Confession:
I am a pack rat who rarely throws out files. Last night I found the
environmental assessment from the first EA process in which I
participated. The Wreck Cove Hydroelectric Project EA was mailed to me on
April 28, 1977. So that makes 35 years experience in environmental
assessment.
Back then
Environmental Assessment was under a Guidelines Order of the Privy Council,
called the Environmental Assessment Review Process. Just how binding this cabinet
order was remained an open question until a Federal court case on the
Rafferty-Alameda Dams decision. Back in 1988 I had resigned on principle
when my boss, the environment minister, signed the permits for the dams,
without any environmental review. This caused the landmark Federal Court
ruling.
Before my
resignation, we had already been working on getting clear and effective
environmental assessment law passed. As the Senior Policy Advisor to the
Minister, I has steered the white paper through the Privy Council Office to get
permission to draft what became the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.
I have
watched the painstaking process of bringing Canada into the 20th
century of environmental law (that’s right, I meant 20th
century). CEAA was never the world’s best EA law. It has been
riddled with concessions to industry from the get-go.
It is a
tool of planning to start an EA as soon as possible in the process. Tens
of thousands of Canadian projects have been reviewed. The majority have
seen improvements in the process. 99% proceed to be built, but many have
modifications to reduce the environmental impact.
But the
Harper Conservatives have turned it into a whipping boy for delay.
Delay? It is an outrage that our limited, cautious approach to EA, SO
much weaker than the law in the US, is too much for Harper.
First
they weakened it in the 2010 Omnibus Budget Bill, forcing through taking energy
projects out of EA and weakening comprehensive study. Then they cut
CEAA’s budget by 40%.
Today,
the House Committee for the Environment issued a pre-ordained set of
recommendations to further destroy environmental review. Under CEAA every
5 years, there is a mandatory review of the Act. In 2000, the
review took over a year. Hearings were held across the
country. The process ran from January 2000 to March 2001.
This time, the committee pulled the plug after hearing witnesses for nine
days. That’s right -- the previous government studied the law for 15
months. The conservatives didn’t give it 15 days. Many witnesses, who had
been informed they would be heard, were turned away. I thought at the
time that PMO must have told the Conservatives who control the committee to
deliver ASAP a report to gut the process. And they did.
I fear
that the sweeping changes – removing CEAA jurisdiction from any province with
“equivalent” EA, removing the requirement to consider alternatives, ordering
fixed time lines for reviews, giving the Minister increased powers,
“streamlining” First Nations consultations – all point toward more nails in
CEAA’s coffin.
After 35 years of working on environmental
assessment, I am watching the current government weaken the process to less
than we had in 1977. No government had a mandate to un-do environmental law.
No government has a mandate to destroy our natural world.