Petroleum boards gain power
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears poised to break a key election promise regarding the environment, a coalition of about 20 environmental and fisheries groups said Wednesday.
The Offshore Alliance, which includes members from Atlantic Canada and Quebec, staged a news conference and protest march in Halifax to raise awareness about a federal discussion paper that says changes are coming to the way environmental assessments are handled for major offshore oil and gas projects.The paper, released in June, says Ottawa is considering streamlining the process to have it handled by one agency instead of three separate authorities — a recommendation endorsed by the coalition.
However, coalition members said they are worried about a proposal that could see federal assessments conducted jointly with the federal-provincial offshore petroleum boards in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.
“We don’t want the offshore petroleum boards to have any more powers over our oceans,” said Gretchen Fitzgerald, national program director with the Sierra Club Canada Foundation. “We feel that any moves to make this happen would be a broken promise from the federal government.”
Fitzgerald said the regulatory boards should not be involved because their roles as industry promoters put them in a conflict of interest when it comes to protecting the environment.
The federal government could introduce legislation within weeks, Fitzgerald said. During the 2015 election campaign, Trudeau promised a Liberal government would make environmental assessments “credible again” by restoring oversight measures and ending the practice of allowing federal ministers to interfere.