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Mark Carney warns against footdragging in nation building
As Canada embarks on a nation-building exercise akin to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, there will be plenty of naysayers and NIMBYs arguing why something can’t or shouldn’t be built.
Prime Minister Mark Carney doesn’t want to hear from them.
“We don’t want to hear what people are against — we want to hear what they’re for,” Carney told roughly 700 business leaders at a Greater Vancouver Board of Trade (GVBOT) breakfast meeting Wednesday, to applause.
A clear message to foot-draggers
Given that the address took place just prior to a one-on-one meeting with Premier David Eby, it’s easy to imagine that the message was aimed at our premier.
The message was clear: If B.C. wants to be on Team Canada, it needs to be a team player.
Carney noted that one-third of the 22 big projects referred to the Major Projects Office for consideration are in B.C., and warned that his government has too much on its plate to waste on foot-draggers.
“If things get stalled here, we’re going to be spending more time elsewhere in the country, because we need to move forward,” Carney said. “We need to invest at scale in the country.”
It was the kind of stern talk the business community in B.C. liked hearing, judging by the applause Carney received.
“It’s crystal clear that this prime minister and his government are laser-focused on expediting projects across the country,” Association of Mineral Exploration president Todd Stone said after Carney’s address.
A trillion-dollar vision for Canada
Carney has mapped out a vision for Canada that is not unlike China’s Belt and Road Initiative in that it contemplates $1 trillion in resource development and infrastructure building across the entire country in order to build new trade corridors.
This includes new mines, pipelines, LNG terminals, a plan to double Canada’s electrical grid, and expanding port, road and rail infrastructure.
Getting big things done in a hurry will require streamlining Canada’s complex regulatory environment.
Projects deemed to be in the national interest are put on the Major Projects Office list, and will be subject to expedited assessments and defined timelines.
“Our overall objective is to double the non-U.S. exports this decade,” Carney said. “That’s over $300 billion in new orders for Canadian resources, for goods and expertise.
“In order to double our non-U.S. exports, we need to grow the capacity of this port, and that means the rail, the road, the airport infrastructure.”
To attract the $1 trillion in investment needed for Canada’s nation-building, the Carney government introduced incentives like a tax “super deduction” that Carney said “makes Canada the most tax-competitive country in the G7.”
“Major global investors now rank Canada as the most active country in the world for infrastructure,” he said.
One of the cornerstones of Canada’s infrastructure development plans is a new one-million-barrel-per-day crude oil pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast of B.C. — something Eby opposes.
The DRIPA elephant in the room
In a question-and-answer with GVBOT president Bridgitte Anderson, Carney was asked about some of the challenges to Carney’s nation-building ambitions.
They danced carefully around the elephant in the room: B.C.’s DRIPA legislation which, if not amended or scrapped, promises to bog down resource development in B.C. through endless litigation.
A recent Business Council of B.C. (BCBC) survey found that 98% of members surveyed said they are “very concerned” about DRIPA.
Carney said there will be fulsome consultations with First Nations, who will be necessary partners in Canada’s nation-building. But Anderson wondered how DRIPA may frustrate those consultations in B.C.
“Consultations are becoming steeper and more onerous, in part due to DRIPA,” Anderson said. “So what gives you confidence that you can speed up the approval timelines that are needed to meet this moment?”
Carney didn’t specifically address the obstacles DRIPA poses. But his answer seemed to suggest provincial statutes and regulatory processes will be moot for designated projects, since federal laws and regulations would supersede provincial laws.
He said projects designated as nation-building will be subject to “a series of federal responsibilities.”
Asked how his government will deal with First Nations who oppose a new North Coast pipeline, Carney said: “You show up, you listen, you learn, you reiterate.”
He later added: “What you do, as well, is make clear: we’re the federal government.”
Michael Goehring, president of the Mining Association of B.C., said Ottawa appears to be aware of the business community’s concerns over DRIPA.
“I think there’s growing awareness in Ottawa of that,” he said. “I think they really need to pay attention. I hope they’re listening to the business community.”
Nelson Bennett’s column appears weekly at Resource Works News. Contact him at [email protected].
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