Joint Statement by Prime Minister Carney and Prime Minister Starmer Français
OTTAWA, ON, June 15, 2025 /CNW/ - Today, Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, and Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (UK), met in Ottawa to reaffirm the profound friendship and shared values that unite both nations. The Canada-UK partnership, rooted in a common history and enduring people-to-people ties, continues to grow stronger, with a focus on delivering prosperity and security for the working people of Canada and the UK alike.
The two leaders discussed the many geopolitical challenges currently facing the world, including in the Middle East and tensions in the Indo-Pacific region, and reaffirmed their steadfast support for Ukraine in the face of Russia's illegal and unjustifiable war of aggression.
The two leaders underscored the importance of a fair, open and predictable global trading system; reiterated their commitment to a rules-based international order underpinned by respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity; and committed to advancing peace and trans-Atlantic security. They agreed the following joint initiatives aimed at strengthening economic growth and prosperity and enhancing collective security and defence:
Growth and Innovation Partnership
Canada and the UK are committed to delivering economic growth for their people. The two Prime Ministers today announced further collaboration on trade, science, technology and innovation. Through their Partnership, Canada and the UK will work together to:
Trade: Strengthen trade ties as trusted, reliable partners. This will include expanding trade under the Canada-UK Trade Continuity Agreement. We will establish a new structured UK-Canada Economic and Trade Working Group to deepen our existing trading relationship further, including to address existing market access barriers, to expand existing arrangements into new areas, such as digital trade, and to explore cooperation in the development of critical minerals and sovereign artificial intelligence infrastructure. The working group will report back to both Prime Ministers within six months. Canada will seek to introduce legislation this autumn to ratify the UK's accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Semiconductors: Deliver industrial R&D projects to enhance both nations' complementary strengths in semiconductors, photonics, emerging materials and chip design. They will deepen connections between the innovation rich semiconductor ecosystems in Canada and the UK to help build resilient supply chains and accelerate breakthroughs in this key sector that is driving economic growth.
Quantum: Announce a joint commitment to develop secure, transatlantic communications based on quantum technologies, allowing us to connect our national systems and lay the groundwork to create a truly global, next-generation network, with applications across our financial and telecoms sectors.
Digital: Mutually reinforce nation-building digital public infrastructure by co-developing policy levers and standards, and common technology components.
Artificial Intelligence: Deepen and explore new collaborations on frontier AI systems to support our national security. This will include a partnership agreement to strengthen existing collaboration on AI safety and security between the Canadian AI Safety Institute and UK AI Security Institute, and new Canadian and UK MOUs with leading Canadian AI firm Cohere. Under the Canadian MOU, Cohere will collaborate with the Canadian AI Safety Institute and develop their commitment to building cutting-edge data centres in Canada. Under the UK MOU, Cohere will expand their UK presence to support the delivery of the UK AI Opportunities Action Plan. Both MOUs reflect ongoing collaboration on the application of AI tools in security and intelligence and are rooted in Cohere's strong foundations in Canada and ongoing commitment to the UK.
Biomanufacturing: Strengthen collaboration to deliver economic growth and be better prepared for future health emergencies, including a joint investment of $14.8 million to support joint biomanufacturing research and development that will grow the talent and skills pipeline in both countries, and to help businesses scale.
Civil Nuclear: Develop a world-leading fusion energy collaboration and deepen cooperation on nuclear energy from fission to reduce the influence of Russia on our international fuel supply chains.
Critical Minerals: Intensify bilateral cooperation by conducting a strategic mapping exercise to pinpoint key critical minerals, infrastructure, production and processing capacities. They will identify projects for joint investment to support secure and sustainable critical minerals supply chain development and leverage all available financial tools to mobilize funding and drive production to strengthen our manufacturing and mining sectors.
Enhanced Defence and Security Partnership
The two leaders agreed to strengthen cooperation – both bilaterally and through the NATO Alliance and Five Eyes partnership – to safeguard democratic values advance global stability and ensure the safety of our people in an increasingly complex world. To achieve this, they committed to:
Ukraine: Further support Ukraine in its self-defence against Russia's war of aggression. This will include continued support for the Coalition of the Willing and respective efforts to support Ukraine's domestic defence industrial production. The UK and Canada will continue to work together to support the Air Force Capability Coalition and develop cutting edge aircraft weaponry technology in support of Ukraine.
Military Cooperation: Position the Canada-UK defence relationship for further growth across military operations, industrial collaboration, and defence innovation, catalyzed by Canada's newly announced defence investment trajectory and the UK's Strategic Defence Review. Canada and the UK will work towards a new permanent arrangement for the long-term and sustainable use of British Army Training Unit Suffield (BATUS) through the "BATUS Future Project". The Project will deepen the Canada-UK relationship on defence and showcase CFB Suffield as a multi-purpose facility for the development and testing of new equipment and cutting-edge technology which are vital to maintaining our shared security and prosperity.
Intelligence: Build on the long history of deep and productive collaboration between our security and intelligence organizations by launching coordinated operational campaigns to combat terrorism and violent extremism, and deepening collaboration on enhanced intelligence collection, including by expanding officer exchange programs.
National Security: Tackle evolving state threats together, including sabotage, transnational repression, foreign interference, malicious cyber activity, information manipulation and economic coercion, all of which seeks to undermine our national security and that of our Allies and partners. This will include joint work to invest in civil society organizations actively working to counter digital transnational repression through the Joint Canada-UK Common Good Cyber Fund, a first-of-its-kind multilateral fund aimed at supporting civil society actors at high risk. To kickstart this fund, Canada and the UK are providing $5.7 million in seed funding to the Fund, which will be disbursed over 5 years. They also agreed to strengthen bilateral development and delivery of secure communications products and cutting-edge cryptography and explore new research partnerships to address gaps in AI security and evolve AI models to support national security.
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Globe and Mail
29 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
Global Sports Medicine leader Smith+Nephew to sponsor select players competing at Wimbledon, highlighting advanced solutions for joint repair
Smith+Nephew (LSE:SN, NYSE:SNN), the global medical technology company, announces it will once again support select players during high profile matches at The Championships, Wimbledon in 2025. The world's oldest and most prestigious tennis tournament serves as a perfect backdrop to showcase Smith+Nephew's purpose of 'Life Unlimited' - making a difference in patients' lives through the excellence of a diverse Sports Medicine product portfolio and the application of new technologies. Tennis is a high-impact sport that places great stress on various areas of the body – especially joints – often resulting in injury. Some of the latest technologies and solutions from Smith+Nephew for joint repair include: REGENETEN ◊ Bioinductive Implant: With more than 150,000 procedures 1 completed globally since its introduction in 2014, the REGENETEN Bioinductive Implant has had a transformative impact amongst those having surgery for rotator cuff tears; demonstrating lower re-tear rates than reported compared to conventional techniques. 2-6 Backed by level one clinical evidence, 2 the collagen-based implant supports the body's natural healing response to facilitate the formation of new tendon-like tissue to biologically augment the existing tendon and change the course of rotator cuff tear progression. 7-12 CARTIHEAL ◊ AGILI-C ◊ Cartilage Repair Implant: Derived from a naturally occurring calcium carbonate known as aragonite, the CARTIHEAL Implant is a biphasic scaffold for cartilage repair and subchondral bone restoration. 13-15 Shown to deliver clinically meaningful post-operative improvements in pain, function and quality of life, * the CARTIHEAL Implant is the only device approved for the treatment of knee cartilage and osteochondral defects in patients with or without mild to moderate osteoarthritis (KL 0-3). 13,16 Q-FIX ◊ KNOTLESS All-Suture Anchor: Building on the long-standing success and performance of the Q-FIX Family for best-in-class anchor fixation strength, **,17-21 the new Q-FIX KNOTLESS All-Suture Anchor raises the bar for all-suture anchor technology. With proprietary features and capabilities, the Q-FIX KNOTLESS All-Suture Anchor aims to set a new benchmark for soft tissue security †,22 and offer surgeons a new option for soft tissue-to-bone fixation indications across multiple joint spaces. 'Our inaugural turn sponsoring select players during The Championships, Wimbledon in 2024 was a tremendous success supporting athletes from across the globe - including Jasmine Paolini all the way to the Ladies Final,' said Christie van Geffen, SVP Global Sports Medicine Marketing for Smith+Nephew. 'We were able to uniquely feature the Smith+Nephew brand along with our leading Sports Medicine technology portfolio - designed to help weekend warriors and world-class athletes get back to competing and doing what they love.' here. Media Enquiries Dave Snyder +1 (978) 749-1440 Smith+Nephew *Over a 2 and 4 year follow up **As compared to competitive devices in fixation/pull-out benchtop testing †As compared to the competitive device in cyclic benchtop testing References Smith+Nephew. Internal Data. Ruiz Ibán MÁ, García Navlet M, Moros Marco S, et al. Augmentation of a Transosseous-Equivalent Repair in Posterosuperior Nonacute Rotator Cuff Tears With a Bioinductive Collagen Implant Decreases the Retear Rate at One Year: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Arthroscopy: The Journal of Arthroscopic & Related Surgery. 2023:1-14. Bushnell BD, Connor PM, Harris HW, et al. Retear rates and clinical outcomes at 1 year after repair of full-thickness rotator cuff tears augmented with a bioinductive collagen implant: a prospective multicenter study. JSES international. 2021;5(2):228. Hein J, Reilly JM, Chae J, Maerz T, Anderson K. Retear Rates After Arthroscopic Single-Row, Double Row, and Suture Bridge Rotator Cuff Repair at a Minimum of 1 Year of Imaging Follow-up: A Systematic Review. Arthroscopy. 2015;31(11):2274-2281. Camacho-Chacon JA, Cuenca-Espierrez J, Roda-Rojo V, et al. Bioinductive collagen implants facilitate tendon regeneration in rotator cuff tears. J Exp Orthop. 2022;9(1):53. Smith + Nephew overview of the outcomes associated with the standard of care for the surgical treatment of rotator cuff tears. Internal Report EO/SPM/REGENETEN/005/v1. Bokor DJ, Sonnabend D, Deady L, et al. Evidence of healing of partial-thickness rotator cuff tears following arthroscopic augmentation with a collagen implant: a 2-year MRI follow-up. Muscles, Ligaments Tendons J. 2016;6(1):16-25. Schlegel TF, Abrams JS, Bushnell BD, Brock JL, Ho CP. Radiologic and clinical evaluation of a bioabsorbable collagen implant to treat partial-thickness tears: a prospective multicenter study. J Shoulder Elbow Surg. 2018 27(2):242-251. Van Kampen C, Arnoczky S, Parks P, et al. Tissue-engineered augmentation of a rotator cuff tendon using a reconstituted collagen scaffold: a histological evaluation in sheep. Muscles Ligaments Tendons J. 2013;3(3):229-235. Arnoczky SP, Bishai SK, Schofield B, et al. Histologic Evaluation of Biopsy Specimens Obtained After Rotator Cuff Repair Augmented With a Highly Porous Collagen Implant. Arthroscopy. 2017;33(2):278-283 Bokor DJ, Sonnabend DH, Deady L, et al. Healing of partial-thickness rotator cuff tears following arthroscopic augmentation with a highly porous collagen implant: a 5-year clinical and MRI follow-up. Muscles, Ligaments Tendons J. 2019;9(3):338-347. McElvany MD, McGoldrick E, Gee AO, Neradilek MB, Matsen FA, 3rd. Rotator cuff repair: published evidence on factors associated with repair integrity and clinical outcome. Am J Sports Med. 2015;43(2):491-500. Altschuler N, Zaslav KR, Di Matteo B, et al. Aragonite-Based Scaffold Versus Microfracture and Debridement for the Treatment of Knee Chondral and Osteochondral Lesions: Results of a Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial. Am J Sports Med. 2023;51(4):957-967. doi:10.1177/03635465231151252 Kon E, Di Matteo B, Verdonk P, et al. Aragonite-Based Scaffold for the Treatment of Joint Surface Lesions in Mild to Moderate Osteoarthritic Knees: Results of a 2-Year Multicenter Prospective Study. Am J Sports Med. 2021;49(3):588-598. Kon E, Filardo G, Shani J, et al. Osteochondral regeneration with a novel aragonite-hyaluronate biphasic scaffold: up to 12-month follow-up study in a goat model. J Orthop Surg Res. 2015;10:81. Conte P, Anzillotti G, Crawford DC, et al. Differential analysis of the impact of lesions' location on clinical and radiological outcomes after the implantation of a novel aragonite-based scaffold to treat knee cartilage defects. Int Orthop. 2024;48(12):3117-3126 Douglass NP, et al. Arthroscopy. 2017;33(5):977-985 e975. Ergun S, et al. Arthroscopy. 2020; 2(3):e263-e275. Smith+Nephew 2023. Internal Report. 10090792- Revision B. ArthroCare Corporation 2017. Internal Report. P/N 49190-03 Rev. B. Smith+Nephew 2024. Internal Report. 10144423 Rev B. Smith and Nephew 10144423 Rev B About Smith+Nephew Smith+Nephew is a portfolio medical technology business focused on the repair, regeneration and replacement of soft and hard tissue. We exist to restore people's bodies and their self-belief by using technology to take the limits off living. We call this purpose 'Life Unlimited'. Our 17,000 employees deliver this mission every day, making a difference to patients' lives through the excellence of our product portfolio, and the invention and application of new technologies across our three global business units of Orthopaedics, Sports Medicine & ENT and Advanced Wound Management. Founded in Hull, UK, in 1856, we now operate in around 100 countries, and generated annual sales of $5.8 billion in 2024. Smith+Nephew is a constituent of the FTSE100 (LSE:SN, NYSE:SNN). The terms 'Group' and 'Smith+Nephew' are used to refer to Smith & Nephew plc and its consolidated subsidiaries, unless the context requires otherwise. For more information about Smith+Nephew, please visit and follow us on X, LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. Forward-looking Statements This document may contain forward-looking statements that may or may not prove accurate. For example, statements regarding expected revenue growth and trading profit margins, market trends and our product pipeline are forward-looking statements. Phrases such as "aim", "plan", "intend", "anticipate", "well-placed", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "target", "consider" and similar expressions are generally intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what is expressed or implied by the statements. For Smith+Nephew, these factors include: conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, economic and financial conditions in the markets we serve, especially those affecting healthcare providers, payers and customers; price levels for established and innovative medical devices; developments in medical technology; regulatory approvals, reimbursement decisions or other government actions; product defects or recalls or other problems with quality management systems or failure to comply with related regulations; litigation relating to patent or other claims; legal and financial compliance risks and related investigative, remedial or enforcement actions; disruption to our supply chain or operations or those of our suppliers; competition for qualified personnel; strategic actions, including acquisitions and disposals, our success in performing due diligence, valuing and integrating acquired businesses; disruption that may result from transactions or other changes we make in our business plans or organisation to adapt to market developments; relationships with healthcare professionals; reliance on information technology and cybersecurity; disruptions due to natural disasters, weather and climate change related events; changes in customer and other stakeholder sustainability expectations; changes in taxation regulations; effects of foreign exchange volatility; and numerous other matters that affect us or our markets, including those of a political, economic, business, competitive or reputational nature. Please refer to the documents that Smith+Nephew has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, including Smith+Nephew's most recent annual report on Form 20-F, which is available on the SEC's website at www. for a discussion of certain of these factors. Any forward-looking statement is based on information available to Smith+Nephew as of the date of the statement. All written or oral forward-looking statements attributable to Smith+Nephew are qualified by this caution. Smith+Nephew does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement to reflect any change in circumstances or in Smith+Nephew's expectations.
CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
Trump trade war: Alcohol sales dropped after provinces pulled U.S. products
An employee removes American wines from an SAQ liquor store in Montreal on Tuesday, March 4, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi Alcohol sales are down this year in Canada amid persisting economic uncertainty and a collapse in imports of beer, wine and spirits from the U.S. As U.S. President Donald Trump's global trade war marches on, provincial boycotts of American alcohol have begun to reflect in sales figures -- all amid a third financial crisis in five years for Canadian consumers. The available data show declining sales for alcohol of all kinds this year, compared to the same time in 2024 — down more than $100 million across six provinces in the last quarter alone. 'The consumer is just feeling very fragile,' said CJ Hélie, president of Beer Canada, a trade association for beer makers, in a Thursday interview. 'People are just pulling back on discretionary spending, and we're seeing that big-time. Real softness in the market.' With provincial retailers halting American alcohol purchases and pulling bottles from shelves earlier this year, Statistics Canada (StatCan) data show that in April, roughly $3 million in U.S. wine entered the country, down 94 per cent from $54 million for the same month in 2024. 'We are deeply concerned that U.S. tariffs on imported spirits from Canada and Mexico will significantly harm all three countries and lead to a cycle of retaliatory tariffs that negatively impacts our shared industry,' reads a joint statement from North American spirits industry groups on the eve of the trade war in February. 'Our industries have thrived due to the level playing field established across our borders.' While U.S. beer imports have seen a less pronounced decline, they also make up a fairly small portion of the Canadian market. 'In some cases for generations, some of these iconic American brands have been made in Canada,' Hélie told 'Your Bud Lights, your Michelobs, your Pabsts … they're made in Canada, almost all from Canadian grains, in our plants.' Beer Canada noted in a February release that of all the beer consumed nationwide last year, 88 per cent was made in Canadian breweries. Hélie says that for beer, the trade war's impacts have been most pronounced in the manufacturing process, where aluminum tariffs threaten to make it far more expensive to produce the billions of cans filled at plants each year. '[Brewers] saw this coming; they stockpiled as much as they could,' he said. 'We haven't seen that price spike yet, into the price of beer into the marketplace. But if you're thinking Labour Day, this isn't resolved … it's going to be catastrophic for lots of brewers.' Meanwhile, Canada has historically been the world's number-one buyer of American wines, accounting for roughly a third of the U.S. export market last year. But for the month of April 2025, data compiled by the American Association of Wine Economists shows that figure fell to just four per cent, following the steepest decrease in purchases among America's top 15 buyers. On the other end of the transaction, American wines accounted for one in every five bottles (20 per cent) purchased at Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) stores in early 2024, but by the same time this year, that proportion had dropped to 15 per cent, losing the U.S. its top spot for import sales. 'Wine firms here in the U.S. thought that a tariff on (imported) goods, including wine from Canada, would be a boon, but it has turned out the other way around,' said Karl Storchmann, executive director of the American Association of Wine Economists, in an interview with BNN Bloomberg last week. 'Canada pulled the plug.' Sales down across Canada Early numbers show declining alcohol sales across provincial retailers. Shortfalls in the opening months of 2025 range from roughly a tenth of a percentage point in New Brunswick, to eight per cent in Newfoundland and Labrador. In Quebec, the liquor control board attributed a recent trend toward lower sales including a $90-million drop last fiscal year at government and specialized network stores to 'changes in customers' shopping habits.' The latest numbers come from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024-25, which varies by province, but generally ran from January to March, this year. Of the six provinces with available data, Nova Scotia was the only jurisdiction showing increasing sales, though the province's board notes that the total volume sold is still down nearly two per cent between last year and the year before that. Since March, the province says it has held roughly $14 million in U.S. products in storage, rather than selling it, and that sales for products made in Nova Scotia have grown nearly 14 per cent in that time. The Yukon Liquor Corporation told CTV News that U.S. imports made up 3.6 per cent of net sales in the territory between January and May of this year, down from 5.4 per cent for all of 2024. And in British Columbia, where Premier David Eby described his March order to pull U.S. products as a response to "escalating threats from south of the border," wholesale net sales of American alcohol are down three per cent for whisky, 23 per cent for wine and nearly 60 per cent for beer. Meanwhile, according to an emailed statement from the province's Liquor Distribution Branch, this April and May have seen 'increased customer interest and demand for products made in Canada.' While U.S. alcohol remains available under some circumstances, and imports have resumed in parts of the country, a 25 per cent tariff remains in effect on wine, spirits and beer crossing into Canada. The trade war isn't the only factor in decreasing alcohol sales. StatCan notes that, on a per-litre basis, they've been on the decline for years, even before Trump's return to the White House. Between the 2019-20 and 2023-24 fiscal years, alcohol sales revenue only grew by around two per cent annually, on average, even as prices per-bottle have risen, the agency notes. By volume, sales fell 3.8 per cent last year, in what a March release from StatCan called a "historic" drop. 'This was the largest volume decline ever recorded since Statistics Canada began tracking alcohol sales in 1949,' it read. To Hélie, recent declines are a sign that consumers have been reacting to years of economic challenges, from a massive drop in out-of-home dining amid COVID-19 restrictions, to the inflationary spike that followed as customers returned to restaurant tables — what he calls 'menu shock.' 'I'm going to go (from) $80 to $95 (for a night out), but that $95 meant I also had to cut out either the dessert, or the coffee, or the extra beer,' he said. 'We've seen that in the numbers, for sure.' With files from BNN Bloomberg's Jordan Fleguel
CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
Canada's liquefied natural gas touted — and doubted — as a green ‘transition' fuel
The LNG Canada industrial energy project is seen under construction in Kitimat, B.C., on Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck CALGARY — Canada's first liquefied natural gas cargoes will soon arrive on Asian shores, a milestone touted — and doubted — as a boon for global emissions-cutting efforts. 'Cleaner energy around the world is what I think about when I think about LNG,' Shell Canada country chair Stastia West said in an onstage interview at the Global Energy Show in Calgary earlier this month. Shell and four Asian companies are partners in LNG Canada in Kitimat, B.C., the first facility to export Canadian gas across the Pacific in an ultra-chilled liquid state using specialized tankers. A handful of other projects are either under construction or in development on the B.C. coast. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told the energy show that Canadian oil and gas exports can be an 'antidote' to the current geopolitical chaos. 'And it comes with an added benefit: lower global emissions. By moving more natural gas, we can also help countries transition away from higher emitting fuels, such as coal.' Smith cited a recent Fraser Institute study that suggested if Canada were to double its natural gas production, export the additional supply to Asia and displace coal there, it would lead to an annual emissions cut of up to 630 million tonnes annually. 'That's almost 90 per cent of Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions each year,' Smith said. The authors of the Fraser Institute study, released in May, argued that Canada's ability to reduce emissions elsewhere should be factored into its climate policy. 'It is important to recognize that GHG emissions are global and are not confined by borders,' wrote Elmira Aliakbari and Julio Mejía. 'Instead of focusing on reducing domestic GHG emissions in Canada by implementing various policies that hinder economic growth, governments must shift their focus toward global GHG reductions and help the country cut emissions worldwide by expanding its LNG exports.' Some experts see a murkier picture. Most credible estimates suggest that if liquefied natural gas were to indeed displace coal abroad, there would be some emissions reductions, said Kent Fellows, assistant professor of economics with the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy. But the magnitude is debatable. 'Will all of our natural gas exports be displacing coal? Absolutely not. Will a portion of them be displacing coal? Probably, and it's really hard to know exactly what that number is,' he said. Fellows said there's a good chance Canadian supplies would supplant other sources of gas from Russia, Eurasia and the Middle East, perhaps making it a wash emissions-wise. He said the Canadian gas could actually be worse from an emissions standpoint, depending on how the competing supply moves. LNG is more energy intensive than pipeline shipment because the gas needs to be liquefied and moved on a ship. In China, every type of energy is in demand. So instead of displacing coal, LNG would likely just be added to the mix, Fellows added. 'Anyone who's thinking about this as one or the other is thinking about it wrong,' Fellows said. A senior analyst with Investors for Paris Compliance, which aims to hold Canadian publicly traded companies to their net-zero promises, said he doubts a country like India would see the economic case for replacing domestically produced coal with imported Canadian gas. 'Even at the lowest price of gas, it's still multiple times the price,' said Michael Sambasivam. 'You'd need some massive system to provide subsidies to developing countries to be replacing their coal with a fuel that isn't even really proven to be much greener.' And even in that case, 'it's not as if they can just flip a switch and take it in,' he added. 'There's a lot of infrastructure that needs to be built to take in LNG as well as to use it. You have to build import terminals. You have to refit your power terminals.' What LNG would be competing head-to-head with, Sambasivam said, is renewable energy. If there were any emissions reductions abroad as a result of the coal-to-gas switch, Sambasivam said he doesn't see why a Canadian company should get the credit. 'Both parties are going to want to claim the emissions savings and you can't claim those double savings,' he said. There's also a 'jarring' double-standard at play, he said, as industry players have long railed against environmental reviews that factor in emissions from the production and combustion of the oil and gas a pipeline carries, saying only the negligible emissions from running the infrastructure itself should be considered. Devyani Singh, an investigative researcher at who ran for the Greens in last year's B.C. election, said arguments that LNG is a green fuel are undermined by the climate impacts of producing, liquefying and shipping it. A major component of natural gas is methane, a greenhouse gas about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Methane that leaks from tanks, pipelines and wells has been a major issue that industry, government and environmental groups have been working to tackle. 'Have we actually accounted for all the leakage along the whole pipeline? Have we accounted for the actual under-reporting of methane emissions happening in B.C. and Canada?' asked Singh. Even if LNG does have an edge over coal, thinking about it as a 'transition' or 'bridge' fuel at this juncture is a problem, she said. 'The time for transition fuels is over,' she said. 'Let's just be honest — we are in a climate crisis where the time for transition fuels was over a decade ago.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 29, 2025. Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press
