The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that two years ago, Teck, under its then-new chief executive officer, Jonathan Price, was touting Teck's critical metals trajectory. The Globe's Eric Reguly writes that the company was about to wave goodbye to its vast B.C. coal division. The buyer was Glencore, one of the last mining groups that still believes in the value of the grubbiest of fuels. The coal business produced gorgeous amounts of cash flow for the company at a time when it was spending fortunes on the overbudget expansion of its Quebrada Blanca copper mine in Chile. Still, coal had to go, and Teck would focus on copper. It seemed a winning strategy, and Teck shares climbed to $70 in 2024, from $40 in 2022. Mr. Price was vindicated. Enter fellow copper player Anglo American and its "merger of equals" with Teck. But Anglo is more than just copper -- far more. While copper is its top product, it is also a big name in iron ore, an uncritical metal whose production comes with a rather nasty carbon footprint. Teck stands to lose its status as a pure Canadian critical metals company in the making. Its copper assets will find themselves sitting awkwardly among piles of iron ore, coal, diamonds and fertilizer.