Across British Columbia, communities are waiting.

They’re waiting for new housing developments that never break ground, for clean energy projects stuck in limbo, and for resource infrastructure that could power local economies — but is delayed by years of red tape. Indigenous nations are waiting too — many of them leading transformative partnerships that promise prosperity, only to find themselves trapped in a permitting system that no longer works.

Everyone agrees the current model is broken. Projects that meet high environmental standards and have deep community support still get lost in a tangle of outdated processes, duplicative oversight and slow-moving bureaucracy. Reform is urgently needed, but eight years of BC NDP government haven’t moved the economic development ball down the field.

Enter Bills 14 and 15: the BC NDP’s proposed solution to “streamline” infrastructure approvals and reduce permitting backlogs. On paper, these bills promise faster timelines and more predictable decision-making, things investors and companies looking to do business in B.C. desperately want to see.

In practice, though, they raise serious concerns about........

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