With the big-C Conservatives riding so high in the polls, hundreds of small-c conservatives and a fair share of corporate lobbyists have flocked to a hotel conference centre in the nation’s capital for insight into what the party might do once in power—and, some hoped, for a chance to influence it. 

In a raucously received keynote speech at the Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference Thursday, Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre slammed the incumbent Liberals’ industrial policy and promised a government he leads would make it much easier to build major resource and power projects. 

Getting a new mine up and running can take up to 25 years, according to Ottawa’s critical minerals strategy. Poilievre pledged to bring the federal approvals portion of that down to 18 months, in part by repealing changes Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government made to the environmental assessment system.

Major mining firms have called for permitting reform in next week’s federal budget. The Liberals have promised to streamline project review, and have touted critical mineral output as a crucial part of the electric vehicles strategy that has also seen them offer billions of dollars in production and capital incentives to multinational automakers to build new battery plants. 

Poilievre has not said whether he’d maintain those EV deals if he takes office, but on stage Thursday he criticized them. “Trudeau wants to subsidize the assembly of foreign raw materials, and then send them in packets to the United States where they can be added to [EVs],” he said. “We have those raw materials right here in Canada.”

Poilievre also touted the opportunity to export liquified natural gas to European and Asian markets, citing India in particular. 

The Conservatives would reduce regulatory duplication, Poilievre said, pledging a single review  window process for hydroelectric projects, such as those Quebec is looking to build to meet the province’s burgeoning power needs. And Poilievre promised more nuclear power, from both traditional CANDU systems and new small modular reactors. “We’re going to unleash the power of our atoms,” he said.

The Tories have been running hard against the Liberals’ system of carbon taxing—or pricing, depending on which party’s talking. In his keynote, Poilievre echoed a long-standing party line that climate change is best tackled “with technology, and not taxes.” 

A panel discussion later in the day with much the same title was much less well attended absent Poilievre’s star power. Questerre Energy president Michael Binnion—who also chairs the organization putting on the event—cited the potential for forest conservation to create carbon sinks, as well as “smart regs,” like fleet-wide emissions standards for automakers, rather than directions as to which vehicles to build.