Bill C-5: The One Canadian Economy Act

A Temporary Work-Around; not a Permanent Fix

The Liberals’ flagship legislation in the one month that Parliament has convened in 2025 is a bill designed to temporarily – for five years – work around the legislation these Liberals have created over the past several years – in order to get projects actually moving in Canada.

It’s an acknowledgement that the points I’ve been stressing in Parliament for the past two terms are what’s causing the lack of progress on development of our economy. To be more forthcoming, it’s a little galling to listen to Ministers give speeches on why we need this new limited time ‘workaround’ legislation after remembering the speeches they gave justifying the project-killing legislation they passed through Parliament.

I also am noticing that the new Prime Minister acts as if he can unilaterally change Canadian laws at will – using Orders in Council as if he is the President of a Republic.

Canada is not governed as a republic, and our laws do not get cancelled at the Prime Minister’s whim. I noticed his bewilderment on this issue when he announced he was unilaterally cancelling the Digital Services Tax. When corrected, he stated that he would just not have the tax collected. Canada Revenue Agency informed him that they do not have that option: a law indicating a tax must be collected does not get overridden by a Prime Minister’s statement. There is a learning curve in governing this country – but recognize how far we have come from a functional constitution Westminster-style democracy when our Prime Minister thinks he has carte-blanche to override Parliament’s laws.

Likewise with Bill C-5.

My Conservative colleagues and I are fully in favour of getting projects moving forward in Canada again, after a decade of Liberal economic malfeasance. We will back any bill this government brings forward that changes the direction they have taken for the past ten years. Hence, we supported the progress of Bill C-5 through Parliament. We did so constructively, and proposed numerous amendments at the parliamentary committee that examined the bill in detail.

I’ve had many conversations with Calgarians who ask why Parliament doesn’t function the way it was intended. Indeed, overly partisan politics has led to a divide that has not been productive. As a Member of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, our role is to create better outcomes for Canadians by ensuring the legislation passed through Parliament astutely addresses the problems it is intended to solve. I will say openly that that is not the way that Parliament, over the past two terms, has functioned, and we, as a democratic nation, are worse off, as a result. I have found that no matter how well-prepared or well-intentioned, the governing Liberals wanted none of the input. Even when we succeeded at Committee – usually with the help of common sense members of the governing Liberals, the leadership of that party overturned our amendments prior to the final vote in the House of Commons.

This is not good for Canada.

In contrast, in this Parliament, Bill C-5 received numerous amendments from the Conservatives – to improve the bill. Of these, several were passed at committee stage. Further amendments were accepted at third reading in the House of Commons.

We improved the legislation.

How did this happen?

One of the consequences of the past election was the demise of the NDP as an official party in the House of Commons. It has been apparent that they were obstacles to the proper functioning of parliamentary committees when they served there with official party status. Proceedings were ‘gummed up’; much grandstanding occurred (and I confess they are not the only party guilty of that); and, in the end, the NDP would do what they were told by the Liberal government.

Fast forward to this Parliament – and the NDP has no members on committees, as a result of losing party status.

Bill C-5 serves as the first success where the Opposition parties (the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois) agreed on amendments that made the bill better. Those amendments became part of the legislation. In that respect, Parliament is becoming more functional.

There are further issues with Bill C-5. It ‘stalls’ uncertainty – rather than dealing with the problems created by Liberal anti-development legislation; it attempts to ‘work around’ the Constitution – which will not survive a legal challenge – particularly from Canada’s first nations – who have treaty rights defined therein.

And we hear a significant amount of ‘double speak’ – on the nature of a project of national interest.

Let’s accept that such beauty is going to be in the eye of the beholder. The Prime Minister has been caught outright on this issue saying separate things to separate audiences. Recognize that, as much as we are trying to help him move Canada’s economy forward, we also have to hold him accountable for these apparent flipflops.

People will ask me (rightly so) – well, what would you do better?

Exactly what we proposed. FIX the underlying legislation. The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that parts of the Impact Assessment Act are not within the federal government’s purview; yet, a year and a half after that ruling, there has been no move to amend the offending portions of that Act.

We need Canada moving forward – economically and democratically.

If this version of the Liberal government is serious about advancing projects, we will be helping them – even when the underlying legislation is flawed. We would prefer a more certain outcome – based on objective governance, not one where the Liberal government (and its own various interest groups) get to subjectively choose the projects they want to proceed.

Finally, let’s measure this bill by its outcomes. If we don’t see significant progress in building projects and employing Canadians and the private sector committing to investing, then this ‘workaround’ bill is just another bundle of Liberal paper. Lots of ink and talk with no tangible outcomes for Canadians.

Let’s mentally put a benchmark time on this. Let’s re-visit it at the end of 2026, and make our judgement then.