The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that Norman Keevil, Teck's chairman emeritus, has long defended the company's independence. The Globe's Eric Reguly writes that Teck was a homegrown champion and the last diversified miner of any size left in the country; most of the rest had been bought by foreign takeover artists and hollowed out. Now Mr. Keevil has a somewhat different message. He is fully endorsing Teck's merger with Anglo American of London, one of the industry's biggest mining companies. He will use his 100-vote Teck A shares to support the creation of the world's fifth-biggest copper producer. While the merger is being billed as a "merger of equals," not a takeover, there is no doubt that Anglo has the upper hand. Quebrada Blanca and the mine's ambitious expansion program, known as QB2, were supposed to put Teck on the global critical metals map. The original cost estimate was $5.2-billion (U.S.); the final price, $8.8-billion (U.S.). Perhaps Mr. Keevil knew that QB might be more curse than blessing and that recruiting a big-name partner would help insulate Teck from QB's endless ability to disappoint. He hinted as much on Tuesday. "When you have cost overruns, scale helps," he told The Globe.