Bill C-39 Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2026

[George Christidis]

That's a good question. Truth be told, I'd have to come back to the committee with a precise number. Again, for us, that's why it's important for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to be the regulator and to help to coordinate the permitting processes that would involve other agencies.

To your point, it's very much the notion that a lot of the information is existing, whether it's existing brownfield.... We would argue that there's environmental information; different departments handle that type of information. Therefore, that is where there's an opportunity to increase efficiency while still being very much focused on the safety.

As for your question, I will definitely come back and identify the number of permitting agencies.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

By my read, one of the concerns I have with Bill C-39 is that you would be responsible for hitting the one-year timeline, but perhaps other organizations that you would be dependent on or relying on would not be. You would not have any power, necessarily, to compel them to complete their work in a timely fashion. Would you agree with that?

[George Christidis]

That would be an assessment that I would share at the present time.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Thank you.

Then there's your third point: clarity with respect to indigenous consultations. I've heard from first nations, as well as many other individuals, that there is a lack of clarity. In fact, I think that lack of clarity has risen to a level of concern. I believe your basic point, though, is that there needs to be clarity that is consistent with Supreme Court rulings on the duty to consult. Is that correct?

[George Christidis]

Yes. Obviously, the industry is very much there to be a partner and to work with indigenous communities to fulfill the very honourable goals of indigenous reconciliation. At the same time, scoping the relationship and identifying which communities are included are very much things that the federal government needs to take a direct role in—in defining those relationships. It is a constitutional relationship; therefore, our view is that there needs to be that clarity provided.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Then there's your final point, which I would label as—in my words, anyway—regulatory balance, assessing the risks but also weighing that against the administrative and financial burdens on proponents.

There's a lot of good talk, and we, of course, would support the single-window approach, but I do wonder, especially in the nuclear industry, your ecosystem, which is incredibly complicated, how quickly this can get done, especially with the lack of clarity in Bill C-39. Do you share any of those concerns, sir?

[George Christidis]

Again, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is a world-class regulator, and it is very much internationally recognized. What we would argue, though, is that in order to meet the goals for deployment of these nuclear technologies, for us it comes down to this: Let's take the regulatory processes and regulatory burdens that are there. There are opportunities to have a review on a cost-benefit basis of what regulatory documents are required, for instance. We've seen an increase of regulatory document requirements. Many of those have nothing to do with safety. We're not at all questioning the role on the safety side, but there are other issues that are often studied on which there's no clarity in terms of why, so there's a cost and an inefficiency that get created. Those are the issues that we'd be looking at.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

That's perfect.

Thank you again for keeping Canadians safe. I appreciate it.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lawrence.

Dr. Martin.

[Danielle Martin, Liberal, University—Rosedale, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today.

I want to begin with some questions for Ms. Shea.

I'll come back to the notion of habitat banks and, more generally, the ways in which Bill C-39 opens the door for new approaches to offsets in order to help protect nature. We've heard a lot from a variety of witnesses at this committee about the importance of protecting nature when we undertake big and important national projects.

It's my understanding that the kinds of offsets and damage mitigation strategies outlined in the bill are similar to those that are used in some other countries, like Australia and the U.S. Whether they're habitat banks or paying fees to a conservation fund, how do tools like these work, and do you support their adoption?

[Tara Shea]

Bill C-39 is pretty specific around third party habitat banking under the Fisheries Act. It's not all nature habitats. I want to be clear that it's about the Fisheries Act authorization.

Right now, you go through an authorization under the Fisheries Act, and coming out of that, part of your mitigation plan could be an offsetting requirement. That could be a new offset project or, under the current Fisheries Act, it could be a bank, but it's a proponent-led bank. The changes in Bill C-39 would enable third party habitat banking, so a proponent would be able to access an offset from a third party. It could be a conservation organization or an indigenous-led habitat bank.

There's a big opportunity here, not just to help communities benefit, obviously, from these projects that are already going to happen, but also to have these offsetting pieces done proactively. The idea behind a habitat bank is that the restoration work is happening well before the impact. It de-risks the offset that would come out of the Fisheries Act application.

MAC very much supports third party habitat banking as described in Bill C-39. Implementation will be key, of course.

[Danielle Martin, Liberal, University—Rosedale, ON]

Of course.

We heard from previous witnesses, specifically with respect to the mining industry, that major mining companies—in fact, they said most major mining companies—support the concept of no net loss, or even net gain of habitat when it comes to building big projects in the mining industry, again, using mitigation and offsets as primary strategies for that.

Why would mining companies feel it makes good business sense to undertake no net loss or net gain to nature and the environment in the work that you do?

[Tara Shea]

That's very much aligned with what we have in Towards Sustainable Mining, which is MAC's sustainability program for our members. Our biodiversity conservation protocol recognizes the mitigation hierarchy: Avoid first, before we get into compensation. We have pieces within Towards Sustainable Mining around no net loss over the life of the project.

I hesitate to recommend putting net gain into the legislation, because I think we're going to spend a lot of time debating what no net loss or net gain look like in the context of a regulatory decision. If you look at the offsetting plans that come out for mining proponents for the Fisheries Act, or conditions around decision statements for terrestrial species, they reflect no net loss at a minimum.

[Danielle Martin, Liberal, University—Rosedale, ON]

That's helpful. Thank you.

Turning now to Mr. Vegh, you've argued that governments should set broad policy direction up front, so that regulatory hearings can focus on direct project effects. Can you talk a bit about that?

How can clear national frameworks help regulators make faster and narrower decisions on individual projects? What would be an example of that in action?

[George Vegh]

I think the idea of governments providing broad policy direction is to try to avoid those arguments being debated in front of a hearing. It's not a very good forum for them.

The other challenge with it is that regulators aren't accountable to voters or to systems. They're more technical experts on a particular project in front of them.

In this case, when I'm talking about a pipeline, regulators understand safety, they understand environmental impacts, and they understand indigenous consultation and the requirements around that, but they're not really in a position to decide on policy issues. What happens sometimes is that in a hearing, you can get bogged down in policy issues over which.... Whatever decision they make, it really doesn't matter. It's becoming an academic argument, and it becomes a platform for these types of debates.

I think the best practice we see—for example, in the U.K.—is when there's broad policy direction coming out of the government, because the other concern is that governments can try to micromanage the outcomes of the decisions, and these are pretty technical matters. Also, every case is different, so these findings are fact-specific.

I think you're trying to find a balance. The regulator's job is to follow policy, not to make policy. At the same time, the government's job is to set policy, not to get involved in detailed regulatory decisions. So far, under the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, the government has not provided policy direction, so there are not a lot of good examples coming from there.

I have also worked in the Ontario electricity sector, where the government really micromanages a lot of the electricity issues and it has become a challenge to have a more balanced and more fact-specific type of direction from the energy regulator in Ontario.

[Danielle Martin, Liberal, University—Rosedale, ON]

Because I'm almost at my time, I would say that's why having national strategies of a variety of sorts can set the stage. They don't all have to be in legislation.

I appreciate your comments very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Dr. Martin.

Mr. Ste-Marie.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Greetings to all the witnesses and thank you for being here.

My first question is for Professor Vegh.

If I understand correctly, Bill C‑5 proposes a five-year limit, and Bill C‑39 proposes that the government remove that. For your part, you would like to keep the five-year limit. Is that correct?

[George Vegh]

Yes.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Okay.

Maxime St‑Hilaire, a law professor and constitutional expert, came to speak to us here in committee about Bill C‑39. He said that it was an emergency bill because it gave a great deal of power to the executive branch, to the government, and it circumvented ordinary laws. However, according to international best practices, when an emergency bill is proposed, it's necessary to first state that it's an emergency bill, which isn't necessarily the case here. It required an end date, because ordinary laws can't be circumvented indefinitely. Second, the legislative branch, the House, needs to have greater oversight of the government when it comes to what applies to the bill, since laws are being circumvented.

Do you have any comments on those three points that Professor St‑Hilaire raised?

[George Vegh]

Just so I understand, you're talking about emergency legislation. You're not talking about Bill C-39. You're talking about Bill C-5.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Since Bill C‑39 would give Bill C‑5 more powers, Professor St‑Hilaire also testified about Bill C‑39. What I just shared with you were also his comments on Bill C‑39.

[George Vegh]

I don't really consider Bill C-39 to be emergency legislation. I think this is more the new normal. In terms of Bill C-5, I don't know if I'd call it emergency, because it doesn't say it's emergency legislation. However, I do think it's extraordinary legislation in that it gives the government pure discretionary authority to decide on its choice of projects. It's unusual in the sense that the government approves of the project before knowing anything about the project, and then the regulator is just required to implement that decision. I think that's a real concern.

I'm not sure what the law professor said, but as you mentioned, not only is there no constraint on what projects the government approves, but the government can, by regulation, redefine the whole process. It's not bound by legislation, and it just creates what the process ought to be. I don't think that's a good approach; I think it's an extremely political approach. I don't think it's very effective either, because as a matter of practice governments change, and these projects are long-term projects. When you put the government in charge of a project, and then every four years or so you might have a change in government, you could be starting over again.

I don't think Bill C-5 is good practice, as I've said. I have written a more detailed piece about this for the C.D. Howe Institute with my co-author, Kate Koplovich, where we lay out in detail our concerns. It's a complicated issue—as you can appreciate, judging by your question—and a more detailed critique of that approach is in that C.D. Howe paper that we published.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Thank you very much.

On another topic, in your presentation and in the discussion that followed, you mentioned that, under Bill C‑39, the Canada Energy Regulator would from now on conduct a project‑by‑project assessment, which would replace the impact assessment. I'd like to understand why, because I really don't understand.

When I look at the Canada Energy Regulator from a Quebec perspective, I basically see people who used to be in the oil and gas industry. Scientists who were conducting studies that seemed to me to be more impartial are being replaced by people from that industry. That strikes me as more biased.

I remember there was the Energy East project in Quebec about 10 years ago. The assessment was done by the National Energy Board, the equivalent of the Canada Energy Regulator. It caused quite a stir when representatives from the board came to Montreal. They went back home. The government said that they would no longer be the ones doing these assessments going forward.

Why is it good for the regulator to do the assessments rather than the scientists? Perhaps it's my understanding that's limited.

[George Vegh]

The Canada Energy Regulator has expert scientists as well; it's not an industry organization. I'm not being critical of the Impact Assessment Agency, but you have to remember, when it comes to pipelines, the Impact Assessment Agency, even now, without six years of Bill C-69 when it was given this role, hasn't reviewed a pipeline application, because there was a threshold limit that would trigger their reviews.

The fact is, the CER does oversee over 73,000 kilometres of pipelines and 1,800 kilometres of transmission lines. They have a large role in it, and they do regulate the ongoing safety of the facilities. Having been there as chair, I can tell you the number one priority of the organization is safety, and that is their main concern. They've been doing that for decades, and we have a good safety record in Canada. It's not a criticism of the Impact Assessment Agency, but there is experience with pipelines, with linear infrastructure, and indigenous consultation, that the CER has developed. I think it's quite effective at it. It takes environmental impact very seriously. It understands the unique nature of linear infrastructure, whether it's pipelines or transmission lines, and the environmental and safety issues that accompany them.

Before my day, I do appreciate there was controversy about pipelines, but that was not something that was approved by the CER or even the NEB and then later overturned.

I think that the decision of the pipeline proponent and the governments around the energy east pipeline really reflected more the politics of the situation than the competence of the NEB, now the CER, to regulate those matters.