Pierre Poilievre’s Canada First Economic Action Plan will supercharge the Canadian economy. His goal is to get major projects built, unlock our resources, and start selling Canadian energy to the world again, bringing home good jobs and billions of dollars in lost investment, and putting Canada First–For a Change.
To achieve this the Conservatives under Prime Minister Pierre Poilievre will take the following steps:
- Repeal C-69, the Impact Assessment Act and Canadian Energy Regulator Act. The Trudeau government enacted it in 2019 to regulate energy projects and assess their impact on climate change and market competitiveness. It has faced criticism for potentially hindering natural resource development in Canada.
- Repeal Bill C-48, the cap on Canadian energy.
- Scrap the industrial carbon tax.
- Create a National Energy Corridor, a pre-approved transport corridor for pipelines, transmission lines, railways and other critical infrastructure to rapidly build the projects our country needs and move Canadian resources from coast to coast, bypassing the US and making us less reliant on the American market.
- Bring in the Canada First Reinvestment Tax Cut to reward Canadians who reinvest their earnings back into our country, unlocking billions for home building, manufacturing, and tools, training and technology to boost productivity.
- Create a One-Stop-Shop to safely and rapidly approve resource projects, with one simple application and one environmental review within one year. This will make sure we can rapidly approve the projects Canadians need more of now: mines, roads, LNG terminals, hydro projects, and nuclear power stations.
- Rapidly approve Phase 2 of LNG Canada to the project’s double gas production and accelerate at least nine other projects currently snarled in Liberal red tape.
- Upgrade the Port of Churchill to open another door to export Canadian resources to the world.
- Pre-permit Shovel-Ready Zones for development to eliminate delays and red tape, so we can start building again.
- Cut red tape by 25% with a new Two-for-One Rule, eliminating two regulatory requirements for every new one imposed to unleash our entrepreneurs. To guarantee results, we require the Auditor General to verify them every year.
- Pass a dollar-for-dollar law requiring one dollar of savings for every new dollar of spending.
Most news sources framed the “Canada First” plan as a campaign narrative that Canada is falling behind, affordability is collapsing, investment is fleeing and government red tape is the main culprit. They positioned Poilievre as the blunt, economically focused challenger promising tax relief, faster project approvals, and a return to growth through “common-sense” policy. Coverage emphasized political contrast over policy mechanics, presenting the plan as a signal of priorities—jobs, housing, energy, and competitiveness—while leaving the hard questions of cost, trade-offs, and implementation mostly in the background.
Mark Carney’s narrative cast the “Canada First” plan as slogan-driven politics rather than serious economic stewardship. He positioned it as a familiar Conservative recipe of tax cuts, deregulation, and quick fixes that sound good but risk weakening public finances and long-term stability. He framed the plan as missing the real foundations of prosperity: productivity growth, modern industrial strategy, skills, innovation, and resilient supply chains.
He implied the Conservatives would gamble with Canada’s economic credibility, inviting higher risk, deeper inequality, and less room to manage shocks. In this narrative, “Canada First” becomes marketing—while the real work is nation-building.
What Carney Did So Far
1) Buy Canadian / Build Canadian procurement and targeted support for strategic sectors (steel/lumber).
2) Build faster / remove bottlenecks: the government message repeatedly emphasizes building at historic speed and accelerating economic execution.
3) Tax relief / affordability optics: lowered the bottom marginal income tax rate and introduced affordability-style measures (including benefit automation).
4) Trade realism and diversification: pursuing market diversification, including reopening/export access moves like the China beef reopening after his visit.
The bottom line is that even while Carney frames Poilievre’s plan as “marketing,” Carney’s early actions mirror the same public-facing storyline: economic nationalism, affordability/tax relief, build-faster execution, and strategic trade protection/diversification.
