Fast-Tracked Major Projects Bill Clears Commons, Heads to Senate

The Canadian flag blows on the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on June 28, 2024. The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick

The One Canadian Economy Act passed third reading in the House of Commons on June 20 after MPs decided to split voting on the bill into two parts.

The legislation will now move to the Senate, where senators are expected to finish reviewing it before breaking for summer on June 28. The Liberal government has been trying to get legislation on major projects and interprovincial trade barriers approved before Canada Day on July 1.

The first part of Bill C-5, aimed at removing federal impediments to interprovincial trade barriers, passed 335–1, with Green Party Leader Elizabeth May the only dissenting vote.

The second part of the legislation, which deals with swiftly approving and developing major projects, passed 306–31. The New Democrats, Bloc Québécois, Green Party, and Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith opposed it, while the Liberals and Conservatives voted in favour.

Bill C-5 is intended to remove federal impediments to interprovincial trade by allowing goods and services that meet comparable provincial or territorial rules to be treated as compliant with federal trade requirements. The government says the legislation will reduce delays and costs for businesses.

The bill also addresses development of major projects that align with national interests after discussions take place with provinces, territories, and indigenous peoples. The bill would create a single assessment for projects and improve coordination of permitting alongside the provinces and territories, aiming to reduce approval times from five years to two.

The legislation was dealt with in two votes after New Democrat MP Jenny Kwan raised a point of order and argued Bill C-5’s two parts were unrelated to each other. The House Speaker approved splitting the legislation, which the NDP said would allow MPs to vote “directly on its more controversial clauses.”

During debate in the House on June 20, Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland said Canada is at a “critical moment” due to United States tariffs, necessitating the strengthening of Canada’s economy by quickly building new projects and reducing interprovincial trade barriers.

Freeland said the Conservative Party had been “championing some of these issues for some time” and she was grateful for the party’s support of Bill C-5. “What a delicious irony it will be for all of us as Canadians to respond to the tariffs imposed from abroad by finally tearing down the tariff and trade barriers that we have imposed on each other,” she added.

Conservative MP Dan Muys said he has heard from Canadians who are concerned about “bureaucratic bottlenecks, overregulation, and a government more interested in announcing headline-grabbing projects rather than permitting economically important ones.”

Muys said Conservatives on the Transport Committee addressed a “series of loopholes” in the legislation that would have allowed the government to bypass ethics laws, lobbying rules, and Criminal Code protections. He said Conservative amendments had closed the loopholes but the legislation still does not sufficiently reduce interprovincial trade barriers or contain clear criteria for what makes a project eligible for approval.

The amendments agreed to at the Transport Committee require the government to clearly define what constitutes “national interest” when approving projects, create a public online registry of all projects, publicize all documents used in approving projects, and call for the minister of intergovernmental affairs to testify before a parliamentary committee if 10 or more MPs request an explanation for decisions.

The Transport Committee also amended the bill to require that project proponents are free from conflict of interest and that the legislation can’t be used to override or amend legislation like the Criminal Code, Conflict of Interest Act, Indian Act, or Investment Canada Act. MPs approved the amendments in a 313–24 vote on June 20.

NDP MP Leah Gazan said that despite the NDP’s support in committee for amending the legislation, it still violates indigenous rights, environmental protections, and workers’ rights. Gazan said Bill C-5 will allow the government to determine which indigenous rights “may be adversely affected” or will “advance the interest” of indigenous peoples.

She said the bill will also allow the government to bypass key labour, health, and safety protections and that critics warn it poses environmental risks and will accelerate climate change.

“We urge the government to slow down, to reflect, to not let this bill go through in its current form,” she said.

Bloc Québécois MP Marilène Gill said her party considers Bill C-5 the “biggest attack on democracy” since the Emergencies Act, saying it “circumvents the democratic process.” The federal government invoked the Emergencies Act in February 2022 in response to the Freedom Convoy protest, which saw people and trucks converge in downtown Ottawa for weeks to protest COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other pandemic restrictions.

Gill said she takes issue with a single minister being allowed to decide what is in the national interest, noting the definition of “national interest” has yet to be defined. She also raised concerns that projects could be authorized without Canadians knowing the conditions or criteria that might apply.

“If everything takes place behind closed doors, how are we going to know that everything has been done properly?” she asked.

Conservative and Bloc MPs had previously raised concerns at the Transport Committee that Bill C-5 gave the government sweeping authority to exempt projects from existing laws without reasonable limits.

The House of Commons has been adjourned and will return on Sept. 15.