Article content

OTTAWA — Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson did not commit to scrapping Trudeau-era climate policies that Alberta and Ontario want to see gone but said that the newly adopted major projects bill could pave the way to doing so “over time.”

Article content

Speaking in Calgary on Friday, Hodgson said the new legislation — which enables the cabinet to quickly approve projects of national interest by overriding federal laws — will empower the government to act swiftly and any legislative fine-tuning would come later.

Article content

Article content

Article content

“We need to move quickly. What the… One Canadian Economy Act does is allows us to move quickly under this framework,” he told reporters in a press conference.

Article content

Article content

“It allows us to do all the things we need to do in one centralized place, under one set of timelines, and to take those learnings to go back and deal with the other acts over time.”

Article content

Hodgson was indirectly responding to a letter from the environment ministers of Alberta and Ontario, made public this week, who requested that the federal government repeal the Impact Assessment Act, clean electricity regulations and emissions cap, among others.

Article content

In their letter, Rebecca Schultz and Todd J. McCarthy argued that those climate policies, implemented by the prior Liberal government, would “undermine competitiveness, delay project development, and disproportionately harm specific provinces and territories.”

Article content

“Canada is poised to be an economic superpower, but achieving that potential depends on strong, constitutionally grounded provincial authority over resource development and environmental management,” they wrote to Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin.

Article content

Article content

Dabrusin, who met with her provincial and territorial counterparts in the Northwest Territories this week, said that the environment remains a priority for Prime Minister Mark Carney even as his government is getting ready to fast-track major projects.

Article content

Article content

“We know it’s very important to Canadians that as we do this, we’re doing it properly and that we’re doing it in a way that actually supports a strong country as a whole that takes into account our nature and the like,” she said in a press conference on Wednesday.

Article content

“So, I very much see it at the centre of the work that I’m doing and that we’re doing as a government,” Dabrusin added.

Article content

When asked in Calgary if the federal government would be able to attract private investments dollars with the current climate policies in place, Hodgson said Carney was “focused on results” and that the government would “figure out how to get there.”

Article content

Hodgson said there is already a lot of interest in building projects of national interest but remained relatively tight-lipped when asked about the possibility of a new pipeline.