Feds, Ontario sign draft agreement on proposed unified approach to speed up environmental assessments<\/p>\n
Big changes are coming in the way the feds and the province will be conducting environmental assessments on major projects.<\/p>\n
True to Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s and Ontario Premier Doug Ford\u2019s mantra on pursuing a \u2018one project, one review\u2019 approach<\/a> when it comes to fast-tracking major projects through the regulatory process, the two orders of government have signed a draft co-operative agreement<\/a> that sets out the ground rules.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) said it wants the public \u2014\u00a0especially Indigenous people \u2014\u00a0to comment<\/a>\u00a0on this new direction and the contents of the draft agreement.<\/p>\n The document will guide how Ottawa and Queen\u2019s Park plan to work together to eliminate the duplication and streamline the assessment process on an individual project level.<\/p>\n In a news release, IAAC maintains\u00a0that environmental safeguards and Indigenous rights will be respected in this single assessment system. Governments also promise not to step on each other’s jurisdictional toes.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the draft document, federal agencies will recognize and defer projects within provincial jurisdiction to provincial environmental assessments and regulatory processes.<\/p>\n According to IAAC, the comments received will be made public and will inform the final co-operation agreement.<\/p>\n The commenting period began on Nov. 24 and ends on Dec. 15.\u00a0<\/p>\n This new approach is a marked departure from the more environmentally strident\u00a0tone set by Ottawa in 2019, when Bill C-69 \u2014\u00a0also known as the Impact Assessment Act \u2014\u00a0replaced the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency with the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n The controversial legislation was heavily criticized<\/a> by industry and labelled by its opponents as the \u2018No More Pipelines Act\u2019 who argued it caused unnecessary delays and uncertainty for project proponents.<\/p>\n For provinces like Alberta and Ontario,<\/a> policy analysts<\/a> and the Supreme Court of Canada,\u00a0the act represented unnecessary federal overreach<\/a> into areas of responsibility that are under provincial jurisdiction, according to the Constitution.<\/p>\n Today, to assist in expediting major projects, considered of the \u2018nation-building\u2019 type, the Carney government has established the Major Projects Office to identify sure-to-succeed projects and accelerate their development under single set of conditions.<\/p>\n They promise to keep the approvals process timelines to under two years through a partnership with the provinces and territories, Indigenous people and private investors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feds, Ontario sign draft agreement on proposed unified approach to speed up environmental assessments Big changes are coming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,140048,140049,66],"class_list":["post-314468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-environmental-assessmentbill-c-69bill-5-ontariomajor-projects-officeimpact-assessment-agency-of-canada-iaaccritical-minerals-minesbill-5-federalone-project","tag-one-reviewcanada-nation-building-projectsontario-ottawa-draft-cooperation-agreement","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}