BILL
C-19, Amendments to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act
Association québécoise pour l'évaluation d'impacts
Commentaires
Lettre conjointe, janvier 2002
| AQÉI ASSOCIATION QUÉBÉCOISE POUR L'ÉVALUATION D'IMPACTS C.P. 785, succursale Place d'Armes Montréal (Québec) H2Y 3J2 mondorf@aqei.qc.ca http://www.cam.org/~aqei/ |
OAIA |
|
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR IMPACT ASSESSMENT WESTERN & NORTHERN CANADA P.O. Box 2619, Bankview Postal Station 14 Street S.W. Calgary (Alberta) T2T 5X6 iaia-wnc@praxis.ca |
January 28, 2002
Mr. Eugene
Morawski
Clerk of the Committee/Greffier du comité
Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development/
Comité permanent de l'environnement et du développement
durable
#609, 180 Wellington
House of Commons/Chambre des Communes
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6
Re: Bill C-19, Amendments to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act
Dear Mr. Morawski,
We are writing
to you on behalf of the three Canadian affiliates of the International
Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA): the Association québécoise
pour l'évaluation d'impacts (AQÉI), the Ontario Association
for Impact Assessment (OAIA) and the Western and Northern Canada Affiliate.
IAIA's primary purpose is development of international and local capacity
to make wise decisions regarding the anticipation, planning, and management
of environmental change in terms of ecological and human consequences
in order to enhance the quality of life for all. One of the key
roles of the three Canadian affiliates is to facilitate the improvement
of the professional practice of impact assessment in Canada.
We would first like to commend the federal government for having undertaken
the five-year review of the Act (CEAA). Such reviews are a very productive
means of learning from experience with legislation and this review has
led to important proposed improvements, included in Bill C-19. There are,
however, a few further adjustments that we wish to recommend.
The first
follows directly from the importance of the five-year review. We recommend
that such a review be included in the amended Act. We strongly urge you
to maintain a revision process for the Act. The five-year schedule might
be too short and we considered recommending a seven-year interval. However,
we leave the frequency up to your committee.
Second, we wish to suggest an adjustment related to the importance of
using regional cumulative effects management tools. As you are well aware,
the recent Suncor judicial review resulted in a court decision that such
tools may be unacceptable because of incompatibility with CEAA. We have
concluded that the suggested changes to CEAA do not adequately deal with
the concern in the court decision. Because of the fact that the decision
was only released last month, and because it is a very complex and important
matter, we do not have specific suggestions on how best to adjust the
Act. But it is such an important matter, that we believe it appropriate
to suggest the addition of an amendment to the Act to deal effectively
with this ruling. Whether such an amendment could be added to Bill C-19
or whether it should await a later determination of how best to deal with
the matter is not something we can determine now.
Third, we strongly support the implementation of a coordination process
between various federal departments and the Agency for the application
of CEAA. Whether the actual authority delegated to the "coordinator"
is the most effective or not, however, is still uncertain. We are very
hopeful that the federal environmental assessment coordinator will provide
better coordination, more consistency and more timely reviews. While we
believe this is basically a correct step, we wish to be reassured that
this solution will deal effectively with some of the problems identified
during the five-year (or longer) review. This is one of the reasons why
we conclude so forcefully that further review is essential, so that we
and other Canadians can observe performance and provide feedback.
We strongly advocate effective harmonization of the federal process with
provincial (and other) processes. Failure to harmonize would be a fundamental
problem in Canada. Every effort possible must be made to continue promoting
coherence and harmonization in order to avoid undue overlaps or duplication
that result in inequity.
We believe that, generally, human impacts (cultural, social and economic
impacts) need to be better addressed in environmental impact assessment
and thus within the provisions of CEAA. While this is not now a component
of Bill C-19, we think that such changes are generally desirable and should
be encouraged. This would imply that necessary competence and abilities
must be developed within federal departments and agencies charged with
applying CEAA.
Finally, we support the inclusion of traditional or local knowledge in
environmental assessments. However, we are uncertain of exactly how best
to do this effectively. We do not, for example, wish to create confusion
for proponents and reviewers. The development of guidelines should be
a priority; otherwise this provision of the Act will face many challenges
in its implementation.
The three Canadian Affiliates of the International Association for Impact Assessment encourage the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development to make the suggested changes to improve environmental assessment in Canada and have development that has less impact on the environment.
Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely,
| Peter
Leonard Président AQÉI |
Lee
Doran President OAIA |
William
A. Ross President IAIA-WNC |
