Carney and Poilievre have both pledged 'energy corridors.' That could be complicated

Liberal Leader Mark Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre are offering similar sounding energy development plans that would fast-track regulatory processes and create energy corridors to develop natural resource projects.

But some industry analysts and observers, while applauding the directions that both leaders are taking, are cautioning that their proposals may face significant challenges.

"It's great to see that improving regulatory systems for major projects is on the agenda, but both approaches ... raised some pretty big questions for me about how that would actually work in practice," said Monica Gattinger, chair of the University of Ottawa's positive energy program.

Both Poilievre and Carney said their plans would help reduce reliance on the U.S, particularly in the wake of the tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

To that end, Carney said he wants to cut wait times for the approval processes for major resource projects from five years to two. Poilievre's Conservatives have promised a one-year maximum for review times, with a target of six months.

Both leaders have also raised the issue of implementing some kind of energy corridor.

Carney has promised to create trade and energy corridors for various types of projects deemed to be in the national interest for transport, energy, critical minerals and digital connectivity.

Meanwhile, Poilievre announced the creation of a "'Canada First' National Energy Corridor" that would "fast-track approvals for transmission lines, railways, pipelines, and other critical infrastructure across Canada in a pre-approved transport corridor entirely within Canada."  

In the corridor, all levels of government would provide legally binding commitments to approve projects, according to the Conservatives.

Still, Gattinger said one of the first challenges for these policies will be defining exactly what a corridor is.

"I don't think there's a single definition of corridor, and we haven't seen a lot of detail from either campaign about precisely what they mean by that concept," Gattinger said.

Martha Hall Findlay, director of the University of Calgary's school of public policy and a former Liberal MP, said both Carney and Poilievre are talking about the importance of Canadian energy to the economy.

"It's not often you get the leaders of the two main parties actually saying similar things," she said.

"They're coming at it from a bit of a different perspective. They're both saying, we get it, we need to build the infrastructure, we need to capitalize on the resources that we're so blessed to have in this country [and] which we have not been capitalizing on for 20 years."