Rebooting Canada's backbone: Trump's tariffs put megaprojects back in spotlight
From pipelines to ports, experts urge Canada to build big to reduce dependence on U.S.
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For the first time in the lives of many Canadians, the idea of large-scale, nation-building infrastructure is back in the spotlight.
Not since the completion of the Trans-Canada Highway in 1971 have so many politicians, experts and ordinary Canadians been talking up major projects — everything from an east-west "energy corridor" to port expansions and rail upgrades — insisting the country needs to build, and build fast.
A big part of this urgency comes from shifting geopolitics and economic uncertainty tied to Canada's reliance on the United States. President Donald Trump's tariffs and "51st state" rhetoric have driven home the need for alternate trade routes and new markets.
Federal leaders, premiers and industry insiders are now looking at ways to fast-track projects that once languished in political purgatory, all in hopes of making Canada more self-reliant and resilient.
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But to truly build again in ways that would propel the country's GDP, proponents say Canada needs to look beyond regional projects — beyond even the recently launched $3.9-billion development plan for a high-speed rail linking Toronto to Quebec City.
"It's a good start. Personally, I would like to see some more stuff outside of that Toronto-Windsor corridor. A lot of cities here don't even have bus service anymore," said Kent Fellows, professor of economics at the University of Calgary.
Think of megaprojects on the scale of the Canadian Pacific Railway or Highway 1.
For decades, Fellows says, the country has relied on the private sector to build new infrastructure. But in recent years, the risks and costs have ballooned to the point where few companies, no matter how large, are willing to bear them.
"We've certainly seen that on the pipeline front, but we're seeing it on other fronts," Fellows said. "Maybe it's time to rethink that strategy."
If the goal is to build big and build fast in response to Trump, Canada's recent track record isn't encouraging. From the Northern Gateway and Energy East pipelines to multiple proposed LNG terminals in British Columbia and Nova Scotia, as well as light rail and metro projects in Montreal, Surrey, B.C., and Hamilton, Ont., plenty of high-profile projects have been abandoned, cancelled or stalled.
Even some of the smaller scale proposals related to renewables, such as a graphite mine in western Quebec or Uranium prospecting in eastern Ontario, face fierce opposition.
Industries have pointed to bureaucracy, NIMBYism and shifting regulatory frameworks as hurdles driving away investment. Collectively, they've created what one expert calls "infinite" veto points to strike down a project — at community levels, across provincial lines and in the courts.
"We've gone from one extreme, where almost no one could say no, to the opposite extreme, where it's almost impossible to get a good project built," said Marc Dunkelman, author of Why Nothing Works.
Though his research focuses mostly on the United States, some of the cases he's looked at involve Canada as well, with conclusions relevant to both countries.
Dunkelman envisions a more functional system.
"Everyone should have a voice, but no one should ever veto," he said.
Many are now pointing to Trump's threats as a turning point for Canada.
"Maybe this is our wake-up call … this is the end of our holiday from history," former Alberta premier and federal cabinet minister Jason Kenney told CBC's West of Centre in February after Canadians started booing the American anthem during hockey games.
"It's time for us, as a country, to put on our big-boy pants. It's time for us to stop talking about things like productivity and competitiveness and actually damn well do it."
Reviving the 'corridor' concept
One idea making the rounds is an east-west "energy corridor" — once central to former Conservative leader Andrew Scheer's 2019 election campaign.
Pierre Poilievre, too, has been making the case for such a right-of-way since before Conservatives chose him to lead the party.
More recently, Liberal Party leadership candidate Frank Baylis referenced his proposal to build two pipelines as "corridors" to transport Alberta's natural gas to Europe and Asia.
The broader concept of an infrastructure corridor has been around since the 1970s. Researchers at the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy gave it a serious boost in 2016 and 2018, bringing together experts across legal, socio-economic, environmental and regulatory disciplines to propose a "Northern Corridor" spanning Canada's three coasts.
The core idea was to set aside space for highways, rail lines, power transmission and pipelines — basically any infrastructure Canada might need to tie the country together.
"We are the largest G7 country in terms of land mass and the smallest in terms of population, so moving stuff around our country and moving stuff internationally is really important for us, but it's something we really haven't kept up on in terms of infrastructure spend," said Fellows, who led the corridor research.
A 2024 Statistics Canada report found about half of businesses surveyed cited transportation costs or sheer distance as the main barriers to interprovincial trade.
Zach Parston, who leads the major-project advisory in the Prairie region for KPMG Canada and has consulted for both government and industry on projects such as ports and LNG infrastructure, is pushing to revive the corridor concept.
He describes it as a network of ditches or tunnels, 100 to 500 metres wide, stretching from coast to coast to coast — a "utility agnostic" plan that could serve the needs of today and tomorrow.
"I think there's an immediate opportunity to look at oil, to look at power transmission across the country," Parston told West of Centre.
"But then it offers the potential for telecommunications, in terms of fibre optics, and others potentially, [like] sequestering carbon from other parts of Canada."
'Pre-approved' industrial zones
Along with the corridor idea, Parston sees several other critical fronts where Canada must "build big," including the need to set up what he calls "pre-approved" industrial zones.
"If you think of the utility corridor as the backbone, these become appendages that connect to it," Parston said on the podcast.
He cited the Alberta Industrial Heartland, northeast of Edmonton, as a good template for pre-establishing what can or can't be built in a clustered area.
In these zones, environmental and community consultations happen up front, so when companies do apply, approvals can be streamlined. The idea, Parston says, is to cut red tape and give investors more certainty.
Modernizing ports — including the Arctic
Experts warn that none of these big builds will pay off unless Canada modernizes its ports.
After all, all the stuff we produce — from energy to lumber to car parts — all have to go elsewhere if not south to the United States. And with any alternative market you pick, from Asia to Europe, there's a large body of water sloshing between us.
Addressing gridlock at the country's largest port in Vancouver has become a pressing concern, with expansion hampered by sky-high land prices in the Lower Mainland. Fellows see a solution in upgrading existing ports such as Prince Rupert on the West Coast, as well as Halifax and Montreal in the East.
"You want to bring in a full container and send out a full container — you don't want to be running those containers empty anywhere in the country, if you can avoid it," Fellows said about the need to boost capacity in all the major ports.
At some point, he says, Canada might also want to look north.
Churchill in northern Manitoba remains Canada's only Arctic deepwater port, and it's been far less active since the Harper government dismantled the Canadian Wheat Board.
"There's been some discussion of trying to use it as an export port for energy," Fellows said. "I'm not sure that works out quite as well just because of the physical location, and because of the seasonality of the port. But if someone can figure that out, that's potentially an option as well."
For Parston, the North — which includes the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut — is key to Canada's future. It's packed with critical minerals like rare earth elements, cobalt, nickel, copper and tungsten, which are crucial for emerging technologies such as EV batteries, renewable energy systems and advanced electronics.
"It's critical for our economy, our economic security and in the future of what Canada has to offer related to critical minerals and others," Parston said. "But also … what an opportunity to put a stamp on Arctic sovereignty, right?"
Both Poilievre and presumed Liberal leadership front-runner Mark Carney have stressed the need to build military bases in the North. Poilievre made a point last month of visiting Iqaluit, Nunavut, while Carney has suggested future Canadian Forces bases could be built in Iqaluit and Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T.
What about NIMBYism, environmental and Indigenous concerns?
All these big, nation-building ideas inevitably collide with a reality that writer Dunkelman describes as a dramatic cultural shift in how large projects get approved.
In the mid-20th century, he points out, the "establishment" — often "older white men in positions of power" — enjoyed broad public trust. They had wide discretion to decide where highways would go, which neighbourhoods would face demolition, and how farmland or forests might be repurposed.
But scandals, environmental disasters and social movements of the 1960s and '70s eroded faith in big institutions, forcing governments to impose more checks and balances.
"The cohort of change — the boomers — were now of age to vote and participate in public life," Dunkelman explained. "And they were by nature more skeptical and cynical about public authority."
That brought new public reviews, environmental impact assessments and protective laws. Dunkelman says the change empowered communities and safeguarded ecosystems, while also requiring leaders to consider costs once ignored.
Over time, however, he says more "stakeholders" kept joining the process.
"When everyone has a voice, you get a cacophony," Dunkelman said. "And it's almost impossible to make a decision, particularly if all of you — all of the voices — have a veto."
In Canada, the Crown's troubled history with Indigenous peoples has sown generations of distrust, adding rights and complications yet to be fully reconciled.
One solution, according to former premier Kenney, is to turn "challenges" into incentives — such as giving First Nations a stake in resource projects.
"Ten years ago, if we were talking about massively expanding our resource exports, we would have said there's big Indigenous challenges," Kenney said. "But I think broadly, certainly in Western Canada, First Nations overwhelmingly have come on board as partners in responsible resource development."
Challenges do remain, however, especially when it comes to the differing sentiments between elected leaders and hereditary chiefs in B.C. Both Fellows and Parston agree that fast-tracking new projects shouldn't mean skipping over Indigenous or environmental consultations.
"When people say cut red tape, there's the way to do that responsibly and there's a way to do that irresponsibly," Fellows said. "I think it's really critical not to throw out the good with the bad."
Hundreds of billions of dollars
Estimates vary, but there's little doubt the cost of large-scale, pan-Canadian infrastructure would be in the hundreds of billions of dollars — far more than a single pipeline or high-speed rail link.
For comparison, the price tag for the proposed rail line between Toronto and Quebec City, which critics say isn't ambitious enough, is pegged at $80 billion.
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Fellows says few companies could afford such eye-watering sums, leaving the federal government as a likely backer or partner.
"The benefits are very diffused," he said. "There are a lot of benefits across a lot of the economy, but if we wait for a private sector to try to do that — the revenue stream has to make sense for them to spend that money."
He points to the Canadian Pacific Railway as an example of major infrastructure that continues to pay dividends for sectors from manufacturing to agriculture, more than a century later.
The question is whether Canadians — and their political leaders — are willing to commit the necessary billions today, in order to reap the full payoff tomorrow (or much later).
Cost overruns aside, the political risks are just as real. After all, scandals surrounding Canadian Pacific's development helped bring down two governments in the 19th century.
And nearly a decade after the Trudeau government approved, then bought, the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, the Liberals have yet to sway many voters in the West.
But Fellows says this time might be different.
"I think this sort of falls into the portfolio of 'never let a good crisis go to waste,'" Fellows said. "I think maybe now, with the trade relationship with the U.S., it's become more of a priority.
"Twelve months ago, if you talked to someone in politics or policy about this, they'd go, 'Yeah, it's a good idea,' and that would be the end of the conversation. But I think now we're actually seeing public statements on this."
With files from Robson Fletcher
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