Michael Higgins: Carney’s so-called ‘major projects’ mired in endless environmental review

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks during a news conference at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa, Canada on June 25, 2026. (Photo by Dave Chan / AFP via Getty Images)

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When Prime Minister Mark Carney promised to build at speeds not seen in generations, Canadians could be forgiven for thinking he meant to actually accelerate projects.

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Friday marks the one-year-anniversary of the Building Canada Act receiving Royal Assent and since that time not one “nation-building” project has been approved under the legislation.

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On Wednesday, the Liberals made great fanfare in announcing they were moving forward with three “major projects” of national interest under the act. Aware, no doubt, that the anniversary was approaching they must have felt it politic to announce something.

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But all they are doing is “initiating the process” to “potentially” list the projects as being of national interest under the act.

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To a lot of Canadians “that probably sounds like a lot of jargon,” said  Energy Minister Tim Hodgson at the announcement.

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No, it doesn’t sound like jargon, it sounds like nothing is getting done. It’s just more bureaucracy, more hurdles to jump through, more paperwork to fill out and more boxes to tick.

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The Building Canada Act was rushed through Parliament, with the help of the Conservatives, because Carney promised to build “nation-building infrastructure on a scale and at speeds not seen in generations.”

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Instead, we are stuck in neutral gear.

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The first project the Liberals highlighted was the Mackenzie Valley Highway, a proposed 800-kilometre all-season gravel highway connecting remote communities which at present have to use airplanes, river barges or a winter road.

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It’s a worthwhile project.

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But it has been a “strategic priority” for Canada since 1958, according to a timeline by the government of the Northwest Territories. It has been in the hands of the Liberals since 2018 when $140 million in funding was announced for “environmental assessment and planning studies.”

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Environmental assessment is still ongoing, according to the timeline, so it was disheartening to hear Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon on Wednesday announcing that “environment assessment work” on the highway was still needed.

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Carney likes to boast that the St. Lawrence Seaway, with its seven locks stretching over 300 kilometres, took just five years from concept to completion.

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“These were some of the nation-building projects of our past. Major structures, built with ambition and determination that connected and transformed our national economy. They represent much of how we will build again,” Carney said a year ago after the Building Canada Act passed in the Commons.

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The act was “very, very important,” he said. It was “especially consequential.”

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“We can build big, big bold, build now,” said the prime minister.

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A year later we have built nothing.

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A second project announced on Wednesday was the Grays Bay Road and Port, a proposed all-season 230-kilometre road from the Nunavut border to a deepwater port and airfield at Grays Bay on the Arctic Ocean.

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But as a policy paper for the North American and Arctic Defence and Security Network organization makes clear this project has undergone “five iterations in the last thirty years.”