Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said Wednesday the federal government’s new major projects office will open this week, as Ottawa prepares to make its first announcements on boosting large-scale infrastructure.
Hodgson made his comments in a speech at the Canadian embassy in Berlin, where he said Canada is placing an emphasis on speed in getting new infrastructure built so it can ramp up energy exports — including liquified natural gas.
Asked to clarify the timing by reporters later on Wednesday, Hodgson said an announcement was imminent.
“Today’s Wednesday, so it’ll either be Thursday or Friday,” he said during a virtual briefing from Germany.
“I hope you will be quite pleased on Thursday or Friday with the announcement of the launch of the major projects office, the leadership of the major projects office and the plans for it. And I would expect over the next two weeks, the first projects to be announced.”
The Liberal government rushed its major projects bill through Parliament in June so it could speed up approval times for large industrial projects, with the goal of getting from proposal to construction in under two years.
Under the new law, a major projects office would oversee those fact-tracked approvals with guidance from public servants and First Nations representatives. The office would coordinate with provincial and local governments to get their seals of approval as well.
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Hodgson accompanied Prime Minister Mark Carney to Germany this week, part of a larger European tour that saw Carney solidifying economic and defence ties with Canadian allies.
Carney said Tuesday his government will make announcements “in the next two weeks” on new port infrastructure funding, adding the projects could be the first major “national interest” projects approved by the new office.
He specifically identified the Contrecoeur expansion of the Port of Montreal, which is set to increase container capacity by as much as 40 per cent, and revitalizing the Churchill port in northern Manitoba.
The latter project “would open up enormous LNG (export potential), plus other opportunities” for shipping critical minerals and metals to Europe, Carney said, creating “a new port, effectively.”
Hodgson said Wednesday he wouldn’t get ahead of those announcements or confirm if the government already has a list of projects ready to be reviewed by the major projects office once it’s up and running.
Provinces and territories have been lobbying Ottawa for months to get their projects prioritized.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew confirmed Tuesday his government has been advocating for the Churchill port, which could export LNG to Europe and has already seen shipments of critical minerals leave for international markets.
Critics have said Canada is playing catch-up on supplying LNG to Germany and potentially the rest of Europe, and have questioned whether it can get those exports up and running quickly.
Canada has begun shipping LNG to Asian markets from British Columbia, where all currently approved export facilities are being built.
Hodgson said German buyers have expressed interest in “swapping” Asia-bound exports from Canada with LNG supplied by other countries while Canada seeks to build up its export capacity on the East Coast and northern ports like Churchill.
He said the Liberal government has taken “a somewhat different position” on LNG than former prime minister Justin Trudeau, who questioned the “business case” for exporting to Europe in 2022.
“This is not to speak ill of past governments but to do what democratic governments are elected to do: evolve based on the moment and what Canadians and our allies are asking for,” he said.
“I want to be very clear to the Canadian audience: Any project that could potentially serve European markets would have to be built in collaboration with the affected provinces and with Indigenous partners, and have a strong chance of successful execution.”
Conservatives have criticized the creation of a major projects office and how long it’s taken to get it up and running, calling it another layer of government bureaucracy.
“Prime Minister Mark Carney said he would build with record speed but has taken almost 200 days to set up an office that will one day get applications to consider ideas to someday build something,” deputy leader Melissa Lantsman said in a statement to Global News.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, during a press conference in Charlottetown on Wednesday, pointed out that Germany managed to build a floating LNG import facility in less than 200 days.
“What I find incredible is that (Carney) has been in power for 170 days, and not only is there not a single shovel in the ground on any of these projects, there’s not even firm proposals for these projects,” he said.
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