When Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson stood at the Canadian embassy in Berlin this week and promised the imminent launch of Ottawa’s new major projects office, it sounded like a turning point. After all, Canada has been criticized for years for dragging its feet on big infrastructure and energy exports — particularly liquified natural gas (LNG), which Europe desperately wants as it tries to break free from Russian supply chains.
But here’s the reality: setting up an office doesn’t mean a single shovel goes into the ground.
Hodgson assured reporters that an announcement was coming “Thursday or Friday,” complete with leadership appointments and a roadmap. The government, he said, expects to roll out its first projects in the next two weeks. That sounds promising, but it also feels like déjà vu. We’ve heard variations of this before: bold talk of cutting red tape, speeding up approvals, and getting projects off the drawing board and into reality.
The Trudeau-era hesitation over LNG — when Ottawa downplayed the “business case” for exporting to Europe — has clearly given way to Carney’s urgency. Prime Minister Mark Carney, on a European tour, is talking about revitalizing the Churchill port in northern Manitoba and expanding Montreal’s port capacity. These are serious, nationally significant projects. If they move forward, they could open up new energy and trade routes, giving Canada the kind of global leverage it has long squandered.
And yet, critics have every right to be skeptical. Conservatives are hammering the Liberals for being all talk, pointing out that Germany built a floating LNG terminal in less than 200 days while Ottawa is still drafting memos and standing up offices. Deputy Tory leader Melissa Lantsman was biting when she said Carney has spent nearly 200 days just creating an office that might someday approve something.
She’s not wrong. Canada has a habit of letting bureaucracy strangle ambition. The new law to fast-track approvals — aiming to go from proposal to construction in under two years — could change that, but only if the office actually delivers. Otherwise, it becomes exactly what the opposition is calling it: another layer of government, another round of consultations, another delay while the world moves ahead.
The stakes are high. European partners like Germany aren’t waiting forever. Asia is already buying LNG from Canada’s West Coast. If Ottawa can’t get projects moving in Churchill or on the East Coast, buyers will simply look elsewhere. Hodgson says German companies are open to “swaps” with Asia-bound LNG while Canada ramps up — but swaps aren’t strategy. They’re stopgaps.
So here’s the uncomfortable truth: Canada doesn’t have the luxury of time. If this major projects office becomes a catalyst for real shovels in the ground within months, it could mark a historic shift in how this country does big projects. If not, it risks being remembered as just another Ottawa promise that came too late, while others built faster.
