Carney’s major projects bill sails through committee. What’s next?

The Liberal government’s legislation would let cabinet quickly grant federal approvals for big industrial projects like mines, ports and pipelines.

Running roughshod over the environment. Spawning the next Idle No More movement. Picking economic winners and losers.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Building Canada Act is anything if not a magnet for criticism.

The Liberal government’s controversial legislation that would let cabinet quickly grant federal approvals for big industrial projects like mines, ports and pipelines sailed through committee in the early hours of Thursday.

A House of Commons panel sat from Wednesday afternoon to after midnight reviewing Bill C-5 in a hurried study, as the Liberal government seeks to pass it through the chamber by week’s end.

Indigenous and environmental groups, along with opposition MPs and senators, raised concerns that the bill is being rushed through parliament and will grant cabinet sweeping powers to override other laws to plow ahead with industrial projects favoured by the government of the day.

“The process that led to Bill C-5 is a case study in how not to engage with Indigenous nations,” said Kebaowek First Nation Chief Lance Haymond, adding there was no “meaningful engagement” or a “recognition of the complexity of our rights, titles and interests.”

“The conditions for an Idle No More 2.0 uprising are being written into the law as we speak,” he told the House of Commons transport committee late Wednesday night.

The legislation enjoys support from the business community and building trades, who testified to parliament that it can take longer to get projects approved than to get them built.