Federal legislation overhauling how major projects get environmental approval won’t land until fall, after Ottawa quietly extended the public consultation deadline on two contentious discussion papers from the week of June 9 to July 22, well past the point where Parliament can do anything about it.
The House rises in mid-June and doesn’t return until September 21. A July deadline effectively shelves the bill until fall, giving critics time they didn’t expect to have.
The two discussion papers, released last month, proposed some of the sharpest changes to Canada’s approvals process in years. Among the most contested, the papers floated approving major projects before their environmental reviews are complete, exempting certain projects from species-at-risk laws, and handing responsibility for reviewing pipelines, transmission lines, and offshore renewable energy projects to the Canada Energy Regulator rather than the Impact Assessment Agency.
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Ottawa’s rationale for the transfer was that energy expertise is found at the Canada Energy Regulator and can’t be matched at the Impact Assessment Agency. The stated goal across all of it is a faster, simpler process as Canada competes for international investment.
Environmental groups descended on Parliament Hill on Wednesday, meeting with Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin and officials from the Prime Minister’s Office. One unnamed source who attended said the clearest takeaway was that the government hadn’t adequately considered the fallout from rolling back environmental protections.
Sources said Ottawa’s deepest worry is the public perception that the government would let some species vanish in order to build faster.
No species has sharpened that fear more than the southern resident killer whales off B.C.’s coast. Critics say the proposed cabinet exemption, available when a project is deemed in the public interest and the proponent has made all reasonable efforts to reduce impacts on at-risk species, puts the whales in direct danger, particularly with plans to build an oil pipeline to the West Coast.
The tension is made sharper by Ottawa’s own recent moves on the whales. A Transport Canada interim order effective June 1 requires vessels to stay 1,000 metres away from the animals. The government’s spring economic update committed $95 million over five years, plus $16.5 million in ongoing funding, for their enhanced protection.
Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon told The Canadian Press the government isn’t closing off the debate. “Look, there are enormous issues at play here. We want to make sure we get the full range of views,” he said.
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