[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by ThePrince

The Federal government, with its increasingly strict and unpredictable regulatory environment, has made it much more difficult for projects like LNG to secure the adequate attention and funding necessary to get off the ground.

These projects are massive and require lots of planning and early stage funding, and given the uncertainty with the federal government intervening and changing regulations on the fly, there are very few companies willing to put forth that time, effort, and money when it could get kiboshed at any moment.

Trans Mountain is a great example of this at work. You had a private entity (Kinder Morgan) that had invested considerable time, effort, and money into the project, and the Feds pulled the rug under them in the middle of the project with all of the regulatory delays. Not to mention the legal delays from the Government of BC that were obviously illegal (eminent domain supersedes when crossing provincial boundaries), but the Feds never intervened to speed up the process or provide any assurances that the project would get done, causing Kinder Morgan to pull out. And to avoid extreme embarrassment and backlash, the Feds had to purchase the pipeline, and now it's going to end up costing taxpayers money because costs have ballooned so much.

Thanks for the answer.

I still think that B.C is an exceptional case, because there are no treaties. Thus there is a real and expensive fear that comes along with negotiating access to supersede Indigenous land title and mineral rights. My sense is that there will be a very large retroactive expense for the historic developments that could come to light if this is brought to the supreme court of Canada, who are more generous than ever in treaty related rulings.

As an aside, to give light to how important treaty and extinguishing Indigenous land title and mineral rights are. Northern alberta ( treaty 8) has some of the most comprehensive treaty's with respect to this. in 1899 the crown acquiring land and mineral rights from both metis and First nations. no doubt this has enabled development with out much legal resistance.