Ottawa to slash environment review role

The federal government is reducing the number of departments and agencies that can do environmental reviews from 40 to just three to speed up approvals for projects that will bolster Canada's economy, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said today.

Expanding on plans announced in the March 29 budget, Oliver on Tuesdaylaid out the specifics of the Conservative government'smajor overhaul of environmental assessments, aimed atspeeding up whatthe ministerlabelled a "duplicative, cumbersome and uncertain"process.

The movesare sure to please companies that have long complained of a lengthy, costly review process, citing previous majorprojects that have taken almost a decade to gain approval.

But the measures were immediately condemned by opposition MPs and environmental groups, which said the Harpergovernment's push for "streamlining" was merelycode for guttingCanada's environmental assessment process.

The government will move to a "one project, one review" policy on environmental projects byrecognizing provincial reviews, as long as they meet the requirements of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the minister said.

Oliverinsisted the new plan is critical to creating jobs, economic growth and long-term prosperity.

"With scarce resources, it is counter-productive to have the federal and provincial governments completing separate reviews of the same project," Oliver said in Toronto.

"We need to tap into the tremendous appetite for resources in the worlds dynamic emerging economies resources we have in abundance."

The only federalbodies to carry out reviews will be the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, the National Energy Board and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

Timelines to apply to Northern Gateway

There will be "fixed timelines" for major economic projects, he said:

• 24 months for review panels under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.
• 18 months for projects under the National Energy Board Act.
• 12 months for "standard" assessments.

Once approved, the proposed timelines, which Oliver said would be tabled in Parliament "fairly soon," will apply to current projects being reviewed, including theNorthern Gateway pipeline projectin British Columbia.

Northern Gatewayis before a Joint Review Panel (JRP) of the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. Under the new rules, a review panel would have to be finished within 24 months, whichcould mean the Northern Gateway review would have to wrap up in May of this year a full year-and-a-half before it was scheduled to end.

But Oliver saidthe proposed changes towhat projects qualify forJRPs would not be applied toNorthern Gateway.

Government officials said the proposed legislation also ensures that only people with a "direct interest" would be allowed to intervene in a project review, but gave no indication how "direct interest" would be defined.

They also offered a clue as to how the government would identify which projects are "major", citing lists in current provincial legislation in British Columbia and Quebec.

Projects that don't meet the federal governments definition of major will be assessed by provinces using provincial criteria. If no such criteria exist or a province doesn't deem a certain project worthy of assessment, it won't get an environmental assessment.

Oliveralsodismissed critics' assertions that the proposed overhaul would lead to a rubber-stamping of projects for the benefit of corporate interests over environmental concerns.

"Some claim that it is an either/or proposition,the economy or the environment. We disagree," Oliver said."We believe the two can and must go together."

Moves gut environmental protection, say critics

Environmental groups andopposition parties, however, insist thegovernment is merelygivingbig energycompanies carte blanche by dismantling the checks and balances that protect the environment.

"After slashing funding to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, theyre now saddling it with the obligation to do more complex reviews, faster, with fewer resources," NDP environment critic Megan Leslie said Tuesday.

"You're going to have less time, less resources from the federal government to actually look at and understand these projects and less opportunity for the public to point out errors and omissions in submissions by proponents," John Bennett, executive director of Sierra Club Canada, told CBCNews.ca.

Green Party Leader and MP Elizabeth May said the moves go farther than what industry stakeholders were asking for.

"This kind of savaging of the environmental assessment process are more about speeding the development even more than the industry needs,"May told CBC News Network.

May and Bennett bothsaid theoverallimpact fromthe government's move comes not just from changing the rules, but from cutting budgets of federal departments such as Environment Canada,and firing hundreds of scientistswho currently contribute to the environmental review process and work toprotect Canadians from environmental disasters.

"What's really happening here is that the federal government is abdicating its responsibility and trying to get out of the protecting-the-environment business,"SierraClub's Bennettsaid. "Why don't they go all the way and shut down Environment Canada and be honest and say, 'We don't give a shit'? Because that's what they're doing."

The government counters that by not reviewing small, minorprojects, it canfocus more resources on major ones, as well as back up"enforceable" assessment decisions with financial penaltiesof up to$400,000 for companies that refuse to comply with decision conditions.

David Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, applauded the measures,saying they willaddress some of the uncertainty companies face over how long their applications take in the existing process.

Collyer said he believes thateliminatingagency overlapand redundancy allows formore resources to be directedto assessments ofmajor projectsthat havea larger potentialfor environmental impact.

"I don't see anything in any of the announcements that would indicate to me that there's any intention to reduce environmental oversight," Collyer told CBCNews.ca.

"The focus on responsible environmental outcomes, we all expect that and Canadians expect that."

In addition,the Harper government will spend $35 million over two years on marine safety and $13.5 million on pipeline safety to help protect the environment, Oliver said.

That will include requiring double hulls and mandatory pilots on oil tankers, as well asmore inspections of oil and gas pipelines.