Trump Pressured Canada — Carney Built a $126 Billion Response | George Conway Explains

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]15 projects, $126 billion in proposed investment, and zero, and I mean exactly zero, actual uses of the law that's supposedly making all of it possible.

[00:00:12]Let that contradiction sit for a second, because what it really means is that the most aggressive piece of economic legislation Canada has passed in over a decade is right now reshaping this country without ever being officially activated. And we just found out why.

[00:00:28]The head of Canada's new major projects office, Don Ferrell, sat in front of a joint parliamentary committee a little over a week ago and said something I think almost everyone outside Ottawa missed. She told them, and the context here matters, that the mere threat of Bill C5 being on the books is enough to push the entire federal permitting apparatus to move faster. The threat, not the use, the fact that the law exists. That single sentence in that single committee room is one of the most revealing things any senior Canadian official has said about how this country actually governs in 2026. And if that sounds like procedural inside baseball, stay with me because what's underneath this story isn't politics. It's about whether Canada finishes the next decade as a country that can still build big things. pipelines, LNG terminals, critical mineral mines, transmission corridors, nuclear plants, or one that talks about them while the rest of the world moves on. This isn't about headlines. This is about your job market, the price of new housing, your provincial electricity bill, and the cost of pretty much every imported good that lands in our economy. Quick setup, because the rest of this only makes sense if you understand the front of it.

[00:01:33]The One Canadian Economy Act, Bill C5, received royal ascent on June 26th, 2025. It moved through the House of Commons and the Senate in roughly three weeks, which by Canadian legislative standards is essentially warp speed. The bill has two parts. Part one, the Free Trade and Labor Mobility Act, removes federal barriers to internal trade between provinces. That part has barely registered in the public conversation, mostly because most Canadians had no idea those barriers were as severe as they are. The part that's actually reshaping our economic posture is part two, the Building Canada Act. Here's what nobody's talking about. The Building Canada Act gives the federal cabinet the power to designate a project as being in the national interest. Once that label is applied, the project can effectively skip large portions of the standard environmental review regime, including the Species at Risk Act, the Fisheries Act, and parts of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Pipelines, ports, LNG terminals, critical mineral developments, transmission lines, even nuclear plants. All of them potentially eligible for what the law calls a single window approval pathway. This one genuinely surprised me when I dug into it. Despite all that power being on the books, none of the 15 projects currently sitting in front of the major projects office has actually been formally designated under that emergency authority. Not one. The MO is moving 15 projects totaling more than 126 billion in potential investment. LG, copper, zinc, transportation corridors, hydro transmission, small modular reactors, and the dramatic national interest override has never been pulled out of the drawer. And yet projects are reportedly moving faster anyway, which raises the obvious question. Why? Now, this is where it all starts making sense. According to Frell's own testimony, the answer is leverage.

[00:03:21]Federal departments, the impact assessment people, the energy regulator, the fisheries and environment officials are all moving in lock step on permitting timelines because they know the override exists. The very option of a cabinet designation has changed every internal incentive in the system. It's the legal equivalent of carrying a stick you never have to swing. This is what Frell described as the concurrent process, and it's reportedly being used on every project that's come through the pipeline since the bill became law. For decades, Canada's economic story has been quietly defined by a structural dependency that nobody really wanted to say out loud in polite company. Roughly 75% of all Canadian exports go to a single country, the United States. That isn't a trading relationship. That's a single point of failure embedded in the national balance sheet. When one partner controls threearters of your export market, every tariff threat, every political mood swing in Washington, every campaign trail soundbite becomes a domestic economic event up here. So when you look at a piece of legislation that on paper looks like a permitting reform bill, what you're actually looking at is the tail end of a long slow burn realization that this country needs the ability to build large infrastructure to alternative markets on its own timeline before that leverage gets used against it. Again, Bill C5 in that frame isn't a deregulation bill. It's a hedge against geography. And this is where I had to rethink my entire take on this because what Frell said in that committee room combined with what came out of Ottawa just yesterday afternoon completely shifts the picture for anyone trying to understand what Carney is actually building here. But before I get to that, you need to understand this first. where we left off, Dawn Frell sitting in front of a parliamentary committee telling MPs that the threat of Bill C5 has done what the actual use of Bill C5 hasn't needed to do. The bill is in practical effect working as a deterrent more than a tool.

[00:05:10]And that distinction matters more than people realize. In fairness, there is a real logic to the criticism of this approach. Civil society groups, environmental organizations, the Canadian Bar Association, and a coalition of First Nations have all flagged serious constitutional concerns about Bill C5. Legal scholars have warned about what they call the Henry VII clauses embedded in the legislation, provisions that allow the executive to override existing federal laws. Right now, 14 First Nations have joined a constitutional challenge in Ontario Superior Court, arguing the law violates the crown's duty to consult and the crown's duty to act honorably toward indigenous peoples, citing the 2018 Migasukree Supreme Court ruling.

[00:05:51]Quebec's Environmental Law Center has filed a separate action. So, when supporters of the law point out that it isn't being aggressively used, and that's a real point, but it's not the whole point. The threat is the use. See, this is why I started with that number.

[00:06:05]15 projects, $126 billion. Because once you understand that the law's leverage is what's actually moving things, the project list itself starts looking less like a wish list and more like a strategic blueprint. The first ranch announced in September 2025, about $60 billion in investment included LG Canada phase 2 in KDAT, BC, a firstofits-kind small modular nuclear reactor in Clarington, Ontario, the foreign copper zinc mine in Saskatchewan, the Red Chris mine expansion in northwestern BC, and an expansion of the Port of Montreal.

[00:06:38]The second trench announced in November 2025 added roughly 56 billion dollars in additional projects including the North Coast transmission line in BC, a piece of infrastructure that by itself would unlock the Casey Lisum's LNG facility and the critical mineral developments in BC's Golden Triangle. What we're learning is that this isn't a random pick list. Every project on it is targeted at a specific structural weakness in Canada's economic posture.

[00:07:05]LNG Canada and KSI Lissiums, energy export diversification away from a single American buyer, the port of Montreal expansion, container capacity for European trade, FORAN and Red Chris, critical minerals, copper and zinc, which are the backbone of every clean energy and defense supply chain currently dominated by China, the small modular reactor in Clarington, domestic energy security, the transmission line in BC, it anchors all of it. You start to see a pattern and the pattern is unmistakable. This is a country deliberately building optionality. Now on the other side of the border, the policy environment looks very different.

[00:07:40]The Trump administration has spent the last year imposing layered tariffs on Canadian goods. 25% on steel and aluminum raised to 35% on many goods last August and a threatened 100% on the entire Canadian export basket if Canada finalized a trade deal with China.

[00:07:56]According to US Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the manufacturing sector that those tariffs were supposed to revive has actually shed jobs over that same window. Meanwhile, statistics Canada's trade figures show Canadian exports to non US destinations jumped roughly 25% in a single month earlier this year, even as exports to the United States declined for two consecutive months. And this flew completely under the radar. In April of last year, Canada exported more seaborn crude oil to China than to the United States for the first time in modern recordkeeping. That's not a one-off. That's a structural shift made possible largely by the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion finally being operational. The point is that the diversification narrative is no longer hypothetical. The numbers are already showing up at the docks. Tariffs are commonly misunderstood as taxes paid by the exporting country, but the mechanics work the other way around. When the United States imposes a 25% tariff on Canadian steel, the cost is paid by domestic importers, meaning American businesses, and ultimately American consumers, not by Canadian exporters. In the first instance, that cost flows through into the price of cars, appliances, downtown construction projects, and machinery. Canada is the top export destination for 36 US states.

[00:09:07]Roughly 60% of US crude oil imports, and 85% of US electricity imports come from Canada. So the question for any tariff policy isn't whether it creates friction for Canadian producers. Of course it does. The relevant question is which side absorbs more pain over the multi-year window. And when you look at the dependency ratios on both sides, energy, raw materials, steel, aluminum, uranium, the math starts to look uncomfortable for the American side, especially in sectors where domestic substitution capacity is limited in the short term. And this is the moment where the whole story shifts. Because while the trade war is grinding through Washington, Carney has been quietly assembling a domestic toolkit that doesn't require Washington's permission to function. And just yesterday afternoon, he made his most aggressive move yet. Keep that number in your head.

[00:09:53]15 projects, $126 billion. You're going to need it for what's next. On Friday, May 8th, just one day after the feral testimony hit the wires, the federal government formally proposed transferring authority for reviewing interprovincial pipelines, transmission lines, and offshore renewable energy projects away from the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada and over to the Canada Energy Regulator. That single change on paper looks technical. In practice, it undoes a regulatory consolidation the Liberals themselves built eight years ago. And buried in the same announcement was something even bigger. Under the proposal, cabinet would now be able to declare a pipeline project to be in the public interest before the review process is even completed. Read that twice. But that was just the beginning.

[00:10:36]Combine that proposal with Bill C5 already in force with the major projects office actively shephering 15 priority projects with a $25 billion federal fund announced in late April specifically targeting oil, gas, and LNG infrastructure. And with the November 2025 memorandum of understanding signed between Prime Minister Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. And what you're looking at is something Canada hasn't seen assembled in a generation. A fully integrated federal provincial machine designed to move heavy infrastructure from concept to construction at speed. I've been doing this for a while now and this is a first. The Carneithou itself is one of the most consequential pieces of policy that almost no one outside the energy and legal sector is reading carefully.

[00:11:18]It commits Ottawa to not implementing the proposed oil and gas emissions cap.

[00:11:22]It suspends the clean electricity regulations specifically for Alberta while a new carbon pricing framework is negotiated under Alberta's tier program with a minimum effective credit price of $130 a ton. It targets a maximum two-year approval timeline for the proposed West Coast Oil Pipeline with Alberta committing to submit its application to the major projects office on or before July 1st, 2026. And it pairs that BHmen pipeline with the Pathways Plus carbon capture project, meaning the pipeline and the emissions reductions are legally bundled together.

[00:11:54]I almost missed this and it changes everything. Pipelines aren't built in months. Once approved, the West Coast Oil Pipeline still needs a private sector proponent, route selection, and adjustments to the existing BC tanker ban that has been enforced since 2019.

[00:12:07]So, theou isn't a shovel ready announcement. It's a regulatory runway, but the runway itself is the story. For the first time in over a decade, the federal government has put in writing a commitment to clear the regulatory path for a major bumen pipeline to Asian markets. Theou also references at least 1 million barrels per day of low emission Alberta bumenumen with a route that increases export access to Asia as a priority. Now, I'm going to say something that might surprise you about the American position here. There is a coherent argument on the US side that domestic resource development matters, that secure North American supply chains are a national security issue and that some friction in the relationship was inevitable as Washington reorients toward what its own trade representative has called a correction for the problems of globalization. That isn't an unreasonable framework on its own. The question is whether the specific tools chosen, broad-based tariffs on the closest ally, public threats to Canadian sovereignty, demands that Canada drop the online streaming act and rework the supply managed dairy sector as the price of entry into formal renegotiations of the existing North American trade agreement. Actually deliver that vision.

[00:13:15]To understand what's happening here, it helps to look at how Mexico responded under similar pressure. After 2018, Mexico did not retaliate symmetrically.

[00:13:24]Instead, it accelerated trade agreements with the European Union and Asia-Pacific, deepened its ties within the Pacific Alliance, and effectively reduced its single market exposure over a roughly 5-year window. When the next round of trade friction arrived, Mexico had options. Canada in 2026 is following a strikingly similar playbook, but on a faster timeline and with deeper financial tools. The Carne government has signed the China tariff agreement lowering duties on Chinese electric vehicles in exchange for relief on Canadian canola, peas, lobster, and pork. It has sent ministers across Europe and the Indo-acific. It has publicly reframed Canadian foreign policy around what Carney calls middle powers acting together. That isn't improvisation. That's textbook economic statecraft. The lesson from the Mexican experience is that diversification works, but only if you start before the pressure peaks. And based on the sequence of moves on the Canadian side, the structural repositioning may have started earlier than most observers realized. Halfway through the research, I realized the story wasn't what I thought it was. This isn't a video about Bill C5. Bill C5 is just one tooth in a very big gear. Everything up to now has been the setup. Now comes the payoff.

[00:14:33]So, go back to where we started. 15 projects, $126 billion in attached investment, zero formal uses of Bill C5's national interest override. Now, that number reads completely differently, doesn't it? Because the entire architecture is designed not to need to use that override, at least not yet. The override is the gun on the wall in the first act. And Carney's apparent bet is that he can complete the diversification, get the major projects across the finish line, and stabilize the trade picture without ever firing it. That is a remarkably disciplined posture for a government operating in what it has explicitly framed as an economic emergency. This is the puzzle piece that was missing. When you stack the 15 priority projects, the $126 billion in attached investment, the $25 billion oil and gas infrastructure fund announced in late April, the Carneithou on the West Coast pipeline, the new proposal to transfer pipeline reviews to the Canada Energy Regulator, the cabinet's new ability to declare public interest before reviews complete, the China trade agreement, the European diversification pivot, and the July 1st, 2026 deadline for Alberta's pipeline application. Now, you don't see a series of disconnected news stories. You see a sequenced playbook. Each piece reinforces the previous one. None of it makes sense in isolation. All of it makes sense together. But here's where it gets complicated. The same architecture that is making Canada more economically resilient is also generating real and growing legal exposure. The constitutional challenge filed by 14 First Nations is now active in Ontario Superior Court, citing the 2018 Mickeyree decision and arguing the laws violate the crown's constitutional duty to act honorably. Quebec's Environmental Law Center has filed a separate action with 11 additional organizations seeking to intervene. The Canadian Bar Association's Aboriginal Law Section has formally raised concerns about the absence of binding consultation requirements in the operative clauses of the bill. None of these challenges are frivolous. Any one of them, if successful at the appellet level, could pull threads through the entire framework. So, the Carne government is racing not just against US tariffs and the global trade environment, but against its own legal calendar. This is the part that kept me up last night. Translating this into something concrete, if the West Coast Oil Pipeline application is submitted on schedule by July 1st, 2026, and the new 2-year maximum approval target holds, the federal approval window closes around mid 2028. That places construction kickoff in the back half of this decade, and Asian market access for Canadian bumen at scale somewhere in the early 2030s. The trade flow shifts already on the books are also significant. Canadian exports to non- US markets rose roughly 25% in a single month earlier this year while exports to the United States declined for two consecutive months according to Canadian trade data. Canada's seaborn crude oil exports to China surpassed exports to the US for the first time in modern recordkeeping in April. That isn't abstract macroeconomics. Those are real shipments leaving real ports redirected toward markets that didn't even appear on Canada's export map at this scale a decade ago. Whether the rest of the diversification plan reaches your monthly grocery bill, your mortgage rate, and your provincial electricity tariff depends almost entirely on whether this project pipeline survives the political cycle on both sides of the border, and the active legal challenges in Canadian courts. From the American perspective, there is a coherent counterargument. Tariffs as leverage have produced concessions. Canada's digital services tax was dropped.

[00:17:48]Certain retaliatory measures were rolled back. and US trade officials have publicly pointed to Stalantis moving a production line from Bmpton to the US as evidence the policy is working as intended. There are American workers and American communities for whom that move was a tangible win. And there are voices in Washington who view the China trade agreement Canada signed in January as a legitimate strategic concern, not a manufactured one. But from the Canadian side, and this is where we live, the long run picture matters more than the short-run negotiating leverage. A country that exports 75% of its goods to one partner cannot afford to be in a permanent state of negotiation with that partner. Either the dependency comes down or the negotiating position never improves. Bill C5, the major projects office, the Albertaou, the regulatory transfer to the Canada Energy Regulator, the China deal, the European pivot, none of them are individually sufficient.

[00:18:38]Together, they are an attempt to fundamentally reset the terms of engagement. If I had to compress this entire story into a single line, it would be this. Canada is not trying to win a trade war. Canada is trying to make the next trade war optional. That is what 126 billion dollars in priority projects, a fasttrack law that has never had to be fired, and a pipeline application due in less than two months actually mean. Where do you think this goes from here? Because honestly, I'm not sure anyone knows. The legal challenges, the construction timelines, the political cycles on both sides of the border and the global trade environment are all moving variables at the same time. What I do know is that the next 12 months are going to determine whether this strategy reads in retrospect as one of the most disciplined economic repositionings in modern Canadian history or as a bet that ran out of runway before it could land.

[00:19:25]I genuinely like to know what you