![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783590790_152_indicator-big.gif\")
<\/p>\nD\u00e9ry said this agreement will eliminate duplicate assessments.<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to strengthen our economy, diversify our markets, and that means developing our projects more efficiently and quickly,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Residents and groups have 21 days to voice their concerns about this agreement to the federal government. The goal, according to Lightbound, is to make the agreement official within a month.<\/p>\n
The Quebec branch of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, which works to protect the ecosystems in which endangered species live, said it was \u201cperplexed\u201d by the announcement. <\/p>\n
Its director, Alain Branchaud, said he is in favour of a one-stop shop for environmental assessments. However, he said he\u2019s skeptical about the governments\u2019 intentions because of their recent efforts to circumvent established environmental standards.<\/p>\n
He cited Quebec\u2019s Bill 5 as an example, which was inspired by Ottawa\u2019s Bill C-5, and aimed to allow the provincial government to modify environmental laws to fast-track major projects. The provincial bill failed to pass before the end of Quebec\u2019s parliamentary session and was dropped.<\/p>\n
D\u00e9ry has said this agreement would not sacrifice high environmental standards, but rather make the system more efficient. <\/p>\n
Branchaud said he is also concerned about the timing and length of the consultation period.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt isn\u2019t a good idea to hold a consultation in the middle of summer and it isn\u2019t a good idea to do it in only 21 days,\u201d Branchaud said, adding that it \u201ccircumvents the democratic spirit of building an environmental regulatory and legislative framework.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked if the summertime consultation period may be too short for people to take part, Lightbound said \u201cupstream work\u201d has already been done and Indigenous groups have already been consulted.<\/p>\n
In the last year, following a modification to its Impact Assessment Act, the federal government has reached similar agreements with seven other provinces to limit overlap in environmental assessment.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 20, 2026.<\/p>\n
St\u00e9phane Blais, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"D\u00e9ry said this agreement will eliminate duplicate assessments. \u201cWe need to strengthen our economy, diversify our markets, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":814754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-815333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815333","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=815333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}