Western Standard - October 13, 2023


Federal ministers respond to top court’s ruling on Impact Assessment Act

Topics
Impact Assessment Act amendments
Mentioned
Pierre Poilievre Harper
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Episode Stats


Length

7 minutes

Words per minute

158.4

Word count

1,188

Sentence count

46


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Learn English with Honourable Minister of Environment and Indigenous Affairs, Shelly Saviell, who delivers the Prime Minister's statement on the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling on the Impact Assessment Act and its application to major projects in Canada.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.240 Today we accept the court's opinion. It provides new guidance on the Impact Assessment Act,
00:00:06.080 while explicitly affirming the right of the Government of Canada to put in place
00:00:10.240 impact assessment legislation and collaborate with provinces on environmental protection.
00:00:15.840 We developed the Impact Assessment Act to create a better set of rules that respect the environment,
00:00:21.040 Indigenous rights, and ensure projects get assessed in a timely way. We remain committed
00:00:27.360 to these principles and we are heartened that the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed our role on
00:00:32.960 these core principles. We will now take this back and work quickly to improve the legislation through
00:00:38.720 Parliament. We will continue to build on 50 years of federal leadership and impact assessment.
00:00:44.880 We respect the role of the Supreme Court in Canada's democracy and we will follow the guidance of the
00:00:50.560 court and collaborate with provinces and Indigenous groups to ensure an impact assessment process that
00:00:56.960 works for all Canadian. Our immediate priority will be to provide guidance to our many stakeholders
00:01:02.720 and Indigenous partners to ensure as much predictability as possible for projects affected
00:01:08.480 by this opinion. We fully understand that we need to act in a timely manner. The Government of Canada
00:01:14.960 wants to ensure clarity and certainty for investment in projects this country needs. This is exactly what
00:01:21.440 what the previous Harper Government and senior ministers like Pierre Polievre failed to provide.
00:01:28.400 So now we will return to our homework and commit today to address this quickly and continue to make
00:01:34.080 Canada an attractive and predictable place to invest in good, sustainable projects as we create and
00:01:40.000 protect middle-class jobs in advance on a path of reconciliation. Thank you.
00:01:44.400 The majority of the Court confirmed that Parliament can enact impact assessment legislation to,
00:01:50.080 and I quote the Court's decision, minimize the risks that some major projects pose to the environment,
00:01:55.040 unquote. The Court found that the Impact Assessment Act is constitutional in part, but that in some
00:02:01.120 instances the language in the Act needs to be more closely tethered to areas of federal jurisdiction.
00:02:07.200 We, of course, accept the direction provided by the Court and we will be bringing forward the necessary
00:02:12.640 amendments. Prior to 2015, under the Harper Government's environmental assessment process,
00:02:18.560 projects consistently got bogged down in years-long litigation because the old system failed to take
00:02:24.560 into account how proposed projects could impact the environment and the climate, and it failed to
00:02:30.320 incorporate the concerns, the perspectives, and the aspirations of Indigenous peoples.
00:02:35.360 Good projects simply took too long or simply could not be built. Harper's gutting of Canada's
00:02:40.480 environmental assessment process in 2012 eroded public trust and confidence in the integrity of the
00:02:46.400 system. That is why during the 2015 election, our government committed to work with industry,
00:02:52.480 environmental organizations, and Indigenous peoples across the country to establish a new
00:02:56.960 environmental assessment process and agency, the Impact Assessment Act and the Impact Assessment
00:03:02.080 Agency of Canada, to review major projects. This new process established a set of better rules,
00:03:09.600 rules that would ensure that Indigenous perspectives were included at the beginning of the review process,
00:03:14.880 rules that guaranteed that important environmental concerns were highlighted and were addressed,
00:03:20.880 and rules that provided clear timelines to ensure good projects could be built in this country in a
00:03:25.840 timely manner. The Impact Assessment Act recognizes what the vast majority of Canadians know, that we should
00:03:33.600 indeed be building major projects in a timely manner and that to do so requires the active inclusion of
00:03:39.360 Indigenous peoples and a focus on environmental sustainability. And while Canada must indeed
00:03:45.120 continue to work to make our processes work as effectively and efficiently as possible, I would note that
00:03:50.080 already many of our international allies look to Canada as providing a model of how regulatory processes
00:03:55.840 should work. In fact, in very recent conversations I have had with both my Australian and my American
00:04:01.760 counterparts, they have told me that they look through Canada to learn how to improve their own
00:04:06.320 regulatory systems. As of May 2023, there are 495 major projects in various stages of development,
00:04:13.920 many of which are critical minerals and clean energy projects that are under construction or planned for
00:04:18.640 construction over the next number of years in this country. These projects have a combined capital value
00:04:23.920 of $572 billion, which represents a 5% increase from 2022 in overall project count and a 10% jump in capital value.
00:04:34.240 Progress is indeed being made. As I noted at the beginning of my remarks, the Supreme Court has found that in a few
00:04:40.080 specific areas, adjustments to the Act are necessary to make it clear that the legislation is more closely tethered to areas of federal jurisdiction.
00:04:47.440 But overall, the Court confirmed that the Federal Government has the authority to regulate assessments of major projects.
00:04:54.480 We will indeed be making amendments to the Act based on the Court's guidance. We will continue to focus on upholding
00:05:00.400 high environmental standards and respecting the rights and the interests of Indigenous peoples,
00:05:04.800 all while providing clarity and certainty for project proponents.
00:05:09.440 In the global competition for investment, Canada's project review process can be an important strategic advantage.
00:05:15.280 Such a review process must allow us to move good projects forward in an efficient manner.
00:05:21.600 But one cannot do that by ignoring legitimate questions and concerns relating to the environment
00:05:27.040 and to Indigenous rights. Ultimately, our approach will mean more investments and more well-paying jobs
00:05:32.320 in communities. It means accelerated progress towards ensuring Canada is a global leader in the clean economy.
00:05:40.000 I must underscore that Pierre Polyev and his Conservative Party want to return us to a time when
00:05:45.040 nothing got built. They want to once again ignore environmental considerations and the rights and
00:05:50.880 the interests of Indigenous peoples. Their approach will create uncertainty and gridlock which will
00:05:56.000 undermine the future prosperity of all Canadians. This Federal Government will build upon the work done
00:06:01.920 to date. As I noted, we will be bringing forward necessary changes to the law to align with the Court's decision,
00:06:07.600 and we will continue to make project assessment and permitting processes work even more thoughtfully
00:06:12.240 and more efficiently. We will continue to collaborate with provinces and territories as we are doing
00:06:18.240 through mechanisms like the Regional Energy and Resource Tables where we are talking about regulatory
00:06:22.720 and permitting alignment. And we will continue to work with Indigenous peoples to ensure that they are
00:06:27.760 treated not as passive observers, but as active partners and owners as we build a clean economy from coast to coast to coast.
00:06:35.520 Before I conclude, I just want to acknowledge and thank the many interveners who stood with the
00:06:40.880 Federal Government to defend this crucial piece of legislation ranging from my province here of
00:06:46.000 British Columbia to 11 First Nations to the First Nations Major Projects Coalition and to numerous
00:06:51.920 environmental organizations. And to the provinces and territories who brought this lawsuit forward,
00:06:56.800 I would suggest that we collectively commit to this being the last time we look to settle our differences in court.
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