Green Party leader warns of ‘sweeping new powers’ as Ottawa fast-tracks major projects [video]

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has renewed criticism about the federal government’s efforts to fast-track controversial resource extraction projects.

Watch the NB Media Co-op’s interview with Elizabeth May:

Proposed legislative changes would give Cabinet ministers “unprecedented power to exempt projects from legislation such as the Impact Assessment Act,” according to May, the MP representing Saanich–Gulf Islands.

She made the comments in her official response to a pair of federal discussion papers on trade and transportation and accelerating major projects.

Speaking to the NB Media Co-op during a recent visit to New Brunswick, she said that changes introduced by the government of Prime Minister Mark Carney have increasingly centralized power among Cabinet ministers.

For example, the One Canadian Economy Act — which became law in June 2025 — allows for “sweeping new powers concentrated in the political arm of government,” she said.

That law was meant to speed up projects deemed to be in the “national interest.” However, that kind of accelerated process comes with major risks, environmental and Indigenous leaders have warned.

May referenced the book How Big Things Get Done by authors Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner, which draws on Flyvbjerg’s database of some 16,000 large projects.

“The ones that fail spectacularly are the prototypes, the things that have never been done before,” she said. “The advice from that research is plan slowly.”

She made the comments at a time when a number of projects in New Brunswick are under public scrutiny.

Examples include the Sisson mine, a proposed open-pit tungsten and molybdenum mine north of Fredericton. In November 2025, that project was referred to the federal government’s recently established Major Projects Office.

Other examples include NB Power’s fossil fuel-burning power plant in southeast New Brunswick and a hyperscale data centre in Lorneville, on the outskirts of Saint John.

Legislative changes linked to the Carney government’s push for faster development also include the Budget Implementation Act, which became law in March.

Under the budget legislation, Cabinet ministers can issue exemptions to Canadian laws, except the Criminal Code, for up to six years.

Chris Thompson is a Fredericton-based contributor to the NB Media Co-op. David Gordon Koch is a staff reporter with the NB Media Co-op. This reporting has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada, via the Local Journalism Initiative.