Environment Committee on May 9th, 2018

[Brent Parker]

I can speak to that second part.

That additional text about tailored guidelines refers to the products that would be prescribed in regulation under proposed section 112. Those would be issued then by the agency, as well as the other products that are outlined in addition to the guidelines.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

There's a difference between guidelines and regulations. You're saying that you're going to have a regulation that will issue guidelines.

[Brent Parker]

The regulation would prescribe the various different products that are laid out there, and it would prescribe the information and studies in that guideline that the proponent has to prepare in order to support the impact assessment process.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

This is not clear to me. You're going to issue guidelines by regulation.

[Christine Loth-Bown]

The information and time management regulation that we're currently consulting on now—there's a consultation paper out there—would lay out the information that the agency would require of a proponent, as well as the requirements of the agency on what they need to give the proponent, and the time frames in which the process would be managed.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Those are mandatory. They're not guidelines.

[Christine Loth-Bown]

The tailored guidelines would replace what is currently known as the EIS, the environmental impact statement.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Either they're regulations or they're guidelines. I don't know what a tailored guideline is. I think it's just really strange drafting.

[Christine Loth-Bown]

The regulation would prescribe what would be in the tailored guidelines that would be given to a proponent for them to fill their information requirements to conduct the assessment.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Are you saying you would make the guidelines mandatory?

[Christine Loth-Bown]

The guidelines are part of the process, yes. That's what requires the information that the proponent needs to bring forward in the impact assessment process. The guidelines are the culmination of the feedback that we would receive from the public, from indigenous groups, from other jurisdictions, through the early planning process. They're a key product of the early planning process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much.

Shall amendments LIB-9, LIB-12, LIB-13, and LIB-56 carry?

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I'd like a recorded vote.

(Amendments agreed to: yeas 5; nays 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Next up is PV-17.1

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Isn't it PV-17? Is that still accurate?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

PV-17 is dealt with under this one, so it's PV-17.1.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I'm sorry, Madam Chair. I'm confused as to what happened to PV-17.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

As I mentioned before, if it's adopted, you have a line conflict, and therefore you couldn't do it anymore.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Okay, but PV-17.1 is fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Yes, PV-17.1 is fine.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

You also mentioned LIB-13. Does that mean LIB-13 is also adopted?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Yes, LIB-12, LIB-13, LIB-56 are all adopted, and I said if they're adopted PV-17 and PV-22 cannot be moved because there will be a line conflict, and NDP-26 and PV-23 can't be moved because then they're moot.

Let's move on to PV-17.1.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Okay. I think that members of the committee will recognize the concepts and the language here because they come right out of the expert report on the environmental assessment commission by the government, and its guidance in the agency's decision to incorporate what the expert panel described as minimum factors. I'm inserting, at page 15, line 32 around this. How it reads now is:

(2) In making its decision, the Agency must take into account

My amendment reads:

(2) In making its decision, the Agency must determine whether the designated project is clearly linked to matters of federal interest by considering if it takes place on federal lands or uses federal funding and if the federal government is a proponent of the designated project, as well as the extent to which the project would affect any of the following:

(a) Indigenous peoples and lands;

(b) species at risk;

(c) fish;

(d) marine plants;

(e) migratory birds;

(f) greenhouse gas emissions of national significance;

(g) watershed or airshed effects crossing provincial or national boundaries;

(h) navigation and shipping;

(i) aeronautics;

(j) activities crossing provincial or national boundaries and works related to those activities; or

(k) activities related to nuclear energy.

Then it continues with proposed subsection (2.1):

(2.1) If the Agency determines that the designated project is clearly linked to matters of federal interest, it must take into ac-

That way the rest of what currently is under “Factors” in proposed paragraphs 16(2)(a) through (g) apply without needing any alteration. It fits in neatly there without any requirements to bump or renumber what you find on page 16 in proposed paragraphs 16(2)(a) through (g).

Not to put too fine a point on it, this is critical for this legislation to rebuild trust. This is the section that undoes what happened in Bill C-38 when Stephen Harper repealed the Environmental Assessment Act and removed the full scope of federal jurisdiction and triggers from the way in which the federal government must do impact assessments, as they're now known, in areas of federal jurisdiction. This essentially is what the federal government did between 1976 and 2012, a period of time in which projects were completed: 99.9% of the ones that went through environmental assessment were approved, but they were approved through the process of environmental assessment federally by the consideration of all projects, whether they were federal money, federal lands, the federal government as a proponent, and touching in these areas.

Again, this was described in the expert panel report. The experts were hand-chosen by cabinet ministers. They went across the country. This is the advice, word for word, from the expert panel. It fits so neatly into this section. I hope you'll consider accepting this, to save this bill and make it rebuild trust.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We'll go to Ed first.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Chair, this will do nothing to restore trust that projects of national interest will actually get built in an environmentally sustainable way.

What you see here is on top of all the new criteria that have been imposed within the legislation, the upstream and downstream impacts. Now you're adding another 11 criteria that proponents are going to have to address and overcome. You're adding obstacle after obstacle in the way of getting projects properly reviewed and approved when they are in the national interest and when these projects can be built in a sustainable way.

This takes it far beyond what we already have in this bill. Even as it is, this bill is a step backward. It's going to undermine investment in Canada. This proposal is the death knell of development in Canada.