Carney plans to announce the first series of major projects on Thursday

EDMONTON – The first major industrial projects under the federal government’s strategy to reduce Canada’s economic reliance on the U.S. will be announced Thursday, Prime Minister Mark Carney told his caucus on Wednesday.

The prime minister vowed that these “transformative” projects will align both with the interests of Indigenous people and with Canada’s climate goals.

Carney said he wants to “turbocharge” Canada’s economy through “major nation-building projects that connect our regions, that diversify our products and build new markets and create those hundreds of thousands of high-paying careers for our workers, from the trades to technology.”

Carney made the comments in Edmonton in a speech to Liberal MPs attending a caucus retreat ahead of the return of the House of Commons next week.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who was scheduled to meet with Carney later in the day, told reporters in Calgary that she won’t be concerned if an oil pipeline is not on the list for the first series of projects when it’s released on Thursday.

“The list is going to be an evergreening list,” Smith said. “It’s not, ‘Oh my gosh, this is it, nothing else can be added.’ And so we’ve got a little bit of work to do to be able to get to an environment where oil companies want to expand their production.”

Smith said Ottawa needs to create a more favourable regulatory and legal environment for oilsands companies and repeated her call for the repeal of the West Coast oil tanker ban and the emissions cap.

“Why would an oilsands company, in this environment, knowing that there’s an emissions cap which would result in them curtailing 2.1 million barrels of production — how in the world can they then pledge new barrels to go into a pipeline that would go to a coast where there’s a tanker ban?” she said.

Smith described her government’s conversations with its “negotiating partners” in Ottawa on spurring energy investment as “very constructive.”

“We’re very hopeful that, in short order, we’ll be able to get this to the finish line together,” she said.

Carney said that later this fall, the government will release a new “climate-competitiveness strategy” that will focus on results.

Carney also said he intends to launch his promised new national homebuilding strategy next week.

The caucus meetings come as Carney prepares for the release next month of his government’s first federal budget, which he promises will be packed with both spending initiatives and austerity measures.

Carney did not stop to talk with reporters camped outside the meeting room doors Wednesday afternoon, but instead appeared on a podcast hosted by Ryan Jespersen.

— With files from Jack Farrell in Edmonton and Matthew Scace in Calgary

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