The Decibel - Unpacking the nationwide push to fast-track major projects

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

This week, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Ottawa’s plans to fast-track infrastructure projects. The effort aims to bolster the Canadian economy, as our trade war with the U.S. stretches on. Provinces are also in a rush to expedite project approvals and reviews — the controversial Bill 5 is currently working its way through the Ontario legislature, and B.C. just narrowly passed Bill 15.Some Indigenous nations and leaders, along with conservation groups and civil liberty associations, oppose the fast-track efforts gaining momentum across Canada. And even as governments affirm their duty to consult, Indigenous leaders warn road and rail blockades may be coming.The Globe’s Jeff Gray has been reporting on Premier Doug Ford’s Bill 5. He’ll explain the wave of fast-track legislation we’re seeing across Canada, and how the effort to speed development up may actually slow things down.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

Prime Minister Mark Carney met with premiers in Saskatchewan this week, where they discussed building projects of national significance and building them very fast. The goal here is to get projects built faster so we can create more high-paying careers and greater prosperity for all Canadians. Ottawa is trying to fast track resource development in order to bolster the Canadian economy. At a time when we're facing an ongoing trade war with the U.S. The point is to build the certainty, the stability

and the ambition that builders need to catalyze enormous investment, investment to make Canada into an energy superpower and to build the strongest economy in the G7. But Carney's not the only one in a rush to build. Provinces are also pushing through controversial legislation to speed up project approvals and reviews. And not everyone's happy about it. Kill Bill Biden! Kill Bill Biden! Today, The Globe's Jeff Gray is here.

He'll take us through the different plans to get projects built, how the duty to consult indigenous communities factors into that. And whether the race to build fast could actually slow things down. I'm Manika Ramen-Wilms and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Jeff, great to have you here. Manika, thanks for having me. So we're seeing this big push across the country to decrease our economic reliance on the U.S. of course because of Trump and his tariffs. And that has meant more of a focus on development within Canada, often in the form of new mines

and even pipelines. So Jeff, what is the current situation here? How long does it usually take to build a big resource project in Canada? Well, I mean, obviously it can it varies depending on the size and the type of project that we're talking about and where we're talking about building it. There are lots of examples of proposals for big projects that either took a very, very long time or didn't happen at all. And industry and various politicians have blamed that on layers and layers of bureaucratic

processes and delays that are caused by all the legislation that we have that's meant to do things like protect the environment and so on and so forth. In the case of Ontario, the government constantly uses a figure when they're talking about mining, they say it takes 15 to 17 years to open a mine in Ontario. I think that figure, there are obviously mines that take a lot less time and mines that might

even take more. It's hard to nail down exactly what we're talking about. This 15 to 17 year figure that Ontario cites, like compared to other parts of the world, is this slower here than than other parts of the world? So the government would, governments generally and the industry will say absolutely. I think you'd be hard pressed to find somebody who says, oh no, my experience with government is that it's very fast and efficient. So that's not a big surprise.

They point to figures in the EU and places like that, that either are better, faster. I think there's some rankings that show Ontario or Canada quite low looking at the or high. Well, you measure it not looking good for speed when you look at the OECD or major developed economies. Now, of course, in Canada, we have to deal with the issues around the land. Who has the rights on the land?

Who owns the land? That's disputed ground. That is not something in some other countries, in Europe, for example, that you normally have to deal with. It is an issue, though, in many other parts of the world, too. Yeah. OK, and you raised this a good point. We're going to get into this a little bit later, of course.

The duty to consult when we're talking about projects and who has a say when we're talking about different parts of the land here. But let's look at what the new prime minister has said about how we're going to build these projects. So Prime Minister Mark Carney has said they're going to cut approval time for these projects in half. So making the process two years instead of four. And he's also promised to create a new process to streamline these projects. He spoke about

this, of course, at the first minister's meeting earlier this week. Jeff, what do we know about how this is going to work? So, yeah, I mean, they're talking about a couple of different things. Well, one is designating certain big projects as projects in the national interest. And what does that mean? Well, we're not quite sure, but what we've been told is,

obviously, big projects that would strengthen the economy, projects that the government says would make Canada more autonomous or resilient, clean growth, indigenous participation, all these sorts of things factor into what becomes a project of national interest. And so once you get that box checked, then you can benefit from a streamlined process, a kind of, you know, one window, one point of contact rather than having to deal with, you know, I don't know, whatever, a dozen government departments, everything will be streamlined, centralized with one point of contact.

You know, these are all things that are designed to speed up this process, which can take a long time because of sort of, you know, all these reports and requirements that are imposed on really, really big projects. How has this plan been received, I guess, by premiers, also indigenous leaders across the country? How are these ideas being received? So we've definitely heard some resistance from First Nations, and we've just heard from the National Chief of the Assembly First Nations just yesterday,

and a lot of concern about the amount of time and the amount of detail they've been given about these proposals. I think they only got sort of a summary of what was being talked about, not much more than what we've said here, and they had seven days to respond to it. And how about premiers? How have they responded to these ideas from the federal government? So I think they're all singing from the same songbook. I think there's been lots of positive feedback about it. Governments and a lot of business leaders are all on the same page

about this response to the economic threat of the Trump tariffs is that Canada needs to speed up exploiting the cards it has in its deck or that they say is in Canada's deck. The First Nations have another idea about whose deck the cards are in. We need to start playing those cards. Okay. The federal government isn't the only one looking to fast track these kinds of projects, as we already alluded to. We've seen legislation at the provincial level.

So let's talk about this bill in BC first, Jeff. This is Bill 15 that is meant to speed up things. There's been some backlash, but also some effort to include input from First Nations in these projects. So tell me about this legislation, Bill 15. Yeah, I mean, it's clearly along the lines of what we've talked about. It would allow the designation of certain projects that would be of provincial significance, and it would give the government some power

to speed those projects up, put them at the front of the queue for regulatory approval, and get them out of some of the obligations that a big project would have as far as, in some cases, environmental assessments, streamlining some of those procedures. All those things that take time when you're trying to get through something like this.

But that, of course, has people upset because, well, the environment, there's a reason why we do it. Yeah. And First Nations are worried about the amount of consultation for projects that will affect them. Now, in B.C., Premier Eby has has said, look, we're going to involve First Nations, we're going to have First Nations ownership, consent, financial benefits for First Nations in projects that get this kind of treatment. And I mean, the bill did pass very, very narrowly.

They actually needed to do the rare procedural move of having the speaker vote. So it's been very contentious there. But it is a very different piece of legislation than what Doug Ford in Ontario has put forward. Well, let's talk about Doug Ford in Ontario then, because they've also introduced this kind of fast track legislation. This is called Bill 5. And it seems to be focused on speeding up mining approvals. But it has been quite controversial because it would allow the government to essentially suspend any

Provincial law in these places that they would designate these special economic zones. So what is that Jeff? So nobody really knows precisely what these things will look like. We know what the government has said We know what the legislation says which isn't very much. It says it'll be able to designate an area call it a special economic zone and designate an area, call it a special economic zone, and within those zones, designate companies or entities that they would be, they call them trusted proponents. The criteria for both of those are unknown and to be set in regulations

that we'll find out about later. And they can also designate projects or types of projects within these zones, and they could essentially wipe out any provincial law or municipal bylaw in order to accelerate one of these projects. Now that obviously has people pretty concerned. It sounds a little extreme. Yeah, it sounds quite drastic to just say no laws kind of apply in this area.

Yeah. Now, of course, you know, this will be sort of put into effect by regulations that the government's going to put out a draft, publish, consult on. So precisely how you get designated a trusted proponent, how an area of the province gets designated as one of these zones and what laws or rules will actually apply. Those are all unknowns and that void has been filled by a lot of people who say this is sort of a blank check that they don't want to write and leave for Doug Ford to cash. So you know the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has raised concerns about this and obviously

so have First Nations. Yeah, yeah because we're talking about, like, you know, environmental laws, labor laws, even like I wonder when I hear this, is this legal? Can the government just say that, you know, laws don't apply in certain areas of the province? So lawyers have a great name for this kind of legislation. They call it Henry VIII legislation. That doesn't sound very good. And it's not it has nothing to do with lopping off

the heads of queens or anything like that. It basically gives the executive, you know, looking at the three branches of government, et cetera, et cetera, judicial, legislative, executive. Executive would be the premier in his cabinet basically. It gives the government, the executive, the power to decide which laws passed by the legislature apply.

So it's the legislature basically delegating its power to the executive in a way that it raises a whole bunch of concerns. What will these regulations look like? How will this all work? What laws will be ignored? What standards will apply? And you know, it does, if you look south of the border, for example, the tariffs, you know, the president has used legislation that gives him the ability to impose these tariffs

if there's an emergency. The power to impose tariffs on imports in the United States, that's Congress's and they've delegated it to the executive, to the president. And as you can see, it's gotten them into a whole bunch of trouble. So, so those are the kinds of things that people are talking about with regard to the special economic zones part of Bill five. OK, so this is part of the bill that's worth discussing. And we should say in response to some of this criticism, Ford's government has offered to also create what they're calling indigenous led special economic zones and also writing in government's constitutional duty to consult indigenous people as well. What's been the response to these changes?

So yeah, those changes did not land very well. Do we know what an indigenous led special economic zone is? No, that is all we know about what that is, is those words, indigenous led economic zone. Presumably it would involve First Nations taking the leadership role in a project or a zone where they would have some say over what laws apply or how a project proceeds. Certainly, some First Nations have called for,

have said in their submissions to the legislative committee that was studying this thing, said, look, if you're gonna do these zones, you gotta include us, we've gotta be in that mix. They did receive that feedback. And they also were asked to stick more reminders about how they're going to follow their constitutional duties to First Nations people

in this bill, they've done that. But I mean, you don't need to be a lawyer to sort of say that does the government really need to promise to follow the Constitution and in its laws? Surely that's kind of a given. So there are no real concessions that have been put into this thing. The government has said throughout that it's determined to pass it. And what is the status of Bill 5 right now then Jeff? So it is still before a committee. The opposition have tried to use a bunch of filibuster tactics to delay the committee.

I think they ended up costing a day or two, but it is still expected to pass Wednesday. We'll be back in a moment. Jeff, we've been hearing some indigenous leaders express frustration at the lack of consultation around these efforts to fast track projects at different levels. And of course, governments do have a duty to consult Indigenous groups with any of these projects.

Let's break this down though. What exactly does duty to consult mean? So that phrase, which in the full kind of the full legal phrase really is duty to consult and accommodate, comes out of the treaties that Canada signed with First Nations going back, of course, many, many years and gets sort of built into case law through the 80s and 90s. And then in the early 2000s, very big Supreme Court rulings where that is embedded in law. And then it's embedded in the constitution as well in Section 35, which sort of embeds

the rights that are in those treaties in the Constitution. So at that point, governments and or say mining companies or whomever were really saw their duty to consult First Nations if they were building something or doing something that would affect First Nations on their say their traditional territories. And it has to be real consultation. It can't just be like a letter that you sent one day and you didn't hear back, so I'm gonna build the mine.

It had to be serious and you were obligated to consult First Nations, discover what the potential problems were with the project, and they had to accommodate the concerns that were raised. So for example, a mine that you're going to build it in the middle of hunting season, you're worried about the pollution from the mine and the water and the fish in the river, so then you would have to accommodate those concerns, change your project in order to make it so that those concerns were lessened, mitigated, or go away.

Now, I think there was an open debate about whether if you couldn't accommodate what happens then, and the sort of accepted rules of the game were basically First Nations did not have a veto over the project. But then there was an open question about how far with an accommodation, you know, could it be that accommodation is impossible? So that sort of was that's kind of where the ground had been laid up until more recently. When does the duty to consult kick in? Like at what point in the process, I guess, do they need to do this?

So that's also been the subject of contention. I mean, everything about this is sort of shifting ground and contested ground, for sure. So a lot of the First Nations groups, First Nations governments who are upset about Bill 5, say we should have been consulted about this before you sprung this bill. It's going to change the way we do things, the way we approve mines, the way we approve development.

It's clearly aimed at Northern Ontario and the Ring of Fire region, where the government says there's so many critical minerals and so on. So the government says, no, no, according to the court rulings, the Supreme Court rulings, we, the duty to consult kicks in when the government does something. So the parliamentary process of drafting a bill, you don't have to consult at that time, you consult after when you've done the thing.

When you've done, now the trouble with that is. Yeah, I can see there might be an issue here. Is, well, hold it a minute, with the government in any other area, the government is changing the rules for some, you know, I don't know, the trucking industry. Well, for sure, they're out there talking to the truck industry for months and months and figuring out how to craft legislation

that will make sense. You know, that's just normal. That's how legislation kind of works. So to not consult First Nations in the process, that's got them very, very upset. And in fact, lords I've talked to say, well, there's nothing in there that says you can't engage or discuss things with First Nations before you pass legislation.

You don't have to, there's nothing stopping you. So it is sort of a, it's a legalistic, technical argument that the government is using. And no doubt if they had gone to First Nations and said, we wanna do this thing where we're to pass a law that wipes out potentially any law in a big zone. And we'll figure it out how we're going to do it later. Regulations, don't worry.

Trust us. I think the reaction would have been very similar. So here we are. Yeah. OK, so it sounds like there is this duty to consult. But because of the way that you could, it sounds like the government can go to groups afterwards and say this is the plan, we're letting you know.

It doesn't actually sound like a very collaborative process in those situations then. No, and I mean in an Ontario's case, what they're saying is now we're gonna draft all these details in the regulations. And so we're gonna do that, we're gonna talk to First Nations, and we're gonna figure out how to do that.

I don't know how those talks are going to go given the sort of level of feeling that we've seen. I mean, First Nations are warning of protests and blockades and so it's, you know, that's going to be a tricky process for the government to manage that and come up with regulations that somehow, you know, get First Nations leaders onside. It doesn't look good at the moment. Plus, in Ontario, there are big cases that are before the courts that argue that the treaties that First Nations people signed go beyond duty consult and actually require some sort of co-government or, you know, permission

basically if you're going to do something that affects the First Nation on their traditional territory. So all this stuff is still being worked out and being fought over. So that's the duty to consult, the phrase you hear a lot. The federal government signed the United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. So that document uses a different phrase, free prior and informed consent.

That sounds a lot different than duty to consult. And that only at the moment largely applies at the federal level. And also what that word consent actually means in that context for a government trying to do something or you know these are this is all still contested legal ground that's being worked out. Just lastly before I let you go here Jeff you mentioned the possibility of protests and blockades if people aren't happy with the way the government is

doing this what could we see happen like if we could get into a little bit more detail here, if people aren't happy with the way that this push to fast track these projects is actually done. Well, we don't know, but we've heard from First Nations leaders saying that if this bill passes as is, they expect young people, grassroots, some of them have used that term, to rise up. And so we saw that with this movement a dozen years ago now called I'll Know More, which was in reaction to moves made by the

then conservative federal government. Yeah, we had rail lines blocked and real sort of civil disobedience and protests from First Nations across the country and so First Nations leaders in Ontario have warned of Idle No More 2.0 if this goes forward. If we do end up in a place where we have protests and blockades and a lot of tension around First Nations approvals of these projects you know investors, governments are gonna be pretty wary about proposing some sort of big nation building project

that looks unlikely to get built and it makes the progress that governments are aiming at, it makes it unlikely. Jeff, thanks so much for taking the time to be here. Thanks so much. Jeff Gray covers Ontario politics for The Globe. That's it for today. I'm Maynika Ramon-Wilms.

Our producers are Madeleine White, Michal Stein, and Allie Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Matt Frainer is our managing editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.