Chris Windeyer · CBC News
Referring N.W.T. projects to the Major Projects Office may not be as big a deal as it looks
Ottawa’s announcement this week that both the Mackenzie Valley Highway and Grays Bay Road and Port are being put under consideration as projects of national interest may not come as a huge surprise.
Prime Minister Mark Carney personally announced his government was referring both projects to the office during a news conference in Yellowknife this past March.
But the exact language of this week’s announcement is important. Specifically, the federal government “is initiating the process toward potential listing” of the projects as ones of national importance under the Building Canada Act.
What does that actually mean? Does it make the projects any closer to getting shovels in the ground?
N.W.T. Premier R.J. Simpson is optimistic that it does.
“I heard today that they (the federal government) are looking at getting things done by the fall,” he said Wednesday. “So they’re going to go out, they’re going to go to communities and talk to folks … And, you know, hopefully we have an answer by the fall.”
CBC North’s The Trailbreaker host Shannon Scott spoke with Heather Exner-Pirot, a longtime Arctic watcher and director of natural resources at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, about the announcement and what it might mean.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What do you make of this news, that the Mackenzie Valley Highway could be named a project of national interest? Is this a big deal?
I’ve been following all the Major Projects Office projects very closely and what’s coming up. And obviously, there’s been a focus on the Arctic. Certainly, I would say if you wanted the Mackenzie Valley Highway, this is positive news.
I agree with the premier. It does indicate that the government’s quite serious about it. But I think there’s probably some background politicking around this too.
Just the fact that the [federal, provincial and territorial] energy ministers meeting was in Yellowknife this week, they probably wanted to have an announcement of some kind. And this was, you know, a consideration to consider the project as a project of national interest.
The exact wording used by the government yesterday was that it’s “initiating the process towards potential listing” of the Mackenzie Valley Highway as a project of national interest. What does that mean?
That’s a good way of saying that no decision has been made yet. When Carney came in, he obviously had a campaign and a mandate to want to build baby build, and build quickly, especially in the face of Trump’s tariffs. And his very first signature legislation that he kind of rushed through in that spring session last year was the Building Canada Act.
And the signature of that was the ability to designate a project of national interest, which would allow them to bypass or fast-track some federal legislation. Now, there’s been criticism lately that they haven’t actually designated a single project.
They rushed through that legislation. It seemed urgent. And in the end, they haven’t designated a project in that way that would allow them to bypass legislation.
And the one thing that went through my mind was they probably don’t want an oil pipeline to be the first project that they designate. And so [the government is] looking for some maybe lower-hanging fruit that no one would object to.
If getting this designation doesn’t change anything about how the territorial government runs its approval process, and if the federal portion of this is minor, as the premier has suggested, is this designation even necessary?
Probably not.
There are things that would be under federal jurisdiction and things like species at risk, waterways and water crossings and fish species, which are exclusively federal. But again, to the previous point, I mean, highways are pretty much territorial.
That’s where my skeptical brain is saying, ‘Okay, they wanted to make an announcement because ministers were in [Yellowknife]. They want to not have a pipeline be the first thing that does get designated.’
The thing that’s going to matter is when they announce money for this project, because I’m assuming it’s not possible for the Northwest Territories to fund it all themselves, that they’ll require some federal funding.
That’s the announcement that people should get excited about when and if it comes.
Some people may be surprised to hear that this isn’t a project of national interest yet, because it was referred to the Major Projects Office. What’s the difference between being referred to that office and being named a project of national interest?
It has been conflated in a way politically. And so being assigned to the MPO doesn’t do much.
What it does do is concentrate the federal government’s attention. The people in the Major Projects Office are influential and do co-ordinate with different federal departments. And sometimes in some cases, they are helping to co-ordinate financing as well for projects that maybe don’t have a private proponent or are a bit on the bubble in terms of their economic feasibility.
The Mackenzie Valley Highway is not even an ideal project for that, because it’s more of a public good, less of a private money-making project. But obviously it’s probably more linked to the defense side and also the nation building.
I’m not sure how important the MPO is for the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I would bet not too important because the territory seems to have a good handle on what’s going on there.
