Anja Karadeglija, Canadian Press
Liberal Leader Mark Carney took his promise of making Canada an “energy superpower” to the heart of Canada’s oil industry Wednesday, becoming the second party leader in three days to promise to speed up the review process to greenlight major national energy projects.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre made a one-project, one-review promise at a campaign stop in northwest British Columbia on Monday. Both parties are trying to convince Canadians they can ditch Canada’s reputation as a place where big projects take far too long to get built.
Carney said the tariffs are hurting Canadian businesses and workers and Canada will look to displace energy imported from the United States.
Two days before the campaign began, Carney, in his role as prime minister, met with the country’s premiers in Ottawa, where they began to hammer out a plan to have only one project review — including reviews of environmental impacts — instead of two from each level of government.
On Wednesday, Carney promised to sign agreements within six months of taking office with willing provinces and Indigenous governments that would recognize energy project assessments from their jurisdictions.
“Under my leadership, it’s time to build and we will build big time,” he said.
While Canada has “enormous opportunities” in clean energy, Carney said “at the same time, we want to dominate the market for conventional energy.”
That means “in the long term, it needs to be lower carbon,” he said, adding “we’re looking to work with industry in order to do it.”
On Monday, Poilievre promised to create a one-stop shop that would see one application and one environmental review for each project.
Poilievre campaigned Wednesday in Sault Ste. Marie, under the bridge that connects it to Michigan. Algoma Steel, which makes steel sheet and plate products, is the largest employer in the city of about 72,000 people.
Poilievre was there to showcase his crime platform, including a “three-strikes” law that would make people convicted three times of “serious” offences ineligible for bail, probation, parole or house arrest. Those offenders also would be sentenced to a minimum prison term of 10 years and could get a life sentence.
They could not “be released until they have proven that they are no longer a danger to society,” Poilievre said.
Responding to Poilievre’s proposal, Carney said while the “full force of the law” should be applied to habitual offenders, “I don’t jump to a baseball rule of three strikes and you’re out.”
In 2022, a Liberal government bill ended mandatory minimum sentences for all drug convictions and for some firearms and tobacco-related offences. The changes reversed “tough on crime” measures passed under Harper.
That bill came after Canadian courts pushed back against mandatory minimum sentences. In a 2016 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down a number of mandatory minimum penalties in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.