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The latest federal budget is light on new projects with a focus on greater efficiencies for current resource-based initiatives.

The document pushed for a continued emphasis on streamlining the impact assessment process and increased Indigenous participation in major projects as equity stakeholders.

Impact assessment and permitting process

The 2023 budget announced the federal government’s intention to develop a plan to improve the efficiency of the impact assessment and permitting processes for major projects. As a result a Ministerial Working Group on Regulatory Efficiency for Clean Growth Projects was launched to co-ordinate the work.

The current budget elaborates by announcing several measures to speed up project timelines, including $9 million provided over three years, starting in 2024-25, to the Privy Council Office’s Clean Growth Office. This will go towards implementing the recommendations of the Ministerial Working Group and “reduce interdepartmental inefficiencies, including preventing fixation on well-studied and low-risk impacts, ensuring new permitting timelines are upheld throughout departments, and improving data sharing between departments to reduce redundant studies.”

A new federal permitting co-ordinator position will be established with a target set of five years or less to complete federal impact assessment and permitting processes for federally designated projects. This also comes with a target of two years or less for permitting of non-federally designated projects.

A separate three-year target will be set for nuclear reviews along with the creation of a federal permitting dashboard to report on the status of large projects which require permits.

The Impact Assessment Act will also be amended to respond to the October 2023 Supreme Court of Canada decision that ruled elements of the act are unconstitutional with proposed amendments to ensure the act is “constitutionally sound, facilitating efficient project reviews while advancing Canada’s clean growth and protecting the environment,” reads the budget document.

Indigenous participation in major projects

The 2023 Fall Economic Statement voiced a commitment to assisting with Indigenous equity ownership in major projects.

The 2024 budget proposes the launch of the Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program with up to $5 billion in loan guarantees to unlock access to capital for Indigenous communities. The program would be sector-agnostic for natural resource and energy projects to prioritize economic reconciliation and self-determination, the budget document said. Applicant eligibility would recognize Indigenous governments and their wholly-owned and controlled entities.

Natural Resources Canada would be responsible for intake and capacity building and the Canada Development Investment Corporation would create a new subsidiary to provide due diligence on the applications and administer the portfolio of loan guarantees.

Trans Mountain highlighted

While little in the way of new major resource projects were announced, in her speech to the House of Commons Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland highlighted the work of skilled tradespeople on the Trans Mountain pipeline project, which will be complete in May.

“Mr. Speaker, there are thcaose who claim that the only thing government can do when it comes to economic growth is get out of the way. I’d like to introduce them to the talented tradespeople and brilliant engineers who, last Thursday, made the final weld — the Golden Weld — on a great national project: the Trans Mountain pipeline. It took our government to get it built—and last week the Bank of Canada estimated this project will add one-quarter of a percentage point to our GDP in the second quarter,” Freeland said.