To the Point for the Week of May 10, 2026
To the Point for the Week of May 10, 2026
The Victoria Day long weekend is the unofficial start to the summer in Canada, even though the temperature fluctuates more than the opening and closing of the Strait of Hormuz. Nevertheless, we wish everyone a safe and enjoyable long weekend with your friends and family.
Scarborough Southwest goes South for Nathaniel Erskine-Smith. Prime Minister Carney Major Projects Office faces a major test.
ONTARIO
Out of the Running
Nineteen votes. That’s how close Nathaniel Erskine-Smith was to winning the Ontario Liberal Party nomination for the anticipated Scarborough Southwest byelection. Ahsanul Hafiz’s victory over NES came as a surprise to most political observers. For others, Hafiz’s Scarborough political roots were clearly entrenched, despite allegedly only moving from London not long before the nomination. Hafiz had also been interested in the federal by-election nomination that was ultimately awarded to party-switcher Dolly Begum. Where one door closes, another one opens, we suppose, and Hafiz saw a pathway to the provincial nomination by activating riding demographics.
However you saw the nomination race unfolding, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith took an enormous political risk by gambling his future leadership ambitions on a nomination race. His decision to do so exposed his biggest flaw: an inherent belief that his outsider status entitled him to lead the Ontario Liberal Party, despite losing to Bonnie Crombie for the post years earlier and lacking any visible, meaningful connection to the provincial party as a sitting federal MP.
Being an outsider political candidate has advantages. A political outsider comes with less “political baggage,” meaning they don’t carry the same vectors of attack because they haven’t been part of the internal machinations of party and legislative politics. An outsider can bring fresh perspectives and policy ideas that galvanize and excite the base of a party struggling to regain relevance and electoral competitiveness. All in all, outsiders typically excel in environments of low public trust or political frustration, since voters are often drawn to someone who isn’t seen as part of the problem.
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith had always framed his pursuit of the Ontario Liberal Party leadership as that of a political outsider, even a maverick of sorts. This self-perception as an outsider may have, over time, contributed to a belief that the Ontario Liberal Party was his party to lead. However, he doesn’t come with the advantages a party outsider typically brings to the table. He may have been a political outsider to the Ontario Liberal Party, but he also carries about 10 years of political baggage as a member of Prime Minister Trudeau’s caucus, supporting many of the policies that contributed to the economic frustrations experienced by Ontarians. His previously proposed policy ideas were less fresh than they were retro.
For example, his proposal for a provincially owned housing construction agency wasn't a new idea so much as a revival of a model Canada abandoned in the early 1990s — one that history has shown governments are willing to build but rarely willing to properly fund or maintain. His “nuanced” rent control proposal similarly borrowed from decades-old policy debates rather than offering anything the housing literature hadn’t already wrestled with and largely moved past. For a candidate running as an outsider, many of his policy ideas looked more like repackaged proposals aimed at an audience too young to remember why those policies fell out of favour in the first place.
While outsiders typically lack deep ties to party infrastructure or organizational experience, they are often exceptional at galvanizing grassroots energy towards meaningful rebuilding efforts. According to many insiders, NES was averse to the unglamorous work of party-building. The pervasive belief was that his efforts were geared more towards personal ambitions than leading the party out of the wilderness. These perceptions manifested during the nomination race, where opposing candidates were left with a sour taste in their mouths, with some describing their individual meetings with the leadership hopeful as transactional and underwhelming.
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith made it clear this week that his leadership ambitions have changed, telling CBC’s Power & Politics that he’s unsure whether he will continue his pursuit of the leadership, while also signalling his intent to resign his federal seat at the end of June, before the House of Commons adjourns for the summer recess. Barring some kind of revelation stemming from NES’ challenge of the nomination process, one can reasonably assume his ambition to become leader of the Ontario Liberal Party is now effectively over.
NES will now consult with his supporters for advice on what his next steps should be, likely gauging whether he still has momentum to push forward with a viable leadership bid. Our anticipation is that Erskine-Smith will not make a third attempt at the leadership. With the perceived front-runner now expected to be out of the running, the dynamics of the leadership race have changed. What once looked like a race orbiting around Nathaniel Erskine-Smith now feels wide open. Ironically, the conditions are still set for some kind of real outsider to make an impact on this race.
FEDERAL
A Major Project Test
A months-old video circulating on X this week put into perspective just how far Canada’s regulatory environment has drifted from its North American counterparts. Speaking at the Canadian Club of Ottawa on March 31, TC Energy CEO François Poirier spoke about how the changing landscape of geopolitics has created a timely opportunity for Canada to lead by supplying the world with the precious natural resources it desperately needs. He also spoke about Canada’s history of being a nation-building project, the vast resource potential upon which Canada sits, and what it could mean for the nation’s prosperity. We’ve heard it one thousand times before.
What made Poirier’s address more poignant, acute and pronounced was his detailing of how the United States and Mexico are attracting predictable, stable and sizable resource investments. Everything from when a project is proposed to when permits are received and construction begins is geared toward giving investors certainty. The contrast to Canada’s regulatory environment is both discouraging and disheartening, even when considered against the federal government’s Major Projects Office created by Bill C-5 that is intended to reduce the federal approval period to two years. That process is about to face its first real test.
According to Poirier, TC Energy’s LNG Southeast Gateway Project in Mexico took eight months from filing permits to beginning construction. Eight months. From construction start to coming online, under three years, for a 700-km subsea pipeline. Mexico is proceeding with projects faster and at scale to attract the roughly $300 billion dollars it has targeted in its Plan 2030. Canada is competing for the same investments.
In 2025, the United States — TC Energy’s largest and fastest-growing division — sanctioned $56 billion dollars of LNG-related projects. Canada sanctioned none. Poirier rightly states that capital flows downhill and noted that Canada and the US were at the same starting position vis-à-vis natural gas 15 years ago. Canada balked while the US walked. The US is now considered the benchmark of a system where permits, timelines and decision-making are aligned enough that projects reach a final investment decision.
It’s not just the US and Mexico that have created demonstrably predictable and stable investment environments for resource projects. Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohammed bin Zayed directed the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) to fast-track the West-East Pipeline project intended to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. The accelerated construction timeline means that the country will effectively double its export capacity via the port of Fujairah by 2027. Even the UAE’s existing Habshan-Fujairah pipeline took roughly six years to build from conceptual design in 2006 to becoming operational in July 2012.
The re-circulation of Poirier’s speech is timely given yesterday’s announcement of an industrial carbon price implementation agreement between Alberta and the federal government, which follows through on the MOU that also set out a path to a new pipeline. Premier Smith and Prime Minister Carney have agreed to an increase to $130 per tonne by 2040. More importantly, the Premier and Prime Minister have agreed that Ottawa will pursue a national-interest designation by October 1, 2026, and, if that timeline is fulfilled, to provide the “conditions document” by September 1, 2027, to commence construction.
In theory, that bargain lets Ottawa have its cake and eat it too — more barrels and lower emissions — but in practice it turns this pipeline into a double test of the Major Projects Office: can it move from proposal to decision on a compressed clock, and does it satisfy the conditions that make not only this project, but future projects, attractive for the investment needed to move them forward?
We recognize that other jurisdictions don’t have the same legal requirements as it pertains to Indigenous consultation, jurisdictional considerations with lower levels of government, and of course, environmental protections. However, if the goal is to make the process predictable and timeline-dependent to attract private proponents for these projects to be viable, one can reasonably argue that the MPO and approvals regime contained in the Building Canada Act (Bill C-5) have not yet passed the test. If every project that seeks a national-interest designation must go through a lengthy round of negotiations to place conditions upon which a designation is even considered, Poirier’s concerns are not mitigated.
Look at the timeline that got us here. It took about six to seven months from the MOU to today’s announcement. Danielle Smith is spending $14 million to be the initial proponent that will submit permit applications to the MPO by July. The MPO has no statutory requirement to complete its assessment within a fixed period, but the MOU, carbon agreement and other conditions agreed upon now are intended to reduce that timeline. Once the minister decides the project will receive a designation, it then needs to be published for 30 days in the Canada Gazette. Only after that does cabinet pass an Order in Council adding the project to Schedule 1.
The biggest caveat here is that cabinet can look at the project and send it back for more conditions or consultation. It’s not a rubber stamp; ministers who are skeptical of the reforms can still press to slow things down or add new requirements. It also doesn’t take into consideration the layers of potential challenges, protests and various other legal and political tactics that can be employed to juice concessions from projects or prevent them from moving forward altogether. In other words, the legislated two-year clock doesn’t replace the old system so much as sit on top of it. Before the Major Projects Office can start the stopwatch, governments have already spent months negotiating the rules of the game. If we are going to do this for every resource project, the prospects of truly unlocking the $1–$2 trillion of natural resources that sit below our feet look even further away than before Carney came to power.
It is hard to imagine this process meeting François Poirier’s definition of moving faster. It also echoes the warning CIBC CEO Harry Culham delivered in Calgary this week: that more than a decade of delay on major energy and infrastructure projects has weakened Canada’s export capacity and battered our reputation as a builder nation. Unless the Major Projects Office can turn its two‑year clock into a real change in how quickly Canada moves from ambition to shovels in the ground, we will keep having more headlines than pipelines, and capital will continue to flow to places that build.
Christopher Mourtos, writing on behalf of ONpoint Strategy Group
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ONpoint Strategy Group is all about helping clients make an impact where it counts. Specializing in government relations and strategic execution, our team—Nico Fidani-Diker, Mariana Di Rezze, David Morgado, Christopher Mourtos, Ellen Gouchman, and Brandon Falcone—works closely with clients to navigate complex political landscapes and bring their goals to life. With a practical, results-driven approach, we build strong relationships, craft winning strategies, and make sure every step brings clients closer to meaningful outcomes. We’re passionate about making sure our clients are heard, supported, and positioned for success.