Bill C-39 Committee on Oct. 19th, 2026

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

We are giving that certainty, but I would also point you to the creation of the transportation project office, which is a prominent and important part of this bill, and which mandates Transport Canada to accompany developers of those very kinds of projects you're suggesting to make sure they are compliant and get through and get approved in what would be record time, frankly.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Minister, you didn't answer the question on the statutory, but let's talk about your transportation project office in clause 192, where it creates an optional transportation project office with no binding timetable or power to hold departments accountable.

If it's meant to get railways, ports, roads and airports built, why have you given yourself the discretion? Why is it optional? Furthermore, why design it to be literally toothless? Is it just meant to be a paper-shuffling exercise, like the Major Projects Office? Is that what its true function is?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

I'll ask Deputy Vandergrift to answer that one.

[Michael Vandergrift, Deputy Minister, Department of Transport]

It gives the minister the authority to create the office and gives the minister the authority to coordinate permit approvals for projects under the control of that office.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

It also gives the authority to cancel it and to cancel whoever is the head of it. This thing is completely optional and completely toothless. Why build another bureaucracy, Minister—

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Why, Mr. Albas—

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

—instead of empowering the existing national supply chain office, which already knows Canada's corridors and bottlenecks? Why not use that?

Give it one federal schedule. Give it the authority under law for concurrent reviews, a proper one-year timeline, status reports and public accountability when a department fails to show up. There's DFO. There are other permits that need to be dealt with.

Right now, this so-called transportation project office, if you decide to use it, wouldn't have any of that authority.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Well, we have decided to use it, and I don't know why you would put something in law that you—

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Have you read clause 192, Minister?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Again—

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

It literally says that you “may”.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Well, of course, and why would we have written that in that bill if we did not have the intention to do it? This “may” creates the permission structure in law. The supply chains office had no legal status. Now there will be a transport project office that will coordinate these approvals under the same one-year timeline that we are discussing for all of the regulatory processes—

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Minister, the transport project office—

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Mr. Albas, let him finish answering the question.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

He's rambling on it.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Minister, finish answering the question.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

The transport project office is there to consolidate and to accompany people building projects in this country, to make sure that there is one interlocutor with an interest in supply chain efficiency, which is also in the bill. It also makes sure that these projects are built and are built under the same one-year regime as every other project.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

It's going to take a year or more before you get this office set up and it starts running. Why not use an existing office like the supply chains office?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

That's what we did—

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Also, Minister—

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

That is what we.... Just to be clear—

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Excuse me, Mr. Chair, but can you get him to let me ask my question?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Well, no, you said why not do something that—

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

You're both talking now, so let's do one at a time.

Mr. MacKinnon, let him finish asking the question. Then you can state your answer again, so that he hears it clearly.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Unlike part 1 of the bill, where the responsible authority has the authority to say, “Get all these things,” and there's a single window that has some authority to move things, you have an optional transport office that doesn't have any staff and that may or may not be there, because you can choose to unuse it. They're not statutorily limited to have a review done, even the other agencies, like DFO, which is important for things such as a port or for a shipping facility, Mr. Chair.... None of this stuff is in the bill.

Why is there that oversight? Why are you selling something that is toothless and without authority? Why not give it the same powers and make it ahead very similar to the responsible authority in part 1?