Federal Cabinet Issues New Directive For Clean Growth Projects

Last week, on the margins of the national Energy and Mines Ministers' Conference in Calgary, the Government of Canada published a new Cabinet Directive on Regulatory and Permitting Efficiency for Clean Growth Projects (the Cabinet Directive). For many in Canada's public and private sectors, this long overdue directive will replace the last federal cabinet directive designed to get major projects built faster, which was published more than 15 years ago¹. While the Cabinet Directive does not carry the same legal weight as a law or regulation, a cabinet directive is generally seen as a federal policy instrument that is more substantial than a policy guideline issued by a single department because the directive is endorsed by all of cabinet.