Evidence of meeting #112 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was agency.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Paragraph (g) is traditional knowledge. Are you excluding that?
Vice-President, Policy Development Sector, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency
Madam Chair, I could explain this amendment.
Liberal
Vice-President, Policy Development Sector, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency
Section 22(2) of the proposed act allows for this scoping of factors in an impact assessment. You scope in what needs to go into those tailored guidelines. Changing it to take out (g) means that the traditional knowledge cannot be scoped. It has to be mandatorily considered. That is how I interpret the proposed amendment.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Okay, so that's why it's been taken right out, so that it doesn't fall under the scoping—
Vice-President, Policy Development Sector, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency
Right. You are able to scope the other elements, but not what's in proposed paragraph 22(1)(g).
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
There are lots of other ones you can't scope too: 22(1)(p), 22(1)(q).
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Okay, I think that's clarity. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that.
Shall LIB-18 carry?
Liberal
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Okay, I'm raising a serious question.
Is the government saying that a panel will never have any role in scoping?
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
No, on anything. This gets only the agency and the minister to the scoping.
I've never heard of a review where the panel is not authorized to sit down with all the parties and scope the terms of reference for the review.
My understanding is that the panel essentially has almost no role under this bill.
Vice-President, Policy Development Sector, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency
The scoping takes place in the early planning phase, where it's still under the agency to scope in what goes into the tailored impact statement guidelines. That being said, there are provisions for panels, and terms of reference need to be established for those panels. The terms of reference get approved by the minister, and the panel can add additional parameters into those.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Madam Chair, could I ask Ms. Loth-Bown what the reason is for removing the scoping from the traditional knowledge piece.
Vice-President, Policy Development Sector, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency
Well, traditional knowledge is a mandatory factor for consideration, and it says it must be taken into consideration.
Vice-President, Policy Development Sector, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency
To have it scoped would be contradictory to saying it must be taken into consideration, because what you can do in subsection 22(2) of the proposed impact assessment act is be able to scope the factors on a project-by-project basis and provide a rationale for why something is scoped in or not scoped in. Because all projects are not equal, we've laid out the factors here that would need to be assessed within a project context, but some of them may be relevant and some won't be, so then you provide a rationale for that.
But to be able to scope proposed paragraph (g), which is traditional knowledge, would be contradictory to the “must take it into consideration”.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Okay, I think you've said that a couple of times now, and I think it's clear.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
I must misunderstand what the word “scoping” means. When I think of something being scoped, it means that the minister or the agency frames or—