Unpacking recent amendments that aim to “streamline” environmental reviews under Canada’s Impact Assessment Act
Since the dawn of federal and provincial environmental law, there have been calls for regulatory approvals to be more efficient.
Of course, “reducing red tape” is a mantra that extends far beyond the discourse of environmental protection. But powerful industry groups, as well as governments that either misunderstand or ignore the potentially catastrophic consequences of weak laws and bad decisions, have often portrayed environmental safeguards as a needless barrier. As a result, efforts to streamline regulatory processes are particularly prevalent when it comes to environmental laws – as well as particularly dangerous.
The quest for efficiency has intensified in recent years, but now, the climate crisis is being invoked to justify it. As Canada ramps up efforts to meet its climate targets, proponents and officials are calling for shorter timelines and fewer hurdles for new resource projects, ranging from low-emissions energy to transportation to the "critical" minerals we will need to transition to a low-carbon future.
Efficiency is important. But problems arise when it comes at the expense of environmental protection or is simply a guise for rubber-stamping applications for resource extraction, harming nature and actually contributing to the climate crisis.
Cutting red tape has consequences
This month marked ten years since the Mount Polley mine tailings disaster, the largest environmental disaster in Canadian history. It’s a powerful caution against under-regulation. As we noted in this blog, neither the original mine nor subsequent expansions underwent environmental assessments, and an investigation into the spill revealed missed inspections, blatant red flags being ignored, and a pass-the-buck style of interdepartmental coordination.
As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The precautionary principle is cited in numerous Canadian environmental laws – but it is rarely applied, and even more rarely appears to guide political decisions.
In 2012, the federal government of the day wanted to make environmental assessments and other regulatory processes more efficient for tar sands pipelines. It followed the direction of Canada's biggest oil and gas players by gutting key environmental laws in order to ram through the Northern Gateway and Trans Mountain pipelines, two carbon bombs with potential disastrous consequences for BC’s salmon rivers and coastal environment. The plan backfired: courts reviewing both pipeline approvals found deficiencies in Indigenous consultation, and in the next election, voters tired of having bad projects pushed down their throats voted the government out.
While some projects purport to help our climate, they often come with considerable trade-offs for nature or people. The Site C dam has been touted as a clean energy project, but the $16 billion behemoth will have irrevocable impacts on the unique Peace River Valley ecosystem in Treaty 8 territory. And for what? Not to power homes, but to electrify projects to export LNG to other countries.
Again, pursuing efficiency is not inherently bad. Duplication can be as much of a burden for Indigenous nations and local communities as it is for proponents, and lack of coordination can just as easily lead to holes as it does overlap. The issue is not with efficiency, but with how it is pursued.
Efficiency and the clean energy transition
In 2023, Prime Minister Trudeau appointed a Ministerial Working Group on Regulatory Efficiency for Clean Growth Projects and mandated it to find ways to make the regulatory framework for “clean growth projects” more efficient. The Working Group published its plan in June 2024. The plan doesn’t define what “clean growth projects” means, although it does list examples: hydro, wind, solar and “clean” hydrogen, “clean fuels” generation and transmission (including biomass/biofuel projects), carbon capture and storage, infrastructure, “clean technology,” “forestry clean technology,” small modular nuclear reactors, and “critical minerals” mines and processing (including “priority” minerals like copper and lithium).
Some of these projects, like wind and solar energy, have long been recognized as necessary for decarbonization, though they do require careful planning and siting. Others, like carbon capture and storage, are pure greenwash – the International Energy Agency even called carbon capture an “illusion.”
Whatever the type of project, it can be carried out responsibly, or poorly. It can be located in an area that makes sense, or it can be proposed in an absurd location – like the Ajax open-pit copper-gold mine that was proposed barely a kilometre away from the city of Kamloops, BC and that would have destroyed a sacred lake of the Stk’emlupsemc te Secwepemc Nation (it was rejected by the federal, provincial and First Nations authorities).
Projects can be “clean” and still harm nature. The climate crisis isn’t the only crisis that Canada – and all of humanity – is confronting. As we have written previously, Canada’s species and natural spaces have been in decline since the 1970s, and the trend is only getting worse.
We have an obligation to halt and reverse nature loss under the Global Biodiversity Framework, including by reversing species decline, protecting at least 30% of our lands and ocean by 2030, and supporting Indigenous-led conservation, such as Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) and Guardians programs. Yet some of these conservation initiatives are being undermined in the name of “clean” resource development. For example, a proposed emergency order intended to protect boreal caribou herds in Quebec facing imminent extinction excludes “critical mineral” projects.
Yes, getting off fossil fuels (which we must do to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change) will take new materials, new infrastructure, and new energy sources. While urgent action is needed, it cannot come at the expense of nature, Indigenous rights or human health. Tempting as it may be, cutting corners cannot be an option.
Efficiency is a subjective term. Discussions of efficiency in environmental regulation tend to be aimed at making processes faster, cheaper and less bureaucratic. But they must also be aimed at the primary purpose of that regulation.
If you wanted to make your commute to work more efficient you might look at things like how much time it takes (speed), how you use that time (productivity), and how much the commute costs (expense). The primary objective is getting to work, the secondary objectives are maximizing speed and productivity and minimizing expense. Riding your bike around the block and then going back to bed may be cheaper and faster, but it wouldn’t be efficient because it would miss the primary objective of getting to work.
We have environmental impact assessment and regulatory approval processes for good reason. Any efforts to make them more efficient must be fundamentally aimed at protecting the environment and human health, respecting Indigenous rights and advancing us towards a sustainable existence on this Earth. Processes cannot be efficient unless they help achieve those goals.
Amendments to Canada’s Impact Assessment Act
Like a commute that doesn’t get you to work, recent amendments to the Impact Assessment Act aimed at efficiency may end up having the opposite effect.
For example, one set of amendments limits how many times Cabinet can extend assessment and decision-making timelines. The amendments are clearly intended to appease complaints that at least in theory, assessments could go on forever. However, there is a good reason for flexibility in timelines: in Canada, Indigenous peoples have constitutionally-protected rights that require governments to consult in good faith about any decisions that might affect those rights. Courts have been clear that consultation must be meaningful. What is more, Indigenous nations have their own laws and decision-making processes that Crown governments must respect, and that operate along their own timelines. Putting a hard limit on federal decisions could easily mean those decisions get challenged in court, an invariably longer process than taking the time to do it right the first time around. A stitch in time…
The latest amendments also allow for the federal government to “substitute” parts of provincial assessment processes for federal ones. For example, the federal government could use a provincial report about a project’s socio-economic effects, or effects on water quality, instead of doing its own. This approach could lead to “Frankenstein” assessments with bits cut and pasted from here and there with little or no connection to each other. But the natural world, not to mention society and the economy, are comprised of systems, not silos. Those systems are complex, and they interact in complex ways. It is inconceivable how impact assessments that are more fragmented and siloed could come close to understanding those systems and their interactions – let alone resulting in informed decisions about them.
Because of Canada’s federalism, with Crown responsibility for environmental protection shared between the provinces and the federal government, and because Indigenous rights and jurisdiction are a legal reality that must be respected, mitigating climate change while protecting ecosystems must be a cooperative exercise. Our environmental laws exist for a reason. Without strong laws, rivers might once again catch on fire, protective atmospheric layers could develop giant holes, or industrial polluters might poison Indigenous communities with toxic waste.
Instead of just looking to shorten timelines, governments wanting to pursue efficiency should be focused on the most effective and collaborative ways of ensuring environmental decision-making. Because if climate change has taught us one thing, it’s that focusing on short-term profits can come with massive long-term costs.
For more information, our brief explains the rationale for the amendments and what the amendments do.