Mark Carney promises to streamline project approvals as he tours energy heartland

CALGARY – Liberal Leader Mark Carney said Wednesday he wants to speed up major natural resource project approvals — something he pitched as necessary to making Canada an “energy superpower” as he looks to expand trade ties beyond the U.S.

Carney promised that, if the Liberals are re-elected, he would sign agreements within six months of taking office with willing provinces and Indigenous governments that would recognize energy project assessments from their jurisdictions.

Carney also vowed to speed up approvals for such projects by establishing a single office for major federal project assessments that would render a decision after just one review. He said that would shave years off the approval process.

“We cannot build Canada into an energy superpower if we cannot actually get shovels in the ground,” he said.

“It’s a real approach that maintains the Impact Assessment Act while making it work better — rather than stopping projects in their tracks by throwing out the whole Act and starting from scratch, and spending the next decade in court.”

The Liberal government under former prime minister Justin Trudeau passed the Impact Assessment Act in 2019 to overhaul how big national infrastructure projects are reviewed for environmental impacts, and to ensure proper consultation with Indigenous Peoples.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has called it an “anti-pipeline law” and has vowed to repeal it.

Carney said Tuesday that the law will allow the federal government to make deals with the provinces on a one-project, one-review system.

The Liberal leader also argued that taking an austerity approach to government right now would leave Canada “dangerously reliant on the United States.” Poilievre has vowed to tighten the federal budget.

Carney said he will look to displace energy imported from the United States as it becomes an unreliable partner under President Donald Trump.

“We will choose our trade partners carefully” and shift the economy away from the U.S. to “those who share our values and treat us fairly,” he said.

Carney made the comments in Canada’s energy heartland during a press conference in Calgary, where his party could pick up its largest share of federal seats in decades.

“This could be the best vote result for the federal Liberals in 100 years,” said Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University.

A Leger poll for The Canadian Press published Tuesday shows Carney’s Liberals at 34 per cent support in Alberta, compared with 54 per cent for the Conservatives. The poll, which can’t be given a margin of error because it was conducted online, has Liberal support more than twice the 15.5 per cent the party garnered in Alberta in 2021, when it won two seats.

Arriving in the city Tuesday night, Carney told a rally that he has “a plan that builds an energy superpower in both clean and conventional energy.”

He says the Liberals can work with Indigenous Peoples, provinces and the private sector “to fast-track projects that build our energy security by displacing foreign suppliers such as the United States” and producing low-carbon oil and gas.

“I know that Alberta will be at the heart of all of these solutions,” he said.

Carney is expected to fly to Saskatoon for a late-afternoon rally.

The Conservatives have been branding Carney as anti-energy. But Bratt said the Liberals appear to have some momentum in parts of Calgary and Edmonton, even if they have no chance of gaining seats outside the cities.

He said that while Alberta remains the centre of conservatism in Canada, people in the two large cities are primarily worried about Trump’s threats against Canada’s economy and sovereignty.

“Things have fluctuated based on Trump and tariffs, just as they have in the rest of the country,” he said.

Bratt said the Liberals might get five seats in Alberta, a feat that historical records suggest last happened in 1949.

The Calgary ridings in play include those with many urban progressives downtown and near the city’s university, as well as the ethnically diverse northeast. Those are all areas where Premier Danielle Smith’s provincial United Conservatives are unpopular.

George Chahal, who introduced Carney at the Calgary news conference, is the only Liberal incumbent running in Alberta. He is running for re-election in Calgary Skyview. Former Edmonton MP Randy Boissonnault, who resigned from cabinet last fall amid varying claims about his Indigenous ancestry and questions about business dealings, announced last month he would not seek re-election.

At Tuesday’s rally, Karen Fraser from the nearby town of Canmore said Carney has the chops to navigate divisive regional issues.

She said his vision of a strong energy economy with a green focus could resonate across the country, and heal some of the Western alienation that she accused conservatives of hyping.

“It may be a little bit harder to be a Liberal in Alberta — but those people who are Liberals are truly Liberals,” she said.

Her friend Ian Schofield agreed.

“You have to be able to stand up to the prevailing attitude toward conservatism and Tories and anti-east and anti-establishment — the whole thing,” he said.

Carney is visiting Alberta just days after sparking some backlash over comments he made about Premier Smith, where he joked that while Ontario Premier Doug Ford was doing a great job selling Canada’s interests on U.S. television networks, Canada it would be a “bad idea” to send “Danielle.”

Smith, who criticized Carney’s comment as sexist, has been accused of being too cosy with Republicans and told a right-wing U.S. media network in March that Trump should halt his tariffs on Canada until after the election because they were helping the Liberal regain support. She also said Poilievre would be more “in sync” with Trump’s policies.

Carney alluded to those remarks on Tuesday during his speech in Calgary.

“A person who draws his inspiration from President Trump like Pierre Poilievre will kneel down before him before he stands up to him. He’s in sync with President Trump, I’ve heard in this province,” he said.

Bratt said Carney’s Monday comments about Smith were the same sort of “mistake” she has often made by saying what people in the room want to hear, without thinking about how others would receive it.

“He got pushed off a message because he was trying to be funny in front of a room of Liberal supporters,” Bratt said.

He said Smith needs to be careful in her messaging on Carney, after painting him as destructive to Canada, raising the threat of Alberta separation and telling voters that Canadians must tone down their rhetoric against Trump. That message, Bratt said, is offside with most Albertans.

— With files from Michel Saba in Calgary and Kyle Duggan in Ottawa.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 9, 2025.