Montréal, June 11, 2025 – The CQDE condemns and is deeply concerned about Bill C-5, introduced last Friday in the House of Commons. The Building Canada Act aims to accelerate the completion of megaprojects considered to be “in the national interest.” The bill poses a potential threat to provincial jurisdiction, provides for a concentration of powers, and raises concerns about the circumvention of consultation processes and the possible bypassing of existing standards designed to ensure public safety and proper environmental protection.
By seeking rushed approval to speed up projects, the bill undermines public participation, hinders proper assessment of project risks, compromises public and environmental protection, and raises questions about its impact on Indigenous peoples’ rights.
“The CQDE is concerned about the potential environmental impacts arising from the potential threat to provincial jurisdiction,” says Geneviève Paul, Executive Director of the CQDE. “The bill is not explicitly limited to federal jurisdiction, which leaves the door open to impacts on the exercise of provincial jurisdiction. It provides that projects that “enhance the development of natural resources […] and Canada’s energy capacity and infrastructure” could be of national interest, even though the extraction and production of natural resources, as well as the environmental aspects associated with them, are in principle under provincial jurisdiction. This bill therefore raises significant concerns about its potential impact on the application of provincial environmental standards for projects of “national interest.”
In any case, Bill C-5 gives the federal government very broad powers, both to designate projects and to circumvent otherwise applicable environmental standards. “Not only is it concerning that the bill relies on the concept of national interest, but the definition of projects considered to be of national interest remains vague: the factors cited are not exhaustive, and are insufficiently defined and delineated. This bill opens the door to extremely and unduly broad discretionary power, without sufficient guidelines, allowing the government to base its decision on any factor it deems relevant for a project to be considered of national interest,” adds Geneviève Paul.
The bill mentions that a contribution to “clean growth” and to meeting Canada’s climate change commitments could be considered a relevant factor. However, this is not sufficient to ensure compliance with rigorous environmental standards, which are alluded to in the preamble. On the contrary, Bill C-5 is designed to ignore environmental standards, thereby flouting the principles of prevention and non-regression, which are essential to addressing the current crises threatening the human rights of Canadians. “Let’s remember that the government is talking about projects of national interest in high-risk sectors such as nuclear, mining, and fossil fuels. This potentially far-reaching bill raises a whole series of red flags,” insists Geneviève Paul.
