SILENT ON PROGRESS – MPO: Major Projects Obscuration? – Building Canada “Strong” Turns to “When”?

Ottawa’s Major Projects Office silent on progress

By Don MacLachlan

Prime Minister Mark Carney and Dawn Farrell, CEO of the Major Projects Office (Photo by David Bloom/Postmedia)

By Resource Works
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As billed by Prime Minister Mark Carney, the Major Projects Office (MPO) was set up last summer “to get nation-building projects built faster.”

In Carney’s words; “The MPO will accelerate projects by creating a single set of conditions, thereby reducing the approval timeline for projects of national interest to a maximum of two years.”

Now, is that happening?
The MPO reports it has 17 projects on its desk (treating three phases of the BC Hydro North Coast Transmission line in BC as separate projects).

The projects in limbo

Among the 17 is the Alberta Pathways Project, a $16.5-billion project for carbon capture, utilization, and storage and an associated pipeline.

“Pathways creates the prospect of facilitating low-carbon oil exports from the Alberta oil sands to a variety of potential markets. The Major Projects Office will develop a strategy to build the Pathways project which  . . . represents $16.5B in GDP, $12.2B in labour income, and between 18,500 and 43,000 jobs annually.”

Pathways filed its application with the Alberta Energy Regulator in March 2024, so it has already been in a governmental evaluation-and-approval process for a year.

What’s happening with this project? Is it indeed being accelerated so that the process will be held to two years or less, and will it thus get a greenlight this month (March 2026)?

Who knows, as there have been no progress reports from Alberta or the MPO.

All anyone has said is that the federal government and Alberta have established a working group to discuss how to work together to advance this project.

Silence on major regional developments

What’s happening with the Darlington New Nuclear Project in Ontario, another project on the MPO’s list?

Ontario Power Generation submitted its application to construct the first small modular reactor at the Darlington project in October 2022, and earlier this year reported that the fully assembled foundation for the reactor building will be moved into place this summer.

While the project was referred to the MPO in September 2025, the role the MPO actually plays in this project is a mystery. The MPO’s only “update” on the project does not disclose the MPO’s role or what it is doing or has done in relation to the project.

The MPO did report last fall on its role in “advancing the Contrecoeur Terminal Expansion” at the Port of Montreal. But all that said was that the MPO, the Canada Infrastructure Bank, and the Montreal Port Authority would “work together to finance the project and ensure permitting and regulatory requirements are met on schedule.”

But there has been no word since on the outcomes.

One more example: Nouveau Monde Graphite’s open-pit Matawinie Mine in Quebec. This “critical minerals” project was referred to the MPO last November.

Since then, there has been silence from the MPO on its role or on progress.

A call for taxpayer transparency

The MPO presumably keeps up to date its supervising minister, Dominic LeBlanc, privy council president and minister responsible for Canada-US trade, intergovernmental affairs and the One Canadian Economy Act.

So how about keeping the taxpayers up to date, too? How about the MPO posting online a monthly update of progress on projects?

And on how it is spending its time and our dollars?

It was given an initial budget of $213.8 million over five years, with $47 million allocated for 2025-2026, to expedite projects, coordinate private-sector funding, and support Indigenous consultation.

Don MacLachlan is a writer for Resource Works, a non-partisan organization that champions responsible resource development in British Columbia and Canada. Reach Don at [email protected].

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