Rejuvenating the Port of Vancouver, pictured here in 2022, is one of the national projects mentioned in a new report about projects Canada should consider prioritizing to boost growth.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
The federal government should develop a list of high-stakes, nation-building projects to increase productivity and lure back investment in energy, critical minerals and agriculture, according to a new report by the Public Policy Forum.
With the country’s largest trading partner turning inward and launching a trade war, Canada’s resource strengths are more valuable than ever, the report’s authors argue. “This is the moment for Canada to embrace big ambitions and a comprehensive vision of its place in this changing landscape.”
Authors Jay Khosla, Yiota Kokkinos and Chris Turner call the report a playbook of sorts to help turbocharge investment in major projects.
“What we’re talking about, at the highest level, is an entrepreneurial spirit in government,” Mr. Khosla said in an interview ahead of the report’s release.
The authors are urging Ottawa to develop a “no-regrets” national list of projects that can increase economic growth and employment, diversify export markets, contribute to meeting rising domestic and global energy demands through clean solutions and support Indigenous ownership.
While the report doesn’t name specific projects that should make that list, Mr. Khosla pointed to several that he thinks should be considered.
They include the Pathways carbon capture project planned for Alberta’s oil sands, a new pipeline to carry crude to the West Coast, rejuvenating the Port of Vancouver to boost its global trade credentials, small modular nuclear reactors, interprovincial power transmission lines and moving on the Ring of Fire critical minerals mines in Ontario.
A lot of people are talking about the need to better create economic growth in Canada, but “nobody’s really saying how” to get it done, Mr. Khosla said – and that’s where the new report comes in.
It lays out 10 steps that it says will help align public and private funding, reconfigure regulatory and permitting processes to get to “yes” much more quickly, increase Indigenous economic participation and enable the construction of critical infrastructure.
Those steps run the gamut from policy to fiscal planning, including a national project-building game plan; a strategic investment office to consolidate financing, regulatory and other government functions; a single window for proponents to access federal project financing and advisory support; and a cabinet committee on investment, chaired by the Prime Minister.
Contributors to the analysis included officials representing more than 95 per cent of all the energy and mining activities in Canada, industry associations, Indigenous leaders and representatives from the financial services sector and federal, provincial and territorial governments.
Leaders of both major parties talked often during the recent federal election campaign of boosting Canada’s economic strength and resiliency. Prime Minister Mark Carney has since pledged to “build, baby, build” and make Canada an “energy superpower” by pushing major projects forward at a pace not seen in generations.
Getting major projects in Canada’s national interest to investment decisions more quickly will require strong leadership at every level, the report notes, from the Prime Minister to the premiers, industry leaders, environmental advocates and Indigenous partners. And all will need a shared sense of purpose and urgency.
“It’s going to take a government to be bold and courageous to put something like this forward. Because we can keep talking about it, but we know it’s not going to happen if we don’t make some of these bold moves,” Ms. Kokkinos said.
The report notes that the first 100 days of the new government will be crucial to setting a new direction to help attract much-needed investment.
While Mr. Khosla acknowledged that a complete overhaul is unlikely in 100 days, he said it’s important for Mr. Carney to loudly and repeatedly send the signal that Canada is open for business.
But that needs to happen in a targeted fashion that emphasizes the country’s strategic advantages in energy and critical minerals and sectors such as agriculture.
“We’ve created this morass of rules and risk aversion,” he said. “It’s causing a lot of delay, a lot of disruption, and actually creating a whole system unto itself where folks are just single-minded on their own files.”
The result is a siloed approach in which different levels of government and departments don’t communicate or work together on priorities and stand in the way of getting things built, he said.
Both Mr. Khosla and Ms. Kokkinos saw those issues firsthand during their decades of experience as federal government officials.
Ms. Kokkinos, for example, started in government in the 1990s in mining policy.
“In my career, for 33 years, every report, every administration, every government that I’ve worked for, top of the agenda was ‘We need to do something about the regulatory and permitting process.’ And here we are in 2025 and we’re still talking about it,” she said.
“This is something we can break through, and we do offer some prescriptions in the playbook on how to get it done. But none of it is really going to get done until we get serious … and bring everybody to the table and make sure we’re all rowing in the same direction.”