Poilievre promises to stop endless reviews for large projects

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OTTAWA — Pierre Poilievre said a Conservative government would complete environmental assessments of major infrastructure projects within one year and push through approval of 10 pending major resource projects.

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If the Conservatives are elected on April 28, Poilievre said Monday that the days of innumerable environmental reviews by multiple governments and endless waiting for large infrastructure projects to be approved will be over.

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“My Conservative government will set up a ‘one stop shop’ so businesses can contact one bureau that will deal with all the bureaucracies from all levels of government. That will make sure that businesses no longer have to go to multiple agencies at different levels of government,” Poilievre said in a video on social media.

Days before the election began, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that the federal government and provinces were working toward creating a national “trade and economic corridor” that included single approval process for large infrastructure projects.

But at the time, Carney did not say how much time he expected project approval would take under the new system.

In a news release, Poilievre said his plan would complete environmental reviews of projects in six months to one year.

“We will ensure that all of those reviews are collapsed into a single, effective review, that we partner with other levels of government to agree upon a… one year wait time maximum, but the goal will be six months,” he said.

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He also promised to speed up approval of 10 existing resource project proposals.

One is an oil sands expansion project by Suncor in Alberta that has been under assessment since 2020. In 2022, then-Liberal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault told Suncor in a letter that the project “would likely cause unacceptable environmental effects within federal jurisdiction.”

Another is the phase 2 expansion project of the LNG Canada export terminal in Kitimat, B.C. The rest of the projects are mainly mining projects in Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland.

In the video, Poilievre took a swipe at the Liberal government, which he accused of sitting on dozens of energy project approvals and discouraging investment.

He said approval of a mining in project in Canada now takes 17 years, which is 25 per cent longer than in Australia and 40 per cent slower than in the United States.

But neither Poilievre nor Carney has explained how he would secure buy-in from provinces, many of which have historically defended their ability to conduct provincial reviews of projects on their territory.

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However, recent comments from premiers suggest that may be changing.

Last week, Quebec Premier François Legault said he wanted to accelerate the development of mining projects to tap into the province’s critical mineral reserves faster.

“We’re going to have to have shorter lead times. We need to get rid of all the work and bureaucracy involved in obtaining permits,” Legault said while on a trip to Germany.

National Post, with files from The Canadian Press

cnardi@postmedia.com

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