RE:Na-Cho Nyäk Dun - "Shut down all mining activity"An overview of why (especially) USA companies have been leaving Canada. This has been gradually happening for probably 40 or 50 yearsl but has become dramatically higher in recent years. We have almost no manufacturing any more, all the manufacturing facilities have been either abandoned, torn down, or converted into condos. When I worked in manufacturing, there were many 'branch-plant' USA manufacturers, small and large. We used to make everything from large (washer, dryer, fridge) and small appliances, farm equipment, toys etc etc. We make virtually nothing now. The big change began to happen when the Federal Sales Tax began to be applied to finished imports rather than on the importer's wholesale selling price - but local manufacturers still had to pay on their wholesale selliing price. That quickly wiped out all the branch-plant mfrs in favor of importers of finished products.
We used to have one of the largest pulp and paper mfr base in the world; it's mostly gone, as is most of heavy industry. The lumber business is weak, or gone. Mining is more and more threatened.
Pipelines are cancelled or threatened; the government of Alberta actually bought railroad cars to transport oil (the most unsafe way to do it) because protesters didn't want a pipeline.
In energy, the worst recent example was when the Trans-Mountain pipeline capacity increase which was fully permitted after years of negotiation, would have been completed in about a year for another billion or so of private money, and at no taxpayer cost. The expanded capacity was to have been achieved by twinning to the existing established pipeline, not through any new route. The government tore up the permits and told them they had to start over. They just said: we've had it, and left Canada. The Feds bought the work in progress for about $5B, proceeded to work to the original plan, then the final cost came in at about $32B of taxpayer money (so far - final figures to follow). Now they think they can 'sell' it, in other words give it away.
Anecdotally, I've noticed for years that retailers who have come to Canada are just leaving, or selling out, in large numbers. Product lines have been withdrawn.
A meta-view of investment numbers for the last generation: