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.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Terence Hubbard  Vice-President, Operations Sector, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
Brent Parker  Acting Vice-President, Strategic Policy, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
Ian Ketcheson  Director General, Crown Consultations Division, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
Jennifer Saxe  Director General, Regional Operations, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada
Alison Clegg  Committee Researcher
Clerk of the Committee  Mr. Alexandre Roger

9:20 a.m.

NDP

Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC

To move away from carbon and look at nuclear, in the switchover the threshold no longer includes a number of smaller nuclear projects.

Can you talk about the rationale for excluding those?

9:20 a.m.

Acting Vice-President, Strategic Policy, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada

Brent Parker

That's a very specific case that relates to the life-cycle regulator for that sector, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

When we looked at projects with the offshore boards and those that would be regulated by the Canada Energy Regulator now, all of those life-cycle regulators look at those projects from cradle to grave. With a full life-cycle regulatory oversight by those regulators, we looked at the impact assessment process as a planning tool for major projects.

You will see that there are also some changes to the entries that are there, in terms of looking at nuclear projects that would be outside a licensed area. Those projects that are within a licensed area already and are fully regulated by the CNSC are ones for which it wasn't felt there would be additional value created by looking at them through an impact assessment process.

9:20 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi

You have 15 seconds. Do you want to give it up?

9:20 a.m.

NDP

Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC

That's okay.

9:20 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi

Thank you.

We now go to the second round of five minutes.

Mr. Redekopp.

9:20 a.m.

Conservative

Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK

Thank you.

I was looking at your website, this little picture of the five steps. It's great information on there, and lots of information there, so I commend you for what you've done with that.

I wanted to look at step 4, decision-making. I had some questions about that. Beyond what is publicly available and what's written in the regulations, you talked about things like the social, economic, health impacts, and so on.

What are the criteria used to determine what becomes a Governor in Council decision versus a ministerial decision?

9:20 a.m.

Acting Vice-President, Strategic Policy, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada

Brent Parker

It's aligned with the two streams that I mentioned earlier. If an impact assessment is done by the agency, then the decision-making at the end of that process is done by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

If the review process is done by a review panel, which is a choice that the minister would make at the end of the early planning phase, then that would go through to a GIC decision.

In the case of the life-cycle regulators that I mentioned, the Canada Energy Regulator or the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, those types of projects automatically go to an integrated review panel with the regulator, which then would be a GIC decision.

9:20 a.m.

Conservative

Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK

What flexibility does the president or the agency have in changing the criteria to favour one or the other? Like you said, the minister decides in that early phase. How do you shift it one way or the other?

9:20 a.m.

Vice-President, Operations Sector, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada

Terence Hubbard

Again, similar to the criteria that we look at when we receive requests to designate a project, we look at the potential for a project to have significant impacts in areas of federal jurisdiction and the nature and level of public concern around a project.

If it is a significant project that could have significant impacts and there's significant public concern around that project, those are the factors the minister would contemplate when deciding whether to bump up a review process to a review panel versus an agency-led assessment.

9:20 a.m.

Conservative

Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK

Do you have internal guidelines that you use for that sort of thing, or is that just pulled out of the air for every one?

9:20 a.m.

Vice-President, Operations Sector, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada

Terence Hubbard

We do have guidelines and we do follow certain criteria whenever we make these recommendations to the minister.

9:20 a.m.

Conservative

Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK

Could you share those guidelines with the committee, please?

9:20 a.m.

Vice-President, Operations Sector, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada

9:20 a.m.

Conservative

Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK

Thank you.

In the last week, obviously, there have been issues with the blockades and things like that. Let me refer to those as a “political situation” in the country.

Do political situations like that enter into some of the decision-making when it comes to whether these become ministerial or GIC issues, or in terms of the recommendations that you make?

9:25 a.m.

Vice-President, Operations Sector, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada

Terence Hubbard

Situations like that would point to, again, the nature of the public interest around the project. If there is substantive public interest, similar to what you're pointing out, that would definitely be something that is factored in and considered, whether to appoint an independent commission to look at that versus the agency leading that assessment process.

9:25 a.m.

Conservative

Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK

Okay.

9:25 a.m.

Acting Vice-President, Strategic Policy, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada

Brent Parker

I might just add to that around the guidelines. The criteria by which the minister decides on what path that project would go are actually laid out in the legislation in section 36. That's something that is clear, and then we support that through the guidelines.

9:25 a.m.

Conservative

Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK

You did indicate that there are some other criteria that are used internally for that as well. If you could provide those, that would be great.

You talked about the project list and a fair bit of analytical information that's used to determine what's on the list. Can you talk more about that analytical work that you did to determine that?

9:25 a.m.

Acting Vice-President, Strategic Policy, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada

Brent Parker

Sure. As I said, the EA review process, which began in 2016, was something that included the review of the project list. The basis for that review included starting with the existing project list in CEAA, 2012, and looking internally at what projects had typically come through the process.

The project list is actually fairly extensive and there were a number of projects that we typically saw coming through the system. There were others that we didn't see a huge number of projects. There were also changes, of course, over the past seven years since CEAA, 2012, came in in terms of regulatory frameworks. We looked at that with all of the expert federal departments that typically support us through an environmental assessment, and then also with the life-cycle regulators that I mentioned. In doing that, we determined what projects had the greatest potential for significant impacts on areas of federal jurisdiction in light of the other regulatory frameworks.

9:25 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi

Thank you very much.

We now move to Mr. Baker for five minutes.

February 25th, 2020 / 9:25 a.m.

Liberal

Yvan Baker Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON

Thank you, Chair.

If you don't mind, I'm going to share a little bit of my time with Mr. Scarpaleggia, who wanted to finish his last question.

9:25 a.m.

Liberal

Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC

Thank you very much, Mr. Baker.

Actually, I want to come back to the assessment process and how the new act streamlines the process so that federal-provincial overlap is avoided. This may even eliminate the need for joint assessments by the two levels of government and give all the responsibility for the environmental assessment to a provincial authority.

At the very beginning, you mentioned that you now have an agreement with British Columbia. So British Columbia would conduct the entire assessment? Is that correct?

9:25 a.m.

Director General, Regional Operations, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada

Jennifer Saxe

It depends on the project and the province. When we receive a request, we go through a planning stage for each project. We see which province is involved and what type of project it is. In the planning stage, for every project under the new act, we develop a plan to work with the province to see if we can dovetail our processes. Is this a project where one government can be substituted for another?

In British Columbia—the example you are using—we have an agreement. In fact, after we receive a project description, British Columbia will also conduct an assessment. Then it will make a request to the minister for substitution, so that we give British Columbia the authority to go ahead while making use of the assessment that we have done. However, when that happens, the agreement already outlines all the criteria, all the needs—

9:25 a.m.

Liberal

Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC

An equivalency agreement must be in place.

9:25 a.m.

Director General, Regional Operations, Impact Assessment Agency of Canada

Jennifer Saxe

That's right. However, other projects in other provinces are on a case-by-case basis. With the new act, we are developing a collaborative plan for almost all the projects to coordinate new projects.