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.
Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler called the government’s rollout of the bill a “huge disappointment,” saying they received an invitation to be part of a briefing an hour before the government tabled the bill.
“They’re not off to a great start,” he said. “It’s just a failure from the onset to do their jobs, which is to reach out to First Nations.”
Nishnawbe Aski Nation represents 59 First Nations in Ontario in territory covering two-thirds of the province’s land mass.
Assembly of First Nations Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said First Nations and Canadians need time to look through the legislation to figure out how it affects them.
“I hope they don’t ram it through,” she said. “Let’s do things properly and carefully.”
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.
Baby steps vs. giant leaps
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the internal trade moves were “a small step” that will have little impact on the domestic economy until provinces drop trade barriers between one another.
Poilievre suggested that to speed that process up, Carney should offer provinces cash payments as an incentive.
A number of provinces have already begun signing free-trade deals with one another including Ontario, P.E.I., Alberta and Saskatchewan just last week, and Manitoba and Ontario last month.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said his caucus would decide whether to back the Liberals’ One Canadian Economy bill at its meeting on Wednesday.
New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador agreed to explore reducing trade barriers at a meeting in April.
Poilievre said that when it comes to energy projects of national interest, the best way to ensure they are built is to repeal the West Coast tanker ban, Bill C-48, and Bill C-69, nicknamed by some as the “no more pipelines act,” which Carney has not pledged to do.
The Conservative leader said the bill is a start, but much more is needed in order to restructure the Canadian economy.
“It’s baby steps when we needed a giant leap,” Poilievre said Friday.
The Conservative leader said that after he meets with his caucus on Wednesday he will announce whether his party will support the legislation.
