🍁 civid v1

Status and scope

• Bill C-39 is at second reading in the supplied source. It proposes changes to project evaluations, supply chains and workforce rules.
• The source includes the bill’s summary and table of provisions, but the legislative text is truncated during Part 1. Much of the description below therefore relies on the bill’s own summary.

Part 1 — Build Canada Now

• Project assessments: The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission would assess designated projects involving specified nuclear-regulated activities. For projects assessed by the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, the bill aims to have a decision statement issued within one year after the proponent provides required information or studies. Federal authorization reviews and Indigenous consultations would be coordinated.
• Early activities: The environment minister or Nuclear Safety Commission, as applicable, could permit specified project activities before a decision statement when considered in the public interest, subject to conditions. They could not authorize the whole project this way.
• National-interest projects and regions: A framework similar to that for national-interest projects would apply to certain projects in designated regions of national interest. Cabinet could designate regions, and the designated minister could change conditions on certain authorizations granted before a project became a national-interest project.
• Energy projects: Pipeline, designated power-line and offshore renewable-energy decisions would generally be issued within one year of receiving required information and studies. The Canadian Energy Regulator’s Commission would be the sole assessor of applications, with expanded decision and exemption powers; cabinet would determine whether certain pipelines and power lines are in the public interest.
• Environmental and resource rules: Changes would affect approvals for works in navigable waters, species-at-risk permits, environmental enforcement and fisheries. They include broader compliance orders for contravening imports, some environmental permits lasting more than one year, third-party use of fish-habitat credits, and regulations allowing fees to offset harm to fish and habitat. Those fees would be credited to the Environmental Damages Fund.

These measures would affect project proponents, regulators, Indigenous groups, communities and people involved in environmental and resource management.

Part 2 — Keep Canada Moving

• Transport coordination: The transport minister could establish an office to coordinate federal authorization reviews and consultations for transport projects, designate trade corridors and establish a council to monitor goods movement and advise on disruptions.
• Transport transactions and security: The bill would lower the notification threshold for certain transactions involving transportation undertakings in ports, expand security-clearance powers and information sharing, and expand exceptions to railway-construction approval requirements.
• Rail: For four years, a zone in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta would have interswitching subject to the rate set by the Canadian Transportation Agency.
• Ports and shipping: Changes would affect port authorities’ business arrangements, directors and fees. The minister would gain powers concerning St. Lawrence Seaway agreements and measures to address certain threats. Foreign or non-duty-paid ships could respond to a declared emergency without a coasting-trade licence.
• Trade documents: A new Enabling Digital Trade Act would allow qualifying electronic trade documents to function as paper equivalents, remove requirements to provide import or export information to the federal government in physical form, and permit specified information sharing within government.
• The bill would also repeal the Shipping Conferences Exemption Act, 1987 and transfer certain international bridge and tunnel decisions from cabinet to the transport minister.

Part 3 — Canada Strong for All

• Collective bargaining: Changes to the Canada Labour Code would establish new bargaining requirements and timelines, address certain rights when contractors are replaced, and create new rules for first collective agreements. They would also expand the roles of the labour minister and Canada Industrial Relations Board in specified disputes and bargaining arrangements.
• Recovery of wages: An enforcement official could order an employer or corporate director to pay outstanding amounts under an employee settlement. In some circumstances, an order to a debtor could be issued earlier in the enforcement process.
• Paid medical leave: The Code’s paid-medical-leave division would not apply where a collective agreement provides rights and benefits at least as favourable.
• Wage protection: The minister could confirm, vary or rescind a Wage Earner Protection Program eligibility determination even without a review request.

These changes would affect employers, employees, unions and contractors covered by the relevant federal laws.

Costs and commencement

• The bill includes a recommendation for the appropriation of public revenue, but the supplied text does not