Next batch of national interest major projects to be released Thursday, Carney says

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney says the next tranche of projects the government is referring to the Major Projects Office for review will be announced Thursday.

Carney revealed the timing while taking questions from reporters at a news conference Monday in Fredericton, when asked whether any projects from New Brunswick will be considered.

“New Brunswick is very much part of this,” Carney said, before noting the next batch of projects would be announced Thursday.

“We’ve had a number of conversations with the premier about major projects here that meet the criteria. So you would expect to see some of those in the announcement later this week.”

Pressed further, Carney told a reporter for the Telegraph-Journal newspaper to “come to Prince Rupert (B.C.) and you can be the first to hear.”

Prince Rupert is next door to the site of a proposed-LNG project. Ksi Lisims received federal approval in September from Canada’s environment minister, though the decision is being challenged in Federal Court by two First Nations, arguing the government ignored their concerns about the adverse effects of the project.

Two months ago, Carney announced the first five projects the government was submitting for consideration, drawing criticism from the Conservatives who called the projects “low hanging fruit” on the basis their development was already well underway.

The list included a Montreal port expansion, a small modular nuclear plant in Ontario, a liquefied natural gas facility expansion in British Columbia and two mining projects in Saskatchewan and B.C.

Appearing before the House of Commons standing committee on environment and sustainable development last month, Major Projects Office CEO Dawn Farrell told MPs the stage at which a particular project sits will be one of the factors in reviewing it.

“One of the challenges I think we’ll face is that many of these projects are not what I call ready for prime time. They’re way far off in the future, or they’re much further down the road in terms of their execution,” she told the committee.

“We want to make sure we have projects that are also executable in a shorter time frame.”

So far, no project has received the national interest designation, which would help garner special treatment — like exemptions from certain environmental laws — to help it move forward. Those include the Fisheries Act, the Species At Risk Act and the Impact Assessment Act.

Once a project is referred to the Major Projects Office, it is reviewed and returned with recommendations to the government, which has the final say on whether to give it the designation.

Establishing the Major Projects Office and accompanying protocols was one of Carney’s first moves after winning the general election earlier this year.

The federal budget tabled last week proposes to spend $213.8 million over five years for the office. The government also plans legislation to make the office a separate entity — like a Crown corporation — rather than leaving it under the authority of the Privy Council Office.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 10, 2025.