Evidence of meeting #6 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was federal.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
As an Individual
Roughly 99% of projects are these small projects. A number of them are triggered through law list provisions. I've mentioned one: if you want to study birds in a migratory bird sanctuary, you need a permit, and to get the permit, you need an environmental assessment.
Well, thousands of these have been issued and, at one point, a colleague at Environment Canada said he had a full person-year devoted to assessing the environmental effects of the scientific permit-issuing process. It seems crazy.
But I think you need to look at the context a little bit. I mean--
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Excuse me for just a minute. When you say it seems crazy, I take from that you mean that it's probably not necessary. Is that what you mean?
As an Individual
It's not necessary to have a legally binding process to deal with it. The department should be able, through the departmental sustainable development strategies and other processes, to manage to ensure that when they issue those scientific permits, they're not damaging migratory bird habitat.
Conservative
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for coming in. We really appreciate your testimony.
Mr. Hazell, I just want to make sure that we're strengthening and improving this. One of my concerns...and there have been criticisms of this, so this is why I'm bringing it forward. From the 2009 and 2010 budget bills, there have been changes to environmental assessment. Is it possible to table with this committee those specific changes, their related statutes and regulations, and whether each weakened or strengthened the assessment process? Is that possible?
As an Individual
Yes. I think in submissions made by the Sierra Club, certainly, when I was the executive director there a few years ago, we did an analysis of the changes made in the 2009 budget, which basically removed the Navigable Waters Protection Act as a trigger. That had a number of important impacts. For 2010, there were thousands of projects that were no longer assessed by virtue of the changes that were made.
I think what I want to say about it is that I don't necessarily disagree that we need to reduce the number of environmental assessments that are done federally—by some estimates, 5,000 a year—but it's how you go about that, and ensuring that we try to and do catch the big ones, because eliminating the Navigable Waters Protection Act trigger meant, in some cases, that a number of dams and dikes were not assessed that clearly had implications for aquatic ecosystems, and they were not subject to the Fisheries Act trigger.
So yes, we can give you more information about the impacts of those cuts, but--
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
That would be terrific. Could you table them with the committee for 2009 and 2010?
As an Individual
What I can provide is the analysis that was done by Sierra Club and with Ecojustice for last year's budget.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
I would appreciate that.
In your opinion, should infrastructure projects be exempt from environmental assessment?
As an Individual
They should not be exempt from environmental assessment merely because they're infrastructure projects.
What sort of infrastructure project are we talking about? If we're talking about siting a sewage treatment plant on a wetland, that should be assessed because it may have significant environmental effects. Also, just because a project is intended to benefit the environment in some way, that is not a reason for excluding it from assessment either, because it may have a number of significant adverse effects.
However, a lot of the infrastructure projects are small things, such as building a community arena or something like that. Perhaps those should not be subject to assessment.
At the federal level, I think we do need to focus on the big stuff and not sweat the small stuff so much, which unfortunately hasn't been a feature of CEAA so far. Not that there hasn't been a lot of good work done in the screening assessments--there has been, but we've learned some things. A lot of standards have been developed because of the work that has been done, such as, for example, no pipeline crossings over streams.
There's a standard set of rules for companies building pipelines across streams and rivers. Those are followed. We don't need to go into a big song and dance about that, because basically the engineers know what the standards are,and they follow them.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you.
In your opinion, should the minister be able to limit any environmental assessment to a portion of the project? I believe this is contrary to the Supreme Court ruling on the Red Chris Mine. Have there been examples where this has occurred?
As an Individual
Well, there have been a number.... I don't think the Minister of the Environment should have that authority. I think the approach the government should take should be the approach stated by the Supreme Court in Red Chris, which is that the project is the project as stated by the proponent, and neither the responsible authority nor the environment minister should be trying to narrow that down.
There are a lot of examples of so-called project-splitting. Among the most egregious is the case of True North, which is another case that went to the Supreme Court, in which you have an oil sands mine and there's a road and a bridge crossing associated with that.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans, in its wisdom, decided to scope that tar sands mine project as a bridge and a road. In essence, the tar sands by itself was not subject to the environmental assessment. That was probably the most egregious example that one can think of. I just don't think it's a good idea for the Minister of Environment to have that authority.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
You've provided one example--and that is egregious--but have there been other examples where this has occurred and are you able to table these with the committee? Because we need to be able to see these.
As an Individual
Yes. Well, I'm not aware of any list that has been prepared. Most of this stuff is based on personal experience. I don't think any statistical summary has been presented.
Sometimes it's the case that a project will be subject to a comprehensive study because of its size, and the proponent may be able to repackage some of the elements of the project so that it would only be subject to a federal screening. That sort of thing does happen from time to time.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Can I ask one more question? I'm out of time with the committee....
I think for both of you, if you could table a list of your top issues that the committee should focus on first during its review of the act, that would be very helpful.
Conservative
As an Individual
I'm going to rely on the statements I've made with regard to the issues I saw.... I'll leave it at that.
Conservative
Lise St-Denis NDP Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
I'll speak in French.
My questions are directed to Mr. Cassidy.
Before asking the questions I prepared, I would like to go back to something you mentioned earlier. You talked about harmonizing the process between the federal government and provinces. Unless I am mistaken, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency has raised this issue. We were told, I believe, that this problem no longer exists since July 2010, that there is now a coordination and harmonization of the decisions made at the federal and provincial levels. I am not talking about decisions made within the federal government but about harmonization with provinces. A timeframe has been set for determining if the project should be assessed and also for the tabling of the report; I believe those time limits are 90 days and one year respectively.
Could you please elaborate on this? Is what they told us true? This does not completely square with what you said. I am sorry to be asking those questions but I am not a lawyer.
