Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to be here. My name is Shannon Glenn, and I'm the AVP of government relations for the BDC.
The Business Development Bank of Canada, in operation for 75 years, needs no lengthy introduction. Keep in mind, however, that it's the only bank dedicated exclusively to entrepreneurs.
We are a Crown corporation, reporting to Parliament through the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development.
We operate as a lender and investor at arm's length from the government. In this way, we complement private sector lenders, rather than competing with them. It means we take more risks than other financial institutions and, when the economy weakens, we intervene. During the pandemic, for example, we provided $2.8 billion in direct financial support, and $4.5 billion in indirect support, by working with financial institutions throughout the country.
We also offer venture capital and advisory services.
In relation to the committee's interest in our support for natural resources, let me make a few comments.
I would first highlight that our mandate is economy-wide and across Canada's geography. We offer solutions on commercial terms, meaning that we price for risk and do not undercut the private sector. We do not offer subsidies. The uptake for our offering is demand-driven rather than on an allocation basis.
Given our focus on entrepreneurs and debt, the uptake for our support in a given resource industry is typically not from the resource sector itself but from the SME ecosystem around the sector. A clear example of this is the mining industry, where our lending last year was limited to one loan of $75,000 and where our portfolio stands at $2.7 million. Our typical focus in this sector is quarrying. We do not have any coal mines in our portfolio. That said, we support the SME industry that serves the mining industry. We did a $7.3-million authorization last year, and the portfolio stands at $46 million as of the end of the last fiscal year.
Similarly, for oil and gas, BDC's lending to Canadian mid-sized oil and gas producers was about $500 million last year and represents about 1% of our portfolio, primarily through participating in syndicated transactions with Canadian banks in keeping with our complementary mandate. Of that, BDC provided $415 million in participations toward $5 billion in syndicated commitments from Canadian FIs, so a leverage ratio of close to 10:1. We also provide financing to oil and gas service providers. We had a strong year, with $244 million authorized in the last fiscal year, and the portfolio stands at $804 million.
As a responsible lender, BDC's ongoing involvement is a leading driver of ESG due diligence integration in oil and gas lending practices, influencing producers toward energy diversification and enhanced GHG transparency. As an existing lender, BDC is well positioned to provide additional support as producers progress their energy transition strategies, investing in emissions reduction and clean technology to deliver low-carbon energy solutions. This approach also favours energy safety and security, especially in light of recent geopolitical developments.
On softwood lumber, we authorized $168 million last year. The portfolio increased from $525 million in 2018 to $727 million in 2022, mainly driven by sawmills.
On clean tech, we launched a $600-million fund in 2018 to address the lack of risk capital in the commercialization and scale-up of Canada's clean-tech industry. Since that fund is now fully committed, we announced just last week our new $400-million climate tech fund II to continue to invest in Canadian clean-tech firms.
I would like to close by highlighting some key challenges across sectors that are also relevant to the resource sector. They are labour shortages and supply chain issues.
We recently released a labour shortage study that concluded that labour shortages are here to stay, especially in light of the expected demand for workers. BDC's solutions advisory, productivity tool and digital adoption can definitely help in that regard.
My last comment is on the supply chain. Supply chain delays and disruptions are impacting the operations of many companies, including in the resource sectors, though that is starting to normalize. We introduced a supply chain loan to help address current market gaps, and I'd be happy to answer questions on that offering as well.
Thank you very much for your attention. I hope this lays a frame for a fruitful discussion.