Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has touted his country’s natural resources as the main attraction for securing more than $700 billion in new investments over the next five years — a plan that a mining watchdog has blasted as “robber baron capitalism.”
Carney announced in a press release a summit scheduled for Sept. 14-15 in Toronto that will convene “top CEOs, entrepreneurs, and prominent global business leaders” in an effort to attract C$1 trillion ($730 billion) in investments.
The government is highlighting Canada’s natural resources as one of the primary draws for investors, including liquefied natural gas and vast deposits of critical minerals like nickel, graphite and tungsten. The press release cites several major mining and LNG projects as examples of what the country offers global investors. Specific projects include the Canada Nickel Company’s Crawford mine in Ontario province, and the Nouveau Monde Graphite project in Québec province.
“Canada has what the world wants,” Carney said in the release. “We’re an energy superpower, with the most educated workforce in the world and rock-solid fiscal strength. The first-ever Canada Investment Summit will capitalise on those advantages to help drive billions in new investments into Canada.”
However, conservationists have raised concerns about environmental degradation associated with existing projects, and warn new developments will only exacerbate the problems.
“A healthy environment is the foundation of Canada’s long-term prosperity,” Stephen Thomas, clean energy manager for the David Suzuki Foundation, wrote in an email to Mongabay. “That’s why it’s concerning the Prime Minister’s investment summit announcement makes no mention of the national interest in attracting investments that advance climate and nature solutions.”
Thomas added that a better approach would be to “prioritize the transition away from volatile, expensive fossil fuels and toward affordable, reliable, clean energy which is a generational opportunity that will lower energy bills and create millions of jobs.”
Jamie Kneen, the national program co-lead with MiningWatch Canada, told Mongabay, “I have a lot of questions … This is entirely consistent with the Carney government’s approach, which is to bring 19th century robber baron capitalism into the 21st century, bringing together raw material extractivism and intellectual extractivism, committing to the least sustainable, least resilient, least climate-conscious directions possible.”
Banner image: Peyto Lake in Banff National Park, Canada. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
