John Turley-Ewart is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail, a regulatory compliance consultant and a Canadian banking historian.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a red flag for domestic and foreign investors. A Canadian company and dominant player on the global stage is ready, in the middle of a trade war between Canada and the U.S.<\/a>, to invest upwards of a $1-billion in the U.S. rather than at home.<\/p>\n What is driving the investment south? Basic business requirements<\/a> that a G7 country, especially Canada, should prioritize. Available skilled labour, inbound and outbound logistics, including rail connectivity, competitive costs, access to customers and markets, and a \u201ccollaborative partner for the proposed project.\u201d<\/p>\n The Saskatchewan-based potash miner Nutrien NTR-T<\/a> is the company. It made a preliminary decision last December to invest in the Port of Longview, Washington, rather than B.C.\u2019s Port of Vancouver, through which it has long shipped.<\/p>\n Canada\u2019s Transport Minister, Steven MacKinnon, recently told<\/a> The Globe and Mail, \u201cI\u2019d be lying if I told you that [Nutrien\u2019s] decision, which is still hard to digest, was not at least an impetus for some action\u201d on the part of the government.<\/p>\n \u201cSome action\u201d for Mr. MacKinnon appears to be a reference to the recent referral of the Port of Vancouver expansion project to the federal government\u2019s Major Projects Office to fast-track the development.<\/p>\n Nutrien\u2019s choice of port is a case study in what Prime Minister Mark Carney must fix if all his talk, travel and foreign investment deals are to have any meaning.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s proposal, which it plans to formalize in 2027, suggests many Canadian leaders have lost sight of what helped power economic growth in much of Canada\u2019s past.<\/p>\n The Mover Why this money manager is buying Agnico Eagle, Nutrien and trimming Alphabet<\/a><\/p>\n A fine reminder of this, an essay entitled \u201cStaples Theory is Back<\/a>,\u201d was recently published in the upstart 2067: A Journal of Canadian Consciousness. It highlights that Canada\u2019s economic success was built on leveraging the demand for our commodities to build a diversified, modern industrial economy, creating high value-chains that lift living standards.<\/p>\n What that looks like in theory is using, for instance, the demand for Canadian potash to design and build the supporting infrastructure \u2013 the railways, roads, ports and ships needed to support exports. Nutrien\u2019s intentions signal that Canada has made it harder to repeat proven patterns of economic growth.<\/p>\n In this case, the U.S. has not put up such barriers and therefore will see new infrastructure and all the primary and ancillary jobs it offers for decades to come, paid for by revenues generated from the sale of Canadian potash.<\/p>\n Nutrien is making plain what it believes. As Stuart Smyth, an agricultural and resource economics professor at the University of Saskatchewan, told<\/a> the CBC, it has concluded that \u201cthings are easier to get done in the United States than they are in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n The kind of things that are easier to get done in the U.S. include reducing regulatory red tape, avoiding protracted approvals for building-required infrastructure, building rail capacity to guard against costly transportation bottlenecks, keeping construction and land development costs competitive, and delivering supply-chain reliability.<\/p>\n Tech founders leaving Canada at accelerating rate, survey finds<\/a><\/p>\n In contrast, the Port of Vancouver is well known for its high costs, inefficiency, labour strife and railway bottlenecks that compound the costs exporters must endure, leaving them less able to compete with foreign rivals that can ship to market with greater pace and higher margins.<\/p>\n Added into this mix is the regulatory uncertainty caused by unsettled Indigenous land claims in B.C. The landmark Cowichan Precedent<\/a>, handed down last August by the B.C. Supreme Court, recognized Aboriginal title for the Cowichan Tribes over 1,850 acres of industrial and waterfront land by the Fraser River in Richmond. This decision gives investors reason for pause because of the uncertainty it creates.<\/p>\n