The world we knew is no more. Change is essential. That is Prime Minister Mark Carney’s mantra, and there’s no doubt that change is needed. We are confronted by a hostile neighbour, face a disrupted global geopolitical landscape and have a structurally weak Canadian economy. The question, however, is less what the government intends to do, but rather can it deliver on the new policy directions it is promising?

This challenge is made more difficult by years of poor policy execution and inadequate service delivery by government — failures that Carney has explicitly recognized. His solution is to create powerful, special-purpose agencies to deliver on his policy agenda rather than fixing existing operational problems.

To date, the Carney government has launched five such agencies to turbo-charge its goal of “getting things done.” They are the Major Projects Office, the Defence Investment Agency, Build Canada Homes, the Financial Crimes Agency and the Canada Strong Fund. But are they the right way to fix the operational challenges of delivering on ambitious policy promises? There are good reasons to worry that this approach carries more risks than benefits.

The Major Projects Office (MPO) is intended, according to the legislation behind it, to ensure that key projects to boost the economy and encourage investment will be fast-tracked without harming the environment or Indigenous rights. The minister overseeing the MPO has significant powers to override the authority of other ministers in “projects of national interest” and to speed up approvals through regulatory over-rides. The legislation is silent on the MPO’s administrative authorities and whether its staff would be public servants. The office’s role is to support........

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