The Decibel - Pipelines, ports and rail: What’s Carney building first?

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

For months, there has been speculation about what Prime Minister Mark Carney and the federal government might put forward as “nation-building projects” under the Building Canada Act, Bill C-5. But The Globe and Mail has obtained a draft list of 32 major projects, the first glimpse into what kinds of projects the government is considering.Bill Curry, The Globe’s Deputy Ottawa Bureau Chief, is on the show to talk about what’s on the list, which projects are making the biggest headlines and what it signals about Carney’s priorities.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

For months, there's been speculation about what Mark Carney and the federal government might put forward as, quote, nation-building projects. These projects are meant to spur Canada's economy, and we didn't really know anything about them until last week. That's when the globe obtained a leaked draft list of 32 major projects. This list tells us a lot. Well, this is our first real look at what exactly the government is talking. about. Bill Curry is the Globe's Deputy Ottawa Bureau Chief. Mark Carney campaigned earlier in the year in the election on getting big projects built. Then Parliament sat for four weeks. This was with a big bill that was the hotly debated topic

in Ottawa, Bill C5, which allows the government to pick specific projects to fast track. And so this is the first time we've seen 32 projects put together all in one place with a sense of what kind of categories the government is looking at. Today, Bill is on the show to tell us what's on the draft list, the project's making headlines, and what it all tells us about Mark Carney's priorities. I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is the Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Hi, Bill. Hi, Cheryl.

Nice to have you on the show. Thanks for the invite. So, Bill, we don't normally start our episodes off with lists, but this episode is all about a list. So can you run us through these 32 projects, like kind of do a speed round here? Yeah, I think the easiest way to get our heads around it is to think about them in categories because that's kind of how they are lumped. And so the biggest category would be kind of energy-related projects, and there's about 14 of the 32 would fall into that category.

Generally, the broad category of energy is the biggest one. Then the second biggest would be there's eight mining projects, largely in, Critical minerals, rare earth, nickel, that kind of thing spread across the country, mostly in northern parts of the country. Then there are five really large port projects, so that would affect Churchill, Manitoba, which the Prime Minister has mentioned recently, an expansion of the port in Vancouver, a couple port projects in New Brunswick, and Contracourt, which is outside of Montreal, that the Prime Minister has also mentioned.

And then the last category would be transportation. The list talks about expanding the TransCanada Highway in multiple parts. It's not more specific than that. And I think the biggest one in that bucket would be this proposal, which our readers have heard about for a long time, this idea of a high-speed rail line between Quebec City and Toronto. So that is also on the list. Yes, the high-speed rail line that we've heard about, since 1984, the year of my birth.

Okay, so we've got these buckets. We got energy. We have ports. We have mining projects. And then transportation. These are places all across Canada. I want to talk about the list itself, Bill, because this list was leaked. Do we have a sense of where it came from?

Yeah, this was a list that was circulating inside the federal government. We reported that the version we had was at the Infrastructure Department. after we reported this, Adrian Dix, the BC Minister of Energy, said that he has seen versions of this list circulating between the provinces and the federal government, which makes sense. It seems like this is essentially a collection of projects that, for the most part, came from the first ministers meeting earlier in the summer where provinces had a chance to submit their wish lists. and the federal government's kind of been going back and forth with the provinces and other groups to kind of narrow it down into a priority list of projects. Let's talk about that. Like, what do you read into what's on this list? Well, there's a couple of things that jump out at me.

I think one of the first things you can do with this list is you can compare it to what the premiers have asked for. So some of the premiers have actually gone public with their lists. So Doug Ford, for instance, in Ontario in May put out a list. of projects and some of them are on this list and some of them are not. So support to expand the ring of fire in northern Ontario. That's on the list. Support for Darlington small modular nuclear reactors in Ontario. That's on the list. A mining project outside of Timmons, that's on the list. What's not on the list is Doug Ford's plan. He wants to build a tunnel under the 401. That would be a massive project. A lot of people have questioned whether that is a realistic

project. It's not on the list. Expanding the GoTrain Network in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area. That was on Doug Ford's list and that is not on the final list. So it was pretty clear from their reaction from Doug Ford after our story came out. He actually said that he had Mark Carney over to his house that morning to talk about infrastructure and expressed his concern about the fact that not all of his wish lists made it onto this particular list. And he said, well, maybe there's some other lists kicking around. So we will see. So, Bill, you mentioned C5 there, and I think it's a good moment for us to take a second

and remind listeners of how we got here, because the fact that we have this list at all is very much a function of the new administration and its goal of fast-tracking these kind of projects. So can you just explain, like, how do we get to this point and where to C-5 fit into it? Yeah. So I think just take us a little step back to the federal election campaign and the political landscape over the last few years. Under Justin Trudeau, the liberals were very focused on environmental issues, climate change.

They brought in a couple bills, C-69, which involves environmental assessments, and another bill that essentially prevents oil tankers off the northern Pacific coast. And Pierre Pahliav, the conservative leader, and business groups have been very critical of those bills, saying they effectively create a disincentive. for the private sector to build large natural resources projects. And so Mark Carney's response in the campaign and then in government has been not to get rid of those bills, as Pahliav had been asking for, but essentially to create a loophole to get around these and other environmental policies and other reviews through C5.

So this bill, C5, allows cabinet to decide, so the politicians will decide. which projects can be added to C5, and it's kind of like a loophole to get around a whole bunch of other federal regulations such as C-69. So in the process, it should fast-track projects, and one of the things it could do is if a province has a regulation on an environment

and the federal government has something similar, then you just do one, either the province one or the federal one. So that's kind of an example of things get fast-tracked. The critics, like Pierre Polyev, will say, well, why not just get rid of the bills that are the issue in the first place, like C-69, but this is where the government has landed. And so it creates this political process and obviously a lot of interest in what projects are going to be listed under C-5. We're talking about these huge projects, right? Like, these take years, decades. What is the goal of Bill C-5 here?

Like, how fast could it fast track? Well, what was interesting about the list is some of these projects are, Pretty close to the finish line. So Contracurre, which is run by the port of Montreal, it's outside of Montreal, is a port project that has already has some federal funding and some funding from the Quebec government. And it really only has a few small environmental hurdles to get through before it can go ahead. It might need some more funding as well. So some of those projects could go really quickly and would, I think, fit the definition of what the government wants to. C, which is kind of shovels in the ground, examples of activity happening quickly.

Others, though, are far more far off in the horizon. So one of the projects on the list that caught a lot of people's attention was this idea of a new pipeline from Alberta through northern BC to the Pacific, which Alberta Premier Daniel Smith has really been pushing for. But BC has essentially said that, in their view, that's not a real project. there's no private sector proponent for it. It would have so many hurdles in front of it that BC's view, the debate should focus on something that's a lot closer to the finish line,

something that's a lot more realistic. So I think there's a range of projects, some that would be, you know, years and years away before you get the team together, the financing together, the indigenous support, that kind of thing, whereas others just might need a few pieces of red tape to be cut through and off it goes. And so the idea here is that if it's closer to the finish line,

that this bill will actually help it get even faster to the end. Yeah, exactly. And I think one important point that I think sometimes gets lost in this debate is that with C-5, if the federal government lists a project under C-5, it doesn't necessarily mean the federal government is going to give it any money. So the way Mark Carney put it in Newfoundland recently was saying, in some cases, the federal contribution will just be to get out of the way. So let the provincial rules kick in and there will be no federal rules, that kind of thing.

And there wouldn't be federal money. But in some places there will be federal money or in some of these projects there already is federal money. And I think that will be an interesting political debate, especially for the liberal caucus. They're gathered in Edmonton this week. You know, this is a shift for the government that's far more focused on supporting traditional oil and gas than the previous Trudeau government was. And I think it'll be interesting to watch the liberal MPs to see how strongly they are on board with that. And, you know, where do they draw the line? Are they okay with cutting red tape?

Are they okay with an extra step of federal funding? How much federal funding, you know, are they willing to support, you know, ice breakers to get oil and gas out through the sea ice in the Arctic through Hudson Bay and Churchill? You know, that's a pretty big taxpayer support for the oil and gas sector. Are they supportive of that or not? We'll be right back. Okay, Bill, so we've talked about where this list came from. We've talked about how this list came to be, you know, through Bill C5. Now let's get into some of the projects.

So arguably the biggest headline item is the mention of a pipeline, which you talked about a little bit earlier on. This pipeline sounds very much like the pipeline that we already have that takes oil from Alberta to BC, which is the Trans Mountain Pipeline. So what's the motivation of having another pipeline on the list? Well, this is all driven by the trade tensions the Canada is having with the United States and U.S. President Donald Trump. A big part of our exports to the United States are in the form of energy, natural gas and oil.

And, you know, if the United States is going to put up all kinds of hurdles, I mean, they've for the most part done carve-outs for oil and gas so far, but you just never know where things are going to go. So Canada wants to diversify its exports, energy being a major source of our exports. So another pipeline proponents argue is needed to do that. And we've seen, you're referencing the TMX pipeline that goes from Alberta to the port of Vancouver. And those new exports, which are fairly recent, are going to Asia. So it's a clear example. So it's a clear example of how if you increase pipeline capacity to the Pacific, you can trade with people who are with countries that are beyond the United States and have a broader trading relationship.

Yeah. And I should make a point here that not everyone is happy with a plan to fast track projects like this pipeline or others, particularly indigenous groups whose territory might fall under these projects. Well, absolutely, because the federal laws that are in place are also about ensuring that you've done proper consultation and accommodation with affected indigenous organizations. And so indigenous leaders were very concerned, first of all, with the process of C5, which zoomed through the House of Commons and the Senate in June with very limited hearings on that. And then what is going to be the consultation process through C5? And how does that compare with kind of the laws that C5 allows them to get around?

And so definitely a lot of strong concern about that. The prime minister tried to address that with some roundtables throughout the summer with various indigenous organizations. There's going to be a major project's office that was just launched and it's going to be based in Alberta. And it's going to have responsibility as well for ensuring there's indigenous consultation and involvement. The prime minister's talked about favoring projects where there's an indigenous ownership component. So that's definitely one of the biggest concerns that's come up with this whole process. And I think another source of criticism has been from environmental organizations because these laws that are being gotten around through C5, such as the C-69, are largely environmental protections. And so there's been concern about the process there.

And also the list is generating some concerns as well because it's fairly heavy in terms of traditional oil and gas, which environmentalists would argue that it's time to be phasing out those projects and increasing the support for clean power. So there doesn't seem to be enough in their view in terms of environmental projects. That makes me think about Carney himself, because before he got into power, politics, he sold himself as somewhat of a climate-friendly banker. So what do you think about this change? Because a lot of the focus of this list is energy-related. Yeah, it is a big change. Certainly, Mark Carney, during his period, after being a central banker, he was very big on environmental causes, particularly on the corporate side, all of this effort by companies to move towards net zero and have targets to clean their energy sources, that kind of thing.

He was also heavily involved. It had a big leadership role at the United Nations on climate change. So that was very much his focus outside of politics before entering politics. And then there definitely has been a big change right before the election. He reversed liberal policies on the carbon fuel levy, which Pierre Paul, have called the carbon tax, which was his main source of attack of the liberals. So Carney got rid of that. And now we just saw a few days ago he got rid of, or at least delayed some of the rules for the auto sector in terms of switching to electric vehicles. I think a lot of this is still kind of up in the air. People are trying to figure it out where this is going to land. And I think

we should see this pretty soon. Luckily in October, when we get the federal budget, I think that will give a lot of concreteness, hopefully, in terms of where the government is actually leaning. And Carney has also talked about some new climate policies, so we'll be watching for that, for sure. So we talked about the pipeline. I want to focus now on another kind of big thing on the list, which is ports. There are five of them. Why focus on ports? Well, it's all about expanding Canada's trading relationships. We've seen, particularly in Europe and Asia, I think, obviously, if you're expanding on the Pacific Coast, you're expanding oil and gas exports to Asian markets.

But there is a strong desire. We've seen that Mark Carney's already made four trips to Europe since becoming prime minister. Europe has been heavily dependent on Russian imports for oil and gas and other mining sources. So Europe has an appetite to wean itself off some of those Russian imports. and there's potential there for Canada to supplant some of that. But that is going to need ports. And traditionally there has been pushback, particularly in Quebec, about new oil pipelines that would go east through Quebec.

I thought that was interesting to see Churchill and Manitoba on the list because there you could have critical mineral exports, even liquefied natural gas, Churchill going through the Hudson Bay would be a way to access European markets there has been a lot of debate about that since

Carney first floated Churchill and then that appeared on this list because the challenge with that route is about half the year it's covered in Arctic Sea ice and there are not a whole lot of people who live up there and there's not a lot of support in terms of Coast Guard

or you know if if things go wrong with a spill you know who's going to be there to help with that, you'd probably need ice breakers to expand the shipping season. So a lot of logistical questions and a lot of questions about the financials of this, does this really make financial sense to spend billions on the port of Churchill? I mean, the appeal is that port currently is indigenous owned. You've got Wob Canoe, the Premier of Manitoba is a big fan of that project. So is Scott Moe. So is Alberta Premier Daniel Smith. So you've got in terms of politics and indigenous support. Everything's in line there. Okay. So we talked about pipeline.

We got supports in there. And you mentioned off the top high speed rail and that this has been talked about for decades now. And this is between Toronto and Quebec City. How would C5 actually help get this project going? Since we've heard about it. for so long. What would C5 do to make this go faster? Yeah. So the last update we had about this project was earlier in the year where they picked a consortium of, you know, large big international companies with experience building high-speed rail and running high-speed rail in Europe. They've assembled a team and they're working on the project. But the last update also said basically that they're going to be studying it

for another five years, working out the details of the route and that kind of thing. And I think where C5 could come in is perhaps it could speed some of that up because a lot of that work involves environmental assessments because rail lines are going to cross various rivers and lakes. You have to consult with all the communities involved, including indigenous communities. So if you have a process where either the provincial or federal assessments can be enough and you don't have to do it twice, maybe that speeds up some of this process. So I think that would be an example where there are a whole lot of environmental rules in place for that project because it's so long that, you know, maybe something like C5 shortens the timeline a bit. So maybe I'll see it when I'm 80? Yeah. Okay.

So another thing, Bill, is that Western Canada seems to be heavily featured in these projects on this list. What do you make of that? Well, I think that just shows that there's a big focus on traditional. oil and gas, which is primarily from Western Canada. Western Canada has been not particularly pleased with the policies of the liberal government under Justin Trudeau, and so Carney is trying to respond to that criticism. The Alberta government's initial response to this list was positive. Only two of the projects are actually directly related to Alberta. There's one for carbon capture and storage, which is something that the oil sector there is really keen on.

But I think a lot of this, we're still kind of waiting to see how much of this is rhetoric and how much of it is real because all of these projects are going to need companies to really push for this. And to this point, a lot of these companies have been reluctant to go fully on board with some of these ideas. What does happen next? What will you be watching out for? Well, I mean, the clock is ticking. Mark Carney said as recently as his trip to. Berlin, late August, that he would be announcing projects within two weeks, and we're pretty much up to that timeline then.

And he mentioned two specifically, Contracur in Montreal area and Churchill in Manitoba. Those are both ports. And it was curious, too, because it was kind of an offhand comment, and he talked about investments, which kind of implied that not only would they be listed, but there would be federal government funding. But then when we asked him about it again, later on his tour, he kind of softened that language and saying, well, they could be among the first projects to be announced. So a bit of some confusing signals from the federal government about what's coming next. But it certainly sounds like at least a handful of projects should be specifically identified within the next few days, I would think.

Clear as might, but something maybe on the horizon. Exactly. Something's happening. We just don't know what. That's why the list is helpful. Bill, as always, great having you on the show. Thank you so much. Thanks, Cheryl.

That was Bill Curry, the Globe's Deputy Ottawa Bureau Chief. That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland. Our producers are Madeline White, Mikhail Stein, and Ali Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor.

Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you soon. Thank you.