Good morning to the committee, and thank you for asking me to appear today.
I'm the Director of the Parks Program at the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, a charitable non-profit, as many of you may know, with over 50 years' experience in advocating for the protection of Canada's wilderness and wildlife. On a personal level, my background is in environmental sciences and biology, law, and international affairs, with a focus on environmental governance. I've spent the last four years working with CPAWS.
I will be limiting my comments to part 1 of the bill, the impact assessment act. My comments will relate specifically to federal protected areas in general, but I will be referring a lot to our national parks.
Parks and protected areas are what make our country special. They safeguard our natural heritage, protect iconic wildlife, provide us with clean air, fresh water, and traditional foods, and provide opportunities to us for both quiet contemplation in nature as well as life-altering backcountry experiences.
There's a growing scientific consensus that we are currently living in the midst of the world's sixth mass extinction event, and this is being exacerbated by human activities, including resource extraction and development. We're already seeing the impacts of this event here in Canada.
Globally, parks and protected areas are one of the best proven solutions to slowing down this extinction event, as they safeguard habitat for iconic species here in Canada, such as moose, caribou, and grizzly bears, and also the suite of biodiversity represented across our country.
The pieces of legislation that create our protected areas in this country create them for nature and for protecting ecosystems. Given this, and given that they're also so important to our own well-being and are supposed to be our most treasured and valued places, it is logical that the highest possible standard of impact assessment should be applied in these areas.
Unfortunately, in our estimation, Bill C-69 falls short of providing that high standard. The bill largely follows the structure of CEAA 2012. If a project on federal lands is not listed on the designated project list, a federal authority—in the case of national parks, Parks Canada—must determine whether that project or work is likely to create significant adverse environmental effects. This determination regime watered down impact assessment in protected areas and has led to problems with transparency, accountability, and public consultation related to private, commercial, and infrastructure development in our parks.
CEAA 2012 and, likewise, Bill C-69 do not provide provide adequate guidance as to how a federal authority should conduct their determination of a project. In national parks, our impact assessment regime is currently conducted by Parks Canada in accordance with an internal policy that is open to interpretation and applied in an inconsistent manner across the country.
Under their regime, there are developments such as the massive expansion of the Lake Louise ski area, which has been determined not to cause significant adverse effects to Banff National Park even when scientists and the public clearly expressed concern about the impacts of this development on the habitat of important species such as mountain goats and grizzly bears. In fact, in an access to information request submitted by CPAWS, we've learned that since 2012 over 1,500 development projects that were assessed by Parks Canada were considered not to have significant environmental effects, including the Lake Louise expansion.
Under CEAA 2012 and the Parks Canada policy-based approach, CPAWS has observed less rigour, less opportunity for public engagement, and inconsistent application of the policy. In contrast to this, the 1992 act contained provisions that aimed to recognize the special status of federal protected areas and to provide safeguards related to development projects.
Under CEAA 1992, there was an immediate presumption that projects in national parks and federal protected areas would undergo an impact assessment. This presumption was then informed by the regulations. For example, the exclusion list provided which projects in parks would not have to go through an impact assessment, and that included things like routine maintenance, painting of park benches, and so on.
The comprehensive study list regulations provided guidance about which projects required a more rigorous impact assessment. This list included physical works that we obviously wouldn't and shouldn't accept in protected areas, such as dams and mines, and projects that were likely to have significant long-term effects, such as ski area expansions. Under CEAA 1992, the expansion of the Lake Louise ski area would have been subject to a comprehensive study, would have been coordinated by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, and would have provided resources for public consultation.
That act also contained language that required the minister to consider ecological integrity of a protected area when deciding whether a project would have adverse environmental effects.
In CPAWS' opinion, CEAA 1992 was much more protective of our national parks and federal protected areas than CEAA 2012.
Bill C-69 largely maintains the same structure as CEAA 2012 and will perpetuate the same problems with development in parks and protected areas as we are currently witnessing. Those problems include lack of transparency, lack of consultation, proponents conducting their own impact assessment and soliciting only positive feedback on their projects, incredibly short timelines that don't provide the public with enough time to read highly technical documents, and a lack of scientific rigour.
Clause 86 of the bill now obligates the federal authority to provide notice of their intention to conduct a determination. However, it then allows them to make that determination within 15 days. In our estimation, that's wholly inadequate.
To improve Bill C-69, we suggest the following: that the committee include language in the bill that creates the presumption that all projects in national parks and federal protected areas are subject to impact assessment, unless the minister determines, with an adequate notice period, that such projects are likely to cause insignificant adverse environmental impacts; ensure that impact assessment is carried out by the impact assessment agency or, where appropriate, by Parks Canada when Parks Canada is not the proponent of the project; and that the assessment follow legislated process and consultation guidelines. The bill, unfortunately, contains limited guidance as to how the determination process by a federal authority should be conducted.
There should be an option to reject the project, not just apply mitigation procedures, which is what's largely happening with every development project in our national parks at this point.
We should ensure that ecological integrity is the number one priority of the impact assessment agency or the federal authority when they are conducting impact assessments in federal protected areas. We should increase resources available to ensure all Canadians can be consulted on impact assessments in our federal protected areas.
Many of the projects we're seeing right now in national parks will inform the local communities only about the project rather than ask what all Canadians think. CPAWS would argue that our national parks are in the public trust. They are here for all Canadians to enjoy, and therefore, all Canadians should have a say in how they're managed.
More specifically, in clauses 22, 63, and 84 of the bill, which set out the factors to be considered when impact assessment is ongoing, we need to include that the impacts of the project on an ecosystem's biodiversity is a factor. Currently those sections consider climate change, but biodiversity and biodiversity loss in particular are crises that are facing the global community, and we need to address them here in Canada.
On clause 86, making the notice period at least 30 days when a federal authority is conducting a determination would provide adequate time for members of the public to read the information that is provided and provide feedback.
Finally, I would like to stress that nowhere in the bill is there any recognition that Canada is home to some amazing world heritage sites. Many of our national parks have been designated as globally important and as having outstanding universal values. Bill C-69 does not recognize this.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature provides guidance for how a state party should conduct impact assessment when a project is in or near a world heritage site. Our impact assessment regime should incorporate and adopt this guidance.
For the sake of our well-being and that of future generations, I urge this committee to recommend changes to Bill C-69 that would restore the presumption that projects in national parks and federal protected areas require impact assessment by the impact assessment agency.
I would also like to suggest to this committee that trust in the system and government accountability cannot be restored to the impact assessment regime when parks and protected areas, supposedly our most valued and conserved places, are not subject to the same or better requirements than the rest of our landscape. They must be elevated above the rest of the landscape and truly protected for the benefit of both current and future generations.
Thank you.