Bill C-5: Well Intentioned Disaster

Where Good Intentions Go To Die

Nate Erskine-Smith has made his first substantive appearance since his demotion from Cabinet this week, opposing the government’s Bill C-5 that seeks to modernize and liberalize trade between provinces but more importantly (and where all the opposition comes from) allows the government to effectively disarm all regulatory apparatuses from projects it deems important enough. It’s a power grab, albeit dressed up in the guise of a national emergency to do good.

The problem with such a designation should be obvious - Mark Carney and the Liberals will not govern forever - and there are other ways to ensure that a project of national interest can get through. But let’s focus on this - would we trust the MP for Being JD Vance’s Buddy to have these powers if the Conservatives win after the next election? Cause this law will give him, or whatever Minister Pierre Poilievre chooses, that power, and it seems like a reasonable thing to be scared about.

There are alternative ways to power through regulatory disasters in the way that we need to to build, like, say, a supermajority of a special committee of Parliamentarians that would de facto ensure that where Conservatives and Liberals could find agreement and common ground the project could go forward. The fact that there needs to be some way to get around it is clear. But my objection to the Carney government’s idea isn’t that they particularly go too far, it’s that they don’t go far enough.

This kind of regulatory freedom for some projects isn’t enough, at all - we need to genuinely unleash a broad and holistic view of the Federal regulatory environment to see what is and isn’t fit for purpose, instead of allowing certain projects with good PR operations or friendly provincial governments willing to burn political capital on them to face a meaningfully easier ride than ones without the same advantages.

It is now the official, unequivocal position of the Liberal government that there are too many regulatory burdens on development - in resource extraction, housing, and presumably a host of other areas too. Given that, let’s actually do something to fucking fix those problems in a real way - get a bipartisan, and cross ideological, group together to actually review the 97 different laws we have that can be used to stop development and figure out which are useful and which aren’t.

Get NES, Seamus, James Moore, and Jason Kenney in a room together, swear all of them to secrecy, and tell them to hash out a new Federal regulatory regime. Give them the broad scope to figure out what is and isn’t working, have them identify regulations that can be tweaked, steps that can be consolidated, and any other reforms they can agree on together.

We have a regulatory environment in this country that is entirely broken, and the idea of C-5 is entirely correct on this front. Regulatory review has become code for “how can we kill this”, as if there should be an entrenched bias towards the status quo and no election should be able to change that. The problem with those advocating against regulatory reform is that it is the kind of thing that will one day fuck your priorities too, which is why such entrenchment is bad.

It is a bad thing that it is currently easier to build houses and solar energy in Texas than California. It is a bad thing that we spent years forcing companies to jump through hoops to do good things that will help. There needs to be an entire rethink of the way regulations interact with the national interest. The problem is that it shouldn’t sit with one Minister to assess the national interest.

I don’t think Carney is trying to become a dictator, or use this power to become some crazed right winger, as Tom Parkin said last night on Twitter, but he is using a private sector mentality in a bad way here. In the private sector, appointing a point person who will make all decisions is often a very good thing, because it creates a consistent process instead of relying on variable and completely inconsistent application via committees and wait times and corporate bloat. Without knowing anything about Carney that’s private knowledge, I’m sure he thinks this bill is serving the function of avoiding the 4000 emails that usually come with getting anything approved without a clearly defined final decision maker. It’s an admirable goal - it’s just not a smart move in a democracy, where you have to keep in mind that powers granted to you are there to be used by opponents too, in time.

Carney needs to understand that he has a political opportunity here because of the minority Parliament. If they amended C-5 to include that supermajority clause like I suggested, the Conservatives would be forced into an incredible Sophie’s Choice - either continuously support the government’s agenda and give Carney win after win after win on deliverable, tangible projects that will help Canadians (and that Carney can keep rocking up to in the high viz), or vote against key projects and look like bigger frauds than the Theranos CEO.

If Mark Carney wants to actually build, C-5 is a well intentioned bill that won’t do what he thinks it will. It will get caught in years of legal fights that will delay projects. It will be seen as an effort to thwart democracy. And it will allow the Conservatives to do dangerous things whenever they inevitably govern. If Carney really wants to handle regulatory burdens that throttle needed investments and kill needed projects, then there are significantly better ways to achieve those outcomes.

Carney can and should listen to the good faith critics of Bill C-5, understand that he is trying to achieve a good outcome in a bad way, and split the bill - letting the trade barriers bit pass as soon as possible, and allow extended July committee hearings to get the regulatory approval process right. Otherwise, in trying to speed up approvals, the whole framework will be mired in courtrooms till the next election, and all we’ll build is billable hours for the Seven Sisters.

Split the damn bill, fix the problems, and let’s actually make it possible to build.