Nearly 11 months after Prime Minister Mark Carney launched the Major Projects Office to accelerate large infrastructure and resource developments, Ottawa has yet to formally place a single project under the Building Canada Act’s fast-track approval regime, giving Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre a concrete metric to attack the government’s signature building agenda.
At an August 6 news conference in St. John’s, Poilievre urged Canadians to judge Carney on completed results rather than announcements, then asked how many projects the Major Projects Office had permitted.
“After a year and a half of Mark Carney, he set up this major projects office to approve projects at record speed,” Poilievre said. “Do you know how many projects he’s permitted? Zero.”
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He further argued that hundreds of projects remained stalled while Ottawa continued to impose regulatory and carbon-pricing costs.
The zero figure is supported by the government’s own legislation, but only under a narrow definition. Schedule 1 of the Building Canada Act, the statutory list of projects formally designated as being in the national interest, remained completely blank on August 6. Under the law, Cabinet can add a project to the schedule following a recommendation from the responsible minister. Listing allows Ottawa to consolidate and accelerate certain federal authorizations.
The Major Projects Office describes that route as a form of conditional approval intended to streamline subsequent federal reviews. Despite months of project referrals to the office, Ottawa has not yet used it.
The empty schedule makes for a potentially more significant measure of progress than the number of projects Carney has announced. The government now lists 18 projects and eight transformative strategies under the MPO, which it says represent $192 billion in new investment, 337,000 jobs, and the potential to attract another $500 billion in private-sector investment.
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Ottawa has started the process of putting its first three projects through the Building Canada Act mechanism. On June 24, the government opened consultations on potentially listing the Mackenzie Valley Highway, the Grays Bay Road and Port, and the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s Deep Geological Repository. The government said it is targeting decisions in fall 2026.
While Poilievre appears to be correct that the formal list remained at zero, his broader claim that the MPO had “permitted” no projects, however, does not match how the office operates or the regulatory progress of projects referred to it.
The MPO does not function as a single permitting authority. Its stated job is to evaluate projects, coordinate proponents with governments and Indigenous partners, and recommend the best path for completing federal approvals. When Carney announced the first five referrals in September 2025, the government said those projects had already passed multiple regulatory milestones and that the MPO would work to close remaining permitting and financing gaps.
One of its referred projects also crossed a major federal regulatory threshold shortly before Poilievre’s remarks. On July 31, Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin issued an impact assessment decision statement for the Crawford Nickel Project near Timmins, Ontario. The decision found the project’s potential adverse effects within federal jurisdiction justified in light of its expected benefits and imposed legally binding conditions on development.
The government estimates Crawford could attract $5 billion in investment and create 4,000 jobs. The project remains subject to other required permits and authorizations, so the July decision is not equivalent to final clearance of every regulatory requirement.
Crawford also was not approved through the Building Canada Act. Its progress instead illustrates the distinction between projects supported by the MPO and projects formally listed under the office’s most powerful fast-track mechanism.
The clock on the MPO is also shorter than Poilievre suggested. Carney became prime minister in March 2025, while the Major Projects Office itself was launched on August 29, 2025. At the August 6 news conference, the office had been operating for about 11 months.
The government’s first direct test of the Building Canada Act is now scheduled for this fall. Until one of the three candidates is formally added to Schedule 1, the central number behind Poilievre’s attack remains unchanged.
