Prime Minister Mark Carney’s main focus will be on project development as he sits down with provincial and territorial premiers this week.
Carney told CBC’s Power & Politics in an exclusive interview last week that “major projects” will be his main agenda item for Monday’s meeting.
“We need to move on these nation-building projects. So projects that bring Canada together, projects that diversify our economy, projects that help us export to new markets and really move this economy forward,” Carney told host David Cochrane.
“The ask of provinces, the ask of the private sector is: Which projects do you have that reach those criteria? What we’re going to do is fast-track the approval, truly fast-track the approval, of those projects.”
Because we are considered a resource nation. Whether you agree with that or not, it is how the world sees us.
It’s more about how we see ourselves. Do we build strong services and utilities for our own population, or do we keep shoveling money and opportunity to our incumbents?
We used to have a pretty strong telecom industry. We had decent manufacturing and ship building, if you go far enough back. If there’s decent infrastructure, tax codes, and investment incentives maybe we could have those again.
All true, but the infrastructure we used to have is mostly gone and to start over would entail spending billions. It seems Carney prefers to use what we’ve got, along with ideas already in a development/funding stage, to move us forward.
That’s not nation building, though. “Be only as others see you” is pretty toxic advice at any level.