Prime minister to announce the first series of major nation-building projects

The first major industrial projects under the federal government’s strategy to reduce Canada’s economic reliance on the U.S. will be announced Thursday, Prime Minister Mark Carney told his caucus on Wednesday.

The prime minister vowed that these “transformative” projects will align both with the interests of Indigenous people and with Canada’s climate goals.

Carney said he wants to “turbocharge” Canada’s economy through “major nation-building projects that connect our regions, that diversify our products and build new markets and create those hundreds of thousands of high-paying careers for our workers, from the trades to technology.”

Carney made the comments in Edmonton in a speech to Liberal MPs attending a caucus retreat ahead of the return of the House of Commons next week.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who was scheduled to meet with Carney later in the day, told reporters in Calgary that she won’t be concerned if an oil pipeline is not on the list for the first series of projects when it’s released on Thursday.

“The list is going to be an evergreening list,” Smith said.

“It’s not, ‘Oh my gosh, this is it, nothing else can be added.’ And so we’ve got a little bit of work to do to be able to get to an environment where oil companies want to expand their production.”

Smith said Ottawa needs to create a more favourable regulatory and legal environment for oilsands companies and repeated her call for the repeal of the West Coast oil tanker ban and the emissions cap.

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“Why would an oilsands company, in this environment, knowing that there’s an emissions cap which would result in them curtailing 2.1 million barrels of production — how in the world can they then pledge new barrels to go into a pipeline that would go to a coast where there’s a tanker ban?” she said.

Smith described her government’s conversations with its “negotiating partners” in Ottawa on spurring energy investment as “very constructive.”

“We’re very hopeful that, in short order, we’ll be able to get this to the finish line together,” she said.

Energy Minister Tim Hodgson would not comment Wednesday on whether there were no pipelines on the list, while Liberal House Leader Steven MacKinnon called it a “living, breathing list” and said more projects will be added over time.

Late Wednesday, Ottawa announced the makeup of an Indigenous advisory panel that would be part of the new major projects office, consisting of 11 Indigenous leaders from across the country.

The council includes Crystal Smith of Haisla Nation, B.C., Kluane Adamek of Kluane First Nation in the Yukon and Grand Chief Trevor Mercredi of Beaver First Nation in Alberta.

Meantime, as Carney promises to build Canada into an “energy superpower,” questions are also swirling about what will happen to the government’s climate targets.

Cabinet ministers in recent days have conspicuously not reaffirmed that Ottawa will meet its 2030 Paris Agreement target to reduce emissions by 40 per cent below 2005 levels.

Carney said Wednesday that later this fall, the government will release a new “climate-competitiveness strategy” that will focus on results, but did not reference Canada’s emissions commitments.

Several Liberal MPs balked at the notion when quizzed by reporters camped outside the caucus meeting room.

“In my mind, we have to respect those targets. We have to figure out the steps needed to take place,” said Quebec MP Marc Miller. “I trust the prime minister, and I trust the direction in which we’re going.”

“Backsliding on our commitments around climate, if you read (Carney’s book) ‘Values’, would be a very odd thing for us to do,” said Toronto MP Nate Erskine-Smith.

Carney also said he intends to launch his promised new national home-building strategy next week, and a new trade diversification strategy this fall.

The caucus meetings come as Carney prepares for the release next month of his government’s first federal budget, which he promises will be packed with both spending initiatives and austerity measures.

Carney did not stop to talk with reporters Wednesday afternoon, but instead appeared on a podcast hosted by Ryan Jespersen.

— With files from Émilie Bergeron and Jack Farrell in Edmonton and Matthew Scace in Calgary, The Canadian Press