OTTAWA — The Liberal government’s bill to reduce internal trade impediments and hurry select “nation-building” projects through federal approvals is set to pass in the House of Commons today, despite objections from Indigenous and environmentalist groups.

Here’s what you need to know about Bill C-5.

Quick review

Introduced on June 6, the bill has two parts. The first seeks to make good on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s campaign pledge to remove federal barriers to internal Canadian trade by Canada Day. It lets the federal government accept provincial regulators’ decisions on, say, whether a farm product is organic instead of maintaining a separate process; it does likewise on professional certifications for workers.

The second part creates a fast-track approval system for major projects—like mines, transportation and energy corridors—that the federal cabinet decides are nationally important. Such projects would get yeas or nays from one minister, instead of multiple ministers all dealing with their own areas, and be shepherded by a new major-projects office.

This part is much, much more contentious. Many Indigenous leaders have objected that the bill itself is being rushed through without consultation, saying it affects their land and rights and thus triggers promises in treaties and the Constitution. They and others—environmentalists, in particular—say that accelerating approvals for chosen projects will mean shunting aside considerations of their social and ecological costs.

That was fast

With the help of the Conservatives and a House of Commons agenda that hasn’t had time to get crowded, the Liberals moved Bill C-5 along rapidly. They used an uncommon procedural move called time allocation, which limited committee examination of the bill to two meetings this week (one of them extra-long) and ordered a final yes-or-no vote by the full House today.

The Bloc Québécois, New Democrats and lone Green opposed the hurry, and the bill itself, but to no avail. Liberal MP and former cabinet minister Nathaniel Erskine-Smith spoke out against the hasty passage of the bill, but voted with his party.

“Under the guise of responding to the threat posed by [U.S. President Donald] Trump, we are sacrificing other important values,” Erskine-Smith said in the House this week. “We are actively undermining our parliamentary democracy.”

The Tory line on the bill is that it doesn’t go far enough, but it represents “some progress” and passing it (with a handful of Conservative amendments) is better than not. Among those changes: limiting the federal laws from which cabinet can exempt chosen projects.

End of the beginning

Passing the bill may be the easy part, as opposition builds outside the House. The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) held an emergency meeting of chiefs Monday, where they raised the prospect of challenging the legislation in court. Other Indigenous groups have suggested communities will go even farther to block projects approved on First Nations land without their full consent.

“You will see us up the river [at] your special economic interest points, and we’ll be there to stop you,” Ramon Kataquapit, an Attawapiskat First Nation youth leader, said at a Chiefs of Ontario press conference on Parliament Hill.. 

Ottawa says it’ll set up an Indigenous advisory committee to help guide the process, but it’s not written in the bill and AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak told the Senate she’s not been offered any details.

The government does have support from several First Nations groups looking to partner on major projects, including the First Nations Major Projects Coalition and the Manitoba Métis Federation, whose president David Chartrand told the Senate his community won’t kneel to Trump’s economic threats.

“That’s why you see me sitting here today, stating very loudly and clearly that we will support Bill C-5,” he said. 

Still, both the Métis federation and the major projects coalition agree Ottawa needs to do a better job of consulting with First Nations for the entire plan to work.

Answering objections

Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Rebecca Alty said Bill C-5 cannot override Section 35 of the Constitution, which guarantees treaty rights and Indigenous Peoples’ rights more broadly.

“Let me be absolutely clear: major projects will only proceed under this act with meaningful consultation and accommodation with Indigenous peoples whose Section 35 rights may be affected,” she said in the Senate this week. (The Senate is doing what it can to hurry the bill along, too, by holding hearings on it before the House of Commons is finished with it.)

One criterion for putting a project on the government’s fast-track list is simply how doable it is, she said, and having Indigenous support makes a project more doable.

“This legislation is about supporting projects that are not only shovel-ready but shovel-worthy projects that respect Indigenous knowledge and uphold Aboriginal and treaty rights,” Alty went on. “We’ll be looking for projects that have Indigenous support and—better yet—Indigenous equity in the projects.”

What’s next

The House of Commons votes today, and the Senate will likely pass the bill in short order. 

The AFN says it’ll take direction from chiefs across the country before it decides where to go from here, but that could take time. It had planned a conference next month but postponed it until the fall because more than 30 First Nation communities are dealing with wildfire threats. In the meantime, individual rights holders and Indigenous groups who oppose the bill are developing a national coalition and planning for a busy summer.

Carney and the cabinet, meanwhile, must set up an office to decide which projects warrant the fast-track treatment. The rest will languish in the messy overlapping approval process that Carney has said isn’t working and holds the country back.

“A broader, more in-depth reform of our regulatory approval process” is on the way, Liberal House leader Steven MacKinnon said Wednesday, but he did not give a timeline.