Before Ottawa Fast-Tracks Arctic Megaprojects, Publish the Receipts

If Cabinet is about to use its new national-interest powers for the first time, Canadians deserve the designation memo before the political ribbon-cutting.

Ottawa’s first real test under the Building Canada Act appears to be here. The Canadian Press reported Tuesday evening that federal and territorial government sources expect Ottawa to announce Wednesday that it will begin the process of designating two Arctic infrastructure projects as projects of national interest: the Grays Bay road and port project in Nunavut and the Mackenzie Valley highway project in the Northwest Territories.

Those are serious projects in a serious region. Grays Bay would include a 230-kilometre all-season road through the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, tied to critical-mineral development. The Mackenzie Valley highway would connect Yellowknife to Inuvik and pass communities now dependent on air, winter roads or barges. Northern infrastructure, sovereignty and resource access all matter.

But that is exactly why the accountability standard should be higher, not lower. The same CP report says the Building Canada Act lets Ottawa fast-track approvals and allows designated projects to skirt some environmental laws. The Act’s text says its purpose is to move national-interest projects through an accelerated process while protecting the environment and respecting Indigenous rights. It also lets the Governor in Council exempt national-interest projects from provisions of listed federal enactments or vary how those provisions apply.

That is not anti-development. It is pro-competence. Conservatives should want roads, ports and northern economic opportunity built on a record that can survive court challenges, community opposition and environmental scrutiny. A rushed announcement with anonymous-source details and later paperwork is how governments create delay while pretending to cut red tape.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals sold the Building Canada Act as a way to build faster. Fine. Then show Canadians the operating manual. Publish the Major Projects Office assessment for each project. Publish the national-interest factors used. Publish the departments asked to identify legal exemptions or substituted approvals. Publish the Indigenous consultation schedule, affected-rights analysis, accommodation options and funding for community review. Publish any lobbying or ministerial-contact logs tied to proponents, mining interests, territorial governments and federal ministers.

There is also a basic fiscal question. Fast-tracking approvals does not make risk disappear; it moves risk onto taxpayers, northern communities and future permitting fights if Ottawa gets the process wrong. Before ministers stand in Yellowknife, they should release cost ranges, funding assumptions, maintenance liabilities and who benefits from new mineral access.

The North deserves infrastructure. Canadians deserve sovereignty. Indigenous communities deserve lawful consultation. Taxpayers deserve receipts. If these projects truly meet the national-interest test, Ottawa should have no fear of publishing the memo that proves it.