{"id":70153,"date":"2025-06-09T13:45:25","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T17:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/?p=70153"},"modified":"2025-06-09T13:45:29","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T17:45:29","slug":"breaking-down-the-building-canada-act-fast-track-climate-solutions-not-fossil-fuels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/story\/70153\/breaking-down-the-building-canada-act-fast-track-climate-solutions-not-fossil-fuels\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking down the Building Canada Act: Fast track climate solutions, not fossil fuels"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Prime Minister Mark Carney has just introduced legislation (the <a href=\"https:\/\/ottawa.citynews.ca\/2025\/06\/06\/liberals-table-bill-speed-up-major-project-approvals\/\">Building Canada Act<\/a>) which <em>could<\/em> end up being a bigger giveaway to the oil and gas lobby than Stephen Harper\u2019s highly divisive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/14615517.2014.894673#d1e924\">2012 omnibus bill<\/a>, which launched the <a href=\"https:\/\/idlenomore.ca\/about-the-movement\/\">Idle No More<\/a> Indigenous-led movement and kicked pipeline battles into high gear.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n<p>I say it \u201ccould\u201d for two reasons. First, this is draft legislation (full text <a href=\"https:\/\/www.parl.ca\/DocumentViewer\/en\/45-1\/bill\/C-5\/first-reading\">here<\/a>) so there\u2019s still time for the bill to be amended. Second, the real-world impacts depend on what projects make it onto the fast-track list.<\/p>\n\n<p>Your voice can affect both of those.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/act.greenpeace.ca\/en-ca\/climate-solutions-not-fossil-fuels\"><strong>Tell Carney to fast track climate solutions, not fossil fuels.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n<p><strong>What\u2019s in the Bill?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>Our legal-eagle friends over at Ecojustice have produced a <a href=\"https:\/\/ecojustice.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Ecojustice-Analysis-Building-Canada-Act-BCA-.pdf\">more detailed assessment<\/a> of how this continues a disturbing trend of eroding democracy and parliamentary government but here are some highlights:<\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Bill C-5 would create a federal \u201cmajor projects office\u201d that would identify and place projects deemed \u201cof national interest\u201d on a list for priority treatment. Once a project is on that list, they won\u2019t have to go through the regular approvals process and can be exempted from meeting the requirements of 13 different Acts of Parliament, including the Fisheries Act, Species at Risk Act, Canadian Environmental Protection Act, Impact Assessment Act and the Indian Act.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The bill suggests things that <em>can<\/em> be considered in deciding what projects make it onto the list, (like \u201cadvance the interests of Indigenous people\u201d, \u201cmeeting Canada\u2019s objectives with respect to climate change\u201d and \u201cprovide economic or other benefits to Canada\u201d), but they are just suggestions. In the end, Cabinet \u201cmay consider any factor\u201d it deems relevant, so there are no clear criteria nor is there a requirement to consult the public.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This will result in a highly politicized process where it is not the best project that makes it on the list, but the project with the most expensive lobbyists. The absence of required criteria for deciding whether projects are in the national interest will encourage backroom politicking and closed-door negotiating with powerful corporations, especially given the enormous value of making the list.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It is not clear if, or how, \u201cnational interest\u201d projects will ensure the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples. The preamble of the bill refers to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (which includes the right to free, prior and informed consent), but the bill makes no commitment to consent regarding the designation of national interest projects, only consultation. We are already seeing growing opposition from Indigenous organizations to similar provincial-level legislation in <a href=\"https:\/\/chiefs-of-ontario.org\/first-nations-leadership-responds-to-the-passing-of-bill-5-with-warning-of-legal-and-grassroots-action\/\">Ontario<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/thenarwhal.ca\/bc-bill-15-indigenous-response\/\">British Columbia<\/a>, as the desire to fast track resource extraction projects collides with Indigenous rights.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The power to designate projects as in the national interest lasts for 5 years from the time it comes into force, which means that it will also be available to the next government. Even if the current government claims that they won\u2019t misuse the extraordinary powers in the bill (which is hard to take on faith), they can\u2019t say the same for the next government.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p>The government is claiming that it needs these emergency powers to deal with the threat posed by the Trump Administration\u2019s imposition of tariffs. Yet it has been six years since the federal government <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/climate-emergency-motion-1.5179802\">declared a climate emergency<\/a> and as it is currently written this bill does not take the opportunity to address <em>that<\/em> emergency.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n<p>We do need dramatic action to break away from the status quo, but we should be fast tracking climate solutions, not fossil fuels. To even consider designating oil and gas expansion projects as in the national interest is a slap in the face to not just the next generation, but every Canadian struggling right now to deal with climate change-fueled wildfires.<\/p>\n\n<p>Instead of pouring public resources into climate-wrecking infrastructure, Canada should be building solar farms, expanding clean energy grids, and supporting resilient, low-carbon communities across the country. And any effective strategy is going to have to be built on Indigenous knowledge and leadership.<\/p>\n\n<p>It\u2019s not too late to make this happen. Join us in telling Prime Minister Carney:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/act.greenpeace.ca\/en-ca\/climate-solutions-not-fossil-fuels\"><strong>Canada must protect nature, respect Indigenous rights, and invest in a renewable energy future\u2014not more pipelines.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The federal government&#8217;s proposed fast track legislation could become a bigger giveaway to the oil &amp; gas lobby than Harper\u2019s 2012 omnibus bill, if we let it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":69956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[23,25,32,160],"p4-page-type":[16],"class_list":["post-70153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate","category-nature","tag-climate","tag-energysolutions","tag-oil","tag-fossil-fuels","p4-page-type-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70153"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70155,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70153\/revisions\/70155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70153"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=70153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}