Evidence of meeting #3 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was process.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Yvan Baker Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
When I talk to my constituents, they think about the decisions that are being made on the basis of the information or assessments that you provide. I think one of the things they're curious about is what is being analyzed and how. I know we only have two minutes left, but just briefly, could you talk about what aspects of environmental impact you assess and how you do that?
9:30 a.m.
Acting Vice-President, Strategic Policy, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
I'll start with what we do. As was mentioned a couple of times already, it's an assessment of impact. It's not just of the environment. It's social, health and economic impacts as well.
In terms of the environment focus, we essentially look at anything related to the project that is of interest to those who are engaging in that process. The early planning phase is really the key to that. We will have a public, transparent process where communities, stakeholders and indigenous groups can identify those things that are of interest or concern to them. Traditionally, it's been our looking at the significant adverse environmental effects, but there's also the possibility and obligation under the new act for us to be looking at positive effects.
We look at all of the environmental effects in federal jurisdiction. That would include things like biodiversity, species at risk, climate change issues and water issues—you name it. It's something that we've probably heard in an assessment and have done analytics around.
As Mr. Hubbard mentioned, we rely heavily on other federal departments' in expertise. Where we don't have expertise in house, within the federal government, we're also able to reach outside and work with other academics or experts. There's also a new set of provisions under the act that allows us to reach outside and have external technical reviews as a tool, where there's uncertainty on the science associated with some of those environmental or other areas. Those external technical reviews will basically do a rapid response review of the literature and the science and provide information where there's uncertainty about how analysis should be undertaken.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Hi. I'm Dan Mazier from Manitoba.
I want to talk about flood protection. Of course, it's Manitoba, right? You folks are familiar with the Lake Saint Martin project. If I'm understanding the conversation correctly, the act was changed in 2019. The conversation that's going on right now in Manitoba is about the goalposts that are changing. We can't built flood protection in Manitoba right now with the new act in place. Everybody is running out of patience because we're flooding out communities.
How are the new rules impacting positively on flood protection? Is anything being taken into account differently now when it comes to flood protection types of strategies? I know there are communities now that are being assessed differently. There are things that have changed drastically in that whole assessment process.
As well, are these projects weighted? When you determine the criteria for each project, and the criteria of, say, species at risk versus carbon emissions, are they given certain points? How do you determine what the priority is of that project or of the department?
My last question is regarding old process versus new process. Just for clarity, the old process allowed the province and the federal government to determine who was going to be on the panel. In the new process, the federal minister decides who's going to be on that panel.
Those are my three questions.
9:30 a.m.
Vice-President, Operations Sector, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
Maybe I can start, and then I'll ask my colleague, who's been very closely engaged in this specific project that you mentioned, to join in.
One of the misconceptions around the Lake Manitoba project is that it is subject to the requirements of the new legislation. But it's actually being evaluated under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012. The way the transition provisions were written in the legislation were such that any project started under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012, would continue under that regime as if that regime had not been repealed.
9:35 a.m.
Vice-President, Operations Sector, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
Coming back to your question about panel appointments and panel members, there is a nuance there.
The Minister of the Environment is responsible for creating a roster of members who could be appointed by the agency to individual panels, but we would still work with provincial governments on the potential for joint panels, as we have in the past. In those cases, as Jen noted earlier, we would specifically develop a collaboration agreement on how those appointments would work.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
9:35 a.m.
Vice-President, Operations Sector, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
As part of our planning process before getting into the formal assessment process, we would put in place and negotiate a formal co-operation and collaboration agreement, which would outline how we would work with the province. We would anticipate, if it were a review panel type of assessment, that the mechanics of how those appointments would work would be laid out in that agreement.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
9:35 a.m.
Acting Vice-President, Strategic Policy, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
I'll take over the weighting.
If I understand the question correctly, you're wanting to understand how we consider all of the factors in the final public interest decision.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Yes. It's the impact on indigenous communities versus on burrowing owls, snake dens and things like that.
9:35 a.m.
Acting Vice-President, Strategic Policy, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
There's the requirement in section 22 of the act to look at all of these different factors. As I mentioned, that would get scoped down in the early planning phase to a subset of what we potentially could look at. That, then, will inform the final report and the public interest decision.
In the public interest decision, the rationale for structuring it in the way it is, with five different factors, is to ensure that we're looking at projects holistically. There's not a weighting system where we're assigning points to different sorts of criteria.
But there is a report, as you will have seen through different projects that a panel or the agency will produce, that will identify those types of impacts that are significant. That's a requirement in the act and in the public interest decision. At the end, we actually need to consider which of the impacts are significant versus not, and then look at the mitigations associated with those potential impacts.
Then, the work that my colleague was talking about with indigenous consultations and impacts on rights would be rolled into the decision through a Crown consultation report, which would provide the views of indigenous peoples. All of that would be considered together in the final decision.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
Thank you very much for being here.
I have two specific questions. The first is on our plan to plant two billion trees. One of the things we see with large-scale planting projects is that we tend to plant them in rows, which creates a monoculture and is usually highly susceptible to disease. There's no biodiversity or any ecological benefits from just planting one species.
How would you assess a project like that? Would you have to have different or varying species of trees, or would you just allow the planting of one type of tree?
9:35 a.m.
Vice-President, Operations Sector, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
Typically, forestry projects like this aren't identified on our project list. The way we would typically go about it is that we have standardized filing requirements, if you will, or guidelines for proponents that indicate the types of environmental, social, and economic factors that any proponent would need to look at.
We would consult with the proponent. We would consult with provincial jurisdictions. We would consult with indigenous communities as well as expert departments such as Natural Resources Canada, which has a forestry sector, and Environment and Climate Change Canada, which has specific interests and specific scientific expertise that we would rely on for their advice on how best to achieve the outcomes of the project and mitigate any potential environmental effects associated with it.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
The second question I have is regarding an international treaty we signed in 1991, the Espoo Convention, which talked about international transboundary projects that would impact either us or other countries. One of the things that I have some skepticism about is that when we look at the Arctic and the melting polar ice there, we are going to see more polar routes potentially opening up more opportunities for resource extraction.
Canada has not had an issue yet because France and Denmark have signed locally, but when we look at the Arctic Council, two important members of the Arctic Council, whether Russia or the United States, have not ratified that agreement.
When you look at the observer countries, the other 13 countries—China is one of those 13 countries—how are you going to deal with this when we've ratified the treaty but other countries have not ratified it but also have an interest in the Arctic? How are you going to assess projects or allow...if they decide to do a project tomorrow, especially since we are the only ones who have ratified that treaty?
9:40 a.m.
Acting Vice-President, Strategic Policy, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
I have a couple thoughts on that.
One is that, under the Impact Assessment Act, outside of that convention, there are obligations and provisions for us to cooperate with other jurisdictions where there are potential transboundary effects. We've seen some of that already with the United States—not in the Arctic that I'm aware of but certainly on the southern border.
We've had projects where the U.S. EPA has indicated an interest and we've cooperated with them on the potential for cross-boundary effects. That's something we do have some experience with. Similarly, going forward, I think that if there are additional projects that arise because of changes in the Arctic, we would undertake a similar process where we would cooperate with them through some of the cooperation mechanism that—
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
I'm not worried about the United States, because they've signed the convention but not ratified it. That's usually a standard American political procedure where they'll sign treaties but won't ratify them.
My concern is specifically with China or Russia, especially China because of the belt and road initiative, and also because of the polar route initiative, which they are very active in, and also Russia in that area, especially when it comes to resource extraction.
Because we've signed the convention, we would do our due diligence in announcing, explaining or trying to mitigate the impact assessment or the study that would be going forward, but how do we deal with states that have not ratified that and may continue, especially in that very sensitive area of the Arctic?
9:40 a.m.
Vice-President, Operations Sector, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
Unfortunately, we don't have any specific tools under our legislation, the Impact Assessment Act, to ensure that other countries adhere to the spirit and intent of some of those treaties. In those types of circumstances, we would need to work through Global Affairs, through our colleagues at Environment and Climate Change Canada, and through other means and mechanisms to try to address those issues. We just don't specifically have anything within our toolbox to be able to deal with those issues.
