Opinion by Sean O’Reilly originally published in the Ottawa Citizen on November 4, 2026.
The Carney government wants to get major resource and infrastructure projects approved faster.
In recent weeks, the government introduced Bill C-39, the Building Canada Strong Act, which would accelerate major-project reviews and give federal regulators additional responsibilities.
But it’s also planning to cut more than 1,500 full-time-equivalent positions from two departments responsible for protecting Canada’s environment — the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Environment and Climate Change Canada. These staffing reductions threaten the very scientific capacity that major-project reviews depend on.
So, the plan is to get more science done with fewer people to do it.
That’s not an efficiency strategy. It’s a contradiction the government has yet to explain.
If the government wants to accelerate scientific reviews, why is it cutting the jobs of the people responsible for conducting them?
It can’t have it both ways.
Environmental assessments aren’t paperwork that can be rushed through. They involve studying what a mine might do to groundwater, how a pipeline could affect a fish habitat or what an industrial project could mean for surrounding communities.
Scientists have to gather evidence, test assumptions, investigate risks and determine what protections are necessary. Sometimes they discover something nobody anticipated. Sometimes they need more data. And sometimes they must return to the field during another season to compare.
None of that work disappears because a politician sets a shorter deadline.
Yet Bill C-39 would accelerate reviews while shifting additional assessment responsibilities to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and the Canada Energy Regulator.
These are complex projects, with potentially serious consequences for public health, safety and the environment. The people reviewing them need specialized expertise, independent professional judgment and enough time to get the science right.
What they don’t need is another impossible workload.
Public servants at these regulators are already dealing with staffing shortages and recruitment challenges. When experienced scientists leave, their knowledge doesn’t automatically transfer to whoever inherits their files.
And when departments lose capacity, it’s not just assessments that suffer. It’s the monitoring, research and institutional knowledge that help experts recognize problems before they become disasters.
The government insists that Bill C-39 will maintain Canada’s environmental standards. At the same time, it’s proposing to make the cost of protecting endangered species and fish habitat an explicit consideration when setting safeguards.
Weakening the rules is only half the concern, as the government is also cutting the jobs of the people responsible for enforcing them. An assessment completed on time means little if experts weren’t given the resources to examine the evidence properly. And a faster approval is no achievement if the public cannot trust the work behind it.
Yet the government isn’t just asking for faster approvals. Bill C-39 would also expand extraordinary fast-track powers to projects across entire regions deemed to be in the national interest.
And it wants to make those powers permanent.
When Parliament approved several of these powers in 2025, it imposed a five-year limit on their use. Bill C-39 would remove that limit.
If parliamentarians are going to grant these extraordinary new powers, they should insist on evidence that they’re working. A three-year sunset clause, accompanied by an independent review of scientific capacity, assessment quality and environmental outcomes, would require the government to make its case before those powers could be renewed.
Because where does this end otherwise?
It’ll mean fewer scientists, heavier workloads, and less time to investigate risks. It will also mean increasingly consequential decisions will be made by institutions with fewer resources to make them.
Canada needs infrastructure. It needs investment. And it needs timely decisions about major projects.
But the scientists, engineers and regulators responsible for keeping Canadians safe aren’t obstacles to building a stronger country. They’re the people who make it possible.
You can’t cut scientific capacity and expect scientific scrutiny to improve. And you can’t build a stronger Canada by weakening the expertise that keeps it safe.
Sean O’Reilly is the president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada.
