Overview
The Cabinet Directive on Regulatory and Permitting Efficiency for Clean Growth Projects focuses on the federal efforts needed to accelerate regulatory efficiency for clean growth projects. It is intended to help get clean growth projects built faster by accelerating decision-making related to these projects.
| Overview of Natural Resource Canada’s Role in Supporting Regulatory and Permitting Efficiency | NRCan's role is to support regulatory and permitting efficiency via the streamlined and efficient regulation of explosives and their restricted components in Canada. Through the administration of the Explosives Act and its regulations, NRCan ensures the economic and reputational benefits of a safe and secure explosives industry, while reducing administrative and regulatory burden. This is achieved through the maintenance of a modern regulatory regime focused on efficient licensing, permitting, and certification, and the streamlined implementation of the national compliance and enforcement program. |
|---|---|
| Results for Thematic Areas of the Cabinet Directive | |
| Theme 1: Strengthening service standards | |
| Results Achieved: | NRCan has as a mandate to regulate the safe and secure handling of explosives and their restricted components (precursor chemicals). This is accomplished by the administration of the Explosives Act and the Explosives Regulations, 2013, whereby NRCan’s Explosives Regulatory Division authorizes and classifies all explosives in Canada and regulates the manufacture, storage, acquisition, sale, import, export, and transportation of explosives through the issuance of licences, permits or certificates, depending on the activity, as well as by the national compliance and enforcement program. NRCan has analyzed all applications submitted between April 1, 2024 and March 31, 2025, and found that there were no clean growth and/or major projects explosives applications implicated during the fiscal year period. NRCan continues to meet all service standards for issuance of new licences and renewals of existing licences, including Division 1 licences, with the average processing time between a submitted application and issuance of a licence of 5.2 days. |
| Indicator: Establish transparent review management systems to track internal service standards and legislated timelines, in addition to the global targets set out in Section 8 of this Cabinet Directive. | As the national regulator, NRCan’s Explosives Regulatory Division has a digital system in place to track service standards and any legislative timelines. NRCan continues to meet all services standards for issuance of new and renewed licences, including Division 1 manufacturing licences, with the average total processing time of 5.2 days. |
| Theme 2: Providing timely guidance to proponents | |
| Results Achieved: | NRCan guidance documents related to explosives for internal and external stakeholders have been revised to align with regulatory changes to date, and to be consistent with the objective of the Clean Growth initiative in providing predictability for the stakeholder throughout the application process. NRCan’s public-facing website provides guidance on what is required for a Division 1 licence, as well as information on how to apply. In line with Building Canada’s Clean Future, NRCan has updated its suite of internal guidance to help enable inspectors maintain consistency in evaluating explosives licences. Supplementary internal training and quality control measures are also in place to ensure consistency and alignment with new industry standards and regulatory requirements, as they become available. NRCan’s early review of its guidance framework following the review of the Explosives Regulations, 2013 has helped ensure that guidance is complete and clear for applicants. These efforts, alongside an ongoing IT project to modernize the digital application system, are expected to enable NRCan to better meet efficiency and predictability expectations. |
| Theme 3: Coordinating consultation with Indigenous Peoples | |
| Results Achieved: | As the national regulator for the safety and security of explosives, NRCan ensures that implicated Indigenous Peoples are aware of, and have opportunity to provide feedback on, any requests for an explosives licence. |