Environment committee  Okay, thank you. For new substances that have broader implications, I would recommend that a strategic environmental assessment process, SEA, be utilized, but I want to be clear that by that I don't mean a cabinet directive. I mean by that a newly designed SEA process under the federal environmental assessment process that many of us have been proposing.

Environment committee  First of all, I would like to thank the committee very much for asking me to give this presentation and for embarking on this important task. It is one that I worry may be overshadowed a bit by other federal review processes, such as the review of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the Fisheries Act, the National Energy Board Act, and the Navigation Protection Act.

Environment committee  I can't answer that, so I'll defer.

Environment committee  In part, I think you see the different perspectives that are broad and from different interests. I have worked for proponents in the past, and I am not surprised that a proponent would focus on efficiency, timelines, and reducing the cost of doing an environmental assessment. That's not a big surprise to me.

Environment committee  No, it doesn't. Let me give you one example. If you do even a federal-only review panel, you will not know, as a basis for making project decisions, what the impact of that project will be on endangered species on land. How can you say you have a solid basis for federal decision-making when you don't even know that?

Environment committee  If you do a joint assessment, there is every opportunity for a comprehensive assessment, and essentially the assessment process will carry on as it has. But when you're looking at a federal-only panel or a federal-only standard environmental assessment, you are looking essentially at the impact on fish, the impact on migratory birds, and the impact on aboriginal communities.

Environment committee  I would like to make a quick comment on the regulatory process versus planning process. I accept that the joint review panel still has every opportunity to be a planning process. I guess my comment on it would be on the rest of the environmental assessment process being a more regulatory process.

Environment committee  Sure. Let's start with proposed paragraph 14(5)(b). As you point out, the context of this is it provides an exception to the discretion the minister has to refer to an EA a project that is not on the designated project list. The change from “would” to “could” has the effect of broadening the exception.

Environment committee  With respect to sections 63 and 64, the context is about the termination of an environmental assessment. The question is, under what circumstances is the termination of an environmental assessment appropriate? To say that it should be terminated when the responsible authority in section 63, and the minister in section 64 decides not to exercise the power, duty, or function that could permit the designated project to proceed, in my interpretation leads to a situation where an EA could be terminated even though there's still value in doing an environmental assessment.

Environment committee  That's my interpretation, yes.

Environment committee  I can't really give you a firm answer on that. It's not so much a legal question as it is a practical question. Do I see harm in taking it out? No, but whether this date actually creates a practical problem is a question I can't answer.

Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and committee members. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you about the proposed amendments to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. At the outset, I should say that my general reaction to the amendments proposed in Bill C-45 is that some are helpful and others are not.

Environment committee  Yes, I would. I think if we're going to start learning about how strategic environmental assessments can help us at the project level, we have to bring it into the legislation. I say that in part because of my experience in Nova Scotia, where we did a strategic environmental assessment of tidal energy.

Environment committee  Ideally, you do it wherever you are trying to conserve policies, plans, and programs. In some cases, the ideal scenario would be a joint strategic environmental assessment involving multiple jurisdictions. In other cases, if there is exclusive federal jurisdiction over an issue, then it makes sense to do it “federal only”.

Environment committee  First, if there is a policy gap identified in a project assessment, I think there should be an opportunity to recommend in the final project report, the EA report, that a strategic environmental assessment be done. We should think about a mechanism to get from that recommendation to actually making decisions about whether to initiate this.