Environment Committee on Nov. 17th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Thank you, Mr. Bonin.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Mrs. Anstey, you have five minutes.

[Carol Anstey, Conservative, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Thank you.

I'd like to ask Mrs. Farrell some questions with respect to the Major Projects Office.

In your opening statement, you talked about the different ways that projects are referred. Is there any independent oversight of how your office prioritizes or manages files, or is this all handled internally and behind closed doors?

[Dawn Farrell]

Do you mean internally to the government or internally...?

There are a lot of projects in the country, as you know. This project was referred to us by the Department of Transport, primarily for the reason we stated: to ensure that we could arrange the financing and make sure that Ms. Gascon has everything she needs to be able to build the project on time and on budget.

We do an—

[Carol Anstey, Conservative, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Those conversations were all internal. You didn't have any independent oversight.

You mentioned earlier how some of these projects are coming in through meetings with premiers. Is that correct?

[Dawn Farrell]

The projects come in a variety of ways. They come from the government. They come from the provinces. They come from proponents. They come from first nations.

[Carol Anstey, Conservative, Long Range Mountains, NL]

I want to pause on that point for a second.

The Prime Minister was in Newfoundland and Labrador, and he met with the then Liberal premier, John Hogan. In a public press conference, he talked about two specific projects: the Bay du Nord project and the Churchill Falls project. He described them both as nation-building projects. Afterwards, on September 11, the then Liberal premier, John Hogan, was interviewed about those meetings, and he was very confident that those two projects were going to end up on the list.

If we fast-forward through a provincial election, there is now a new premier, and the projects are nowhere to be found. Newfoundland and Labrador was left out in the cold.

Wouldn't that all prove a certain political nature to who gets picked to be on this list?

[Dawn Farrell]

The projects come into our office. We do an evaluation—initially a desktop evaluation—of all the different attributes of the projects. As well, we have meetings with the different project proponents. We have the ability to recommend to the Prime Minister the projects we think are ready for referral and the projects on which there may be additional work to do.

As far as I'm concerned in terms of the projects that eventually get referred to us, they do meet the standard that I would believe makes sense for either major projects that should be referred or projects of national interest. There are many projects that are still being evaluated by our office and that will be announced as we go ahead.

Currently—

[Carol Anstey, Conservative, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Are there any from Newfoundland and Labrador that are being considered right now?

[Dawn Farrell]

Yes. Absolutely.

[Carol Anstey, Conservative, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Can you provide us with a list that shows the ones that are currently being reviewed, particularly in Newfoundland and Labrador? Can you provide us with some documentation to back that up?

[Dawn Farrell]

I don't know. The projects are currently being evaluated. I would have to take it under advisement as to whether we would provide you with the projects that are currently under evaluation. I can tell you that currently under evaluation are a number of projects from across Canada that are either infrastructure or major projects that add value to our trade. We're evaluating them within strategies and within all of the criteria under the Building Canada Act.

[Carol Anstey, Conservative, Long Range Mountains, NL]

I think that the committee would have a vested interest in seeing some of these projects that are being considered. If you could provide us with a list, we would all really appreciate that.

I recently had a meeting with the Port of Corner Brook when I was in my riding for a constituency week. They have a very strong business case to advance their port, but they're concerned that this project in Montreal might actually hurt them in terms of their ability to obtain financing and move their project forward. What's your response to that?

[Dawn Farrell]

Are you talking about the Contrecœur project?

[Carol Anstey, Conservative, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Yes.

[Dawn Farrell]

Again, if you look at individual projects that we're working on right now, you see they're fairly advanced projects, and there are already very strong business cases that those projects will benefit Canada.

When you step back from it, there are about 500 projects in the system right now. We've had 11 referred to us. There are also 400 projects that are in various government departments or with the provinces. They are not stopping as a result of the Major Projects Office. Our job is to advance the projects that come to us and, as we do our work, to also share that work so that other projects can move along as well.

Not every project in Canada will come through the Major Projects Office.

[The Chair, Liberal, Angelo Iacono]

Thank you, Mrs. Farrell.

Mr. Grant, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Wade Grant, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank everybody for attending today.

I would like to start by saying that I am from the other coast, Vancouver, right by the city of Tsawwassen, in Delta, where another major expansion is being proposed—Roberts Bank Terminal 2.

Before I became a member of Parliament here, I was part of a number of meetings with IAAC and the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. One of the major issues that we needed to deal with was integration and consultation with indigenous communities. There were over 40 that had to be consulted with in the expansion of RBT2.

I know there are not as many on this one, but I just wanted to ask what consultation was done, how many groups...and what did you hear back? How are you integrating that into this proposal?

I'll ask IAAC, and then also the port as well.

[Patricia Brady]

The port might have better numbers on the total number of nations that were consulted, but certainly that would have been part of the environmental assessment that was completed in 2021. The conclusion of that was that there weren't going to be significant adverse effects and environmental effects of the project, taking into account mitigation measures that were established through conditions.

Those mitigation measures include requirements to continue working with first nations, including on the compensation plan, which I understand the port has done.

I'll turn it over to the port to provide a bit more detail on the numbers.

[Julie Gascon]

The Port of Montreal has a long-standing relationship with the first nations. There are three major first nations in our surrounding....

We had over 80 meetings with the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke on the Contrecœur project in the last few years, and certainly many meetings in the last year alone. What I can tell you is that from the first nations perspective, we've received their support on the project, including recently from the Council of Kahnawà:ke. They're working with us. They're part of the fabric of everything we do in terms of our consultation, also in terms of their interest in and their benefit from the project.

We're keeping them apprised of all of our work.

[Wade Grant, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

One of the major issues for RBT2 was, of course, habitat restoration or habitat mitigation. You're talking about this with respect to the fish at stake here.

I just wanted to know if there are any examples that can be pointed to where this sort of movement of fish to another area has been successful, because that's something we wanted to ensure when we were talking about sturgeon and salmon at the mouth of the Fraser River.

Are there any examples of where this has been a successful reintegration?

[Julie Gascon]

Are you talking about all of the species for which we have compensation, or just for the copper redhorse?

[Wade Grant, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

No, I'm just asking if there is another example from this country or around the world where this has happened before—where a project was deemed necessary, and then fish were found and moved to a new habitat.

[Julie Gascon]

I wouldn't be able to tell you, sir, but maybe Nathalee—