The Liberal government introduced legislation Friday that it says will eliminate federal barriers to internal trade and detail how nation-building infrastructure projects will be identified and approved more quickly.
The One Canadian Economy Act attempts to fulfil campaign promises made by Prime Minister Mark Carney to strengthen Canada’s economy and sovereignty in the face of the economic attacks on Canada by the Trump administration.
Carney said Friday that it is “a bill with two equally important components, designed to create one Canadian economy out of 13. A bill that is laser-focused on building a stronger, more competitive and a more resilient Canadian economy that works for all Canadians.”
The prime minister said the bill will on, the one hand, speed up the approval process of major infrastructure projects, reducing approval times from five years to two by introducing a “one-project, one-review” approach instead of having federal and provincial approval processes happen sequentially.
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And the bill would also provide a boost to internal trade by recognizing provincial standards for goods, services and labour mobility as having met the federal standard.
‘We will not impose a project on a province,’ said Prime Minister Mark Carney when asked if the federal government would force pipelines on provinces that may not want them. He added that the first ministers’ meeting demonstrated the provinces are willing to collaborate.
Under the legislation, someone who is certified or licensed to perform specific skilled work in a province or territory that wants to take on a job doing the same thing for a federally regulated project will be deemed to have met that federal standard.
The government says recognizing provincial standards will open up job opportunities to workers and give employers a larger candidate pool to draw upon.
The bill only recognizes provincial standards at the federal level. Workers certified or licensed in one province that want to work in another will only be able to do so when that province or territory agrees to drop their trade barriers.
The federal government has rules and standards for businesses on top of regional requirements that apply across provincial and territorial borders.
Under the legislation, provincial standards for goods and services will be recognized as having already met federal standards. That means a province’s organic standards for food, or energy efficiency standards for appliances, will be treated as having met federal standards.
Nation-building projects
“Canada’s a country that used to build big things,” Carney said. “But in recent decades it’s become too difficult to build in this country.
“For too long, when federal agencies have evaluated a new project, their immediate question has been why. With this bill, we will instead ask ourselves, how?”
During the election campaign Carney promised his government would speed up approvals for infrastructure projects identified as being “nation-building,” without providing a detailed description of what that means or how it would be determined.
Friday, the government said a “nation-building” project would “make a significant contribution to Canada’s prosperity” and “advance national security, economic security, defence security and national autonomy through the increased production of energy and goods, and the improved movement of goods, services and people throughout Canada.”
Examples of such projects include: highways, railways, ports, airports, pipelines, critical minerals, mines, nuclear facilities and electrical transmission projects.
Projects that meet the nation-building standard are also measured against five key benchmarks to determine if they will:
- Strengthen Canada’s autonomy, resilience and security.
- Provide national economic or other benefits.
- Have a high likelihood of being successful.
- Advance the interests of Indigenous Peoples.
- Contribute to Canada’s objectives with respect to climate change.
Officials speaking on background said these five standards are not a checklist, but rather factors that are considered when evaluating whether a project is nation-building or not.
The parties doing the considering, the government said, include provinces, territories and “Indigenous rights holders.”
Once something is declared a nation-building project it is put on a list of approved projects. That list can expand, adding new projects, until the measures in the bill sunset, which happens five years after it is passed.
Cutting approval time by 60%
Once a project is added to the list, proponents will use the newly formed federal Major Projects Office as their single point of contact instead of having to go through multiple agencies and ministers.
The office will help walk proponents through the assessment and permitting process, consulting with provinces and Indigenous Peoples on mitigation and environmental impact measures that would need to be taken.
Carney stressed Friday that consulting with Indigenous Peoples throughout the approval stage will be an important part of the process. The Major Projects Office will include an Indigenous Advisory Council of First Nations, Inuit and Métis members to provide advice and direction.
Carney also said the legislation will ensure that environmental protections are maintained for these projects.
He said the federal and provincial governments would work together to “achieve the goal of a single assessment” for projects.
And the federal government would streamline its own process further by making one cabinet minister, instead of multiple ministers, responsible for authorizing a project in consultation with the prime minister.
