VICTORIA -- Global energy corporations are “dead serious” about investing in British Columbia’s potential as a world supplier of liquefied natural gas, said provincial Natural Gas Development Minister Rich Coleman after a $16 billion announcement on Tuesday.

Malaysian national oil company Petronas said the investment would go toward a natural pipeline, LNG plants and an export terminal near Prince Rupert, on B.C.’s northern coast. continue reading

We are a nation whose economy is buoyed by its exports.

Resource commodities such as oil, gas, lumber, copper and coal travel beyond our borders by rail, by road, by sea, by air, and by pipeline — supporting a large number of well-paying jobs and delivering revenue to government.

Exports of crude oil, most of it travelling to the U.S. via pipeline, accounts for roughly 20 per cent of Canada’s total net exports, Scotiabank vice-president and commodities analyst Patricia Mohr said in a recent interview.

“The size of our domestic market, in terms of what consumers can really contribute, is quite small relative to our exports,: Mohr said. “We are an exporting nation.” continue reading

OTTAWA — New Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz is signalling there will be no shift from the current low interest rate policy under his leadership, at least in the short term, despite fears it is creating imbalances in the economy.

Although keeping rates low for a long period has a distorting impact on the economy, including triggering excessive borrowing, Poloz says the central bank must also consider the risk to the fragile economy of raising rates too soon.

“My concern is we do the right thing so this (weak economy) doesn’t last for a generation,” he told the Commons finance committee. continue reading

OTTAWA — Canada’s economy finally came out of hibernation last month, pumping out a whopping 95,000 new jobs — the vast majority full-time — in the biggest month of employment growth in more than a decade.

The monthly employment report report released by Statistics Canada Friday found that 18,600 of those jobs were created in Alberta last month, driving the province’s year-over-year job creation tally to 48,800.

Despite the gains, Alberta’s unemployment rate actually rose slightly in May, up 0.4 percentage points as more people looked for jobs, according to the federal agency.

The massive gain was the first major improvement of 2013 and many times greater than economists had expected, dropping the unemployment rate one-tenth of a point to 7.1 per cent.

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