What Is Mark Carney's Bill C-39, and Why Is It Controversial?

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's government has introduced a 250-page omnibus bill that critics say strips environmental, Indigenous and labour protections to speed up energy and infrastructure projects, according to an opinion piece published by Shiri Pasternak in the Guardian. The bill, formally known as the Building Canada Strong Act and numbered C-39, was introduced September 21 by Transport Minister and House Leader Steven MacKinnon, Pasternak writes.

What does Bill C-39 actually change?

According to the op-ed, the legislation expands an earlier fast-track designation for "projects of national interest" into a broader category called "regions of national interest." Federal ministers could apply that designation to entire geographic areas, Pasternak writes, a shift she argues diminishes the sovereignty of Parliament and bypasses local elected officials and the citizens living in the affected zones. The bill also eliminates arms-length environmental review boards, according to the piece, shifting final decision-making to the same federal bodies responsible for promoting the sectors they would be reviewing.

Who would approve pipelines and nuclear projects under the new rules?

Under the amended framework described in the op-ed, the Canada Energy Regulator would directly assess energy projects rather than refer them to an independent board, and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission would directly approve nuclear and uranium projects. Cabinet approval, Pasternak writes, has been removed entirely for most pipelines, with that oversight now reserved only for pipeline projects requiring more than 300 kilometers of new right of way. A major pipeline that follows an existing corridor would not trigger cabinet review under that threshold, according to the piece.

How does this clash with Carney's reputation abroad?

Carney drew praise internationally for a speech in Davos that Pasternak describes as a reckoning with the reconfiguration of global power under the shadow of President Donald Trump. The op-ed argues that reputation sits uneasily against the prime minister's domestic record, which Pasternak characterizes as "radically centralizing power within his office and cabinet" while cutting dozens of laws that protect environmental, Indigenous and labour rights in service of an economic agenda. The piece frames Carney's approach as mirroring, rather than opposing, the kind of executive consolidation associated with Trump.

What role do the northern Ontario wildfires play in the critique?

Pasternak connects the legislative push to events that preceded it by weeks: wildfire smoke that she writes "decimated" First Nations communities in northern Ontario, triggering mass evacuations. The op-ed presents the fires as evidence of the costs of a fossil-fuel-dependent economy, arguing that Canada's pursuit of global land and resource sales — the subject of the Davos-era praise — arrived almost simultaneously with a domestic climate emergency affecting Indigenous communities. The piece does not cite separate government or scientific sources on the fires' causes or scale beyond this characterization.

What happens to Indigenous and labour rights under the bill?

The op-ed's central objection is that the "regions of national interest" designation could exempt large areas of the country from existing labour and Indigenous rights protections, as well as environmental review, without requiring consent from the people living there. Pasternak asks "to what image of nationalism is Carney hewing," using the question to challenge the government's framing of the bill as a unifying economic project. The piece does not quote government officials defending the legislation, and no rebuttal from MacKinnon's office or the Prime Minister's Office appears in the source material.

What comes next for the legislation?

Bill C-39 was introduced in September and, as described in the op-ed, had not completed the legislative process as of the piece's October 28 publication. The source material does not specify a vote date, committee timeline, or whether opposition parties have taken formal positions on the bill. Readers tracking the legislation's progress should consult the bill's official parliamentary record, which was not included among the sources reviewed for this article.

The debate Pasternak lays out turns on a familiar tension in resource politics: speeding up approvals that government and industry say are needed for major infrastructure, against review processes that Indigenous nations, environmental groups and labour advocates say exist precisely to slow down projects until affected communities are heard. The op-ed comes down firmly on one side of that argument. Government officials have not yet offered a public defense of the bill's specific provisions in the material available.

For the full argument and sourcing on Bill C-39, see the original Guardian op-ed.

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