“I want the House to pass this bill. It will speed up government reviews for major building projects so decisions are made within one year. It cuts delays without lowering our environmental rules or ignoring Indigenous rights.”

“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.”

“This bill does not give projects final approval before reviews are done. It only promises approval if a project meets every safety and environmental rule at the end. This removes political uncertainty.”

“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.”

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“I want the member to explain how this bill makes things fairer for smaller groups taking part in review processes.”

“Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague’s speech and his reflections, in particular, on the different capacities that organizations, large versus small, may have in participating in some of the review processes. I wonder if he could elaborate on how the bill would help level the playing field a bit.”

“I support this bill. Right now, communities often face five or six separate government consultations for one project. This bill combines them into a single meeting to save people time and make discussions better.”

“Madam Speaker, I am very happy to. I think we can all appreciate, as we have grown in understanding about the complexity of projects, the impact on the environment and the impact on communities, that more federal departments have been brought into the conversation. Those conversations have become more robust. The challenge, however, has become that our organization as a government has presented additional stacking of consultations and demand on the communities that we are hoping to support through these initiatives. What Bill C-39 would do is bring all that to one table and allow a robust conversation to occur that would take into consideration all the benefits, all the drawbacks, all the challenges and all the opportunities, and do so in a way that would be much more respectful of time. There are many horror stories of people having to be subjected to five or six consultations. Let us get it down to one and make it a better one.”

“This bill will give farmers and shippers more certainty. The rail rules are temporary for now so we can test them and build a stable system. I look forward to the member's ideas at the committee stage.”

“Madam Speaker, I certainly believe it would increase certainty within all those sectors. What I would put back to my colleague is that, just as under Harper and just as under Trudeau, these rules would be provisional. There are challenges we want to work through in the longer term, and we want to make sure we can get to a transportation sector that is stable and well working. I certainly welcome the member’s additional commentary at the committee stage.”

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“Canadians are worried about trade, tariffs, and Donald Trump. Canada needs to work together as a team on this. The member opposite went to the United States and said Canada should stop having a hissy fit. I want him to explain those remarks and apologize to Canadians.”

“Madam Speaker, since the last federal election, which was about 18 months ago, Canadians have been genuinely concerned about Trump, trade and tariffs. They have been on the front burner virtually from day one, and Canada needs to be able to adjust as we build a team Canada approach that involves many different stakeholders, led by the Prime Minister. The member opposite went down to the United States, and he had a meeting that upset a lot of Canadians. He told Canadians, as a mouthpiece, many would suggest, of President Trump, that we needed to stop having a “hissy fit”. I am wondering if the member would take this opportunity to provide clarity on that and apologize to Canadians for making that statement on behalf of President Trump.”

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“I want the House to pass this bill. It will speed up government reviews for major building and trade projects to just one year by doing different reviews at the same time. It helps our economy during trade disputes without lowering environmental standards or hurting Indigenous rights. It also protects workers, adds health and safety inspectors, and helps businesses ship their goods faster.”

“Madam Speaker, this is my first time speaking to legislation since we came back in the fall, so I would like to take the opportunity to welcome the pages, who are from all over the country, to this House. They are in for a spectacular year. I myself sat where they are in 1991, but do not do the math. We congratulate the pages. What an honour this is and what a full-circle moment it is to welcome the pages and to be here speaking to legislation that is transformative in this country. I also want to thank everyone in Guelph for the conversations, meetings, site tours and community events over the summer. It is a real honour to represent Guelph in this House. As we approach Thanksgiving, I am so grateful for the privilege, the responsibility and the honour of serving my community and this great country at this historic time. Guelph is the fourth-largest exporter to the U.S. per capita. This means we engineer, we make things and we ship things primarily by road and rail. Did members know that the city of Guelph is one of the few municipalities that owns a railway? In the 1880s, businesses in Guelph were frustrated with the freight rates and service provided by the Grand Trunk Railway, which held a monopoly on rail transport in the city, so local merchants and civic leaders decided to build their own. They believed competition was essential for economic growth, and they created the Guelph Junction Railway to connect Guelph to the growing Canadian Pacific Railway network, providing local industries with an alternative route to markets across Canada. Now, 142 years later, the GJR owns approximately 38 kilometres of track. It connects with both Canadian Pacific Kansas City and the CN network, serving local manufacturers and industries. As Guelph heads into our bicentennial year, I want to celebrate those early industrialists and civic leaders who I think would agree with the building canada strong act. They wanted to give themselves more certainty. They built a stronger, more resilient and more independent economy. Everyone in Guelph I have met and have been working with for the past 18 months, including some of the largest employers in advanced manufacturing, agri-food, clean tech, packaged goods and consumer products, wants predictability and certainty. I heard this all the time when I was on city council. Of course, it is at a micro level, but people will tell us that they want faster processes, because sequential approvals and multiple reviews, and sometimes a change in municipal or provincial government, can derail a project. It definitely increases costs. It can delay a store opening. It can threaten the viability of an entire project. A lot of money and time can be spent in this churn that is not productive, and it is magnified when multiple jurisdictions are involved. This is what Bill C-39 seeks to address. We are in a trade war with our largest trading partner, which is something the opposition has sought to minimize repeatedly. We did not ask for it. We do not deserve it. It is illegal and it is unjustified, yet here we are. We will not be complacent. We will have our own plans. We cannot control what other countries do, but we can take down our interprovincial trade barriers, which the federal government has done and provinces are working on. We can control our own processes and regulations at home to get big things built, people working and goods to our own projects and to an expanding list of international markets. We can make sure federal reviews and decisions are completed within one year of a proponent submitting a completed comprehensive application, while upholding Canada’s rigorous environmental standards and respecting indigenous rights. We can and we must do so. How? It is by removing duplication and conducting reviews and consultations concurrently rather than sequentially. We can accelerate these processes. In fact, already since December 2025, Canada has achieved co-operation agreements with seven provinces to advance a one-project, one-review framework to reduce existing duplication between federal and provincial assessments. To be clear, the building canada strong act would make no changes to federal environmental standards. It would be a change in process. All factors would still need to be taken into consideration, including climate impacts, species at risk, ecological and nature implications, and more. I know this is really important to folks in Guelph. Let us remember that major projects, like electrification, massive hydro and wind projects, and critical mineral extraction and processing, also support our climate goals. They support Guelph businesses like Hammond Power, which makes the transformers that keep our industries humming and is key to cleaner energy and transportation, and Hitachi Construction Truck Manufacturing, which makes a partly electrified 150-tonne rigid-frame mining truck using Hamilton steel and manufactured in Canada by highly skilled workers. Canada’s new government has set an ambitious vision of major projects, electrification, nuclear, a defence industrial strategy, homebuilding and massive investments in infrastructure. Who is going to build all this? Who is going to fabricate the steel we need, make the moulds and build the ports, roads and towers? Canadian workers are. This government is so invested in our skilled tradespeople that we are investing $6 billion in the team Canada strong initiative. Working with unions, we have set a goal to recruit, train and hire 80,000 to 100,000 new Red Seal trades by 2031 and to support them financially along the way. We are a government that believes in labour, and we consulted with labour on this bill. Bill C-39 would modernize the federal labour framework and strengthen protection for workers in federally regulated industries. Changes to the Canada Labour Code will strengthen collective bargaining by helping parties address issues earlier, reach negotiated agreements and resolve disputes, while fully protecting the right to strike. Section 107 has been in the Canadian Labour Code for nearly 50 years. This bill would create guardrails around its use, adding transparency and predictability while ensuring that it is reserved as a last resort tool for exceptional circumstances in which both parties have reached an impasse. Any decision to invoke section 107 would require the federal government to demonstrate significant national, economic and social risks. The government will also be adding new health and safety officers to increase inspection capacity by 70%, hiring new staff at the Canadian Industrial Relations Board to clear the backlog of complaints by workers against employers and cracking down on worker misclassification with more inspectors. Together, these changes will ensure workers are treated fairly, are protected on the job and have greater income security, and they will promote stable labour relations. This is important to the workers, to their families, to people in my riding and to all Canadians. Bill C-39 would also formally designate strategic trade corridors, remove bottlenecks and establish a transportation project office to coordinate federal permitting and advance priority transportation projects within one year. Guelph is a manufacturing hub. Advanced manufacturing is Guelph’s largest employment sector, accounting for $4.5 billion in exports every year. Getting raw material in and finished products out faster and more predictably improves productivity, reduces business costs and makes Canadian business more competitive. This includes logistics and shipping companies such as PDI and Traxxside, which use the Guelph Junction railway, and multiple trucking companies. Since last spring, Canada has signed 20 new economic and security agreements. We want to export to the world. To do that, we need modern border crossings, including ports and trade digitization. When I spoke with people from UPS operations this summer in Guelph, they told me that digital trade processes will reduce costs for exporters, improve supply chain resiliency and help small and medium-sized enterprises participate in international markets. These small and medium-sized businesses sometimes get lost in the conversation on major projects. They seem far from Guelph, but these faster supply chains and trade corridors are for small and medium-sized businesses too. They account for approximately 99% of all employer businesses in Canada. There are 444 CFIB members in Guelph alone. I am so excited. I am so proud to be on the industry committee and the transportation committee at this moment in time. It is an awesome intersection. This is the most ambitious reform to how Canada builds in a generation. We are modernizing regulatory approvals, maintaining rigorous environmental standards, upholding indigenous rights and ensuring workers are treated fairly. We can all work together to build Canada now, keep Canada moving and ensure Canada is strong for all.”

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“Building big projects like roads and pipelines takes time because it is hard to get the land, do the planning, and find partners. I want the member to vote for this bill so a committee can study it properly.”

“Madam Speaker, I believe my colleague from Calgary Confederation began to address it. First of all, when we are talking about linear infrastructure, it can take some time to assemble the land, to do the engineering, to get the partners onside, etc. That may be why. I would encourage my hon. colleague to support the bill and get it to committee, where we could have a more fulsome discussion.”