With a buzzing electrical substation in Terrace, B.C., as his backdrop, Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced two new British Columbia additions to the federal government’s list of nation-building ventures that will be considered for fast-tracking.
The listing of Ksi Lisims LNG and the North Coast Transmission Line gives B.C. four entries on the roster of projects that Carney says will add billions to the economy to move it away from an over-reliance on the United States.
They are in addition to the LNG Canada Phase 2 in Kitimat and the expansion of the Red Chris copper mine in northwestern B.C., which Carney’s government announced earlier this year in its first phase of priority projects.
The projects being referred to the new Major Projects Office also include critical minerals mines in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick, and a hydropower project in Nunavut.
None of the investments being considered by the Major Projects Office have yet received a national-interest designation that would confer special treatment in permitting and approvals.
All told, the federal government says projects for consideration announced Thursday add up to $56 billion in investment. That’s on top of the $60 billion announced in the first tranche in September.
Here is a snapshot of the latest wave of projects heading to the Major Projects Office:
Ksi Lisims LNG
The proposed floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) project on Pearse Island, B.C., near the Alaska border is a joint venture between the Nisga’a Nation, a group of Canadian natural gas companies called Rockies LNG, and Texas-based Western LNG. Documents show the project’s assets will be constructed, owned, and operated by wholly-owned subsidiaries of the U.S. company.
The project received B.C. government approval in tandem with a conditional green light from Ottawa in September, clearing the project to move to the next stage of seeking permits and authorizations. Some First Nations have fought the project in court.
Standing outside the Skeena Substation on a muddy road, Watakhayetsxw, a hereditary chief from the Gitanyow Nation who travelled to Terrace for Carney’s announcement, said she was strongly opposed to Ksi Lisims LNG.
“You know, if we did projects with clean energy, I’d be all for it, but this one with compressor stations and everything else that the government is planning, I’m opposed to signing,” she said.
B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office, which gave a greenlight to the project in September, said at the time it was “confident that the engagement process the EAO followed was adequate considering the circumstances,” with respect to the Gitanyow hereditary chiefs.
In September, the Gitanyow hereditary chiefs lost a B.C. Supreme Court challenge against the project.
Other groups have disputed its environmental credentials, which the BC Greens have called “greenwashing,” while labelling the transmission line “a public subsidy for resource extraction.”
But Carney says the line is about realizing the country’s full potential to be an “energy superpower.”
Ksi Lisims aims to export 12 million tonnes per year of natural gas that has been chilled into a liquid state, enabling it to be transported across the Pacific in specialized tankers. The targeted startup date is 2029.
Na’Moks, a Wet’suwet’en hereditary chief, was also outside Carney’s announcement on Thursday, saying he came to support his “relatives” who are fighting Ksi Lisims and the transmission line. At least two B.C. First Nations have ongoing legal action against Ksi Lisims LNG.
Na’Moks was a key figure in protests against the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline across northern B.C. The protests led to rail blockades by Indigenous people nationwide just before the pandemic.
Carney said First Nations were getting a say in projects referred to the Major Projects Office, and referral does not mean they are approved.
“It means that all the efforts are being put in place from the federal government in order to create the conditions so it could move forward. But those decisions are taken by many parties, including, very much, First Nations.”
The prime minister said the federal government is putting “huge financing” on the table for Indigenous equity ownership of the projects to help ensure they are fair.
The project referral also includes the 800-kilometre Prince Rupert Gas Transmission Pipeline to connect gas fields in northeast B.C. to the plant, along with a 95-kilometre electrical transmission line.
North Coast Transmission Line
The BC Hydro project would run 450 kilometres from Prince George to Terrace, B.C.
It would supply power to Ksi Lisims and other planned industrial sites in B.C., including critical minerals mines.
The Canada Infrastructure Bank has announced a loan of $139.5 million to support the early stages of the work. The line has an estimated price tag of $6 billion.
The federal government says the project will create thousands of direct full-time jobs once it’s in operation and generate millions in public revenues annually.
Northwest Critical Conservation Corridor
The federal government says it will take a “coordinated effort” alongside Indigenous communities and the B.C. government to build power, highway, telecommunications, port, and rail infrastructure Northwestern B.C. and Yukon to unlock vast critical minerals deposits in the area.
To help that along, Ottawa has referred a Northwest Critical Conservation Corridor to the Major Projects Office. The corridor concept also envisions a conservation area the size of Greece.
The Red Chris Mine expansion, included in the first batch of nation-building projects to be considered, falls within the proposed corridor, as do Ksi Lisims and the North Coast Transmission Line.
Canada Nickel Crawford Project
The project north of Timmins, Ont., sits in the world’s second-largest nickel reserve. The metal it produces would be used for steel and batteries.
Canada Nickel says it has submitted an environmental impact statement to Ottawa and is on track to receive final permits this year.
The federal government says the mine would have carbon emissions 90% below the global average and potential for a net-negative footprint.
Once mining operations have started, there is also potential to produce other metals such as iron, cobalt, platinum, palladium, and chromium. There could also be a nickel refinery for stainless steel and electric vehicle markets, and a stainless steel and alloy production facility.
Ottawa says the mine is expected to attract $5 billion in investment and create 4,000 new jobs.
Nouveau Monde Graphite’s Matawinie Mine
The open-pit mine in Saint-Michel-des-Saints, Que., north of Montreal would supply graphite for military applications and to make electric vehicle batteries.
It would be linked to the planned Bécancour Battery Material Plant, and the whole operation would be part of the Critical Minerals Production Alliance, a Canada-led G7 initiative.
The Quebec government gave the mine the green light in 2021, and Nouveau Monde says early preparatory work is under way. Construction is set to begin early next year.
The project is expected to create 1,000 jobs and draw $1.8 billion in investment.
Northcliff Resources’ Sisson Mine
The proposed open-pit mine in Sisson, N.B. would produce tungsten, used in the steel, defence, and other industries, as well as molybdenum.
It’s located on Crown land 100 kilometres northwest of Fredericton. Sisson is a partnership between Vancouver-based Northcliff Resources and its majority owner, New Zealand’s Todd Corp.
Sisson received federal approval in 2017, and the latest deadline for construction to get under way is next month — the second extension granted.
Northcliff announced in August that it had recieved more than $8 million in funding from Natural Resources Canada to help with an updated feasibility study and engineering work. It has also recieved about $20.7 million from the U.S. Department of Defence.
Iqaluit Nukkiksautiit Hydro Project
The project would be Nunavut’s first hydropower project to be fully Inuit-owned.
It’s being billed as a “breakthrough for Arctic sovereignty,” replacing Iqaluit’s reliance on 15 million litres of imported diesel every year with up to 30 megawatts of hydroelectric power.
The facility on the Kuugulak River 60 kilometres northeast of the territorial capital would be led by Nunavut Nukkiksautiit Corp.
A presentation on the corporation’s website from January of this year says a final investment decision is targeted for 2029, with construction beginning in 2030 and commissioning in 2033.
‘Build Canada Wrong’
Climate hawks and energy policy analysts were mostly quick to criticize Carney’s choice of projects, with some of them talking about how the government’s emphasis on “nation-building” projects could be refocused to actually build the nation.
“Fast-tracking fossil fuels will Build Canada Wrong rather than Build Canada Strong,” declared Greenpeace Canada Senior Energy Analyst Keith Stewart. “We should not be gaslit into believing exporting fracked gas is a climate solution. The International Energy Agency (IEA) just told us that cheaper renewables can end the fossil fuel era. Backing the American-owned Ksi Lisims LNG project will only deepen Canada’s dependence on fossil fuels and harmful extractive activities that threaten our natural heritage and well-being.”
“We cannot ‘build Canada strong’ through so-called nation-building projects that merely accelerate the destruction of our ecosystems and contribute to the collapse of our climate system,” said Emilia Belliveau, energy transition program manager at Environmental Defence Canada. “The IEA’s latest outlook report confirms there is a viable path to achieving our climate commitments under the Paris agreement if countries stop expanding fossil fuels and accelerate renewable energy. That path is also the lowest-cost scenario and the only way to prevent extreme and deadly global warming.”
“While investments in clean electricity are welcome, massive funding for LNG is a dangerous step backward,” said Melissa Lem, president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. “Expanding infrastructure for liquefied methane gas—a proven climate change super-heater—drives more fracking, linked to serious health impacts, especially for Indigenous and rural communities. Greenlighting the Ksi Lisims LNG project without Indigenous consent and a full health impact assessment is unconscionable.”
“With this announcement, the government has solidified its commitment to resource extraction megaprojects as its vision of development, its capitulation to provincial premiers’ self-serving political priorities, and its contempt for the environment and Indigenous peoples’ rights,” said Jamie Kneen, national program co-lead at MiningWatch Canada. “It has clearly identified its ‘critical minerals’ strategy as prioritizing corporate profit and weapons production ahead of the renewable energy transition and the climate crisis, exposing energy transition rhetoric as smoke and mirrors.”
“People and politicians in New Brunswick and the Atlantic region have been calling for rapid investments in renewable energy, and the grid to support it,” said Jim Emberger of the NB Anti-Shale Gas Alliance. “Instead, [Carney] resurrected a mine that’s been languishing without investment for 15 years, and only because the U.S. Department of War has recently invested in it. So much for elbows up.”
“The government should start thinking beyond resource megaprojects and energy supply infrastructure,” said Brendan Haley, senior director of policy strategy at Efficiency Canada. “Nation-building can mean investing in knowledge, innovation, and community strengths to get more from the energy we already produce and use. Energy efficiency is Canada’s fastest, most affordable nation-building project—delivering on the government’s priorities of improving productivity, business competitiveness, and household affordability.”
Pembina Institute Executive Director Chris Severson-Baker cited critical minerals mining as a “key pathway toward energy security and leadership in the burgeoning low-carbon economy” and praised Iqaluit Nukkiksautiit as a “transformative” project. But while he acknowledged the Nisga’a Nation’s “agency to advance resource projects on their territory,” he cautioned that “LNG is becoming an increasingly risky economic bet,” with the IEA projecting that 70% of projects now under construction may never recover their investment. Any new LNG projects, he said, should be carried out without public subsidy.
Alberta Negotiating Pipeline
Absent from Carney’s latest list was a bitumen pipeline for which Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and her government have been advocating endlessly. Her office said negotiations with Ottawa on a pipeline are ongoing, and Carney was bullish about the prospects during a talk to the Canadian Club Toronto last week.
“Danielle’s on line one,” he said. “Don’t worry, it’s going to happen.”
“Well, something’s going to happen, let’s put it that way,” he added, joking about undermining his own bargaining position.
After this week’s announcement, Smith told reporters in Calgary she’s onboard with the major projects Carney picked, adding she’s encouraged that many are resource-based and primed for generating royalties and tax revenue.
“This is going to be good for the country,” Smith said.
“Currently, we are working on an agreement with the federal government that includes the removal, carve out, or overhaul of several damaging laws chasing away private investment in our energy sector, and an agreement to work towards ultimate approval of a bitumen pipeline to Asian markets,” Smith said in a statement shortly after Carney made the announcement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2025.
