Clearly, the legal opinion of lawyers at Ecojustice is at odds with the opinion of the minister, but at the end of the day this isn't about a matter of law; this is about a matter of philosophical and policy direction for the environmental governance regime Canada has. This is about the federal role in relation to environmental assessment.
Clearly, by shifting away from a trigger-based environmental assessment regime toward a project list environmental assessment regime, the ultimate result is that far fewer federal assessments will be done. As Commissioner Vaughan has pointed out, there are significant uncertainties going forward. It is only going to be pursuant to a project list regulation that we're going to discover the activities subject to federal environmental assessments. Right now we don't know. Will an environmental assessment be required for offshore exploratory drilling?
I suggest that this is a matter of significance, because if there is ever to be industrial activity that is socially and environmentally controversial, if we're going to move forward with proposals, we need to know there's a robust system that allows for consultation, that allows for opinions to be aired so we can achieve some form of consensus, or if there is no consensus, then at least achieve that level of understanding of the disagreement. If there's no assessment, if there's no process by which those disagreements can be aired and by which a degree of consensus can be reached, then I don't see where that's going to be achieved. I don't think that's for the better on the economic development side or on the environmental protection side.