Debates of Oct. 7th, 2026

Building Canada Strong Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the member would apply the very same principles he just spoke about to the Province of Manitoba, in which one minister went to the Manitoba Labour Board and forced 350 health care workers back to work. The member knows that it was Wab Kinew's New Democratic government.

The changes being made to section 107 would put in safeguards to ensure more accountability and more transparency. However, as one of my colleagues talked about, it is easy to get a quick social clip that spreads misinformation.

Can the member provide his thoughts, on principle, in terms of what the Manitoba government has done with the health care workers?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is funny that whenever this member and the current government want to deflect attention from their own actions, they point to someone else. It reminds me of my mother when I was in grade 3, when she asked me, “If Johnny jumped off the bridge, would you?”

It is a ridiculous argument, but I want to address the misinformation embedded in the member's question.

There is not a single guardrail in the legislation, not one. We can read it. It says that it is through the sole opinion of the minister, taking into account any relevant consideration they want, that they may order the end of a strike. There is not a guardrail in the legislation. One person can end a strike based on no evidence whatsoever after a special mediator issues a report.

The only misinformation is spread by the government in trying to tell Canadians that they put guardrails in this. There are no guardrails at all. This is a road map to violate Canadian workers' constitutional right to strike, and that member knows it or he has not read the legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I know this is an issue that the member cares deeply about, and so should we all, because we are talking about workers' rights. Last I checked, workers' rights fall under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in section 2(d).

Another section that is particularly relevant to this conversation tonight is section 4.2 of the Department of Justice Act, which says that the Minister of Justice is legally required to table a charter statement for every single government bill. Liberals like to say they are the party of the charter. So many Liberal members have said they are all about workers' rights, yet the House and the special legislative committee that is going to be set up to examine Bill C-39 have not yet seen this.

Does the member believe that the government has the obligation to give the people that charter statement before we start deliberating this at committee, yes or no?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is clearly no. In fact, I believe the real reason the legislation has been brought forth here in the House is that 12 hours after the flight attendants of Air Canada walked off the job, the Liberal government ordered them back to work. It was 12 hours after the rail workers went on strike that the government ordered them back to work. Do members know what happened? The Teamsters and CUPE filed court challenges saying that the government violated their charter rights. This case is before the courts right now, and in the government, the Liberals know they are going to lose, because the right to strike and the right to collectively bargain are respected charter rights recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada. The Liberals have attempted to charter-proof themselves by bringing in the legislation, but it will not work.

By the way, this gives me a chance to point out that this is the first Liberal government in over 100 years not to have a minister of labour. If we want a signal of what the government thinks about workers, it is that it does not even think they deserve their own minister of labour. The Liberals have a Minister of Jobs and Families. Now, that is a big slap in the face to organized labour in this country, and I can tell members that it is noticed.

[Natilien Joseph, Liberal, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that my colleague has had a long day and that he may be tired at this hour, but I would like to ask him this question: Does he really think that the right to strike in Canada will be suppressed by any government?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is not a matter of thinking; it is a matter of observing. I have watched workers in this country in the last 36 months have their rights violated 10 times by the Liberals, including by the member across from me. Of course, they have violated strike rights, and every time they take away a worker's right to strike hours after they began. They did not even wait until there was any impact on the public or on the employer. In fact, that is why Air Canada said it was not bargaining seriously at the table: It knew that the government was going to order the workers back to work before the strike even started, and that is what the Liberals did. They are doing the bidding of management. They are tipping the scales in favour of management. They are interfering with collective bargaining and violating workers' constitutional rights. Workers know it and unions know it; that member should also know it.

[Kent MacDonald, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-39, the building Canada strong act.

We find ourselves living in an extraordinary time of global transformation. We are witnessing unprecedented shifts in global trade patterns, rapid advancements in technology and heightened geopolitical uncertainty. The agreed-upon ways of doing business are being challenged across the globe every single day. It is clear that, as the world changes rapidly around us, we must look to our own domestic strengths to ensure that our supply chains are resilient, our infrastructure is strong and our economy is built to last. We cannot afford to passively observe global trends. We must take a hard look at how we build, approve projects and connect our communities to the world. This legislation does exactly that and provides our local communities, industries and workers with the certainty and predictability they need.

This step forward is made possible by the coordinated leadership of our government leads on this bill. Under their direction, Bill C-39 builds directly upon the foundation laid out with the One Canadian Economy Act and the successes of the Major Projects Office. Our government's commitment is one project, one review, one year.

Islanders and Atlantic Canadians know the value of time. On P.E.I., our construction seasons are short. Our local businesses cannot always afford to feel trapped as they wait for a decision they fear may not come. Anyone who has spent a winter in Atlantic Canada knows that our window for breaking ground and completing major physical infrastructure projects is narrow. When a project decision is delayed by weeks or months, it means losing valuable productivity for communities. That kind of delay is costly and frustrating.

Investors need to know that when they commit capital to a major project, they will receive an answer in a timely fashion. If Canada is going to attract the investment needed to build energy projects, do modern manufacturing and expand transportation hubs, we must prove that we can be nimble. Bill C-39 establishes clear timelines for federal project decisions and adjusts regulator timelines to better suit these needs. It moves federal approval processes to a concurrent review system and away from the slower sequential format of the past. This bill removes departmental silos and ensures that multiple bodies are looking at the same project at the same time. In the riding of Cardigan, this means that updates to our critical infrastructure, such as our small craft harbours and our energy grid capacity and expansion, can move forward without undue delay, all while retaining our strong protections.

Accelerating our timelines does not mean compromising our values. This legislation explicitly ensures that we continue protecting our environment while safeguarding and respecting indigenous rights every step of the way. High administrative standards do not demand slow decisions. We have proven that environmental stewardship and economic momentum go hand in hand.

P.E.I. relies on our ability to move goods efficiently. From the quality P.E.I. potatoes grown by our farmers to the world-class seafood harvested by our fishers, P.E.I. is ready to feed the world, but a strong product is only as good as the trade corridor that carries it to market. If our regional transport networks are outdated, our local producers lose out on opportunities. For an island province, those connections are especially important. We have the Confederation Bridge that was built in 1997 as a vital economic link connecting Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick, the rest of Canada and the markets beyond. The same is true of the Wood Islands to Caribou ferry, which is in my riding of Cardigan. That crossing connects eastern Prince Edward Island directly with Nova Scotia and forms an important part of the transportation network that supports our communities, our tourism sector and the movement of goods throughout our region.

Our trade network does not end when goods leave Prince Edward Island. Atlantic Canada succeeds when the entire region is connected. Infrastructure in Halifax, including the grain handling and port facilities, helps connect Atlantic Canadian producers to international markets. If we are going to achieve a doubling of our exports to countries other than the U.S., we need this valuable infrastructure and these improvements to go ahead.

Our bridges, our ferries, our highways, our railways and our ports are all links in the supply chain. That is why strengthening Canada's trade corridors matters so much to Atlantic Canada. When one link in that chain is strengthened, our entire region becomes more competitive. When one link becomes a bottleneck, the effects can be felt by businesses and producers hundreds of kilometres away.

The building Canada strong act would modernize the governance of Canada's ports, its railways and its supply networks. This bill would help ensure that the hard work of Islanders and the hard work of Canadians can reach global markets reliably. We would strengthen our local economies by building a robust national network. When we fortify trade corridors across this country, we are building an economy where geographic isolation is no longer a barrier to success.

We cannot build a prosperous future using outdated processes. The tools of the past are not equipped to solve the problems of the future. This act would provide clarity, give our industries the modern trade corridors they require and give Canadians a strong, unified economy they could depend on. It represents a step towards a more competitive and resilient Canada and it tells Canadians that their federal government is focused on the everyday realities that keep Canada moving forward. For those reasons, I am supporting this bill.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I can tell members that there is some stuff in this legislation that we can support. I represent a large farming area in Manitoba, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, and I have an agriculture background. I can tell members that the grain and oilseed producers in my riding have always had a lot of concerns about how sometimes their products do not get moved quickly; sometimes there are disruptions in rail and at the ports. We lose the confidence that we need as a nation, as a reliable supplier of our agri-food products.

There are three main parts in this bill. There is one section in here under the transportation side that talks about interswitching. Why has the current government not put permanently in place the interswitching of rail so that our grain farmers, our oilseed producers and other commodities producers can use whichever rail company they want, to get their products to port?

[Kent MacDonald, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the member would be fully aware that this government is committed to port development, whether it is in Churchill, Manitoba, or in Vancouver. There is a large expansion being discussed. That would alleviate a lot of the struggles with the export of grain, particularly in the fall. We speak to ranchers in western Canada, and obviously it is the same everywhere. We all harvest in a certain window and that product all has to go to market, so we are going in the right direction in terms of port development. We need the processes to allow these expansions to happen.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague seems obsessed with the goal of completing major projects in one year and with the idea of diversifying our international markets. However, does he realize that, even internationally, there are clear rulings on the right to strike and on what a strike is? Does he realize that if the bill were to pass, Canada would become the only G7 country where the executive branch could decide to prevent workers from exercising their legally recognized right to strike? That does not present Canada in a very favourable light on the international stage.

[Kent MacDonald, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I disagree with the member's statement. What this bill would do is give certainty to industry. The act would take concrete steps to strengthen labour relations by requiring earlier bargaining in complex cases. It would gives unions and employers more time to identify issues, access mediation services and reach negotiated agreements before a strike or a lockout. The bill would develop the guardrails that give security to those labour relations.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the speech this evening by my colleague from the riding just directly across the Hillsborough River from Charlottetown. I want to ask him a couple of questions that are directly related to his own experience before coming to Parliament, and also something that is critical for his riding.

Where does he see the opportunities in this legislation with respect to that critical transportation link between Wood Islands and Caribou, Nova Scotia? Second, based on his decades of experience in the dairy farming industry, where are the opportunities presented by this legislation in that industry?

[Kent MacDonald, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I would say first, with regard to the transportation links, obviously, in the region of the province and country that I am from, we have a ferry service that is essential to commercial business and the export of potatoes, fish and many other commodities that leave P.E.I. We are a province of 180,000, and P.E.I. has been called the million-acre farm. What we grow, we have to export. That has to go to international markets and markets in the rest of Canada.

In terms of the question about the dairy industry, I see this bill offering more certainty to the processing sector to build expansion. We are currently trucking milk to Ontario and Quebec that could be processed in Atlantic Canada. I think we need certainty in the business world to accomplish that.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Riding Mountain, MB]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I want to send congratulations to my son and daughter-in-law Melody on the birth of their first son and our first grandson. I am happy to report that mom and baby are home and everybody is healthy. I love them lots and look forward to meeting Evan this weekend.

Mr. Speaker, over a year ago, the Prime Minister promised that Bill C-5, the one Canadian economy act, and his new Major Projects Office would get projects built at a speed not seen in generations. Liberals are back with a massive bill that amends the Building Canada Act that the government passed last year. Thirteen months after promising projects built at speeds not seen in generations, they are once again telling Canadians that another announcement will finally make the difference. Talk about not seeing something for generations.

Canadians have heard this promise before, and Conservatives are waiting on the 500 projects collecting dust while sitting on the Prime Minister's desk waiting for federal approval. In fact, we have already watched major projects disappear under the last decade of Liberal mismanagement. This includes energy east, northern gateway, Pacific NorthWest LNG and the Frontier oil sands mine, just to name a few of these shelved projects, amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars in value.

Although 20 projects have been referred to the Major Projects Office, it is important for the government to understand that a referral is not a shovel in the ground. When the government needs another law to fix its first one from last year, questions need to be asked. While the government keeps announcing new processes, Canadians continue waiting for projects to be approved and construction to begin. Bill C-39 is nearly 250 pages long, and my Conservative colleagues and I are continuing to review whether the legislation cuts delays or creates more bureaucracy and photo ops. Conservatives have consistently called for six-month project decisions because businesses need certainty. It is no secret that lengthy approval processes delay investment and prevent construction, but this is just one part of the problem when it comes to getting things built.

Conservatives have also called for a repeal of Liberal antidevelopment laws such as the “no more pipelines” law, Bill C-69. We also called for the repeal of the tanker ban law, Bill C-48, which blocked routes for shipping Canadian resources overseas. Conservatives have advocated for one project, one review system so major projects can face one coordinated federal assessment instead of multiple overlapping reviews and approvals. If this bill gets projects approved faster and gets Canadians' goods to market sooner, it does deserve credit. However, if it does not, it is another example of the Liberals mistaking a press conference for a project.

Bill C-39 is also to be judged by what it means for the cost of living in Canada. The minister has not guaranteed that this bill will not raise the costs of energy bills for Canadians. Our position is simple. Conservatives oppose policies that increase the cost of living on Canadians. We are laser-focused on making life more affordable. If a policy lowers costs, we support it. If it raises costs, we oppose it. The Liberals should also tell Canadians whether they have completed an independent cost-benefit analysis of Bill C-39 and what the bill is expected to mean for businesses across Canada.

Before my first election to Parliament, I had served as president of Manitoba's largest general farm organization, Keystone Agriculture Producers. I am also a lifelong farmer. That is why I was very attentive to the interswitching change proposed in Bill C-39. The concept of interswitching is to have a business use an alternative railway even when only one railway serves the facility directly. The purpose is straightforward. Giving more shippers access to alternative railways can increase competition and more transportation options.

Conservatives have supported that approach before. In 2014, the previous Conservative government passed the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act, which enabled regulated interswitching to be extended from 30 kilometres to 160 kilometres in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Now, nearly 10 years later, Bill C-39 proposes to bring back a 160-kilometre extended interswitching regime in the same provinces for four years.

If extended interswitching helped move commodities to market 10 years ago, why did the Liberal government allow the earlier 160-kilometre expansion to expire, and why bring it back for only four years? Farmers and businesses that transport their goods plan several seasons ahead and invest based on rules they expect to face. They need certainty. Conservatives will watch closely to see whether the Liberals allow this temporary regime to lapse again. Failing to provide certainty and predictability in Canada is not putting Canada first.

Canadian farmers and businesses need more than reliable rail access. They also need ports that can move goods efficiently once they reach the coast and send them to customers around the world. Canada has always depended on transportation infrastructure to connect this country. Sir John A. Macdonald's vision was a national railway that linked British Columbia with the rest of Canada and helped move goods to market. More than 140 years later, Canada still depends on that same connection to move Canadian products on rail, through our ports and out to world markets.

That is why the port of Vancouver is relevant to this debate. The port of Vancouver is a critical gateway for prairie grain exports to the world. When one of the most important export gateways performs poorly in part of its operations, that should concern Canadians. The World Bank's 2025 port performance index ranked Vancouver 375th out of 400 globally.

Farmers and businesses need a whole system to work. Better rail access will only go so far if goods then face delays or uncertainty at the port they are extended through. Canada has experienced repeated labour disruptions at ports and railways, which have impacted the ability to move goods to market. Conservatives respect workers' right to collective bargaining. At the same time, Canadian producers and businesses need reliable access to ports so they can control freight costs and meet commitments to customers around the world. As parliamentarians, it is important that we balance these matters and further study the labour impacts of the legislation before us today.

At the beginning of this debate, I quoted the Prime Minister promising to move major projects at a speed “not seen in generations”. Canadians have now heard that promise more than once. Bill C-39 would give the government another chance to prove that those words actually mean something in practice.

For Conservatives, the standard is clear: Projects should be approved faster, businesses should face fewer barriers and producers should have more competition to move their goods to market. If this bill helps deliver those results, Canadians will see it. However, if it only adds another layer of process in Ottawa, Canadians will see that too. Speed “not seen in generations” should mean shovels in the ground, goods moving and investments staying in Canada. Results, not promises, should be the standard by which Bill C-39 is judged.

[Steeve Lavoie, Liberal, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I come from a dairy farm. It seems my colleague is a farmer as well, so I understand the realities he faces.

He spoke about the port of Vancouver. We also have a port in Quebec City, and I understand the important role it plays in our trade strategy. At the Standing Committee on International Trade, we often heard about the port of Vancouver and the difficulties pork producers faced in shipping their products abroad because of the lack of predictability and certainty. I am pleased to hear his remarks because, based on what we see in Bill C‑39, we will be able to move projects forward more quickly and provide greater predictability for businesses.

I therefore trust that he will support Bill C‑39 and vote in favour of providing greater predictability for businesses across Canada.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Riding Mountain, MB]

Madam Speaker, I referred to it in my speech. There are still so many unknowns, especially when it comes to labour. If the track record is any indication of how the Liberals are going to perform in the future, my God, we have a long way to go.

It is absolutely ridiculous how many labour disruptions we have had under this Liberal regime. Hopefully, the member will stand in unison with us when we start questioning the fumbles that the Liberals are purposely putting in place.

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the member. He is a farmer and is a very hard-working MP, and I give a lot of credibility to what he says.

He talked about the certainty and predictability that farmers need from the interswitching provisions, but the government is only suggesting to bring them back for 48 months. Rather than putting in place a regime that has been proven to be successful under both the Harper and the Trudeau governments, the government is simply giving a bit of durable competition for a very short period of time.

Does he support making the provisions permanent? Would that bring some certainty and predictability to farmers like him?

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Riding Mountain, MB]

Madam Speaker, I support predictability and stability, and that could mean locking them in. Ironically, when I was president at KAP, the main file that I worked on was interswitching. One thing I could not get over was that there was always the issue of the railways and trying to find a balance between the railways, the shippers and the people trying to do business with the railways.

As for transparency, any time we are talking about interswitching in the bill, all members and everybody impacted by the bill need to be at the table whenever we are negotiating interswitching.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague for his speech in which he talked about the importance of predictability, stability and transparency.

I want to focus on the word “transparency”. With Bill C-5, the government introduced the concept of creating projects of national interest and giving a single minister the power to circumvent legislation.

In this bill, the government takes things even further. Assessments used to take up to a maximum of three years, but now the government is reducing that to one year. I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that.

Will shortening a project's assessment period improve the project?

Is it not just the opposite? If we are being transparent, should projects not have to demonstrate why they are in the public interest?

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Riding Mountain, MB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member referred to the culture of transparency. Sadly, the Liberal government defaults to secrecy and non-transparency. I know the member and I experienced and witnessed that when the Liberals had a manufactured majority. All of a sudden at the health committee, they shut off the cameras, shut down discussions and went into secretive mode because they could. If this is any indication of how they are going to deal with all the other stuff that is being brought forward in this massive bill, I fear for our future in Canada.

[Corey Hogan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in support of the proposed building Canada strong act. I was next to the Prime Minister when, in my home city of Calgary last spring, he announced our party's intention to speed up approval timelines while maintaining the robust environmental and social standards of which Canada is rightly proud.

He talked about needing political decisions to come at the start of the regulatory process rather than lurking out there as question marks until the very end. He talked about departments working through reviews concurrently and getting promptly to a yes or a no. He talked about certainty and clarity for businesses, workers, communities, indigenous partners and governments. He talked about pragmatism.

The Prime Minister's stated aim, then as now, is to make Canada the best-performing country among the 38 members of the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. At the time, that meant reducing approval timelines to two years. However, the world will not wait for us. We have learned valuable lessons from the work of the Major Projects Office, for example. As Wayne Gretzky famously said, we must skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.

We must continue to push ourselves. We must uphold the standards and ambitions that define us as Canadians, while acting quickly enough to attract investment, both from here and abroad. By doing so, we are contributing to our country's success. We are supporting good jobs, we are supporting strong communities, we are diversifying our trade and we are fostering the development of our industries here in Canada.

It would be one project, one decision and one year. If we do this right, and we will, we would set the conditions for a generation of smart prosperity.

The bill would find faster and better ways to reach the same objectives. We want to continue being a world leader in environmental and social standards, and we must continue to respect treaty rights and advance economic reconciliation, but we know we can do those things faster and better.

In any large organization, decisions inevitably accumulate over time. A rule is created in response to a new technology. A new rule is introduced to address an emerging technology. A court decision changes an established process. An event alters our understanding of an issue or exposes a weakness that we move quickly to correct. A new manager introduces a new approach, which is layered onto existing practices. It goes on like that, often for years. Viewed individually, each decision makes sense. It meets a need. It is appropriate. However, we do not always take the time to assess the cumulative effect of all these decisions. Processes can become complicated, frustrating and slow, sometimes even redundant and counterproductive.

Let us consider the expansion of consultation, which is a very good thing, and how it has intersected with our current system of reviews that occur one after the other: CER reviews, then DFO reviews, then ECCC reviews, and so on through all of the relevant departments, and at each step, a consultation occurs. While a billion-dollar company may be equipped to do four or five consultations, a concerned father of three, a first nation of 300 people or a rural municipality with a yearly budget of $10 million might not be. Consultation fatigue sets in and consultation quality suffers. Participants in early stages do not benefit from understanding the accumulated benefits and impacts that are only apparent when all the reviews have occurred. We can all agree, I am sure, that a better approach is to have all stakeholders at the table and all considerations on the table, to respect everyone's time and capacity. That is better, and that is also faster.

This bill would also create regions of national interest. If we know that a region is important for critical minerals, clean energy, transportation or any other priority, regional planning allows us to look at the whole picture. That includes cumulative environmental impacts, indigenous peoples' rights and consultations, infrastructure needs, and areas where development should or should not take place. This way, we can establish common conditions, rather than starting the federal process from scratch for each new project. More planning up front means less duplication down the road.

Regional planning is not a new idea. Municipalities and provinces are doing it. As in those cases, regions of national interest provide clearer rules and greater certainty for investors. They also make it possible to better coordinate projects and have a coherent strategy. Imagine, for example, several mines using the same regional roads and power lines. That infrastructure would have already been considered for expansion in the planning process. Once again, it is a better approach and, once again, it is a faster one.

All Canadians want faster and better, but those who are considering investing billions have additional considerations and weigh projects against projects all over the world. Companies base investments on two criteria: return and risk. Faster decisions get projects to production sooner and in doing so increase return, and when they build in a Canadian way, they put Canadians to work. They strengthen our economy, they strengthen our communities and they strengthen economic reconciliation. Faster decisions also reduce risk. They mean we are not foregoing opportunities and investing for years with no guarantee of return at all.

Through shaping our policies, we can further reduce risk. The proposed building Canada strong act would move political reviews by cabinet from the end of the process to the start of the process, and in doing so, it would give companies the confidence that they will have political support if they can meet the regulatory rules. This is better, it attracts capital and it costs nothing. It simply moves one gate from the end of a process to the start. It would reduce no standard and would lessen no protection.

This bill contains many such amendments: thoughtful, practical and, in some cases, fairly self-evident. They are highly concrete measures, such as extending certain permits, starting negotiations earlier, making greater use of mediation and assigning primary responsibility to the department that already possesses the relevant expertise. These are practical solutions to specific problems. All of these provisions, along with many others I have not discussed, pursue the same objective: improving our processes in practical ways while maintaining the high standards Canadians expect. This is a well-designed, comprehensive bill that is targeted at the specific barriers holding back investment and growth, at a time when the world sees extraordinary opportunities in Canada.

I have a final thought. As a country, we are doing big things. The bill would support doing big things. We have transportation goals and electrification goals. We have trade diversification goals. Our ambition is to be a conventional energy superpower and a renewable energy superpower. Our ambition is to maintain our global lead in mining, nuclear, forestry and so much more.

I am aware of a study that shows that since 2006, federal regulatory burden has increased slowly but steadily. Through the Harper years and the Trudeau years, there was an unbroken increase to 37%. To be clear, it did not increase senselessly. It increased in response to events, challenges, evolved understandings and opportunities. It served a purpose. However, in aggregate, this increase is estimated to have lowered GDP growth by 1.7 percentage points and employment growth by 1.3 percentage points in the business sector.

We have created another opportunity now, one I hope all members of the House embrace. A rationalization of our processes and regulations is a healthy process any organization should do regularly. The proposed building Canada strong act is that rationalization for the federal government. It would let us build faster, build better and do that while maintaining and promoting the values that we hold dear as Canadians.

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

Madam Speaker, I know that the Liberals like to say that they are against two-tier anything, but Bill C-39 would create a statutory authority for the regulator, or in this case the responsible authority, that would give the one year, one review. There would be exemptions. Obviously, there is proposed section 19(4), which would force a completeness sign-off that could be like Groundhog Day for someone.

In addition to the loopholes in the bill, there would be no statutory deadline for transportation projects. I would like to ask the member why transportation projects would have no statutory one year, one review equivalent like the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the Impact Assessment Agency or the Canadian Energy Regulator have. Why would there be a two-tier approach to big projects?

[Corey Hogan, Liberal, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Madam Speaker, I think the member opposite will also appreciate that there are different considerations, both in transportation because of the nature and the concentration that exists, and also in linear infrastructure and the challenges that are presented there as well.

I certainly welcome the member's comments, and I hope that at committee we can flesh this out. Perhaps there are opportunities to meet his concerns as we advance on this.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Madam Speaker, there is something rather troubling about Bill C‑39. It would allow projects to receive approval in principle, meaning a project could be authorized before any assessment has been conducted to determine whether it is actually a sound project. I would ask my colleague whether he would agree to buy a car before even taking it for a test drive.

[Corey Hogan, Liberal, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to be precise, so I will respond in my mother tongue.

It is a question of where we put a political approval. It is not saying that we have purchased the car. In fact, it is saying that we will purchase the car if it looks like it did in the advertisement. What we see with this particular approach is that we would be removing the uncertainty that comes from politics but saying that approval would be conditional upon all the other regulatory approvals' being met by the decision document at the end of the process.