Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak before the committee today.
I'm here on behalf of Ecojustice, as well as Sierra Club Canada. Ecojustice, formerly known as the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, is Canada's largest public interest environmental law organization. Ecojustice is a charitable organization with a mission to protect the environment through litigation and law reform.
Sierra Club Canada is also a national environmental organization that is grassroots in nature and devoted to protecting global ecosystems.
I'm going to speak in English. However, we can answer questions in French.
There's a broad consensus among people who concern themselves with environmental assessment that the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act needs reform. That's not really the question. The question is who's going to undertake the reforms. Ecojustice and Sierra Club Canada are extremely concerned that the act is being weakened through a series of piecemeal statutory amendments and regulatory changes without benefit of serious parliamentary or public discussion, when a more comprehensive and integrated response to reform is required.
I would ask two questions. First, what's the rush in getting this bill through as part of the omnibus budget legislation? What's the big hurry? As my colleagues have mentioned, we have the seven-year review coming up. Under law, it must be initiated in June of this year.
Second, are members of this committee comfortable addressing this environmental law? You're a finance committee. Why are you being asked to deal with environmental assessment legislation, which is complicated? It's important, but it's also complicated. You have a committee of the House of Commons whose job that is. The environment and sustainable development committee has that job. It's done reviews of CEAA before. Why isn't it being asked to do it this time?
As I've mentioned, there have been a number of piecemeal changes, of which this bill is only the most recent. Last year there were a number of changes to environmental assessment law that were also introduced through omnibus budget legislation. There were amendments to the Navigable Waters Protection Act, which had the effect of eliminating thousands of environmental assessments of projects, such as dams and bridges, that obstruct navigation and also sometimes have adverse environmental effects. These amendments were also not related to the budget, just as the provisions of part 19 and part 20 in this bill are not related to the budget. They also receive little discussion in Parliament.
This wasn't the only piecemeal change that we've seen before. In the budget from last year, we also had some regulatory changes that were announced, which also removed environmental assessment requirements. These regulations were not gazetted in Canada Gazette part I, which is very common, and the fact that they were not so gazetted is a breach of the government's regulatory policy. Secondly, these regulations were not referred through the regulatory advisory committee set up close to 20 years ago by the government of Brian Mulroney to provide assistance to the government in regulatory changes and statutory changes in environmental assessment issues.
We also understand the government is considering another bill on environmental assessment to be brought forward, we're not sure when. The minister spoke on this a year ago. We'll just have to see when that bill comes forward. There was a presentation from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, which I have included as part of my package.
Ecojustice and Sierra Club Canada don't accept the arguments that these changes are needed to avoid overlap and duplication. There have been several studies done on the extent to which there is overlap and duplication with federal environmental assessments. Both of these studies have found that there is very little. There was a 1997 study by the House of Commons environment committee, and in 2001 the federal environment minister reported that the federal EA system had been successful in avoiding duplication with the provinces.
Here are some suggestions for what this committee can do about all of this. Ecojustice and Sierra Club Canada are recommending that these environmental assessment provisions, parts 19 and 20, be deleted from Bill C-9. That's the first step. But we also suggest that this committee request that the House of Commons refer part 19 and part 20 to the environment and sustainable development committee for its consideration as part of the upcoming seven-year review of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.
We would suggest that the House of Commons environment committee should be allowed to do its job and carry out its legal mandate to have a considered, deliberate discussion about federal environmental assessment so that Canada can have an effective and efficient law, something that I think all of us around the table want to have.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.