“We used to build big things in this country, and we used to build them quickly. It’s time to get back at it, and get on with it,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said last fall. It’s a compelling call to action, but it raises a harder question: what does rebuilding actually look like in practice?
I grew up in New Brunswick, convinced that anything interesting must be happening somewhere else. After a brief stint in private practice, I jumped at the chance to join the Canadian Foreign Service and leave the province for what promised to be more consequential pastures.
What I did not expect was that, by 2026, many of the tensions I reported on during my years abroad, through postings in Cuba and Mexico, would converge back in New Brunswick where I started: the hard work of earning social licence, including with Indigenous communities; the institutional challenges of attracting and retaining investment; the environmental impacts of resource development; and an intensifying geopolitical race for critical minerals.
Years ago, those questions first took shape for me as I flew by helicopter into a remote mining site in Mexico’s Tierra Caliente region, or as I spent time in Moa, Cuba, where nickel mining has long affected both the local economy and the surrounding environment. Those experiences left a lasting impression. It became clear to me that while geology and capital are core factors in mining, it also hinges on governance and legitimacy and whether institutions can reconcile global demand with local consent.
Now back home, I see those same dynamics from a different perch: as VP Legal Affairs and Sustainability Lead at a global mining services company, and as a board member of Opportunities New Brunswick, the province’s economic development agency. The backdrop here has shifted materially. This small, debt-laden and highly export-reliant province now finds itself in the middle of fierce international competition for resources that underpin modern society, at a moment when Canada’s economic and territorial sovereignty is under growing strain. So yes, things are getting interesting here.
At both the federal and provincial levels, governments are signalling impatience with business-as-usual. Nationally, there are renewed efforts to advance major strategic projects; provincially, the launch of the Growth Office is intended to bring focus and urgency to investment files that have historically stalled. This shift is already visible. In November, the Sisson tungsten‑molybdenum project north of Fredericton was pulled into Ottawa’s Major Projects Office process.
But signalling ambition is the easy part. In Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson pose a question that lands squarely in New Brunswick: why do governments across North America struggle to build the things they say we need? Ambition is often plentiful, while institutional follow‑through is not.
In March, New Brunswick released its Comprehensive Minerals Strategy – the opening move for what’s shaping up to be a dramatic, and long-needed, regulatory and policy overhaul. That shift has now moved beyond strategy: the province has introduced a new Mineral Resources Act to replace its decades‑old Mining Act, with the stated goal of creating a more predictable, streamlined and modern approval process for mineral development, including a more coordinated, single‑process pathway with clearer timelines, enhanced engagement with Indigenous communities, and stronger requirements around reclamation and financial assurance.
Are we up for it? New Brunswick does have real advantages: a smaller geography that allows workers to return home after their shifts rather than live in remote camps, easier coordination across government, and the opportunity to avoid some of the scale‑driven complexity faced by larger jurisdictions. But it is also a province where this sector has been largely dormant for decades, and our mining muscles have all but atrophied.
That wasn’t always the case. For a time, New Brunswick hosted one of the world’s largest underground zinc‑lead‑copper mines. Many of today’s senior mining executives cut their teeth at the Brunswick No. 12 Mine near Bathurst. As the province looks to rebuild its mineral sector, that experience, hard‑won and largely untapped, is an asset worth drawing back into the fold. There are lessons to be drawn from that experience as the province looks ahead.
As we embark further down this road, we’ll need to answer several hard questions that can’t be satisfied by enthusiasm alone:
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Can we run permitting processes that are not only faster, but consistently predictable – and live up to the timelines now being discussed as part of this legislative push?
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Can we deliver community benefits that are tangible, durable and meaningful?
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Can we do all of this while maintaining public confidence and trust that standards are not being quietly diluted in the name of speed?
This is a serious test: whether a small, debt‑constrained jurisdiction can meet geopolitical demand while still doing the hard local work required to earn and sustain the social licence. It is a generational opportunity, but only if speed is matched with credibility, and ambition with institutional follow‑through. For all the challenges, this is a consequential moment for New Brunswick and Atlantic Canada – one in which early success would demonstrate that smaller jurisdictions can contribute to nationally important projects and do so with the institutional credibility required to sustain them.
Andrew McLaughlin is the VP legal affairs, general counsel and sustainability lead at Major Drilling (TSX: MDI).