No big changes coming to Bill C-69
Liberal comments seem to suggest it might be back on table
OTTAWA — The Liberal government will not accept major tweaks to its contentious environmental review legislation, despite public comments in recent days suggesting Bill C-69 could still be on the table, an official familiar with the matter says.
Jim Carr, the Liberal’s special representative to the Prairies, said this week there is an “openness to look at the legislation” on the part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, prompting questions over whether Ottawa would be accepting new amendments to Bill C-69, which expands the environmental review process for major projects like sea ports and nuclear facilities.
His comments came days after a meeting between Trudeau and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, in which the prime minister said he would be open to “suggestions for improvements” to the implementation of the bill.
It was the first of a string of comments in which Trudeau and his closest officials have said they would be open to accepting proposed regulatory changes, even though the majority of substantive rules have already come into force.
Major changes to the legislation would have gone some way toward calming the fears of the oil and gas industry and some western leaders, who argued it would effectively bar new pipelines from being built. Those fears have in turn fed into deepening resentments in the western provinces, stoked by a decade-long pipeline bottleneck that has depressed the prices of Canadian crude oil.
Bill C-69 was also heavily opposed in the Senate, where senators proposed more than 100 industry-inspired amendments to the bill as a way to soften its language. The Liberal cabinet rejected the majority of the industry amendments and accepted a host of others.
One official familiar with the legislation said ongoing changes to the Impact Assessment Act will be mostly procedural, mainly aimed at subtle tweaks that can help project proponents meet the timelines set out in the bill. That could include finer details like how they are expected to model greenhouse gas emissions or local wildlife populations.
Department officials are currently crafting final regulations for the Impact Assessment Act, which falls under Bill C-69. The legislation came into force in August. Among the most pressing changes being considered, the official said, are ways in which regulators can improve the process for passage of information between the government and project proponents. The older regulatory system introduced by the Harper government in 2012, for example, would depend upon the use of so-called “Supplementary Information Requests,” which regularly caused delays by pausing the review process.
Pierre Gratton, head of the Mining Association of Canada, said the promise of stricter timelines under C-69 was part of the reason his group supported the bill. While he said it is unclear whether the new regime will work exactly as intended, the substantive regulations involved in the bill have already been put into force.
“You can’t undo legislation through regulations,” he said.
There are four projects currently under the new Impact Assessment Act, which replaced the Harper-era rules. One is a liquified natural gas (LNG) project in B.C., and another is a natural gas pipeline that will lead from Alberta into an LNG facility in Quebec.
A number of western leaders remain skeptical of Bill C-69, including Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, who have repeatedly called on Trudeau to outright scrap the legislation. Separately, Bill C-48, which enforces a ban on oil tankers along the northern half of the B.C. coast, has also been slammed by industry and provincial governments for targeting heavy oil producers.