call it now). It should come as absolutely NO surprise that (a) it would be a privately run facility that would garner this reputation or (b) that very few people know of its existence since "private health care" is such a boogeyman for almost all politicians and media in this country. If Shouldice's existence was widely known it would be a big problem for those who reflexively react in terror at the prospect of private health care and vigorously attack any infidel who dare suggests considering any privatization.
Great reply. Thanks.
The hidden gem that is the Shouldice Clinic exposes the hypocrisy of our leadership class. We can assume that many of our political leaders know about the existence of Shouldice Clinic and could even align themselves or their loved ones to the Clinic for excellence of care and timely treatment. All the while railing against “two tiered, American style healthcare.”
There we go. The maple leaf should be replaced with a picture of someone's inguinal hernia.
Works for me.
I laughed out loud at this one. Thanks.
For Canada to have a Mayo Clinic or a Sloan-Kettering, we would have to market for-profit healthcare to foreigners and invite them to come to Canada for high-priced treatment. The Left and the healthcare unions, particularly the nursing unions, baulk at small-scale efforts tried here and there because they “deny a bed” to a Canadian on a waiting list. Which is true, because there are only so many nurses, doctors, porters, lab techs, MRI machines and administrators to go around.
Mayo does a lot of unreimbursed charity work, financed by high charges to the wealthy patients, but it is not Mayo’s problem if they don’t have a bed for a specific poor person, because the bed has a paying patient in it. The poor person can go to the county hospital. But a Canadian hospital trying to do that would be —and is, I know from experience— severely criticized and told by the government to stop doing it. Governments tell hospitals what to do, as instruments of social policy, in a way they can’t in the States. Canadians like it that way.
So international excellence, defined as paying customers coming from abroad, is simply impossible in our free-for-all-Canadians system.
The irony is that for all the railing away about the evils of “for profit” healthcare in Canada, the healthcare unions are all for capturing as much of the money floating around in the budgets as they can. Nobody is working at a loss with the exception of volunteers who willingly donate their time. Hospital staff are their own little business enterprises, and if the workplace conditions aren’t evened out by proper pay and benefits then they can head for another opportunity.
IF is the pivotal word.
Excellent points on Canadian leadership. In response to Carney’s comments on free exchange of goods perhaps he has forgotten the strict Canadian controls on its telecommunications and banking industries, in addition to Supply Management, eg. telecommunications companies have to be 80% Canadian owned. My pet beef has always been Canada’s 245% tariff on British cheese, which I love. I don’t want to hear any complaints about Trumps tariffs, he’s doing what he thinks is best for US long term interests, against the hypocrisy of the so called international order. Canada being the leader in hypocrisy.
If your standard for not listening to complaints about any politician's actions is "he’s doing what he thinks is best for his country"... well then I hope you never complain about ANY politician in ANY country ever.
They ALL think what they're doing is the best thing for their country. (Trump, Trudeau... Pol Pot... all of them.)
A better standard is "is what they're doing **actually** a good idea".
Interesting observation.
Agreed. I also was given cause to pause when Carney said that. Purposefully too - as the ending punch line on a long rhetorical paragraph. But the time is now and that’s why so many of us had our vote parked with the Conservatives. ( if only …….) we need to lead on a number of domestic issues - like a plan to grow the economy, not just “ have a conversation”. Like a fully developed long term military procurement plan, a plan to deliver our crude to tide water and process our own LNG tor export. But most importantly in trade, since a trading nation we are, we must choose half a dozen industries where we have a natural advantage and focus hard on like our lives depend on it to build out those areas where we have a global comparative advantage. Potash, critical minerals, AI, LNG, nuclear. If we’re going to thrive as a nation we have to find the will to lead in specific areas of strength as a middle power. We can learn from the Germans, the Japanese, the French the Italians, the Taiwanese, Koreans - we all know what their specialized markets are.
Well spoken and thought out....... Canada has for the most part been that country that leads in wanting to "live well and let live" and nothing wrong with that, but is also that guy that when invited to a dinner party brings cheap wine and then drinks the other wine... All countries could take a lesson about how to mind your own business, keep eyes open to need and help when asked.......
Taking a high level view, a nation that has a mass freak-out, curls itself up into a ball, elects a leader based on personality rather than policy, along with his supporting cast of nodding donkeys (read, Cabinet and Members of Parliament), memory-holes the last decade, meekly acquiesces to the shuttering of Parliament during a "national crisis", and proceeds to re-elect the clown show government that has so ably broken Canada over that decade, has no hope of any kind of global leadership role, in any field of endeavour....other than being objects of pity and derision.
Well, we're leading in our race to the bottom of the list for real capital GDP growth in the OECD so there's that. Carney's Net-Zero ideology should seal the deal.
Carney said “ leadership in building a coalition of like minded countries that share our values “ . I believe that is not outside our grasp at all.
Also must leadership be defined by the USA’s type of leadership ? A coalition of like minded countries would be served well to have many leaders like we do now .
Denmark is the leader in social justice , Finland in happiness , Taiwan in healthcare , South Korea and Canada in education .
USA in incarcerations.
Wouldn’t Canada take to scolding those countries because they are closed uni-racial societies that don’t allow immigration of ethnically diverse foreigners and have no desire AT ALL to become vibrant multi cultural post-nation states like Canada. Wouldn’t they find us tiresome and stop inviting us to their leadership conferences?
Sure, it feels good to get in cheap shots against the United States, but it is the country that everyone in the world wants to move to if they want to get out of their own countries, so they must be doing something right. The incarcerations mostly involve the underclass armed with illegal guns, not regular people.
One of the challenges of finding like minded countries that share our values is identifying what exactly are our values. We struggle with many global issues with moral questions because we have large, diverse, and politically influential diasporas and are not unified. There may be some hope for us on matters that are purely economic, such as trade. Off the top of my head, the last time I can remember us showing leadership on a moral question what Mulroney on South African apartheid, where he received considerable push back from Thatcher, and more modest push back from Reagan. While Chretien made a wise decision to keep us out of the Bush Jr. Iraq war, it would be hard to describe that as an example of showing international leadership
Perhaps Canada has never led, but times have changed. and you never know at what you fail at if you never try.
Any movement for Canada to lead a coalition of nations has to pass four tests:
1). What will be its impact on room for spending on free health care?
2). Will the “Third House” exercise it’s Constitutional veto out of fear there will be less money for Treaty claims and general “funding”?
3) What if the other countries aren’t as sympathetic to 2SLGBTQ++ rights as we are? On trans ideology we are rapidly becoming an international outlier here and will soon be a laughingstock.
4) Please oh please don’t tell us that by stepping into the vacuum left by the Americans we will have to spend more on collective defence?
As the boss said, when he told Dilbert to run his exciting new business proposal past the legal department, “Well, that oughta be the end of *that*!”
I think Canada cannot lead because to lead, you need to nurture ambition. When was the last time Canada espoused her people’s (our people’s) ambition? I haven’t seen that in a while, especially in places where it matters and where we have natural advantages (like medical, metallurgy, construction, nuclear and pharmacology research)
Case in point, in the 1850s Central Canada looked west and saw it as a resource to feed the central Canadian consumers. That attitude hasn’t changed. Unless that changes and Canada sees potential that needs to be nurtured in every province, we won’t lead.
For killing off ambition, we only need to look at the interprovincial acrimony over pipelines and oil and gas production.
On one side is “let’s give ‘er”, led by innovation and an ambitious workforce. On the other side are the idealists who have no skin in the game but control the electoral process to ensure that the oil and gas industry is shuttered. After all, a green energy utopia is within reach they say.
It’s not just about oil and gas. In BC the Province spent billions subsidizing Taiwanese EV factory (that’s now halted) and made local innovators like Edison Motors jump through hoops for basic grants. As if that wasn’t enough, they threw the regulatory book on them. It’s only Edison motors persistence that they are still alive and innovating.
We talk big game about climate and climate leadership but kill our own ambitions through cronyism.
What is a “basic grant” that Edison Motors had to jump through the hoops for? Are companies viable in B.C. only if they get government grants? Shouldn’t investors put up the money themselves if they think their innovation has legs?
BC runs CleanBC Innovation fund that funds up to 1 million per project in green energy projects. Except to be eligible for that project, you need to abide by BC Govts DEI regulations - i.e. a DEI consultant has to certify your project as DEI complaint in your own dime.
The program is good and necessary. It is essentially an early venture funds to help upstarts buy material and components. If you want innovation, then you need some amount of Govt funding especially to help offload capital expenditure in new manufacturing ventures. Investors come later when some of that Capex has been taken care of and company needs expansions. Investors in this country can’t write off early ventures which have 70-80% failure rate (but they get insane returns of 500-1000% with the successful venture)
Mr. Carney has previously revealed where he wishes to lead the world. A green revolution, as demonstrated through his UN-backed Net-Zero Banking Alliance. An energy corridor? Powered by the wind and the sun. Sri Lanka, take two.
Perhaps we should first define what being "Canadian" means, from a cultural perspective? Jacques Parizeau summarized things in an inflammatory interview with CBC Radio (English) in the late '80s. Our former PM took a page from his book with the post-nation state description.
So, what belief system do we all share? Once we know ourselves, perhaps we can lead.
Spot on. Perhaps in order to lead one needs true leadership. Our political system tends to punish the bold and forthright. Consensus anyone?