Miles of unused pipe, prepared for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, sit in a lot outside Gascoyne, N.D., on Oct. 14, 2014. Andrew Burton/Getty Images
Commentary
Political rhetoric is so soporific it’s often hard to focus on its weirdness. As when Prime Minister Mark Carney approves more projects for Major Projects Office (MPO) approval, “to grow our economy stronger than ever before – with major investments, faster approvals, and a clear signal to workers and industry… We are building sustainably, in partnership with Indigenous Peoples, and we are building Canadian.” Zzzzz… um… what? If he just approved them, what’s for the Major Projects Office to approve?
In days of yore, ye sumer of 2025, with “elbows up” to build one economy coast-to-coast, you might have supposed the MPO would focus on removing obstacles to enterprise, from excessive red tape to interprovincial trade barriers. The latter, a long-standing irritant where provincial politicians and bureaucrats praise free trade then defend protectionist fiefdoms using mercantilist logic obsolete in the 18th century to build the dynamic economy of the 21st, especially annoy me because in 2010 I coauthored the inaugural Macdonald-Laurier Institute paper “Citizen of One” urging a federal “Economic Freedom Commission” with the power and resources to initiate legal action against these petty, impoverishing, divisive measures, not just go “Isn’t it awful?” or don a jersey.
Fifteen languid years later, not one politician I know of has shown the slightest interest in this clear, solid, practical proposal. Instead, we have this Major Projects Office to do… what?
Given its name, the naive might assume it receives applications for major projects from interested entrepreneurs, processes them quickly, approves those not anti-social, and then slides them through the said impenetrable tangle of legal, regulatory, and political barriers that paralyze major investment projects here, especially in our vital natural resources sector. Or, better yet, reduce those barriers themselves, not just boost favoured applicants over them. But this is Canada.
Here, weirdly, the prime minister announces that various lucky projects have been approved for approval. We don’t know how, or why.
Perhaps it’s truly time to replace the maple leaf on our flag with a banana. There’s a quotation often attributed to Oscar R. Benavides, president of Peru from 1914–15 and 1933–39 and not in a good way, “For my friends everything, for my enemies the law.” Is it now official Canadian development policy?
Remember also the aphorism, also variously ascribed: “In England, everything is permitted that is not forbidden; in Germany everything is forbidden that is not permitted. In France everything is permitted even if it is forbidden; in Russia everything is forbidden even if it is permitted.” Once we were England. But where we now apparently aspire to be Germany, we might instead be turning into Russia.
I say so because it’s far from clear that the MPO actually can make things happen once the Prime Minister says “these are my friends” in a narcoleptically polysyllabic manner. It has a big budget, $214 million. But it hasn’t actually approved any of the approved projects yet. How could it? And why?
As The Narwhal rightly gripes, the latest approval-for-approval announcement included the “Ksi Lisims liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant – a massive, floating facility planned for British Columbia’s northwest coast.” Cool. Building Canada again for the first time. “But wait – the provincial and federal governments jointly approved Ksi Lisims back in September. If it already has the go-ahead, what role does the Major Projects Office actually play, and what does fast-tracking actually mean?” What indeed?
Like Carney’s election night pledge “to do things previously thought impossible at speeds we haven’t seen in generations” and nobody including him had any idea what he meant, or when. Or from that same project announcement, “we are building our nation again.” What, like Solomon’s Temple, where somebody burned it down and now we’re clearing the rubble and erecting another, better Newfoundland beside new Nova Scotia, etc?
The government’s soothing “One Canadian Economy” page hypes the Building Canada Act because “Canada must build critical new infrastructure at speeds not seen in generations,” and the act “will enable the government to streamline federal approval processes.” Then it hypes the MPO, whose “mandate is to advance major projects in Canada and streamline federal regulatory project approval. The Office brings together people and processes to move major projects forward faster, responsibly, and sustainably, while respecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples and protecting the environment.”
Writing “brings” not “will bring” lulls us. But while it’s hard to imagine the MPO examining something Mark Carney mysteriously and augustly favours, like “Nouveau Monde Graphite’s Matawinie Mine,” and going nah, it’s a dud, how exactly does it streamline this, respect that, unite the other, and protect all wondrousness? What if a major project is opposed for not “respecting” indigenous rights, or “protecting the environment”?
Does it go ahead anyway? Are there no courts? And what happens to everyone else?
Still, round and around and around it goes, while the passengers doze uneasily.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
John Robson is a documentary filmmaker, National Post columnist, senior fellow at the Aristotle Foundation, contributing editor to the Dorchester Review, and executive director of the Climate Discussion Nexus. His most recent documentary is “The Environment: A True Story.”