The federal government is pumping the brakes on its proposed changes to how major projects are reviewed, and says it won’t table legislation on the changes until the fall.
Last month Ottawa released two discussion papers which proposed, among other things, approving major projects before they’re reviewed and exempting certain projects from laws meant to protect species at risk.
It also proposed taking the responsibility for reviewing pipelines, transmission lines and offshore renewable energy projects away from the Impact Assessment Agency and handing it to the Canada Energy Regulator.
The federal government has said it has been told by industry that the level of expertise on energy projects that lived at the Canada Energy Regulator couldn’t be found at the Impact Assessment Agency.
It also said its proposed changes are to create a simpler process to shorten approval timelines, particularly as Canada is competing with other countries for investment.
But critics, including Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, have said those changes would put environmental protections in jeopardy. Environment groups were on Parliament Hill Wednesday lobbying Ottawa to reverse course.
The public consultation period on the discussion papers was set to wrap up next week, but today Ottawa is extending the deadline for comments to July 22.
“Extending the consultation may not sound like a big win. But with what I’ve been through in the last year, with the current form of this Liberal government in a minority, they pushed everything through like they had a majority,” May told The Canadian Press outside the House of Commons.
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“So I figured it would just be bulldozed through before we were through for the summer.”
The government had said it would introduce legislation soon after the consultation period ended. But moving the consultation end date into July puts it after the House of Commons rises for its summer break in mid-June.
Ottawa now says it will introduce legislation in the fall, giving it an extra few months to work on the proposed changes. The House is set to resume on Sept. 21.
“Look, there are enormous issues at play here,” Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon told The Canadian Press on his way into Question Period.
“We want to make sure we get the full range of views.”
Environment groups met with Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin and officials from the Prime Minister’s Office on Wednesday, where the discussion papers were the main topic of conversation, sources told The Canadian Press.
The sources were not authorized to speak publicly about the private discussions and did not want to be named in order to avoid jeopardizing future meetings with government officials.
One source said a key takeaway from the meeting is that the government had not adequately considered the fallout from policies that roll back environmental regulations.
The sources said the government is most concerned about the public perception that Ottawa would let some species become extinct in order to advance building projects.
On Wednesday, May called on the government to shred both discussion papers altogether.
“Both discussion documents should be completely withdrawn and nothing proposed should ever be brought forward in legislation,” she said.
The discussion papers aimed to streamline regulatory processes for major projects, noting that “some federal laws have rules that can make regulatory processes slow, repetitive, and less flexible.”
On exempting projects from laws meant to protect species at risk, it proposed giving cabinet the power to exempt “limited power, with a high threshold to be met … but only if it’s in the public interest and if the proponent has made all reasonable efforts to avoid or reduce impacts on at-risk species.”
Critics have pointed to the endangered southern resident whales off the B.C. coast as a species which would be put at risk under the legislation, particularly as Ottawa and Alberta are moving to build an oil pipeline to the West Coast.
Yet starting June 1, as part of an interim order by Transport Canada, vessels must stay 1,000 metres away from the whales. The federal government also committed in its spring economic update $95 million over five years, and $16.5 million ongoing, towards enhanced protections for the whales.
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