By Kim Do, Scott Lamb and Roy Nieuwenburg, K.C.

On May 1, 2025, the BC government tabled Bill 15 – 2025 Infrastructure Projects Act. In the technical briefing presentation and the associated news release, the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Infrastructure explained that the proposed law is aimed at speeding up the construction of critical infrastructure projects across BC that deliver schools, hospitals and other core services, as well as other “provincially significant” projects delivered by the private sector to drive economic growth.

The Ministry was created last Fall to “streamline delivery of provincial capital projects and ensure faster delivery of cost-effective, high quality generational investments for people in BC”, as stated by Bowinn Ma, the Minister of Infrastructure. While the Ministry has taken steps to speed up projects, the Ministry has indicated a need for more to be done, due to continued “unnecessary delays due to slow, unclear or duplicative approval processes”, often “with lengthy, overlapping permitting requirements”.

Accordingly, the proposed law is the next step forward for the Ministry to expedite key infrastructure projects, and if passed, will seek to support the Ministry’s work and provide greater clarity on the authority and intent of the Ministry to carry out its roles and responsibilities. Notably, the proposed law will provide for certain “acceleration tools”, including:

• Prioritized provincial permitting in which a project may be pushed “to the front of the line” with provincial permit applications prioritized for review;
• Establishing a qualified professional reliance framework in which “qualified professionals” can certify compliance for certain permits that would otherwise be required by a prescribed enactment;
• Expediting environmental assessment processes, including whereby an environmental assessmentcertificate may trigger low-risk provincial permits to be automatically issued;
• Ability for local governments to streamline their own permitting and approval processes by requesting provincially legislated requirements to be waived or modified for these projects;
• The ability for the province to initiate a process to work with a local government to resolve an issue where a local government process is creating a lengthy or unnecessary delay on a project, including (1) consultation with the local government; (2) seeking written agreement with the local government (which could include creating a mutually agreed upon alternate authorization); and (3) if no resolution is reached, the Ministry can intervene to develop measures to address delays for the designated project.

The proposed law provides for these “acceleration tools” as applying to two categories of projects:

1. Category 1 projects, being projects delivered by the Ministry and others which other ministries lead, in partnership with school districts, post-secondary institutions and health authorities, for the delivery of schools, post-secondary housing, hospitals and health facilities;
2. Category 2 projects, being projects delivered by entities outside of the core government ministries, such as Crown corporations and agencies, local governments, First Nations and private entities and proponents, designated as “provincially significant” by orders-in-council on a project-by- project and tool-by-tool basis.

The Ministry has stated that the proposed law will not change the quality or rigour of permitting or environmental and safety requirements, or its obligations related to consultation with First Nations under the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

At this stage, it remains to be seen how the proposed law or the “acceleration tools” will be developed by way of regulation. For example, the criteria that will be necessary to designate a project as “provincially significant”, who may be a “qualified professional” for the purposes of the framework, or which enactments will be subject to this proposed law. The proposed law is at First Reading, and formal criteria for the designation of projects is under development and to be released in the coming weeks. Consultations will begin with respect to the qualified professional reliance model and expedited environmental processes in the spring and summer of 2025, respectively.

However, we do observe the obvious effects that if passed, the proposed law will provide the government with certain powers to designate certain public and private sector projects as having the ability to access certain tools that would override existing rules and processes on projects, for the purposes of expediting construction projects.

We further observe that while concerns have been raised in the commentary of potential risks if the proposed law is passed (such as government pushing through projects without proper consultation or adequate oversight), such risks already exist without the proposed law. For example, to the extent that any infrastructure is being advanced by the government, or agent for the government, such proponent arguably already has available to it the ability to say that it can streamline or bypass processes (that might otherwise be required under legislation) on the basis that section 14(2) of the Interpretation Act, RSBC 1996, c 238 provides that “an enactment that would bind or affect the government in the use or development of land, or in the planning, construction, alteration, servicing, maintenance or use of improvements […] does not bind or affect the government.” In these circumstances, such proponent already had the ability to expedite permitting procedures without needing to pass the proposed law at all.

While certainly possible that the drafters of the proposed legislation may have simply not have been alive to the existence of section 14(2) of the Interpretation Act, we observe that the potential redundancy between this provision and the proposed law was likely observed and intentional. Government proponents have been historically reluctant to invoke section 14(2) of the Interpretation Act as a means to bypass certain permitting processes. In putting forward legislation now that directly, and with greater certainty provides it with the ability to intervene in local government regulatory processes and advance measures to address project delays and supersede certain regulations that project proponents may otherwise be subject to in delivering infrastructure projects, the government is clearly signaling to the public its resolve that it intends to honour its infrastructure commitments to deliver projects more quickly – indeed, as it has said it intends to do in tabling the proposed law.

At the same time, we observe that the door has been left open for such government proponents to still access and utilize section 14(2) of the Interpretation Act where gaps in the proposed law may be identified.

We will continue to monitor the progress of the Bill.

If you have any questions about your existing or prospective construction contracts, please contact our Infrastructure, Construction, and Procurement team at Clark Wilson.