Ottawa has set up the Major Projects Office as a concierge service for big projects, signed “one project, one review” deals with provinces to reduce duplication for environmental review and First Nations consultation requirements, and it’s contemplating a range of other changes to environmental review rules and bureaucracy to reduce the amount of time projects spend in regulatory limbo.
Ottawa has tweaked the mandates and risk profiles of the various Crown corporations involved in financing projects: the Canada Infrastructure Bank, Canada Growth Fund, Export Development Canada and Business Development Bank of Canada. Each is being directed to invest in “nation building” projects and take on more risk, while the explicitly green lens the Trudeau government put on these organizations is taking a back seat.
There are also newer public finance tools, including the Canada Strong Fund, which Ottawa will use to take equity stakes in major projects, and the Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program, which looks to overcome opposition by helping Indigenous groups acquire an economic stake in major projects.