There's a reason Carney and Ford are both advocating bills that bypass regulations — they know the regulations are broken, and fixing that is very, very hard.
I'm stuck in a very uncomfortable position on the fence. I want Energy East. I want to open the Ring of Fire. I think coal mining on the east side of the Rockies is idiotic. I think an HST is a great idea. But I have no faith in business to be responsible or competent in any of it. The approval decision needs to be made much faster. But businesses can't be allowed to walk away scot-free and leave the taxpayer on the hook for the clean-up as we see with orphaned wells. My solution is that when resource projects start producing, 5% of the profit goes into escrow to pay for the cleanup and restoration at the end. Not a perfect solution, but could it get people on board to get things moving?
This is what we do in nuclear. Fully funded, audited, pension-like decommissioning and waste fund, guaranteed by legislation. It’s the only industry that does this.
For Alberta, scenery, downstream water poisoning in a province that is already on the verge of a fresh water crisis, coal is a commodity of declining value, but an ecological nightmare, the massive clean up costs that will be left for the taxpayer, as already mentioned, off the top of my head.
At some point, Montana is going to sue BC for what has drifted downstream. The damages will be in the billions, I expect. I don't think the few jobs it creates are worth the damage it will do. IMHO.
The coal in Sparwood BC is metallurgical coking coal, not steam coal, highly valuable in steel-making for which no substitute has been identified yet, although efforts with wood chips and hydrogen are being explored. The carbon in the coke (coal) not only provides the smelting heat, it's a reagent for reducing the iron ore to steel. The Elk Valley mines above Sparwood supply 85% of Canada's coking coal, most of which is exported. That sounds like a big deal to me. I suppose the jobs they create and the value to the economy are a matter of reasonable tradeoffs that reasonable people can disagree on, as you say, "in my opinion."
$6.4 billion for water improvement over 60 years doesn't seem like an insuperable burden on the value of the coal, as from this activist website. Yes other costs for land reclamation when the mines eventually play out. (The big mine is mostly out of sight high up on the other side of the ridge from the Crowsnest Highway.)
(Being a right winger, I try to cite leftist sources for credibility.)
Sparwood is on the west slope of the Rockies, not the east side. The Kootenay River does flow down into Montana before it turns back into BC but I don't see the connection with running out of water on the Alberta side of the watershed. Are you saying the mining takes water out of a subterranean aquifer inside the mountains? How much does it take compared with that extracted for the oil sands in Alberta? If the water wasn't used for processing bitumen (or mining coal in Sparwood) would the water be accessible for human/agricultural use elsewhere?
(I don't think it's very likely that Montana will successfully sue British Columbia -- in what Court? -- but that's just me. More likely various pressure groups, including Montana, will get BC to impose the regulatory remedy. Maybe it already has in the 15 months since the report linked above was published?)
I believe Sweden and several other countries are now making steel without using coke. I don't think Sparwood is going anywhere soon, but that doesn't mean building more coal mines on the east side of the Rockies is a good idea; especially with the projected revenues to the province not being massive( I read a bit about it while back, but can't recall all the details....take that with apound of salt).
I don't think it matters if the mine is out of sight. It should be restored, funds should be set aside during extraction, but the runoff from the tailings will likely be an issue long after the mine stops working.
My limited understanding says coal mining uses more water than fracking. Alberta's water issues relate to decreasing snowpacks, receding glaciers, traces of fracking chemicals in groundwater, and increased demand. Reservoirs are below or at normal levels now, when they should be above in anticipation of another drought-like summer when demand will increase. https://rivers.alberta.ca/forecasting/data/reports/Res_storage.pdf
The US is the most litigious society on earth. I don't see them having much difficulty proving that what is happening in their rivers is caused by Sparwood. I don't believe there is a remedy to stop selenium in the runoff that will last long after operations stop. Teck has already been fined several times.
Time will tell. My main point is that adding more mines the east slopes doesn't seem like a great idea with the potential water issues, growing population, know damage it will cause, and the inability of government to force business to operate in a way that doesn't do massive enviornmental damage...that taxpayers will be on the hook for.
Cross-border disputes involving bodies of water that contain the international border are handled by the International Joint Commission, a talking-shop. The example I’m most familiar with here in the East is the Great Lakes. Canada can’t sue Michigan or Ohio in an American Court for polluting Lake Erie because it’s American waters Detroit and Cleveland discharge into. And the Americans would not accept jurisdiction of a Canadian Court. Neither would we accept jurisdiction of an American Court over Sparwood. So the IJC tries to resolve these issues.
Lake Koocanusa is the reservoir pond behind the Libby Dam in Montana which floods back into BC, clearly an IJC issue.
Gov. Whitmer of Michigan has been trying to close (out of spite, apparently) Enbridge’s Line 5 under the Straits of Mackinac. It carries Alberta crude to Sarnia by a shortcut through the States. She can do this in a U.S. Court because the strait is entirely in U.S. waters. It is being heard now in a Federal U.S. Court that handles IJC issues. But she doesn’t want money from Canada, or Enbridge. She just wants to close it where it is entirely on Michigan’s side of the line.
Anyway, my point is just that BC or Canada don’t have to worry that an American Court would award a $1 trillion judgement against BC or Teck, and U.S Marshals would cross the border to padlock the mine....the way they could do if the mine was in the Powder River basin in Montana.
It will be interesting to see. Thanks for the information. Funny you mention the PRB; the number of mines here that have gone "bankrupt" to avoid paying for restoration is exaactly what I fear for Alberta.
What Mitch Heimpel wrote is true: process has become the point of government.
I would add that there is absolutely no accountability in the public service for slowing things down, or non-performance, or anything really. I was personally working in a department where a federal public servant was in a years-long feud with various managers; that employee was accommodated endlessly and still filed grievance after grievance, and one day even set off a "cherry bomb" in the office, damaging ceiling tiles and frightening colleagues...but that employee simply could not be fired.
Look at yesterday's ArriveCan AG report: how many permanent civil servants were terminated? How about endless delays in military procurement? It took me 7 months to renew my PAL last year and I live in the same home and married to the same woman as I was five years ago - nothing had changed, everything was done online, and still took seven months!
There simply is no accountability, no improvement in services to citizens in spite of a 40% increase in the number of civil servants during the last 10 years. It is truly depressing.
I probably wouldn't celebrate the criminal justice system's policy of dismissing cases if they're not brought to trial within a required period of time. That approach *externalizes* the failures of the system rather than forcing them to operate more efficiently. The fact is that the length of trials has been increasing steadily over time - is that *actually* improving the quality of the criminal process, producing more durable verdicts? Or, are they adding layers of process that slow down the system without any demonstrable impact? I can accept that more resources are needed for the justice system to keep up with population growth, but that's not the only problem.
When cases are dismissed because they took too long to get to trial, the consequences aren't really borne by the courts or the lawyers involved. There's a cost to the people who've had years of their life put on hold by a slow legal process that ultimately went nowhere. There's a cost to Canadians if people who should've been convicted are set free because the justice system failed to do its job. There should be a *personal* consequence for the courts if they take too long to handle a case, like people getting publicly reprimanded or fired. Corrective action plans should be put in place for courts and judges who consistently take longer to get stuff done or have a higher rate of dismissals due to trial delays.
Reading about Canada’s regulatory gridlock, I couldn’t help but think of imperial China—specifically the later dynasties, where bureaucracy had become such a labyrinth that it sometimes seemed to serve itself more than the people. There’s a certain resonance there. I’m not saying Canada is teetering on dynastic collapse, but when multiple levels of government can’t get a basic project approved without years of back-and-forth, it does start to feel like the system has drifted from its original purpose. Even on a personal level—trying to renew a license, retrieve a document—there’s a quiet frustration that creeps in. These aren’t theoretical inefficiencies. They affect people in concrete ways.
So when Ford and Carney start pulling levers to cut through some of that, I get the impulse. I’m not completely sold on every aspect of their approach. There's always a risk when we bypass existing structures that we miss something essential or end up with unintended consequences. But at the same time, doing nothing isn't exactly working either. If we’re serious about building things (energy infrastructure, housing, clean tech) we’re going to need a system that can make decisions in this decade, not just file them. Maybe this isn’t the perfect fix, but it does feel like a necessary nudge in the right direction.
After some decades in the Forces I worked in mgmt positions in the Provincial and Federal govts. I was told in both but especially in the Federal job that “process trumps progress.” In that, without the proper process, the progress will mean nothing and eventually be undone. With proper process, the progress will be “anchored.” This philosophy undermines progress actually because it becomes an end in itself as is obvious by the way its proponents laud its advantages.
Perhaps it is better that nothing gets built. Then no one can have his career sidelined by having approved something that failed.
In the private sector a CEO who backs a big project that fails may well get fired, not just stalled or lateralized. But if it pays off he can expect a large bonus and his stock holdings will increase in value. The civil servant sees none of that upside. Play it safe.
I understand. It may be better for the bureaucrat on a personal career level to not build anything or produce any measurable improvements, as you rightly point out. But this attitude is also a death knell to even the most basic efficiency needed of the public services and institutions that employs them for this reason... and for which the public IN RETURN pays the bureaucrat to staff. When what you say comes to pass, the contract has been broken.
This is why there is a growing public demand for a DOGE-like clean sweep of the fossilized bureaucracy and institutional dysfunctional of services it produces in every facet (including military and health 'care')... a demand to remind these employed folk of why their bureaucratic jobs are called 'public service' and not a 'subsidized lifestyle for those seeking an indexed and generous public pension.'
What seems to be lacking is a demonstrable and competitive metric over time used to justify continued employment in whatever public service examined, one that links personal career level services produced with continued building and continued improvements of those very services. Without such a metric, public bureaucracy is severed from institutional function and its members become 'unionized' mobs (perhaps a pretty good reason to explain why the NDP in particular has lost the worker's vote from the real unionized BLUE collar workers and exchanged it with entitlement concerns from these WHITE collar public servants). There is a growing public perception of these mobsters protecting their turf through institutional capture and dysfunction in return for never-ending publicly funded graft. This is intolerable because it's unsustainable.
Fine. Try to elect a government that will create a DOGE and take on the public sector unions. Mark Carney certainly isn't going to do that. The voters looked at Pierre Poilievre, who might have, and said, "Uhhh, ... no thanks."
All of these permitting inefficiencies are fixable, and I am actually reasonably confident _will_ be fixed with Carney and Ford (he of Building Transit Faster Act in Ontario, the best legislation this government has done).
I am far, far more pessimistic on Indigenous relations being incompatible with “get Canada building again”.
The early rumblings of a new Idle No More, of blockades, etc. if the Projects of National Significance are pushed through in 2 years. It all says to me that the land acknowledgements were not 2021 virtue signalling, for many people they are a statement of policy.
Unless I’m massively underestimating the median Canadian, the vast majority of people don’t seem to have internalized that true co-sovereignty is what’s being proposed, under threat of violence and blockades if veto power is not granted. That is, that Canada as we understood it (a singular polity with a Parliament and a Sovereign who makes decisions for the country) doesn’t actually exist, and if you believe the Treaty jurisprudence, never existed.
I worry that Ontario Bill 5 and the Ring of Fire is going to move this toward confrontation instead of level-headed talk. I think this is all going to need incredible political leadership from a federal level to get to a grand bargain and avoid violence while still getting the country building again fast enough to not be flattened by a hostile America.
I am so thankful it isn’t Pierre Poilievre at the helm. But this is a challenge for any PM, even a great one (and Mr. Carney is far from proven). We thought Trump would be the challenge, but Trump is easy compared to this (Trump is imploding domestically and may have a civil war in California).
Reconciliation is the *real* gigantic burning issue for Canada. And I haven’t heard anyone describe a clear path. Even Mark “Plan is Better than No Plan” Carney.
I agree that despite the author's wish not to dwell on it, and focus on bureaucratic paralysis instead, it is fear of indigenous ructions that *drives* most of the paralysis. (Can "paralysis" be "driven"? :-?)
New Zealand under Ardern's Labour Government was going the route of shared governance with Maori veto over any Act of Parliament that displeased them, also based on an inventive reading of Treaty, in their case Waitangi. Not sure what's up with the new government but Maori capture of education with indigenous ways of knowing displacing science continues apace. Everyone in what looks like power but isn't are afraid of the Maori, who seem to have a legal monopoly on violence. The country's motorcycle gangs have more members (+affiliates/wannabes) than the Army has soldiers.
Have you read Tuck and Yang's monograph, "Decolonization is not a Metaphor?" (2012)? Tuck at the time was a education professor at OISE -- where else! --, U of Toronto. It's available at several places on the Internet: Google will find pdfs.
I imagine the "grand bargain" you refer to would have to involve the creation of an Indigenous Upper House of Parliament whose decisions would operationalize the indigenous veto. Right now, indigenous consent can't be determined reliably. A single band can withhold consent, and other bands that originally gave consent can withdraw theirs in solidarity with the holdouts, or a putsch among the "hereditary" (not) chiefs can over-ride previous consent, or a distant band not involved in the project can carry out illegal activities in support without fear of punishment. (Why not? Because Canadians aren't sure they *don't* endorse an indigenous veto, it being the decent thing to do under "reconciliation".) So before anyone wants to invest money in a project in Canada, the investor will have to have some reassurance that indigenous consent is binding into the future. The only way to do this would be to have an Indigenous House legislate its consent (or veto) as good Canadian law that could not be overturned by indigenous or environmentalist radicals who thought the project should have been vetoed, or by indigenous or other Canadians who thought it should have been approved. The decision of the Indigenous House would be final, beyond review by the Supreme Court, otherwise it's not an indigenous veto. As a rebuke to "colonialism" the indigenous people, not Canada, would decide how the Indigenous House members were selected. For us to insist on British-style elections would be so colonial! If they just wanted to install all the Grand Chiefs in the House, that would be their decision.
Would indigenous leaders be willing to co-govern? Some of them want the whole shooting match. The "Indigenous House" would be the only House of Parliament, making all decisions, not just legalizing the indigenous veto. Once you start down this road of negotiating a grand bargain, you don't know what you're going to end up with.
A lot of words spent on that scenario of Canada ceasing to exist. I’m not sure it’s any more useful as a planning scenario than the ones about Trump rolling tanks across the 49th parallel. Useful to scare people, or wake them up, I guess, but pretty unlikely to happen.
But to bring it back to reality: should some sort of representation in Parliament, like the failed Indigenous Voice proposal in Australia, be on the table?
I said I’m glad Mr. Poilievre isn’t at the helm here because I think a CPC majority would withdraw UNDRIP and try to take a minimalist view of Duty to Consult, setting themselves up for a legal showdown at the Supreme Court and an actual physical showdown at the access roads to some of the Projects of National Significance.
You’re trying to make it partisan. I wasn’t, so I decline the invitation. I’m sure the Government will make the best deal it can with the cards it has in its hand.
Edit: I will say that even if there was an Indigenous Voice in Parliament, this wouldn’t stop an individual squad of land defenders from throwing a barricade across an access road (or the 401 Highway) if they thought the “Apples” in Parliament hadn’t given their own band a big enough cut of the rents. If you’re going to get durable consent that an investor can take to the bank, it has to be consent that’s binding on everyone. But that’s not how the land-defender warrior culture works. If my longhouse and my chief doesn’t agree, we do our own thing....if we have the power to prevail.
On the Ring of Fire, consultations with local First Nations have been going on for many years, over 10, with activity increasing under Ford. The issue becomes complex when the EA process starts and various environmental and umbrella organizations become involved and get funding to participate in the process (at least in Ontario).
The whole regulatory nightmare IMHO can be laid at the feet of the late Pierre Trudeau. In addition to his other initiatives Trudeau pioneered the use of umbrella legislation in parliament with specific details to be fleshed out by regulations developed and issued by ministers (really bureaucrats) via OICs. To cite but one example consider the 1500 plus firearm bans issued over the last few years after convenient “massacres” occurred. Pre Trudeau each individual prohibition would have had to be approved by Parliament. This would have contained the regulatory madness quite effectively.
The only effective cure I can see is to hire Elon Musk (he is nominally Canadian after all)and his minions to carry out a wholesale DOGE program at the provincial and federal levels. Then after a few months see if there are any babies worth extracting from the bath water. Let’s see if Canada’s current leaders have the cojones (or the sticks, to borrow from the movie GI Jane) to walk their current talk.
The vast majority of First Nations are pro development, they are hungry for it. But they get a bad rap because of the few that dont. You can get agreements with dozens of first nations a long your resource development route. It only takes one to make it all up in the air. This is a big problem; the numbers of individual nations with their own powers. Not only the band councils, many also have these hereditary chief structures that lay claim to vast amounts of "traditional territory" without any limit on how far they can claim one of their ancestors went on a fishing trip.
They aren't even hereditary. It is more a clique of cronies that have sub-cliques within, and apprentice cronies to provide new blood. Sort of like a small town's Chamber of Commerce. You never know who's in and who's out until you discover yourself not getting invited to meetings anymore. Then you know you're out. It's a big deal because as you say these "hereditary" chiefs answer only to themselves about vast tracts of land that, in BC, overlap with claims of other bands
If they were hereditary like British monarchs at least outsiders like investors could plan. A guy (or gal) gets crowned and will be on the throne for the rest of his life. You also know who his successor will be as soon as a child is born to the royal couple, and this succession is rigidly determined by Parliament (the Law of Succession) in order that the nation can have confidence that the Crown is who it says it is. The person in line for the throne (or the person currently on it) may not be the sharpest needle in the Hallowe'en candy but at least it doesn't change all of a sudden one day. Regicide is very bad and illegal.
With the Wetsuwetn there was a group of "hereditary" chiefs in power who were keen to support Coastal Gas Link. Then one night a bunch of cronies on the outs had a feast with some of their cronies in a minority position on the ins and when they all woke up the next morning they had a whole new cabal of chiefs installed. The pipeline supporters were locked out. And the first thing they did was withdraw their support for CGL. Up went the blockades in BC (and in Ontario and Quebec because why not?) and the rest is history. You can't run an economy this way.
The author and most all commenters rightly state that process has trumped everything including results. This is very similar to what Scott Alexander (Slate Star Codex) once called “cost disease” in reference to all things governmental, institutes of higher education and large companies. He struggled and could find no apparent cause, saying that it seemed to be some kind of inevitable consequence of societal complexity. This is where Canada is in 2025, permanently mired in paralysis-by-analysis. Carney and the premiers may recognize the dire situation the nation is in but will ultimately fail when confronted by the two most immovable forces since Newton coined the idea of “inertia”: the civil service and indigenous intransigence. The truth is that Canada is finished; within 10-15 years it will come apart. But then so will other western, “first world” nations. Decadence, once started, is completely unstoppable.
Excellent article. Apparently we can let criminals that hurt people physically off the hook, in the interests of justice for everyone other than their victims. Let's put timelines in every other sphere of business and personal life.
But think further. Our culture's habit of moving past dysfunction into new ways (why fix anything) in this specific case leaves society with continuing large costs. The current malaise was of course, arguably always present, but then isn't everything.
Our level of system dysfunction sharply increased during the 1970's. The federal government, politically observing some groups having more labour market difficulties than others, simply hired more government administrators to fix it. (pere) Civil services everywhere honed skills in empire building while not doing anything more for the public. In the last few years the federal government did the same thing, for other political reasons (fils).
Yes, it's urgent to fix the system dysfunction now. Also there's huge costs to the status quo everywhere, including lost investment. Either move those jobs where they are needed, like health aides in seniors care, or reduce taxation due to lowered government costs. And be transparent. But central Canada voted in Liberals, they started this level of dysfunction and they will never reduce costs or pay down debt. Sad.
The self-licking ice cream cone seems alive, well and continuing to grow at both the federal and provincial government levels.
Much of this can be explained by the continually increasing unlikelihood for any management (DM, ADM, DG, ED levels) positions or their policy analysts to have any practical experience or understanding in their program areas and no experience with decision making and responsibility in their work history. Most would have difficulty organizing a bake sale, and likely never have!
This expectation that a "manager is a manager is a manager" and does not need any program area knowledge leads to more and more analysis, less and less decision making, no speed, no willingness to innovate and every reason to stall or deflect so that no one is accountable because it's everyone's problem.
The further difficulties are that the management/policy area folks are unwilling to trust and consult with those under them, who have the practical "hands on" technical knowledge and probable solutions, due to ego and ignorance.
The lack of leadership through action and example above leads to a lack of motivation, diminished morale and no accountability in the "working ranks" as well. If the "head shed" isn't listening, and seemingly doesn't care, why should they?
There are solutions but they would create huge pushback in the executive ranks, most of whom don't see the public as their clients or customers, but rather are focussed on keeping the elected and other senior officials happy to protect their career's trajectory.
The main problem is the permanent infestation of the Canadian political system by the Laurentian Sleazoid Corruptocrats. It is these political miscreants who continuously invent processes within processes, and these processes then incestuously breed, creating more processes. Defund any and all interest groups, NGOs, "cultural" societies, "charities". Shove the Laurentian Sleazoid Corruptocrats into the smallest and darkest stall in the pigbarn. Permanently vote out the "Liberals". Only then you may have a basis for deciding WHICH of the processes are an actual problem.
I think we need a Royal Commission to study the processes and see if they can be improved. I suspect that we will need to hire another 100,000 public servants to speed up the work. Soon we will have a 1:1 ratio of public sector workers to private.
I would add that we are on the cusp of the “out of the office until…) season. The dreaded time of summer holidays, when a government official that you really need to speak with about a permit, inspection, fee schedules or performance reminders is POOF gone for _____________ days. (Insert your own worst nightmare case scenario from a “lived experience”.
By definition, “regulations” are the creation of cabinet and statutes are the creation of the legislature. If the problem with the process lies in “regulation”, can’t cabinet fix the problems, or is this a statutory issue?
Also, a lot of growth in processes and the civil service is usually because a civil servant cut corners either for good reasons to get something done, or corrupt reasons to benefit themselves or someone they want to benefit. When someone cuts corners, processes and staff are added to prevent future corner cutting.
I'm stuck in a very uncomfortable position on the fence. I want Energy East. I want to open the Ring of Fire. I think coal mining on the east side of the Rockies is idiotic. I think an HST is a great idea. But I have no faith in business to be responsible or competent in any of it. The approval decision needs to be made much faster. But businesses can't be allowed to walk away scot-free and leave the taxpayer on the hook for the clean-up as we see with orphaned wells. My solution is that when resource projects start producing, 5% of the profit goes into escrow to pay for the cleanup and restoration at the end. Not a perfect solution, but could it get people on board to get things moving?
This is what we do in nuclear. Fully funded, audited, pension-like decommissioning and waste fund, guaranteed by legislation. It’s the only industry that does this.
Actually, the Canadian mining industry is also required to have upfront reclamation bonds in place before mining occurs.
"I think coal mining on the east side of the Rockies is idiotic"
Can I ask why? Just curious
For Alberta, scenery, downstream water poisoning in a province that is already on the verge of a fresh water crisis, coal is a commodity of declining value, but an ecological nightmare, the massive clean up costs that will be left for the taxpayer, as already mentioned, off the top of my head.
At some point, Montana is going to sue BC for what has drifted downstream. The damages will be in the billions, I expect. I don't think the few jobs it creates are worth the damage it will do. IMHO.
Thanks for answering. Its refreshing to see a coherent opinion rather than rabid environmentalist point of view.
I was wondering the same thing.
The coal in Sparwood BC is metallurgical coking coal, not steam coal, highly valuable in steel-making for which no substitute has been identified yet, although efforts with wood chips and hydrogen are being explored. The carbon in the coke (coal) not only provides the smelting heat, it's a reagent for reducing the iron ore to steel. The Elk Valley mines above Sparwood supply 85% of Canada's coking coal, most of which is exported. That sounds like a big deal to me. I suppose the jobs they create and the value to the economy are a matter of reasonable tradeoffs that reasonable people can disagree on, as you say, "in my opinion."
$6.4 billion for water improvement over 60 years doesn't seem like an insuperable burden on the value of the coal, as from this activist website. Yes other costs for land reclamation when the mines eventually play out. (The big mine is mostly out of sight high up on the other side of the ridge from the Crowsnest Highway.)
https://wildsight.ca/2024/03/19/the-elk-valleys-6-4-billion-pollution-problem/
(Being a right winger, I try to cite leftist sources for credibility.)
Sparwood is on the west slope of the Rockies, not the east side. The Kootenay River does flow down into Montana before it turns back into BC but I don't see the connection with running out of water on the Alberta side of the watershed. Are you saying the mining takes water out of a subterranean aquifer inside the mountains? How much does it take compared with that extracted for the oil sands in Alberta? If the water wasn't used for processing bitumen (or mining coal in Sparwood) would the water be accessible for human/agricultural use elsewhere?
(I don't think it's very likely that Montana will successfully sue British Columbia -- in what Court? -- but that's just me. More likely various pressure groups, including Montana, will get BC to impose the regulatory remedy. Maybe it already has in the 15 months since the report linked above was published?)
couldn't said it better. Thanks
I believe Sweden and several other countries are now making steel without using coke. I don't think Sparwood is going anywhere soon, but that doesn't mean building more coal mines on the east side of the Rockies is a good idea; especially with the projected revenues to the province not being massive( I read a bit about it while back, but can't recall all the details....take that with apound of salt).
I don't think it matters if the mine is out of sight. It should be restored, funds should be set aside during extraction, but the runoff from the tailings will likely be an issue long after the mine stops working.
My limited understanding says coal mining uses more water than fracking. Alberta's water issues relate to decreasing snowpacks, receding glaciers, traces of fracking chemicals in groundwater, and increased demand. Reservoirs are below or at normal levels now, when they should be above in anticipation of another drought-like summer when demand will increase. https://rivers.alberta.ca/forecasting/data/reports/Res_storage.pdf
The US is the most litigious society on earth. I don't see them having much difficulty proving that what is happening in their rivers is caused by Sparwood. I don't believe there is a remedy to stop selenium in the runoff that will last long after operations stop. Teck has already been fined several times.
Time will tell. My main point is that adding more mines the east slopes doesn't seem like a great idea with the potential water issues, growing population, know damage it will cause, and the inability of government to force business to operate in a way that doesn't do massive enviornmental damage...that taxpayers will be on the hook for.
Cross-border disputes involving bodies of water that contain the international border are handled by the International Joint Commission, a talking-shop. The example I’m most familiar with here in the East is the Great Lakes. Canada can’t sue Michigan or Ohio in an American Court for polluting Lake Erie because it’s American waters Detroit and Cleveland discharge into. And the Americans would not accept jurisdiction of a Canadian Court. Neither would we accept jurisdiction of an American Court over Sparwood. So the IJC tries to resolve these issues.
Lake Koocanusa is the reservoir pond behind the Libby Dam in Montana which floods back into BC, clearly an IJC issue.
Gov. Whitmer of Michigan has been trying to close (out of spite, apparently) Enbridge’s Line 5 under the Straits of Mackinac. It carries Alberta crude to Sarnia by a shortcut through the States. She can do this in a U.S. Court because the strait is entirely in U.S. waters. It is being heard now in a Federal U.S. Court that handles IJC issues. But she doesn’t want money from Canada, or Enbridge. She just wants to close it where it is entirely on Michigan’s side of the line.
Anyway, my point is just that BC or Canada don’t have to worry that an American Court would award a $1 trillion judgement against BC or Teck, and U.S Marshals would cross the border to padlock the mine....the way they could do if the mine was in the Powder River basin in Montana.
It will be interesting to see. Thanks for the information. Funny you mention the PRB; the number of mines here that have gone "bankrupt" to avoid paying for restoration is exaactly what I fear for Alberta.
What Mitch Heimpel wrote is true: process has become the point of government.
I would add that there is absolutely no accountability in the public service for slowing things down, or non-performance, or anything really. I was personally working in a department where a federal public servant was in a years-long feud with various managers; that employee was accommodated endlessly and still filed grievance after grievance, and one day even set off a "cherry bomb" in the office, damaging ceiling tiles and frightening colleagues...but that employee simply could not be fired.
Look at yesterday's ArriveCan AG report: how many permanent civil servants were terminated? How about endless delays in military procurement? It took me 7 months to renew my PAL last year and I live in the same home and married to the same woman as I was five years ago - nothing had changed, everything was done online, and still took seven months!
There simply is no accountability, no improvement in services to citizens in spite of a 40% increase in the number of civil servants during the last 10 years. It is truly depressing.
I probably wouldn't celebrate the criminal justice system's policy of dismissing cases if they're not brought to trial within a required period of time. That approach *externalizes* the failures of the system rather than forcing them to operate more efficiently. The fact is that the length of trials has been increasing steadily over time - is that *actually* improving the quality of the criminal process, producing more durable verdicts? Or, are they adding layers of process that slow down the system without any demonstrable impact? I can accept that more resources are needed for the justice system to keep up with population growth, but that's not the only problem.
When cases are dismissed because they took too long to get to trial, the consequences aren't really borne by the courts or the lawyers involved. There's a cost to the people who've had years of their life put on hold by a slow legal process that ultimately went nowhere. There's a cost to Canadians if people who should've been convicted are set free because the justice system failed to do its job. There should be a *personal* consequence for the courts if they take too long to handle a case, like people getting publicly reprimanded or fired. Corrective action plans should be put in place for courts and judges who consistently take longer to get stuff done or have a higher rate of dismissals due to trial delays.
Reading about Canada’s regulatory gridlock, I couldn’t help but think of imperial China—specifically the later dynasties, where bureaucracy had become such a labyrinth that it sometimes seemed to serve itself more than the people. There’s a certain resonance there. I’m not saying Canada is teetering on dynastic collapse, but when multiple levels of government can’t get a basic project approved without years of back-and-forth, it does start to feel like the system has drifted from its original purpose. Even on a personal level—trying to renew a license, retrieve a document—there’s a quiet frustration that creeps in. These aren’t theoretical inefficiencies. They affect people in concrete ways.
So when Ford and Carney start pulling levers to cut through some of that, I get the impulse. I’m not completely sold on every aspect of their approach. There's always a risk when we bypass existing structures that we miss something essential or end up with unintended consequences. But at the same time, doing nothing isn't exactly working either. If we’re serious about building things (energy infrastructure, housing, clean tech) we’re going to need a system that can make decisions in this decade, not just file them. Maybe this isn’t the perfect fix, but it does feel like a necessary nudge in the right direction.
After some decades in the Forces I worked in mgmt positions in the Provincial and Federal govts. I was told in both but especially in the Federal job that “process trumps progress.” In that, without the proper process, the progress will mean nothing and eventually be undone. With proper process, the progress will be “anchored.” This philosophy undermines progress actually because it becomes an end in itself as is obvious by the way its proponents laud its advantages.
Theory: progress 'anchored' through process.
Reality: process has become the anchor against any progress.
Perhaps it is better that nothing gets built. Then no one can have his career sidelined by having approved something that failed.
In the private sector a CEO who backs a big project that fails may well get fired, not just stalled or lateralized. But if it pays off he can expect a large bonus and his stock holdings will increase in value. The civil servant sees none of that upside. Play it safe.
I understand. It may be better for the bureaucrat on a personal career level to not build anything or produce any measurable improvements, as you rightly point out. But this attitude is also a death knell to even the most basic efficiency needed of the public services and institutions that employs them for this reason... and for which the public IN RETURN pays the bureaucrat to staff. When what you say comes to pass, the contract has been broken.
This is why there is a growing public demand for a DOGE-like clean sweep of the fossilized bureaucracy and institutional dysfunctional of services it produces in every facet (including military and health 'care')... a demand to remind these employed folk of why their bureaucratic jobs are called 'public service' and not a 'subsidized lifestyle for those seeking an indexed and generous public pension.'
What seems to be lacking is a demonstrable and competitive metric over time used to justify continued employment in whatever public service examined, one that links personal career level services produced with continued building and continued improvements of those very services. Without such a metric, public bureaucracy is severed from institutional function and its members become 'unionized' mobs (perhaps a pretty good reason to explain why the NDP in particular has lost the worker's vote from the real unionized BLUE collar workers and exchanged it with entitlement concerns from these WHITE collar public servants). There is a growing public perception of these mobsters protecting their turf through institutional capture and dysfunction in return for never-ending publicly funded graft. This is intolerable because it's unsustainable.
Fine. Try to elect a government that will create a DOGE and take on the public sector unions. Mark Carney certainly isn't going to do that. The voters looked at Pierre Poilievre, who might have, and said, "Uhhh, ... no thanks."
All of these permitting inefficiencies are fixable, and I am actually reasonably confident _will_ be fixed with Carney and Ford (he of Building Transit Faster Act in Ontario, the best legislation this government has done).
I am far, far more pessimistic on Indigenous relations being incompatible with “get Canada building again”.
The early rumblings of a new Idle No More, of blockades, etc. if the Projects of National Significance are pushed through in 2 years. It all says to me that the land acknowledgements were not 2021 virtue signalling, for many people they are a statement of policy.
Unless I’m massively underestimating the median Canadian, the vast majority of people don’t seem to have internalized that true co-sovereignty is what’s being proposed, under threat of violence and blockades if veto power is not granted. That is, that Canada as we understood it (a singular polity with a Parliament and a Sovereign who makes decisions for the country) doesn’t actually exist, and if you believe the Treaty jurisprudence, never existed.
I worry that Ontario Bill 5 and the Ring of Fire is going to move this toward confrontation instead of level-headed talk. I think this is all going to need incredible political leadership from a federal level to get to a grand bargain and avoid violence while still getting the country building again fast enough to not be flattened by a hostile America.
I am so thankful it isn’t Pierre Poilievre at the helm. But this is a challenge for any PM, even a great one (and Mr. Carney is far from proven). We thought Trump would be the challenge, but Trump is easy compared to this (Trump is imploding domestically and may have a civil war in California).
Reconciliation is the *real* gigantic burning issue for Canada. And I haven’t heard anyone describe a clear path. Even Mark “Plan is Better than No Plan” Carney.
I worry that this is gonna get bad this year.
I agree that despite the author's wish not to dwell on it, and focus on bureaucratic paralysis instead, it is fear of indigenous ructions that *drives* most of the paralysis. (Can "paralysis" be "driven"? :-?)
New Zealand under Ardern's Labour Government was going the route of shared governance with Maori veto over any Act of Parliament that displeased them, also based on an inventive reading of Treaty, in their case Waitangi. Not sure what's up with the new government but Maori capture of education with indigenous ways of knowing displacing science continues apace. Everyone in what looks like power but isn't are afraid of the Maori, who seem to have a legal monopoly on violence. The country's motorcycle gangs have more members (+affiliates/wannabes) than the Army has soldiers.
Have you read Tuck and Yang's monograph, "Decolonization is not a Metaphor?" (2012)? Tuck at the time was a education professor at OISE -- where else! --, U of Toronto. It's available at several places on the Internet: Google will find pdfs.
I imagine the "grand bargain" you refer to would have to involve the creation of an Indigenous Upper House of Parliament whose decisions would operationalize the indigenous veto. Right now, indigenous consent can't be determined reliably. A single band can withhold consent, and other bands that originally gave consent can withdraw theirs in solidarity with the holdouts, or a putsch among the "hereditary" (not) chiefs can over-ride previous consent, or a distant band not involved in the project can carry out illegal activities in support without fear of punishment. (Why not? Because Canadians aren't sure they *don't* endorse an indigenous veto, it being the decent thing to do under "reconciliation".) So before anyone wants to invest money in a project in Canada, the investor will have to have some reassurance that indigenous consent is binding into the future. The only way to do this would be to have an Indigenous House legislate its consent (or veto) as good Canadian law that could not be overturned by indigenous or environmentalist radicals who thought the project should have been vetoed, or by indigenous or other Canadians who thought it should have been approved. The decision of the Indigenous House would be final, beyond review by the Supreme Court, otherwise it's not an indigenous veto. As a rebuke to "colonialism" the indigenous people, not Canada, would decide how the Indigenous House members were selected. For us to insist on British-style elections would be so colonial! If they just wanted to install all the Grand Chiefs in the House, that would be their decision.
Would indigenous leaders be willing to co-govern? Some of them want the whole shooting match. The "Indigenous House" would be the only House of Parliament, making all decisions, not just legalizing the indigenous veto. Once you start down this road of negotiating a grand bargain, you don't know what you're going to end up with.
A lot of words spent on that scenario of Canada ceasing to exist. I’m not sure it’s any more useful as a planning scenario than the ones about Trump rolling tanks across the 49th parallel. Useful to scare people, or wake them up, I guess, but pretty unlikely to happen.
But to bring it back to reality: should some sort of representation in Parliament, like the failed Indigenous Voice proposal in Australia, be on the table?
I said I’m glad Mr. Poilievre isn’t at the helm here because I think a CPC majority would withdraw UNDRIP and try to take a minimalist view of Duty to Consult, setting themselves up for a legal showdown at the Supreme Court and an actual physical showdown at the access roads to some of the Projects of National Significance.
What’s your preferred policy?
You’re trying to make it partisan. I wasn’t, so I decline the invitation. I’m sure the Government will make the best deal it can with the cards it has in its hand.
Edit: I will say that even if there was an Indigenous Voice in Parliament, this wouldn’t stop an individual squad of land defenders from throwing a barricade across an access road (or the 401 Highway) if they thought the “Apples” in Parliament hadn’t given their own band a big enough cut of the rents. If you’re going to get durable consent that an investor can take to the bank, it has to be consent that’s binding on everyone. But that’s not how the land-defender warrior culture works. If my longhouse and my chief doesn’t agree, we do our own thing....if we have the power to prevail.
On the Ring of Fire, consultations with local First Nations have been going on for many years, over 10, with activity increasing under Ford. The issue becomes complex when the EA process starts and various environmental and umbrella organizations become involved and get funding to participate in the process (at least in Ontario).
The whole regulatory nightmare IMHO can be laid at the feet of the late Pierre Trudeau. In addition to his other initiatives Trudeau pioneered the use of umbrella legislation in parliament with specific details to be fleshed out by regulations developed and issued by ministers (really bureaucrats) via OICs. To cite but one example consider the 1500 plus firearm bans issued over the last few years after convenient “massacres” occurred. Pre Trudeau each individual prohibition would have had to be approved by Parliament. This would have contained the regulatory madness quite effectively.
The only effective cure I can see is to hire Elon Musk (he is nominally Canadian after all)and his minions to carry out a wholesale DOGE program at the provincial and federal levels. Then after a few months see if there are any babies worth extracting from the bath water. Let’s see if Canada’s current leaders have the cojones (or the sticks, to borrow from the movie GI Jane) to walk their current talk.
The vast majority of First Nations are pro development, they are hungry for it. But they get a bad rap because of the few that dont. You can get agreements with dozens of first nations a long your resource development route. It only takes one to make it all up in the air. This is a big problem; the numbers of individual nations with their own powers. Not only the band councils, many also have these hereditary chief structures that lay claim to vast amounts of "traditional territory" without any limit on how far they can claim one of their ancestors went on a fishing trip.
They aren't even hereditary. It is more a clique of cronies that have sub-cliques within, and apprentice cronies to provide new blood. Sort of like a small town's Chamber of Commerce. You never know who's in and who's out until you discover yourself not getting invited to meetings anymore. Then you know you're out. It's a big deal because as you say these "hereditary" chiefs answer only to themselves about vast tracts of land that, in BC, overlap with claims of other bands
If they were hereditary like British monarchs at least outsiders like investors could plan. A guy (or gal) gets crowned and will be on the throne for the rest of his life. You also know who his successor will be as soon as a child is born to the royal couple, and this succession is rigidly determined by Parliament (the Law of Succession) in order that the nation can have confidence that the Crown is who it says it is. The person in line for the throne (or the person currently on it) may not be the sharpest needle in the Hallowe'en candy but at least it doesn't change all of a sudden one day. Regicide is very bad and illegal.
With the Wetsuwetn there was a group of "hereditary" chiefs in power who were keen to support Coastal Gas Link. Then one night a bunch of cronies on the outs had a feast with some of their cronies in a minority position on the ins and when they all woke up the next morning they had a whole new cabal of chiefs installed. The pipeline supporters were locked out. And the first thing they did was withdraw their support for CGL. Up went the blockades in BC (and in Ontario and Quebec because why not?) and the rest is history. You can't run an economy this way.
The author and most all commenters rightly state that process has trumped everything including results. This is very similar to what Scott Alexander (Slate Star Codex) once called “cost disease” in reference to all things governmental, institutes of higher education and large companies. He struggled and could find no apparent cause, saying that it seemed to be some kind of inevitable consequence of societal complexity. This is where Canada is in 2025, permanently mired in paralysis-by-analysis. Carney and the premiers may recognize the dire situation the nation is in but will ultimately fail when confronted by the two most immovable forces since Newton coined the idea of “inertia”: the civil service and indigenous intransigence. The truth is that Canada is finished; within 10-15 years it will come apart. But then so will other western, “first world” nations. Decadence, once started, is completely unstoppable.
Excellent article. Apparently we can let criminals that hurt people physically off the hook, in the interests of justice for everyone other than their victims. Let's put timelines in every other sphere of business and personal life.
But think further. Our culture's habit of moving past dysfunction into new ways (why fix anything) in this specific case leaves society with continuing large costs. The current malaise was of course, arguably always present, but then isn't everything.
Our level of system dysfunction sharply increased during the 1970's. The federal government, politically observing some groups having more labour market difficulties than others, simply hired more government administrators to fix it. (pere) Civil services everywhere honed skills in empire building while not doing anything more for the public. In the last few years the federal government did the same thing, for other political reasons (fils).
Yes, it's urgent to fix the system dysfunction now. Also there's huge costs to the status quo everywhere, including lost investment. Either move those jobs where they are needed, like health aides in seniors care, or reduce taxation due to lowered government costs. And be transparent. But central Canada voted in Liberals, they started this level of dysfunction and they will never reduce costs or pay down debt. Sad.
The self-licking ice cream cone seems alive, well and continuing to grow at both the federal and provincial government levels.
Much of this can be explained by the continually increasing unlikelihood for any management (DM, ADM, DG, ED levels) positions or their policy analysts to have any practical experience or understanding in their program areas and no experience with decision making and responsibility in their work history. Most would have difficulty organizing a bake sale, and likely never have!
This expectation that a "manager is a manager is a manager" and does not need any program area knowledge leads to more and more analysis, less and less decision making, no speed, no willingness to innovate and every reason to stall or deflect so that no one is accountable because it's everyone's problem.
The further difficulties are that the management/policy area folks are unwilling to trust and consult with those under them, who have the practical "hands on" technical knowledge and probable solutions, due to ego and ignorance.
The lack of leadership through action and example above leads to a lack of motivation, diminished morale and no accountability in the "working ranks" as well. If the "head shed" isn't listening, and seemingly doesn't care, why should they?
There are solutions but they would create huge pushback in the executive ranks, most of whom don't see the public as their clients or customers, but rather are focussed on keeping the elected and other senior officials happy to protect their career's trajectory.
Once again, Liberals doing something that Conservatives have been harping on for years....
I mean... Yeah ... Sure... Though after a decade of Liberal rule, I'm not sure how much of this you can lay at the Conservatives feet.
Hence the word "harping".
The processes themselves are not the problem.
The main problem is the permanent infestation of the Canadian political system by the Laurentian Sleazoid Corruptocrats. It is these political miscreants who continuously invent processes within processes, and these processes then incestuously breed, creating more processes. Defund any and all interest groups, NGOs, "cultural" societies, "charities". Shove the Laurentian Sleazoid Corruptocrats into the smallest and darkest stall in the pigbarn. Permanently vote out the "Liberals". Only then you may have a basis for deciding WHICH of the processes are an actual problem.
I think we need a Royal Commission to study the processes and see if they can be improved. I suspect that we will need to hire another 100,000 public servants to speed up the work. Soon we will have a 1:1 ratio of public sector workers to private.
Great article.
I would add that we are on the cusp of the “out of the office until…) season. The dreaded time of summer holidays, when a government official that you really need to speak with about a permit, inspection, fee schedules or performance reminders is POOF gone for _____________ days. (Insert your own worst nightmare case scenario from a “lived experience”.
By definition, “regulations” are the creation of cabinet and statutes are the creation of the legislature. If the problem with the process lies in “regulation”, can’t cabinet fix the problems, or is this a statutory issue?
Also, a lot of growth in processes and the civil service is usually because a civil servant cut corners either for good reasons to get something done, or corrupt reasons to benefit themselves or someone they want to benefit. When someone cuts corners, processes and staff are added to prevent future corner cutting.