NDP to move bill calling for ban of coal exports as Canadian output booms

Canadian exports of the kind of coal used to make electricity hit an eight-year high in 2022, even as the Liberals have promised to work on banning exports completely by the end of the decade.

The Liberals made the promise during the 2021 election and it was listed in Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault's mandate letter that December.

In the year that followed, Canada exported more than eight million tonnes of domestically produced thermal coal, a 60 per cent increase over 2021 and more than eight times what was exported in 2018.

That year, thermal coal exports hit a low of one million tonnes, before rapidly rising, doubling to two million tonnes in 2019, almost five million tonnes in 2020 and 5.5 million tonnes in 2021.