By David Ljunggren and Amanda Stephenson
OTTAWA/CALGARY, Sept 21 (Reuters) – Canada on Monday unveiled draft legislation that would speed up the approval process for major natural resource projects, a goal Prime Minister Mark Carney says is necessary to help deal with US tariffs.
The bill would also make it more complicated for a labor minister to order striking workers in major industries back to work. Ottawa stepped in several times in 2024 and 2025 to settle work stoppages in crucial sectors, prompting union anger.
Carney has said Canada has to cut back on obstacles to growth, in particular streamlining a complex federal approval process for infrastructure projects. Lengthy permitting times are one reason why some energy and resource projects in Canada have taken a decade or more to move from proposal to completion.
ONE-YEAR APPROVAL TARGET
The new bill will establish a one-year time frame for federal reviews and decisions, in part by conducting federal permit processes and reviews simultaneously instead of one after another.
The bill sends a signal to the federal bureaucracy that it must become more efficient, said federal Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson in an interview, adding the civil service will be held accountable to the new one-year time frame.
“What this is doing is signaling to every part of government that we need to raise our competence. We need to do our environmental work better and faster,” Hodgson said.
The government stressed that achieving the one-year timeline was not wholly dependent on the regulatory process, but would also require project proponents to provide data and project information in a timely manner.
The new bill does not change the right of Indigenous groups in Canada to be consulted and accommodated on projects that are taking place on their territory, but Hodgson said those consultations need to be done better and faster.
Carney’s ruling Liberals have a majority in the House of Commons elected chamber, ensuring the legislation should eventually pass. Opposition parties could demand changes and drag out the approval process.
LABOUR CODE CHANGES
The bill also aims to address an article in the Labour Code allowing the jobs minister to quickly end strikes and lockouts to “maintain or secure industrial peace”. Ottawa has invoked this article to end disputes in crucial sectors like railways, ports, airlines and postal services, to the outrage of unions.
Ottawa now says that in major disputes, a special mediator would have to work with the parties for 21 days. The minister could not intervene before then hearing a report from the mediator as well as receiving an assessment from the federal employment ministry as to the damage a stoppage could do.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa and Amanda Stephenson in Calgary; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Matthew Lewis)
