Ottawa revises rules of environmental review regime

The Harper government is rewriting the rules of environmental assessments, handing the Environment Ministry the power to minimize reviews of projects from open-pit mines to municipal construction along with other changes that critics claim will “gut” the environmental review process.

Suggestions of change to the environmental review regime were contained in the March federal budget, but the extent of the changes came to light with the release of the bill that implements financial aspects of the government’s new economic measures. Placing the reforms inside a budget bill forces the opposition parties to either accept them or bring down the minority government.

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Now, with the federal government stepping aside from many assessments, a larger number will be left in provincial hands.

“The capacity of provincial governments to hold environmental assessments varies,” said John Bennett of the Sierra Club, an environmental lobby group. “In the big provinces with lots of money you have pretty good environmental assessments. In the small provinces where you don’t have lots of money, you tend to have one-day hearings and a rubber stamp.”

A review of the Environmental Assessment Act, which must be re-examined every five years, was to have commenced in May.

“So the government had every opportunity to make these arguments in the public and in the proper forum and instead they have just turned their back on the public and the Parliament and said we are going to change this in a way that there will be no discussion,” Mr. Bennett said.