Good report on law reform to assess development projects, but . . .
Stephen Hazell
Director of Conservation
and General Counsel
Nature Canada commends the Expert Panel for the Review of Environmental Assessment Processes on its April 2017 final report. The Report advances a next generation of environmental assessment that includes determining net benefits to sustainability, establishing a single federal agency to assessment environmental impacts (which means getting the National Energy Board out of the environmental assessment business), engaging indigenous people more meaningfully as process partners and engaging the public more meaningfully as participants.
Nonetheless, Nature Canada has concerns with the Report of the Expert Panel, especially with the details on how it would be implemented.
It is unclear which projects, regions or government policies will be subject to environmental assessments (referred to as “impact assessments” (IA) in the Report). The Expert Panel has recommended three triggering mechanisms for project assessments, including a “Project List”, but it is unclear that this will result in triggering mechanisms that will encompass all the categories of projects that should reasonably require IA. Nature Canada believes that environmental assessment legislation should establish an arms-length Advisory Committee responsible for proposing projects to be added or removed from a Project List, identifying regions that require regional assessments and identifying specific government policies and programs that demand strategic assessments of their impacts on sustainability.
The Report is also unclear on how public participation is to be made meaningful. Nature Canada has reiterated the importance of influence on decisions as a cornerstone of meaningful participation. How various types of public participation are to be dealt with by an IA agency must be clarified, and any future legislation must ensure that the public is provided with opportunities to meaningfully engage in the assessment process in ways that can affect decision-making.
Nature Canada strongly supports the Expert Panel’s recommendation that IA should play a critical role in addressing climate change. The federal government must not be overly cautious or conservative in interpreting the scope of federal powers in addressing this pressing issue. Using IA to collect information relevant to GHG emissions and the resilience of ecosystems to environmental change can provide extremely valuable information on which the federal government, and all levels of government, can base their decision-making. Nature Canada strongly encourages the use of IA to gather climate change-related information in order to inform and guide government decision-making.
Ultimately, the Expert Panel has recognized that a new era of environmental assessment is necessary to meet the challenges of the multiple environmental crises we face today. While the report is certainly a long stride in the right direction, there are many uncertainties and concerns that need to be resolved to build a framework for IA that truly is of a next generation.
To see Nature Canada’s full comments on the Expert Panel’s Final Report, click here.
