Prime minister to announce the first series of major nation-building projects

Mark Carney said he wants to turbocharge Canada's economy through 'major nation-building projects that connect our regions, that diversify our products and build new markets.'

The first major industrial projects under the federal government’s strategy to reduce Canada’s economic reliance on the U.S. will be announced Thursday, Prime Minister Mark Carney told his caucus on Wednesday.

The prime minister vowed that these “transformative” projects will align both with the interests of Indigenous people and with Canada’s climate goals.

Carney said he wants to “turbocharge” Canada’s economy through “major nation-building projects that connect our regions, that diversify our products and build new markets and create those hundreds of thousands of high-paying careers for our workers, from the trades to technology.”

Carney made the comments in Edmonton in a speech to Liberal MPs attending a caucus retreat ahead of the return of the House of Commons next week.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who was scheduled to meet with Carney later in the day, told reporters in Calgary that she won’t be concerned if an oil pipeline is not on the list for the first series of projects when it’s released on Thursday.

“The list is going to be an evergreening list,” Smith said.

Smith said Ottawa needs to create a more favourable regulatory and legal environment for oilsands companies and repeated her call for the repeal of the West Coast oil tanker ban and the emissions cap.

“Why would an oilsands company, in this environment, knowing that there’s an emissions cap which would result in them curtailing 2.1 million barrels of production — how in the world can they then pledge new barrels to go into a pipeline that would go to a coast where there’s a tanker ban?” she said.