The Canadian prime minister is a hero around the world for his Davos speech that reckoned with a reconfiguration of power in the shadow of Donald Trump.

But at home, Mark Carney is mirroring the US president by radically centralizing power within his office and cabinet and taking a hatchet to dozens of laws protecting environmental, Indigenous and labour rights, all in order to enact his economic agenda.

His global sale of Canadian land and resources comes just weeks after another major Canadian export – wildfire smoke – decimated First Nations communities in northern Ontario, leading to mass evacuations and warning the world of the impact of a fossil fuel economy.

The Building Canada Strong Act, Bill C-39, is a 250-page piece of omnibus legislation introduced on 21 September by the transport minister and House leader, Steven MacKinnon.

The new bill expands his previous legislation that created an expansive fast-tracking designation for “projects of national interest” to “regions of national interest”, which could exempt vast areas of Canada from labour and Indigenous rights, and environmental protections.

Geographic regions can be given this sweeping new designation by federal ministers, diminishing the sovereignty of parliament and bypassing local elected officials and affected citizens in these special economic zones.

Arms-length environmental review boards are also being done away with. Decision-making for new pipelines, nuclear facilities, highways and other major infrastructure has been shifted to the very bodies charged with........

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