Madam Speaker, the public consultation component of the five year review of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act recently concluded. It now remains for the Environmental Assessment Agency to provide those comments to the Minister of the Environment who will then report to the House by January of next year.
A number of concerns were raised about the act through the consultation process. A few of these include: The review itself is not independent; the Environmental Assessment Agency should have a much stronger role in co-ordinating and overseeing assessments; there must be improved opportunities for public participation in environmental assessment; federal funding for environment assessment must be increased; more emphasis must be placed on the assessment of cumulative effects; more attention must be paid to broadening the scope of projects, and to monitoring and follow-up; and, the federal-provincial environmental harmonization accord must not be allowed to detract from a strong federal presence in environmental assessment.
In fact, it is not clear how the harmonization accord's subagreement on environmental assessment will affect environmental assessment in Canada and what implications it has for the current CEAA review.
Many have commented on the need for the parliamentary Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development to have a formal role in the review of the assessment act. To date, it has none.
The committee is an important component in the parliamentary process surrounding environmental legislation. For example, it undertook a mandatory one year review of the Canadian Environmental Protect Act commencing June 10, 1994. One year later, it tabled its report in the House of Commons in June 1995.
The intensive review of CEPA 88 culminated in a report entitled “It's About Our Health! Towards Pollution Prevention”, containing 141 recommendations. Many referred to the report as thorough, forward-looking and a comprehensive and substantive contribution to environmental protection in Canada.
For reasons such as these, many feel that the committee should be formally involved in the CEAA review process.