Hon. Marty Klyne: Senator Moreau, congratulations to the government on referring the second group of projects to the Major Projects Office: the LNG facility in B.C., the Iqaluit hydroelectric project, the Sisson mine in New Brunswick, the Crawford nickel mine, the North Coast Transmission Line and Nouveau Monde Graphite’s mine. I believe Canadians want to see such prosperity-building initiatives move forward. However, these projects don’t cross provincial boundaries and don’t appear to require the interprovincial coordination we might associate with the robust federalism. I’m aware of the criteria for national interest projects in Bill C-5, such as the likelihood of success and contributing to clean growth.

To confirm this is not picking winners and losers but fair criteria, can you tell us more about the thresholds that must be met and how these projects do so?

Hon. Pierre Moreau (Government Representative in the Senate): Yes, thank you for the question.

The Major Projects Office works with provinces, territories, Indigenous Peoples and industry to identify and evaluate projects that would offer the greatest benefits for Canadians. A project is determined to be of national significance based upon the five factors that are outlined in the Building Canada Act, including the extent to which the project can strengthen Canada’s autonomy, resilience and security; provide economic or other benefits to Canada; have a high likelihood of successful execution; advance the interests of Indigenous Peoples; and contribute to clean growth and to Canada’s objectives with respect to climate change.

Those are the major factors that are taken into consideration for a national project to go forward.

Senator Klyne: Thank you.

Several of these projects faced delays in the past, whether from regulatory or funding hurdles, Indigenous consultations or other challenges. Canadians want to understand what made the difference this time. Can you please share which of these projects have previously been held up, what the key roadblocks were and how referral to the Major Projects Office will help clear those hurdles?

Senator Moreau: It is difficult, in one minute, to list all of the issues these projects have faced. I will highlight an example, the Crawford Nickel Project.

There are still several permitting processes that this project is running through, and the Major Projects Office is working to come up with processes where the project can run all the permitting in parallel so that it is not being done sequentially.