A number of pundits and commentators have observed the self-confidence and near-unilateralist approach of our prime minister, Mark Carney. The seemingly boundless self-assurance of the prime minister in his own abilities to do the right thing has produced legislation that sets the foundation for corruption.

Consider the Carney government’s signature legislation, known as the Building Canada Act (Bill C-5), which, among other things, established the Major Projects Office (MPO). The stated purpose of the MPO and the act is to create a process whereby the government—in practical terms, the prime minister and his cabinet—identify projects in the “national interest” and fast-track their approval by overriding existing laws and regulations.

Put differently, a small group of politicians are now able to circumvent the laws and regulations that apply to every other entrepreneur, business owner and investor to expedite projects they deem will benefit the country. According to several reports, senators openly referred to the bill as the “trust me” act because it lacked details and guardrails, which meant “trusting” that the prime minister and cabinet would use these new powers reasonably and responsibly.

Rather than fix the actual policies causing problems, which include a litany of laws and regulations from the Trudeau era such as Bill C-69 (which added vague criteria to the approval process for large infrastructure projects including pipelines) and Bill C-48 (which bans oil tankers from docking in British Columbia ports), the Carney government chose to create a new bureaucracy and political process to get around these rules.

And that’s the problem. By granting itself the power to get around rules that everyone else has to play by, the government created the opportunity for corruption. Entrepreneurs, business owners and investors interested in infrastructure projects, particularly energy projects, now need to consider how to convince a handful of politicians of the merits of their project. This lays the groundwork for potentially corrosive and damaging corruption now and into the future. While this prime minister may have an infinite amount of confidence in his abilities to do the right thing, what about the next prime minister, or the next one? These rules will outlive Prime Minister Carney and his government.

And it’s not just the Carney government’s signature Build Canada Act. The more recent Bill C-15, which implements certain aspects of the federal budget, contains provisions similar to the Build Canada Act that would also allow cabinet ministers to circumvent existing laws and regulations. A number of commentators have raised red flags about how the legislation would empower any minister to exempt any entity (i.e. person or firm) from any law or regulation—except the Criminal Code—under the minister’s responsibility for up to six years in order to foster innovation. The underlying rationale is that we have laws and regulations on the books that impede experimentation and innovation.

Again, rather than undertake the difficult work of updating and modernizing existing laws and regulations to empower entrepreneurs, business owners, workers and investors, and ensure they all play by the same rules, the Carney government instead wants to create a new mechanism for a select few to be able to sidestep existing laws and regulations.

A different way to think about both legislative initiatives is that the prime minister and his ministers are now able to provide specific companies with enormous advantages over their competitors through the political system. Those advantages have enormous value, and that value creates the opportunity for corruption now and in the future.

The Carney government recognizes that our regulatory system is badly broken; otherwise, it wouldn’t create these work-around laws. It should do the hard work, which it was elected to do, and actually fix the laws and regulations that impede economic development and progress for all entrepreneurs, business owners and investors. Otherwise, we risk a future littered with stories of advantage and corruption for political insiders.

Jason Clemens and Niels Veldhuis are economists with the Fraser Institute.