Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, Bill C-39, the building Canada strong act, puts forward important legislative changes that would build on the government’s effort to protect Canada’s economic future by reducing the regulatory burden faced by the Canadian transportation sector. Last year, the government passed the Building Canada Act, which focused on accelerating the development of projects of national interest and removing barriers to internal trade and labour mobility. Today I am pleased to tell members that we have worked diligently in the last months on timely project reviews, streamlining government processes, ensuring that safeguards are in place when expediting project reviews, and reducing costs to Canadians and businesses. We all know that the global post-Cold War consensus has ruptured. For much of our history, Canadians have been able to count on favourable trade conditions, including a stable relationship with the United States; increasingly open access to the American market; and rules that both countries understood and respected. These conditions have not simply shifted. The decades-long process of steadily increasing integration between our economies is over. Tariffs are being treated as leverage, and supply chains are being treated as vulnerabilities. In a rapidly changing world, Canada’s new government is focused on what we can control. We are building our strength at home and diversifying our partnerships abroad. We have the right plan to build Canada strong. We are on track, and it is working. Transportation is the vital link connecting every other priority we have. We cannot diversify trade, build the strongest economy in the G7 and strengthen Canada’s competitiveness without a transportation system that works. Canada’s trade corridors connect Canadian businesses to markets and supply chains at home and around the world. We heard directly from indigenous peoples, the transportation industry and Canadians about what is needed to build stronger, more efficient and more resilient supply chains. We are taking action to reduce red tape, strengthen supply chains, accelerate infrastructure development and attract the investment needed to grow Canada’s economy and create good jobs. For too long, we have let red tape and underinvestment hinder the innovation and productivity of Canadian companies. We are not modern enough. We are too bureaucratic. We have not invested enough in our infrastructure. Other countries find us unreliable. These are things that we urgently have to address. That is why we would be providing regulatory certainty to modernize the rules that govern how we build and putting real investment behind the infrastructure we need to compete in this new world while protecting the health, safety and security of Canadians and the environment, and respecting indigenous rights. To support the government’s commitment to lower costs for Canadians and build a stronger economy, the government launched a red tape review in July 2025. Federal departments and agencies identified approximately 500 recent achievements and forward-looking actions to reduce regulatory red tape. This bill would begin the implementation of some of these forward-looking actions, showing how the government would deliver on its commitment to address barriers that slow private investment, limit labour mobility and restrict competition. Canada needs to be seen as a reliable and beneficial place to invest and do business. Inefficiencies in our trade processes and supply chains are costly and can hurt our reputation as a reliable trading partner. To maximize the full value of our budget 2025 investments, we must address long-standing constraints in the transportation system that limit investment, productivity, diversification and growth in key trade-enabling assets. The bill would support a more modern, responsive transportation system that can handle economic pressures, improve transportation performance and unlock new capacity across supply chains. A critical piece of this bill addresses the urgent need for timely and coordinated project reviews. Securing approvals for project works can take months or even years, creating significant delays in project delivery and limiting opportunities for job creation. These delays deter investment in resource projects, including in mining and oil and gas. This bill includes measures to reduce red tape and regulatory burden through a new transportation project office, which would complement efforts being led by the Major Projects Office and the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada to strengthen federal permitting coordination and Crown consultation for transportation projects to meet the government’s commitment of one project, one review within one year of receiving all necessary information from the proponent. These changes would enable industry to advance large-scale projects more efficiently with greater certainty, helping attract investment and facilitate trade-enabling infrastructure. The transportation project office would work to reduce bottlenecks, improve coordination and offer a one-window approach to proponents. This improved approach would maintain existing safeguards that ensure the integrity of project reviews. The objective is to unlock greater efficiency, not more risk. Similarly, the government is committed to having indigenous views and partnerships shape how projects are developed and carried out. We remain committed to upholding indigenous rights, including rights stemming from section 35 of the Constitution and from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and to working with indigenous peoples during the implementation phase. The bill would also give Canada the tools to rapidly align with trusted international standards, strengthen how we collect, use and protect industry data, and modernize our marine security framework to better protect critical Canadian assets. Following the “tell us once” principle, government efforts on trade digitization will make it simpler for Canadian businesses to submit the necessary information to move trade faster and more efficiently across our borders. I want to especially highlight that last point. Today, industries fulfilling regulatory requirements are routinely required to submit the same or similar data to multiple departments in various formats and on different timelines. This imposes real costs and administrative burdens on businesses in meeting their regulatory obligations when engaging in international trade. Canadian businesses expect clear communication, faster turnaround times and the ability to track the status of their requests. By reducing duplication and streamlining reporting, a trade digitization initiative, once implemented, will lower costs and save time, ease the overall administration burden and let businesses focus primarily on growth and innovation. The bill would also provide authorities to enable Canada to rapidly align with trusted international standards, giving industry the certainty it needs to plan and invest with confidence, especially as Canada seeks to grow. With our rules and regulations moving at the same pace as those of our international partners, Canadian innovation and productivity would be unleashed, and Canadian companies could compete on a level playing field with their international competitors.
