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By Dr. You-Zhi Tang
A week ago, I wrote an article Carney Must Stay Grounded After the Applause, indicating that the real test just started after the Canada Investment Summit because applause can build confidence but it cannot substitute for results. Canadians are looking for real improvements in productivity and ultimately living standards. Interestingly, about the same time Carney began trying to move into action or execution. The centrepiece was Bill C-39, the Building Canada Strong Act, introduced on September 21, the first day Parliament returned. It went into second-reading debate on September 23 and continued through September 25. What Carney actually did is that he is trying to turn his “build, build, build” rhetoric into changes to the machinery of government. This is the most important part in my view.
C-39 would impose a one-year federal review-and-decision timeline once a project proponent has supplied the required information. Instead of federal permits and reviews proceeding one after another, much of the work would occur concurrently. The government also issued a Cabinet Directive requiring internal federal processes not otherwise covered by statutory timelines to fit within that one-year objective. That distinction matters enormously.
We should all know that Canada’s problem isn’t simply: “We don’t have enough capital.” It is: “We have difficulty turning capital into things.” C-39 is therefore aimed directly at the bottleneck that we encountered frequently in the past. It also pushes toward one project, one review. Ottawa proposes a single comprehensive federal decision for major projects, a Crown Consultation Hub to coordinate Indigenous consultation, clearer assignment of projects to the regulator with the appropriate expertise, and closer coordination with provinces. The government says Indigenous consultation obligations and environmental protections remain, while the process becomes less repetitive. More importantly, processes can run in parallel rather than sequentially. That is potentially a much more sophisticated way of shortening project schedules.
Carney went beyond permitting. C-39 also tackles labour relations and transportation reliability. This part is more contested. The government proposes changing Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, which previous governments used to intervene in major strikes. Under the proposal, there would generally be a 21-day mediation process and additional assessments before ministerial intervention. The government argues this raises the threshold for intervention and creates greater predictability; some union leaders contend that other provisions could still weaken workers’ bargaining power.
At the same time, Ottawa proposes adding 100 health-and-safety officers, increasing inspection capacity by roughly 70%, adding 26 staff at the Canada Industrial Relations Board to address backlogs, and strengthening enforcement against worker misclassification.
That combination tells us something about Carney’s political approach. He appears to recognize that accelerating projects cannot simply mean telling environmental regulators, Indigenous communities or unions to “get out of the way.” The government is trying to package speed + predictability + worker protection + consultation together. Whether it succeeds is another question, but it is remarkably close to what the author of this article hoped he would do.
Although I also understand that one sentence is central – “Changing slogans is easier than changing systems” – I must say that C-39 is, at least in design, an attempt to change the system.
And there is another encouraging detail. The legislation wasn’t simply invented after the investment summit. The government says consultations on the project reforms generated more than 26,000 submissions, including more than 400 submissions from Indigenous Peoples, industry, academia and different levels of government; separate labour consultations included more than 100 organizations, 13 targeted roundtables and 319 written submissions. That connects rather nicely with my other early warning to Carney: Listen beyond the applause. It doesn’t prove that the government accepted the advice it heard, of course. But consultation followed by legislation is more meaningful than consultation followed by another report.
Nevertheless, we should still watch his next and every step very carefully. The one-year target sounds excellent, but the clock begins after the proponent has provided the required information. That qualification matters. If the pre-application process becomes the new bottleneck, Canada could theoretically achieve “one-year approvals” without dramatically reducing the total time between project conception and construction.
And Ottawa controls only Ottawa. Provinces, municipalities, Indigenous governments, courts, utilities and infrastructure constraints can still affect schedules. The Cabinet Directive explicitly recognizes provincial and Indigenous jurisdictions and says the federal government will pursue cooperative reviews rather than simply overriding them.
There is also a governance question worth watching. C-39 gives ministers greater flexibility in coordinating permits and modifying some project conditions. Greater discretion can make government faster; it also makes transparency, technical competence and accountability more important, not less.
And finally, faster approval does not automatically mean better projects. Canada could approve ten mediocre projects quickly and accomplish less than approving three genuinely transformative ones. Therefore, I would keep my eyes open on the following chain closely:
Applause → Policy → Legislation → Execution → Construction → Productive Capacity → Productivity → Income → Living Standards
A week ago, we were essentially asking Carney: You have attracted the world’s attention and capital – what are you going to do with it? His move last week seems to be: “Change the rules so Canada can actually build.” That is a substantive response to the problem we identified. But C-39 is still proposed legislation, not an operating result, and the House was still debating it at the end of last week. Hence the next question is no longer “Does Carney understand Canada’s problem?” There is now substantial evidence that his government has identified permitting delays, fragmented decision-making, trade infrastructure and labour predictability as constraints.
The much harder question becomes: Can he make the Canadian system actually behave differently? That, I think, would make a very interesting sequel to our earlier piece: “After the Applause: Now Comes the Hard Part.” In your opinion, how much time should we give to Carney before we examine and judge whether build, build, build is becoming reality rather than another Canadian slogan?
