RC119 JulyAugust 2025 - Magazine - Page 11
or services from another province or territory. Early e昀昀orts
by the federal government include establishing a National
Trade Corridors Fund to support projects that address a
trade corridor function, but this fund does not itself establish physical corridors.
Canada should streamline a process to identify and
designate broad geographic goods and services trade
corridors/routes/zones and ease the permitting process
for national priority projects within them. How would we
identify national priority projects to be built within a trade
corridor or zone? To start, governments could work together to create an inventory of live and potential infrastructure
projects which address capacity constraints in areas such as
ty over, among other things, shipping lanes through the
Arctic. While the federal government recently announced
funding to establish northern military operational support
hubs in Iqaluit, Yellowknife and Inuvik, more must be done
to develop the Arctic as a major trade route and reinforce
Canada’s military presence.
2. EXPEDITED APPROVALS
Long, uncertain regulatory approval processes have hampered complex projects in Canada for many years. In the
current context, projects of national importance deserve
clear, predictable rules and more nimble decision-making to
enhance Canada’s economic security and sovereignty.
There is a building consensus among industry, government
and the general public that our future depends more than ever
on advancing critical projects with much greater speed.
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critical mineral transport, defense positions and ports. From
this inventory, Cabinet could then designate speci昀椀c infrastructure projects as National Priority Projects, eligible for
expedited development within a National Priority Projects
corridor or zone. Corridors might receive broad approval
for multiple designated projects (e.g., building a pipeline or
transmission line in the same corridor as a railway).
A Canadian Northern Corridor?
Canada must also consider strengthening our current
e昀昀orts to improve infrastructure access in and to Canada’s north, including through enhanced investments with
communications and airport infrastructure, deep water
ports and enabling road, rail and power infrastructure. The
University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy has been
providing research for establishing a “Canadian Northern
Corridor” which would connect pathways and link Canada’s northern communities and projects across three coasts.
Many of these projects could have overlap with military
infrastructure, such as military bases and ice-capable patrol
ships. These projects would enhance Canada’s self-reliance
and economic resilience, and reinforce Canada’s sovereign-
RENEWCANADA.NET
One logical option is to establish “one-window” approval processes for various classes of national priority projects,
as a way to reduce regulatory redundancies across orders of
government. The March 21 First Ministers’ statement recognizes the need to eliminate federal and provincial overlap
on environmental assessment but more would need to be
done to get to a genuinely one-window process.
There are at least three potential approaches to the appropriate legislative reform:
3. ESTABLISH GLOBAL OR FRAMEWORK LEGISLATION FOR ALL NATIONAL
PRIORITY PROJECTS
New legislation could exclusively address all projects of
designated national priority, or groups of projects within
industry sectors of designated national priority (e.g., critical
minerals). Alternatively, framework legislation could
permit government to designate a particular trade corridor
and provide a process through which Cabinet can develop
bespoke approval requirements for national priority projects that propose to locate there. Legislation could provide
broad exemptions or carve outs to otherwise prevailing statutory requirements for such designated projects, prioritize
JULY/AUGUST 2025 – RENEW CANADA 11
