Budget as Bulldozer: Take two

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By Elizabeth May on 1 April 2010 - 9:31am

Last year, I wrote a blog with this title.  I was shocked to find the 2009 Budget Implementation Bill was being used to gut the Navigable Water Protection Act (NWPA).  The NWPA had been cornerstone environmental legislation since 1867, but the Conservative government decided that an objective definition of “navigable” could be replaced with “anything the Minister of Transport thinks it is.”

Despite a valiant fight by a handful of senators (former Progressive Conservatives for the most part), the 2009 Budget Implementation Bill was passed… doing damage to the environment in the guise of a budgetary measure.

This year is worse.  The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA) is clearly in the Harper governments cross-hairs.   First, the budget text (as reported) included the unprecedented move to take energy projects away from the CEAA and assign environmental assessment for energy projects to the National Energy Board or the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.  Now, the details of the 2010 Budget Implementation Bill have been released, and, you guessed it, it gets worse.

The new amendments were clearly designed to evade the implications of the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision on the Red Chris Mine.  The Red Chris mine is a gold and copper mine in BC. In January the SCC found that the Environment Minister had failed in legal obligations under CEAA by describing the details of the project that require review (called “scoping”) in such a way that damaging aspects would be excluded from environmental assessment.   The 2010 Budget Implementation Bill means the minister can scope the project any old way he or she chooses.  Big huge mine? Tiny little assessment.

This is a body blow to environmental assessment.  The new bill also removes the requirement for public consultation on projects subject to Comprehensive Study.   Comprehensive Study only applies to fairly large projects with real potential for environmental damage. This actually runs directly counter to the purposes of the Act.  It also removes projects funded through infrastructure money flowing to municipalities or First Nation.

The additional irony is that CEAA comes up for a mandatory statutory review in May.  The Agency and Parliamentarians were gearing up for hearings in the House of Commons.

So adding insult to environmental injury, this latest gutting of environmental legislation demonstrates the Conservative government’s contempt for Parliament.

By sticking this regressive set of amendments in the Budget Implementation Bill, the government is counting on Opposition Parties holding their noses and passing it. I wish they would stop holding their noses and open their mouths…. It is time to speak up to protect the few environmental laws we have (had) in Canada.

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Sadly the Harper government

Submitted by David Parker on 1 April 2010 - 12:38pm.

Sadly the Harper government has managed to silence opposition on almost every issue. Why? Every party places votes, and level of voter concern on an issue, above ethical behaviour.

It seems that elected officials, who should be working for the good of Canadians generally have abnigated their exalted positions because people are not out on the streets protesting this issues.

OK, I'm not stupid. We hear all the time that the number one criteria is getting elected, but at what cost? At what point does one park one's conscience at the door? Constantly the focus of politicians is not 'right and wrong' but polling numbers - will this or that stand get me votes? I guess this is why the saying "if the people lead then the politicians will follow" has become a truism.

My long held fear is that we Greens will fall into this pattern when we begin getting elected. I'm sure Elizabeth will never sell out, but what of the rest?

Politicians and pundits require courage, especially now as the ecological/economic situation continues to polarize society. In a polarized society the noisiest, most intimidating and most powerful tend to win out - look at the best example, the Iraq war.

Millions of concerned people took to the streets against invading Iraq, to no avail. Probably similar numbers were deeply concerned about nazism in 1930's Germany, but were cowed into silence.

My point is this: the Green Party must stand out as a beacon of ethical reason at a time when, not only is the economic situation in peril, but the very future of biodiversity and hence civilization is also threatened. If we let the grizzlies go it will be that much easier to allow the massive die of to continue unabated. It will be that much easier to permit the Athabasca Tar Sands abomination to devastated even more land and water.

Crises tend to sort out the courageous from the conformist. I sincerely hope the Greens continue, with Elizabeth, to choose truth over expediency.

Are we surprized?

Submitted by Michael Bradley on 1 April 2010 - 12:40pm.

I wrote every HoP and Senate member about this travesty last year and the only sitting members who seemed concerned enough to respond were NDP. Alas they were unable to do much. Other than hold their noses, the Liberals are useless it appears and unwilling to even campaign against what the Harper govt is doing to our country. No wonder they are so far down in the polls! Thanks as well to the lack of media attention, few appear to know the country is being taken apart stick by stick until it will be too late to fix.

Need To Raise The Bar for EAs

Submitted by Paul Edward Renaud on 8 April 2010 - 9:43am.

We can leverage the public debate to press for higher minimum standards for how, when, and how well EAs will be done in future.

The changes proposed by Harper will withdraw or limit the Federal government from mandating or participating in EA process. 

This creates a vacume of responsibility that effectively hands over more responsibility to the provinces for assuring that EAs are done.

While we can question the wisdom of a federal retreat on EAs, we must absolutely insist that if the government wants to retreat, then they must ensure that a higher minimum standard is in place to be enforced by other levels of government.

There are many holes in the current set of provincial standards as is well evidenced by the current Terry Fox Road fiasco in Ottawa.  For example, current code of conduct for EAs:

  1. Do not require species impact assessment to be performed when species-at-risk are threatened by a proponent of a project.
  2. Do not identify hard minimium criteria for when mitigation alternatives must be considered by a proponent.
  3. Do not require that effectiveness assessment be performed for proposed mitigation measures when the are intended to protect endangered species.
  4. Do not require a proponent to specifically address the issues raised by public consultation - they only require that public consultation occurs.
  5. Do not provide a minimum standard of practice to be used when evaluating alternatives.
  6. Do not identify hard criteria to guide the selection of scope for an EA.  Existing guidance varies by province and uses woolly terms such as "project complexity" which is to be interpreted solely by the proponent.
  7. Do not require minimum criteria to ensure provincial oversight of the EA process.  The Class EA process in Ontario, for example, is a proponent-driven process with little involvement from provincial authorities to ensure that it is properly completed.
  8. Do not identify hard criteria for determining when an EA Addendum is required due to changing project circumstances.  As an example, the City of Ottawa took the position that it did not need to file an EA Addendum even though it's project planned to divert the only tributary that drains a sub-watershed.
  9. Do not require proponents to publish and entertain feedback on planned environmental measures.
  10. Do not provide a basis for appeal after completion of the EA process when new information arises that contradicts the assumptions made during an EA.  For example, a poorly executed study may fail to identify species-at-risk during the EA process.  Subsequent discovery should be basis for appeal.

There are many, many other improvents that can be made to the EA process.  If Harper wants to retreat, then he should strike a royal commission to assemble minimum standards to be left in his wake.