When Carney’s new government first announced the Projects of National Interest that would be fast tracked to rescue the economy from the damage of Trump’s tariffs on Canada’s economy, many observers feared the worst. Environmental assessments take time. Consultation and consent protocols with Indigenous peoples take time. Legislation protecting species at risk, riparian zones, workers’ rights, conservation goals, clean-up costs, and so on, are clearly the “obstacles” that stand in the way of easy and fast corporate access to resources in Canada. So, we assumed these legal protections would be shredded.
What was most alarming is the way that Bill C-5, the Building Canada Act, legally provided for the suspension of existing law at the discretion of federal Ministers. The so-called Henry VIII clause in the bill allows for the Minister to change laws passed in Parliament through regulation.
Compounding this concentration of power is the fact that Bill C-5 initiated a process for proponents to come forward with their Projects of National Interest (PONIs), which would be referred to the Major Projects Office where a small clutch of people in the Privy Council Office could make decisions on what to fast track and which laws to suspend. These decisions would then be implemented by the federal Cabinet.
But while C-5 was said to be necessary to get “shovels in the ground” faster to create jobs, business opportunities, and generate revenue for corporations and governments, every single PONI currently referred to the Major Projects Office — 10 in total — was already long underway. Carney’s plan is to take these projects “the last mile” in order to make Canada “the world’s leading energy superpower”:
- For Phase 2 of LNG Canada, the BC Energy Regulator approved the Export Terminal in June 2015, issuing an environmental assessment certificate.
- Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington Nuclear Reactor obtained provincial approval to begin construction in May 2025. In April of that year, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission announced approval for the small modular reactor.
- The global logistics giant DP World Ltd. that has been contracted to build the Contrecoeur Terminal Container Project in Montreal was in its final stages of environmental assessment approval from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for the in-water work. While some permits are still pending, they were expected to be resolved in the fall of 2025, and the federal environmental assessment approved the project in March, 2021.
- In July 2023, the McIlvenna Bay Foran Copper Mine Project received provincial approval. By September, it was already half built when Carney included it in the “feasibility stage” on a list for fast-tracking. But the company had already announced the results of its feasibility study in April 2022.
- The Red Chris Porphyry Copper-Gold Project had its environmental certificate approved in August 2025 by the BC government. Prior to expansion, Red Chris was the subject of a court ruling that found the federal government erred by not requiring a comprehensive assessment. The legal win, however, didn’t lead to a full review. For the expansion, no federal impact assessment process was triggered. So how can Canada “fast-track” a project over which they have no jurisdiction? As CBC explains, this is about a signal the feds are sending about “transforming this part of BC.”
- The Crawford Nickel Project is completing Stage 2 of the federal permitting process. In May 2025, the Impact Assessment Agency requested more information to complete the process.
- The Sisson Mine in New Brunswick was approved in June 2017 by a federal environmental assessment. It received its New Brunswick Environmental Impact Assessment approval? in 2015, and had its construction commencement timeline extended to December 2025 in 2022.
- Ksi Lisims had its certificate issued by BC EAO in September 2025, after conducting the assessment under both provincial and federal regimes.
- Nouveau Monde Graphite Mine Phase 2: An updated feasibility study was completed in November 2025 for Phase 2.
These projects are not being fast-tracked, in other words — they are more likely being financially de-risked or helped along with some permits and regulatory hurdles. By expressing federal support, these projects signal to private investors that their assets will be protected. As Jamie Kneen of Mining Watch describes:
The government “back-stops” projects by putting a pile of public money into them up front, and perhaps guaranteeing part of their sales through mechanisms like offtake agreements, so that private investors are protected from potential losses but still have most of the profits.
A case in point is the McIlvenna Bay Foran Copper Mine. As reported by the Northern Miner:
“The tour underscored McIlvenna Bay as a project of national importance, and highlighted the significant state of construction, operational readiness, scale potential underpinned by [the project’s Tesla zone], and further exploration upside,” BMO Capital Markets analyst Rene Cartier said in a note on Thursday. He upgraded Foran shares to Outperform and raised the target price to $4.50 apiece from his previous target of $3.75.
Ksi Lisims works the same way. Ksi Lisims is an LNG processing plant and a floating marine terminal located on the north coast of British Columbia. The project depends on the construction of a 900-kilometer pipeline called the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission, which was granted approval in June 2025. Recent announcements regarding Ksi Lisims by the federal government, referring it to the Major Projects Office, also seems like a supportive push to attract capital for the extractive industry.
As Kai Nagata, Dogwood Institute, told 8th Fire Rising:
“Western LNG [the owner of Ksi Lisims] has admitted that they’re having trouble locking in long term contracts for the gas. They’ve sold 2 million tonnes per year to Shell’s brokerage in Singapore and 2 mtpa to Total. But that’s only a third of the terminal’s capacity, and normally lenders want to see 75-80 per cent of the capacity under firm long-term contracts because the spot market has been so volatile.”
“Without buyers they have a harder time getting construction loans. So I think the federal fast tracking is to boost lender confidence in the project and get it over the line to Foreign Direct Investment.”
But, there’s also a more nuanced way of understanding this de-risking if we pull back to examine Carney’s industrial policy that is materializing in clearer form since the Budget was announced.
An article by Globe and Mail reporter Adam Radwanski describes a tiered process that has evolved within the Major Projects Office, coupled with a mission drift from strictly expediting projects referred through Bill C-5 legislation, to being “a single point of contact to get nation-building projects built faster” — as it was described in the budget. Now the MPO is also tasked with financing coordination for major projects, helping to prepare proponents to apply for backing from the Canada Infrastructure Bank and Canada Growth Fund.
But moreover, Radwanski studied the PONIs being announced and also noted that most were a long way towards construction and had mounted the most onerous approval hurdles already. He describes the midwifing of the MPO as multifaceted: project managers, champions, and concierge. In other words, many of the projects listed above just needed to get over the hump of final permits (concierge), while some that have been announced required final investment decisions (managers), while still others required the attention boost of being championed. All three of these strategies exercised by the MPO, however, do the service of de-risking in markets of volatile commodity prices and a reconfigured global marketplace, made unstable by Trump’s shifting favours.
Of note, the Canada Infrastructure Bank, set up under Trudeau to facilitate carbon-friendly development, has now been quietly expanded under Carney to include data centres.
In an insightful article by David Wright, he speculates that the reason none of the projects announced so far as PONIs have undergone formal designation for “streamlining” is that they would struggle to pass muster with the few checks and balances promised under the legislation, including being climate friendly and advancing the interests of Indigenous people.
