Carney’s Projects Czar Pledges to Help Firms Compete Globally

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(Bloomberg) — The Canadian government will accelerate the development of mining and energy projects so that companies are better able to compete in markets worldwide, said the official in charge of shepherding new proposals through to construction.

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Dawn Farrell, chief executive officer of the government’s Major Projects Office, said her job is to “ensure that Canadians have competitive mines, competitive pipelines, competitive LNG facilities — because the world only pays a certain price for our goods and we need to meet them at those prices.”

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Farrell made the comments after Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled the latest round of projects eligible for faster government approval. The list includes new electrical transmission lines, another natural gas export terminal on the west coast and a series of mines across the country, Carney said, confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg News.

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The new mines are the Nouveau Monde Graphite phase 2 project in Quebec, Canada Nickel Co.’s Crawford project in Ontario and a tungsten and molybdenum mine in New Brunswick. A hydroelectric dam in the northern territory of Nunavut was also added to the list.

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Officials in a number of countries have raised concerns that China is manipulating the critical minerals market — at times flooding it with excess supply to make western countries’ projects uneconomical, and at other times imposing export controls. But within the resources industry, firms commonly complain that Canada hurts its own cause by taking too long to complete approvals, driving up the break-even cost on projects. 

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Farrell, a longtime energy-industry executive hired by Carney in August, said her office will help firms arrange access to cheaper financing, get their construction permits more quickly and find labor. 

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Carney said he is focused on ensuring projects get through bureaucracy much faster, particularly when several government departments — including at the provincial level — need to assess them.

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“We’re moving in parallel,” he said. “There’s a window, a single window, for the people who are working on these projects to see all of the financing support. There’s a single window for Indigenous peoples working with the federal government.”

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Carney made his announcement in Terrace, a remote town in northern British Columbia. Two of the new projects are in that region: the North Coast Transmission Line, which will help provide power for resource development in the area, and the Ksi Lisims liquefied natural gas terminal proposed on the coastline near Alaska.

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Ksi Lisims LNG would export 12 million metric tons a year of liquefied natural gas to Asian markets, making it the second-largest export facility in Canada after LNG Canada. It would bring between 150 and 170 extra tankers annually to the area’s waters.

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Ksi Lisims received a green light on Sept. 15 to move to the next stage under a new process that effectively unifies federal and provincial environmental approvals. Energy Minister Tim Hodgson said it showed Canada is “open for business.”