C&C #31: The World's Money Comes to Toronto

Inflation stuck at three per cent this morning, with gas still up 23 per cent and Brent back above $108. And tonight, 250 people who run companies overseeing nearly $120 trillion sit down to dinner with Mark Carney in Toronto. He wants $1 trillion of it. The pitch book has 167 projects — and a lot of them are ours.

Episode 31 of ICBA Coffee & Construction — the news that matters to the people who build British Columbia and Alberta, with ICBA's Jordan Bateman. On today's show:

☕ THE BIG ONE: Canada's first investment summit. Ksi Lisims LNG at US$28.5 BILLION and "shovel-ready." The West Coast Oil Pipeline — a million barrels a day, 1,250 kilometres, Bruderheim to a deepwater port in southern B.C. Edmonton–Calgary high-speed rail at $10.9 billion. Two Indigenous-owned B.C. wind farms. Danielle Smith brought 34 Alberta projects, every one $200 million or bigger. Carney says deals are already signed. Investors don't buy projects — they buy certainty. So what's David Eby selling from a province where a substation takes six years?

📉 Jock Finlayson's summit-day piece: Wanted — An Agenda to Boost Investment in Canada. Canadian companies invest 55–60 cents per worker for every U.S. dollar. A construction permit took almost 250 DAYS in 2020. A new mine, 15-plus years. Top personal tax rate 53–54 per cent. His fixes: one lower business rate with fewer carve-outs, immediate write-off of investment in every sector, and red-tape reform everywhere — not just for a handful of "national interest" projects.

💸 Breaking this morning: August inflation 3.0 per cent, unchanged. Gas up 22.8 per cent, groceries up 2.8, rent up 2.8. A three in front of inflation means no Bank of Canada cut on October 28. Rate relief is dead.

🖥️ Alberta's gas bottleneck. A leaked cabinet report says TC Energy's Nova system is full until 2029 and data centre builders could walk. The fix it floated: two Crown corporations, $54–163 MILLION. Danielle Smith's answer Saturday: "unlikely" — the private sector can build it. Meanwhile BC Hydro promised to name its data-centre winners by mid-September. It's mid-September.

🛢️ Four days. Ottawa is taking public comment on listing the West Coast Oil Pipeline as a project of national interest — deadline Friday, September 18. Email WCOPComment-CommentaireOCO@mpo-bgp.gc.ca, subject line "WCOP Comment." Ottawa's own numbers: 140,000 jobs at peak construction, 70,000 in B.C., 45,000 in Alberta. Tell them the work should go to the best bid, not the right union card.