What the federal election’s results mean for engineering

Photo courtesy Liberal Party.

As the Liberal Party has won its fourth federal election in a row, Prime Minister Mark Carney leads a minority government that may need to work with other parties to implement its new platform, which has implications for Canada’s consulting engineering community.

“We used to build things in this country,” the platform reads. “Over our history, we have shown we can come together to build big infrastructure that ties us more closely together, from a railway that spanned this country to the Trans-Canada Highway to the St. Lawrence Seaway. It’s time to build again.”

The Liberals plan to “spend less on government and invest more in people and businesses.” One example of the latter strategy is the party’s response to the housing crisis.

“It used to be that the federal government built the housing our growing population needed,” the platform reads. “We’re going to get back into the business of building houses. We will invest in our homegrown building industry, driving the adoption of Canadian mass timber, modular and prefabricated technologies.”

This will involve creating a new federal entity, Build Canada Homes (BCH), to “bring forestry, innovation, engineering, manufacturing and construction together” on prefabrication projects that prioritize “sustainably sourced wood, recycled content and low-emissions materials.”

Another major component of the platform relates to energy.

“It’s time to build Canada into an energy superpower that combines our conventional resources with clean energy,” the platform reads. “We have major untapped hydro resources, the critical minerals needed for batteries and the resources to produce more biofuel. We have barely begun to scratch the surface of our potential to build out more renewable power, such as wind and solar.”

As the government seeks to secure Canada’s “energy and electricity sovereignty,” it will extend investment tax credits (ITCs) for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), clean technology and manufacturing, clean electricity, clean hydrogen and the electric vehicle (EV) supply chain.

In an effort to set an example, existing government-owned buildings are to phase out the use of fossil fuels by 2030, while new federal buildings face targets for energy efficiency and reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.