Canadian Design and Construction Report staff writer
The Public Policy Forum (PPF) is calling for urgent, coordinated action to unlock investment in Canada’s energy, critical minerals, and infrastructure sectors in a new report released in May.
Titled Build Big Things: A Playbook to Turbocharge Investment in Major Energy, Critical Minerals and Infrastructure Projects, the report outlines ten key strategies aimed at boosting economic growth by streamlining project approvals and improving coordination between governments, industry and Indigenous partners.
“Canada has vast potential to rapidly accelerate its growth by tackling the identified barriers and implementing the proposed playbook,” said Jay Khosla, PPF’s executive director of economic and energy policy. “We now have agreement on the importance of accelerating new investment and project approvals… but we’re going to need urgent and co-ordinated public and private sector support to get it done.”
Based on economic modelling by Navius Research, the report estimates that moving more than 500 proposed and current resource projects—ranging from clean energy and mining to oil and gas—toward Final Investment Decision (FID) could generate up to $1.1 trillion in GDP and increase the national economy by 4.5 percent by 2035.
Among the report’s core recommendations:
- Develop a national strategy that aligns public and private sector efforts on major project delivery.
- Identify and prioritize a list of “no-regrets” nation-building projects that support economic growth, reconciliation and environmental goals.
- Legislate faster regulatory and permitting timelines, targeting a two-year approval window.
- Create a single Strategic Investment Office to coordinate financing, permitting, and Indigenous consultation.
- Simplify the federal landscape of agencies and programs to reduce overlap and inefficiencies.
- Expand Indigenous economic participation through equity ownership, access to capital, and capacity-building.
The recommendations are informed by months of consultation with more than 150 stakeholders, including industry leaders representing the vast majority of Canadian energy and mining activity, as well as Indigenous leaders, government officials and financial institutions.
PPF President and CEO Inez Jabalpurwala said the report is the first step in a broader effort to position Canada as a global resource leader.
“Canada is an energy country, and we cannot achieve our growth ambitions without unlocking investment in this sector,” she said. “This is the beginning of a national push under our new Mission Canada initiative to deliver actionable policies that support long-term prosperity.”
The full report is available on the Public Policy Forum’s website.
