Budget bill passed

On July 6, I testified before the one legislative body that paused to examine the budget bill, the Senate Finance Committee.  In a series of rushed hearings, the Senators heard about the changes found in those 883 pages:  removal of lucrative business for Canada Post, potentially weakening our national public carrier, pre-approval for sale of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, without a public review of the questions of who will be responsible for the long-term management of high-level nuclear wastes, changes to the EI system, new taxes for airline travel, and, most appalling, the gutting of the environmental assessment process.  

The various changes to environmental assessment include:  removing for all time the jurisdiction of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency over energy projects, the re-writing of the Act to avoid the Supreme Court of Canada decision on the Red Chris Mine, reversing the court’s ruling that a minister may not scope a review in ways that allow a trivial review of a major project, exclusion of all projects funded as part of federal infrastructure in the stimulus package, and the reduction of public rights of consultation over comprehensive projects.  Taken together, these changes reverse several decades of work in developing a coherent approach to the review of projects within federal authority.  Whether off-shore oil and gas or pipelines, nuclear reactors, or tar sands expansion, the environmental assessment process will no longer apply.  Other agencies, the National Energy Board, the Canada Nuclear Safety Commission, or the regional Off-Shore Petroleum Boards in Atlantic Canada, will do whatever reviews are done.  The scoping of all projects still within the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act will be open to significant abuse, as Ministers can decide that for a massive project, an environmental review can be limited to only minor elements.  Great big mine, tiny little review.

After my testimony, the Liberal Senators decided to join with independents to insist on splitting the bill to remove the non-budgetary matters.  Combined, the Liberals and independents had just enough votes to split the bill and send the non-budgetary matters back to the House. Senator Doug Finley, Harper’s campaign director, threatened an election, but rather than continue sabre-rattling, on July 9, the Prime Minister appointed one more Conservative partisan to the Senate. The whole 883 page bill passed into law.

Some may see this as an outrage against environmental law, and it is.  However, even more egregiously, it is an assault on democracy.  It is further evidence that Stephen Harper is bent on undermining fundamental principles of Canadian government.