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Prentice confirms cuts planned to environment reviews
March 13 2009 | News Articles | The Globe and Mail
Prentice confirms cuts planned to environment reviews
BILL CURRY
Globe and Mail
March 13, 2009
OTTAWA — The Conservative government plans dramatic cuts to the number of projects that require federal environmental assessments, triggering accusations that Ottawa is abandoning its environmental duties under the banner of economic stimulus.
A leaked government document outlining the proposed changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act indicates Environment Minister Jim Prentice has asked for a bill “overhauling” the legislation as soon as possible.
Under the new system, the government should “expect to capture 200-300 projects per year,” the document states. That would represent a more than 95 per cent drop from the roughly 6,000 federal environmental assessments that currently take place each year.
Environmentalists who released the document Friday at a press conference on Parliament Hill said they expect the bill will be introduced later this month or in April.
In an interview with The Globe following the press conference, Mr. Prentice confirmed he wants the legislation reviewed soon but added he has yet to decide what process the review will take.
He said the proposed changes are in response to the provinces, who recently told Prime Minister Stephen Harper that overlapping environmental rules will delay public stimulus spending from creating jobs.
“The [provincial] ministers of environment have been quite outspoken with me about it, that this legislation is very concerning and that in some cases it is slowing down projects with no consequential environmental benefits,” Mr. Prentice said. “There will be a process that is followed to examine the legislation and discuss any possible changes to it.”
Throughout the Conservatives’ three years in power, Mr. Prentice has been the government’s point man responsible for environmental negotiations with oil sands companies and the Mackenzie gas pipeline project, which has been bogged down in environmental hearings.
Environmentalists say provincial rules are often weaker than federal environmental laws and accuse Mr. Prentice of putting the need of industries like oil, mining and nuclear power ahead of the environment.
“This is no coincidence. It’s been clear since minister Prentice was appointed Environment Minister that he really still is the minister of industry,” said Stephen Hazell, the executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, an environmental advocacy group. “He’s pushing an old-style economy and not moving toward the clean energy economy that President [Barack] Obama has indicated that he wants to take his country towards.”
Mr. Prentice rejects that criticism, saying the proposed changes would not affect large projects like the oil sands or pipelines. He said the changes are aimed at weeding out reviews of smaller projects that do not impact the environment or are already reviewed by the provinces.
The minister’s comments represent the first detailed confirmation that the government wants to reform Canada’s environmental assessment legislation, which was brought in by the Brian Mulroney government in 1992.
The issue surfaced in January when the NDP released an internal government e-mail indicating Ottawa wanted to do away with environmental assessments for projects that cost less than $10-million.
The changes would come on the heels of a similar change included in the budget legislation that passed this week, which reduced the ability to trigger environmental assessments through the Navigable Waters Protection Act.
NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis said the proposed legislation would represent a much bigger change than the controversial measures passed in the budget.
“It’s not acceptable,” she said. “They really are using the economic recession to advance their agenda, which is disregard for the environment.”
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