MARK CARNEY AND BILL 'C 5' - ANOTHER ATTACK ON WHAT'S LEFT OF OUR DEMOCRACY?
(June 18, 2025) Mark Carney calls Bill C-5 the Building Canada Act. The West Coast Environmental Law Assn. (WCELA) suggests it is more of an Anti-Democracy and Nation Dividing Act... and I have a feeling they are more right than he is. (The actual name of Bill C-5 is: An Act to enact the Free Trade and Labour Mobility in Canada Act and the Building Canada Act)
According to the WCELA, the Carney government tabled Bill C-5 on June 6 and intend to have it passed by Parliament by this weekend, June 20th. That's fast, but of course we have no time to waste.. we need 'more'. The Liberals are a minority government, but the Conservative Party also supports Bill C-5 soit should pass easily. The Environmental Law Assn. suggests a more apt title for the Bill would be the Anti-Democracy, Nation-Dividing Act. The Bill aims to grow the economy by fast-tracking certain big projects. But in order to 'save time' it sidelines scientific and public oversight of those projects.
Bill C-5 is similar to Ontario's Bill 5 and BC's Bill 15: It's interesting to see the NDP in BC, the Liberals federally, and the Conservatives in Ontario all bringing forward, very quickly, some very similar laws - all of which will concentrate even more power in the hands of the Premiers, Prime Minister, and Cabinets, further weaken what's left of our democracy, and let our top politicians basically fast-track more mines, more fracking, more LNG, more pipelines, nuclear power plants and who knows what else. And all these new laws seem to let the Premiers and Prime Minister override any and all laws that 'stand in the way' of new projects and more corporate profit. And all done with no consent from the people of Canada. Because, we are told, these new laws are so important that there is just no time available to tell the public about them or to let Parliament discuss them; they just have to be passed as quickly as possible.
Bill 5 and Bill 15, in Ontario and BC are already 'the law'. And Carney's Bill C-5 will be passed by June 20 if all goes according to plan. What a great democracy we are. And at a time when the forest fires have already been raging, when most of us have plastic in our brains, when newborn babies are contaminated with dozens of chemicals and toxins and carcinogens and poisons; when half of us will get cancer because the corporations have poisoned us all ... do we really want to let the corporations do even more to us? But of course what the public may want is totally irrelevant to how decisions are made in Canada.
Once passed, Bill C-5 will enact two pieces of legislation. Part 1 is the Free Trade and Labour Mobility in Canada Act which establishes a statutory framework to remove federal barriers to interprovincial trade. Part 2 is the Building Canada Act which allows designation of “national interest projects” (NIPs). The preamble to the Building Canada Act (BCA) indicates that Canada’s economy, sovereignty and security require urgent advancement of NIPs, which may include projects that foster the development of economic and trade corridors, get goods to market, strengthen Canada’s ability to trade, and enhance the development of Canada’s natural resources and its energy production and infrastructure. The preamble also says we definitely want to 'enhance investor confidence'.
The Building Canada Act also allows for existing environmental regulatory requirements to simply be ignored - if the Cabinet chooses to ignore them. So Goodbye Environment. Thank you Mr. Mark Carney, who seems to be very quickly turning into a very evil and destructive person in terms of the environment; although I'm sure he is a wonderful fellow otherwise. But he was sold to us as our Trump Saviour because he is a very useful guy for the corporations to have as our Prime Minister. Useful for Corporate Canada that is. Which owns the media that we rely on to tell us what is going on. And what a deadly mistake it is for us to ever trust the corporate owned media.
The group EcoJustice says: Bill C-5 is part of a disturbing trend that weakens democracy and sidelines Parliament. (But Parliament seems to be disappearing before our eyes; Trudeau prorogues it for months -illegally I think - and now Carney is planning to shut it down this weekend as soon as it passes his Bill C-5.) Rushing big projects without following key environmental laws as they were meant to work puts nature, wildlife, and communities at serious risk (and really the entire planet and the future of all of us is at risk.) The Building Canada Act fast-tracks designated “national interest” projects by giving them up-front approval and pushing them through a shortened federal review process, one that could allow environmental harms that would normally not be permitted under federal laws. Ho hum...
Like Ontario’s recent Bill 5 and BC's Bill 15, the federal Bill C-5 also provides sweeping power for the Prime Minister and his cabinet to exempt major projects from Canada’s most important federal health, safety, and environmental laws. The government’s shortened timeframe skips the question of “if” a project should proceed, straight to “how” it will proceed. Prime Minister Carney spoke of a “robust” public process to decide whether projects will be listed under the law, but the bill does not require any such process.
So, just as the corporate destruction of our planet's environment reaches new highs, Canada moves to make things even worse. And this is done with no consultation with the Canadian people, no presentation of alternatives, and no time for questions to be asked.
And - does taking time to consider the environment really slow things down? We are told daily now by our media that 'we have to move things ahead fast because even considering the environment just takes too much time'. Well here is a link to a research paper that says that story also may not be true. I don't know how correct this study is, but here is the link for those who are interested.
