Commentary
By Lee Harding
On Sept. 11, the Prime Minister’s Office announced five projects being examined by its Major Projects Office, all with the potential to be fast-tracked for approval and to get financial help. However, no one should get too excited. This is only a bad effort at fixing what government wrecked.
During the Trudeau years, and since, the Liberals have created a regulatory environment so daunting that companies need a trump card to get anything done. That’s why the Major Projects Office (MPO) exists.
“The MPO will work to fast-track nation-building projects by streamlining regulatory assessment and approvals and helping to structure financing, in close partnership with provinces, territories, Indigenous Peoples and private investors,” explains the government press release.
Canadians must not be fooled. A better solution would be to create a regulatory and tax environment where these projects can meet market demand through private investment. We don’t have that in Canada, which is why money has fled the country and our GDP growth per capita is near zero.
Instead of this less politicized and more even-handed approach, the Liberals have found a way to make their cabinet the only gatekeepers able to usher someone past the impossible process they created. Then, having done so, they can brag about what “they” got done.
The Fraser Institute has called out this system for its potential to incentivize bribes and kickbacks. The Liberals have such a track record of handing out projects and even judicial positions to their friends that such scenarios become easier to believe. Innumerable business groups will be kissing up to the Liberals just to get anything major done.
The government has created the need for more of itself, and it is following up in every way it can. Already, the federal government has set up offices across Canada for people to apply for such projects. Really? Anyone with enough dollars to pursue a major project can fly to Ottawa to make their pitch.
No, this is as much about the show as it is about results—and probably much more. It is all too reminiscent of another big-sounding, mostly ineffective program the Liberal government rolled out in 2017. They announced a $950-million Innovation Superclusters Initiative “designed to help strengthen Canada’s most promising clusters … while positioning Canadian firms for global leadership.”
That program allowed any company in the world to participate, with winners getting matching dollars from taxpayers for their proposals. (But all for the good of Canada, we were told.) More than 50 applications were made for these sweepstakes, which included more than 1,000 businesses and 350 other participants. In Trudeau Liberal fashion, every applicant had to articulate how their proposal would increase female jobs and leadership and encourage diversity in the long term.
The entire process was like one big Dragon’s Den series. The Liberals trotted out a list of contestants full of nice-sounding possibilities, with maximum hype and minimal reality. Late in the process, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Navdeep Bains picked the nine finalists himself (all based in cities with a Liberal MP), from which five would be chosen.
The alleged premise was to leverage local and regional commercial clusters, but that soon proved ridiculous. The “Clean, Low-energy, Effective and Remediated Supercluster” purported to power clean growth in mining in Ontario, Quebec and Vancouver. Not to be outdone, the “Mobility Systems and Technologies for the 21st Century Supercluster” included all three of these locations, plus Atlantic Canada. They were only clustered by their tendency to vote Liberal.
Today, the MPO repeats this virtue-signalling, politicking, drawn-out, tax-dollar-spending drama. The Red Chris Mine expansion in northwest British Columbia is one of the proposals under consideration. It would be done in conjunction with the Indigenous Tahltan Nation and is supposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70 per cent. That’s right up the Liberal alley.
Meanwhile, the project is somehow part of a proposed Northwest Critical Conservation Corridor that would cordon off an area the size of Greece from development. Is this economic growth or economic prohibition? This approach is more like the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 than it is nation-building. And it is more like the World Economic Forum’s “stakeholder capitalism” approach than it is free enterprise.
At least there are two gems among the five proposals. One is to expand capacity at the Port of Montreal, and another is to expand the Canada LNG facility in Kitimat, B.C. Both have a market case and clear economic benefits.
Even here, Canadians must ask themselves, why must the government use a bulldozer to get past the red tape it created? Why not cut the tape for everyone? The Liberals deserve little credit for knocking down a door they barred themselves.
Lee Harding is a research fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
The first series of projects being referred to the MPO
• LNG Canada Phase 2, Kitimat, British Columbia: This project will double LNG Canada’s production of liquefied natural gas, making it the second-largest facility of its kind in the world. It will diversify our trading partners and meet increasing global demand for secure, low-carbon energy with Canadian LNG, contributing to worldwide energy security by increasing the supply of available natural gas for Asian and European partners. Leveraging Canada’s sustainable advantage, emissions are projected to be 35% lower than the world’s best-performing LNG facilities and 60% lower than the global average.
• Darlington New Nuclear Project, Bowmanville, Ontario: This project will make Canada the first G7 country to have an operational small modular reactor (SMR), accelerating the commercialization of a key technology that could support Canadian and global clean energy needs while driving $500 million annually into Ontario’s nuclear supply chain. Once complete, Darlington’s first of four planned SMR units will provide reliable, affordable, clean power to 300,000 homes, while sustaining 3,700 jobs annually, including 18,000 during construction, over the next 65 years.
• Contrecœur Terminal Container Project, Contrecœur, Québec: This project will expand the Port of Montréal’s capacity by approximately 60%, to give Eastern Canada the trading infrastructure it needs to keep goods moving, meet growing demand, and diversify trade routes. It will strengthen supply chains, create thousands of jobs, and generate approximately $140 million annually in local and national economic benefits across Québec and Canada.
• McIlvenna Bay Foran Copper Mine Project, East-Central Saskatchewan: Situated in one of Canada’s richest mineral belts and working in close collaboration with the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation, this project will supply copper and zinc to strengthen Canada’s position as a global supplier of critical minerals for clean energy, advanced manufacturing, and modern infrastructure. It will create 400 jobs, boost local economies in Saskatchewan and Quebec, where the copper will be smelted, and is expected to be the first net-zero copper project in Canada.
• Red Chris Mine expansion, Northwest British Columbia: This major expansion project will extend the lifespan of the mine by over a decade, increase Canada’s annual copper production by over 15%, employ about 1,500 workers during operations, with a peak of approximately 1,800 workers during construction, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 70% when operational. Working in close collaboration with the Tahltan Nation, it is an important step in reconciliation and further developing the potential of Northern British Columbia and will strengthen Canada’s role as a reliable supplier of copper and other resources essential for global manufacturing and clean energy technologies. This mine is part of the proposed Northwest Critical Conservation Corridor.
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