It’s an old model getting a new lease on life.
They started in 1989 under Brian Mulroney’s government — an experiment by a government facing economic pressures to innovate and deliver results more efficiently.
Over the next few years, the federal government created more than a dozen special operating agencies (SOAs) like Passport Canada or the Translation Bureau. However, over the past 30 years, the government appeared to cool on the idea, only creating a couple SOAs.
Until now.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has turned to the decades-old model to spearhead its efforts to strengthen Canada’s economy in the face of the tariff war launched by U.S. President Donald Trump. Three new special operating agencies — Build Canada Homes, the Defence Investment Agency and the Major Projects Office — will be responsible for helping decide how to spend billions of dollars and advance projects.
The government argues that SOAs can be more flexible and move faster.
Until recently, there were only a dozen of them.
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