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VICTORIA - For years the B.C. Liberals swapped anecdotes with the business community about the slow-motion approval process for major projects in this province.

In the standard recounting, some would-be investor with a proposal to build a new plant in B.C. spends months, even years, in the labyrinthine passageways of the provincial bureaucracy, getting neither answers nor encouragement.

Then -- in frustration, inspiration, or both -- he or she relocates to Alberta. And before you can say "competitive advantage," all doors are open, all approvals granted and Premier Ralph Klein himself is cutting the ribbon at the new plant.

The motto in Alberta, says one Liberal, is: "How can we help?" Here, it is: "Why are you bothering us?"

The Liberals vowed to change the B.C. government culture, with a friendlier, "one-stop" approach. But they've made far less progress than their campaign rhetoric promised, to the mounting frustration of their supporters. Two and a half years into their term of office, the Liberals are still hearing those unflattering comparisons to Alberta -- except this time their own government is the butt of the complaint.

So Monday the government took the wraps off a more ambitious effort to ease the approval process in B.C. -- the Significant Projects Streamlining Act.

Deregulation Minister Kevin Falcon didn't spare B.C. when he introduced the bill in the house Monday afternoon. "Our province has garnered a reputation as having one of the most difficult and lengthy approval processes for major projects in North America," he conceded.

"Inefficient review and approval processes result in many potential investments and investors waiting far too long. Delays are often caused by conflicting requirements from multiple ministries and approval authorities."

You wonder, too, how many of the delays lamented by Mr. Falcon result from the one-hand-doesn't-know-what-the-other-is-doing strategy of trying to reduce public service staffing levels while trying to speed up the bureaucratic approval process.

But there it was, the latest output from the Liberal deregulatory drive. And reading through the text, one has to say that where previous efforts snipped through red tape one strand at a time, the Significant Projects Streamlining Act takes more of a meat-axe approach.

The act allows the cabinet to designate a major project as "provincially significant" and then begin "expediting" its approval.

For a project to qualify, Mr. Falcon said it should have "broad benefits for the economic, social or environmental well-being of B.C."

But the act says nothing of the kind, leaving it entirely up to the cabinet to determine what is in the public interest.

Once the cabinet makes the designation, it can, by the stroke of a pen, eliminate any and all constraints to the approval process, regulations, procedures and timetables included.

There are some limits on these powers. Project proponents are required to consult with the appropriate authorities. There's a provision to appoint a facilitator and/or a monitor in the event of a dispute. And there's no override for the agricultural land commission or the environmental assessment process.

Otherwise, the powers conferred on the cabinet by this bill are sweeping.

In what will surely be one of the most controversial passages, the cabinet would get the power to eliminate not just provincially imposed constraints on projects but also those imposed by "local government" -- cities, municipalities, regional districts and the city of Vancouver.

Yes. Six months after the B.C. Liberals enacted a community charter to "empower" local government, they are providing themselves with the option of clawing back all those powers and more in the name of economic development.

The clawback won't be used often, if at all, the Liberals say. No more than a dozen projects a year will be designated as significant. Victoria would try to persuade local governments to expedite them before wielding the power contained in the act.

Still, the Liberals should brace themselves for a blast once local government leaders and their lawyers finish reading this bill.

vpalmer@direct.ca