MiningWatch Canada provides comments on the Government of Canada’s “Getting Major Projects Built in Canada” discussion paper. While the discussion paper is short and devoid of crucial specifics, it is essentially a proposal to tear out much of what is left of the federal guardrails protecting the environment and Indigenous rights in the hopes of speeding up the approval of major projects.
In our view, there is only one potentially helpful and useful initiative described in the discussion paper: the Crown Consultation Hub; and its utility and effectiveness would depend on how it is implemented and whether it is co-designed with Indigenous peoples in a rights-compliant manner. The rest of the proposed measures pose serious risks to the health, the environment, and the rights of Indigenous peoples, for the benefit of investors, corporate interests, and even the US military with relatively little reward for the Canadian public beyond a flush of short-term construction jobs. By defining the challenge as needing to build more major projects, faster, in response to economic uncertainty – rather than needing to address underlying vulnerabilities in the face of climate chaos – the government has brought forward proposals that will not only fail to build a resilient, independent economy, but will do great harm to Indigenous rights, local economies, vulnerable ecosystems, people’s health, and biodiversity.