Canada wants to sell LNG to Germany. Critics say it’s a race against time

Energy Minister Tim Hodgson said the goal being sold by Canadian proponents to German buyers 'is being able to ship in as little as five years.'

Canada has entered renewed discussions with Germany on supplying liquefied natural gas, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday — a prospect critics say should have become reality years ago.

Speaking alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin, Carney said his government will make announcements “in the next two weeks” on new port infrastructure funding, which could mark the first major “national interest” projects approved under legislation passed in the spring.

Carney specifically identified the Contrecoeur expansion of the Port of Montreal, which is set to increase container capacity by as much as 40 per cent, and revitalizing the Churchill port in northern Manitoba.

The latter project “would open up enormous LNG (export potential), plus other opportunities” for shipping critical minerals and metals to Europe, Carney said, creating “a new port, effectively.”

Speaking to reporters in Berlin at a separate event, Energy Minister Tim Hodgson said the goal being sold by Canadian proponents to German buyers “is being able to ship in as little as five years.”

Adam Pankratz, a faculty lecturer at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, said the new timeline is “theoretically feasible,” but he’s not holding his breath.

“I would view everything the government says with the context of the last (few) years of not being able to get anything done,” he said in an interview.

“Until we see that the situation has definitively changed, I don’t believe there’s any reason to take the government at their word on anything on this file, even if I am hopeful that that is the change that is underfoot.”