Canada stands at a defining moment for its economic future.
For years, weak productivity growth and chronic delays in building major infrastructure have eroded the country’s economic performance. Projects have stalled in regulatory limbo, drying up investment in the face of uncertainty, and as a result, Canada’s competitiveness has slipped.
And the urgency to catch up has only intensified. Trade threats from the United States have underscored Canada’s exposure to external shocks. As Prime Minister Mark Carney argued in his recent Davos speech back in January, countries like Canada must build resilience and strategic autonomy to secure their long-term economic future.
Bill C-5, including the Building Canada Act, signals a clear shift toward accelerating major national interest projects and prioritizing long-term economic growth, underscored by the creation of the Major Projects Office (MPO) and its initial project referrals. The government is right to seek to crowd in private capital and reduce uncertainty around approvals. But ambition alone will not deliver outcomes.
The Building Canada Act is only a starting point. It sets out high-level criteria for designating projects. Turning those principles into effective project prioritization requires a transparent, evidence-based methodology. Without it, project designation risks becoming ad hoc, contested, or overly political, undermining public confidence and private investment.
In our recent C.D. Howe Institute paper, we developed a clear, objective framework that can help governments decide which projects to prioritize, giving investors greater clarity about how decisions will be made, and apply it to a set of existing project proposals.
Our approach moves from broad principles to measurable assessment, breaking down the government’s Building Canada Act five objectives—Canada’s autonomy, resilience and security; economic or other benefits; likelihood of successful execution; interests of Indigenous Peoples; and climate goals—into defined sub-criteria, supported by available evidence and metrics. Projects are then assessed consistently against those criteria, with scenario-specific weightings reflecting different sets of government priorities. The scores and rankings presented in the paper are indicative and sensitive to weightings, but they demonstrate the strength and practical value of the methodology.
Applying this framework to a sample of projects referred to the MPO illustrates that projects that are “shovel-ready”, or at least more advanced, tend to score more higher, particularly when speed and execution are prioritized. That aligns closely with the government’s first tranche of projects referred to the MPO. But the analysis also shows how rankings shift materially depending on how objectives are weighted. For instance, emphasizing economic potential produces different priorities than emphasizing near-term deliverability.
Exposing such trade-offs is a core benefit of our methodology. It makes choices explicit rather than implicit. It allows governments to be clear about what they value most, whether that is speed of delivery, economic resilience in the face of U.S. tariffs, or long-term clean growth, and to explain those trade-offs openly to taxpayers. It also gives the private sector greater certainty, reducing policy risk and helping to unlock capital for large, complex investments.
Our analysis also highlights an important missing piece: the need to assess the benefit of being a designated national interest project.
Designating a project that is already close to completion may carry low risk but ends up having limited upside. Alternatively, providing support for slightly earlier-stage projects can materially shorten timelines, crowd in private finance, and generate higher returns for Canadians.
There are limits to what any early framework can achieve. Data availability varies widely across projects, and some proposals remain relatively conceptual. The MPO’s creation offers a clear opportunity to address this by standardizing information requests and improving access to project-level data over time.
What Ottawa needs to do now is broaden how it defines national interest projects, focusing not only on outcomes but where designation itself can add the most value.
Further, project assessors should seek standardized information that ensures fair, like-for-like comparisons across proposals.
Ottawa must also be explicit about how different policy objectives are weighted, giving both the public and private investors greater clarity about government priorities.
Finally, project designation should be supported by wider efforts to streamline planning and approvals, rather than treating it as a standalone fix.
If Canada is serious about nation-building, only this combination of transparency, discipline, and follow-through is what will turn the Building Canada Act’s ambition into lasting economic growth. At a moment when Canada’s economic resilience is being tested, getting this right is not a “nice to have,” it is essential for nation-building in practice.
David Jones is a senior fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute, where Tasnim Fariha serves as a senior policy analyst.