The federal government recently released “Getting Major Projects Built in Canada,” a discussion paper proposing to fast-track major infrastructure developments.
The paper comes less than two months after A Force of Nature, the government’s new $3.8-billion strategy committing to protect 30 per cent of Canada’s lands and waters by 2030.
The dissonance between the two is striking.
A Force of Nature aims to protect ecosystems and wildlife for the betterment of Canada. In contrast, the reforms proposed in “Getting Major Projects Built” could threaten natural environments, species-at-risk and human health for generations.
One proposal in the discussion paper is the creation of “federal economic zones,” in which environmental impact assessments would not be required. For others outside these zones, construction could begin before assessments are complete.
But impact assessments are not red tape. Their entire purpose is to prevent irreversible harm. Circumventing the process, or allowing shovels in the ground before the risks are understood, is misguided and a gamble with our collective future.
As leaders of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution — a non-partisan society of nearly 1,000 ecologists and evolutionary biologists — we believe Canadians need to understand what is at stake.
Gambling with Canada’s endangered species
(Flickr/beezart), CC BY-NC-ND
Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA) contains a legal requirement known as the jeopardy test. Before a major project can proceed, it must be demonstrated that the project will not push a listed species closer to extinction or prevent its recovery.
Under the government’s new proposal, specific projects would be exempt from the jeopardy test. This would remove one of Canada’s very few legally binding safeguards for endangered species.
Canada has more than 600 SARA-listed species. Some of the most iconic ones are directly in the path of projects now being fast-tracked.
Take the northern resident orca, which ranges through B.C.’s northern waters. With under 500 individuals remaining, the species is listed as threatened under SARA. Both the proposed Ksi Lisims LNG project and the LNG Canada expansion at Kitimat would increase shipping traffic, noise pollution and the risk of an oil spill within the orca habitat.
In Ontario, the Crawford Nickel Mine north of Timmins is slated to destroy 11,785 hectares of legally-designated habitat critical for threatened woodland caribou. Habitat loss and disturbance are the primary reasons woodland caribou are declining. A 2024 federal government report found that caribou habitats across Canada have declined since 2017.
Irreversible harms could become routine
Montréal’s Contrecoeur port expansion project on the St. Lawrence River provides a stark example of the type of environmental destruction the government’s proposed fast-tracking could normalize.
The copper redhorse, a freshwater fish found only in Québec, is one of Canada’s rarest species and has a legally-designated critical habitat in the port expansion zone. The project will destroy part of the species’ habitat.
The federal government authorized this destruction. As compensation, they proposed the creation of a seagrass bed. However, scientists from Québec’s Ministry of Environment have said that this is “not a proven method and that compensation for this type of habitat remains experimental.”
The federal government’s discussion paper signals that fast-tracking major projects will require increased reliance on such fish habitat offsetting. But the science shows offsetting has a poor track record in Canada.
Monitoring for offset fish habitats is often inadequate. Even when offsetting works, there are often substantial delays between when a vulnerable species’ habitat is destroyed and when compensatory habitat becomes functional.
The cumulative effect of many losses adds up to harms to fisheries that communities, Indigenous Peoples and wildlife all depend upon.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
Communities at risk
Environmental assessments do more than protect wildlife. They are also how Canada’s rural, Northern and Indigenous communities learn about risks to their drinking water, air quality, and the ecosystems that underpin their food security and cultural practices.
Past projects approved without adequate assessments have poisoned the air, waters and soils of our country. As of May 2026, 39 active long-term drinking water advisories on public systems on reserve in 37 Indigenous communities, and over 24,000 contaminated sites on federally-owned land.
Removing assessment requirements for projects, or short-circuiting their procedures, places local communities and their environments at risk. These impacts will disproportionately affect Indigenous Peoples, who already bear the brunt of toxic soils and waters.
Building better
We are in favour of building new infrastructure. The need to transition towards a clean energy future demands investment in new infrastructure. However, the way to do it is not to hollow out the scientific processes designed to safeguard communities and the environment.
Impact assessments can be better co-ordinated. Agencies can be better funded. Indigenous communities can — and must — be engaged earlier. The path to faster, better decisions requires investment in science and in people, not compressing timelines to the point that assessments become meaningless.
The Force of Nature strategy commits to “building Canada well” and ensuring that industrial development complements the conservation of Canada’s rich biological diversity and wild spaces. These are not only Canada’s natural heritage but some of its greatest resources and future assets.
The major projects discussion paper is not consistent with that commitment.
Allowing construction before thorough assessments are completed, permitting development on endangered species’ critical habitats and substituting real habitat protection with offsets, will not build Canada well.
It will build Canada at the expense of safeguarding communities and the environment. It will risk species extinctions, and it could cause irreparable harm to the health and well-being of many communities across Canada.
The government should require impact assessments for all major infrastructure projects, commit to maintaining the jeopardy test under SARA for all such projects, reject any framework permitting construction before assessments are finalized, and abandon expanded reliance on fish habitat offsetting as a substitute for habitat protection.
What Canada builds in the next decade will determine this country’s natural inheritance for generations. Let’s get it right.
