Major industrial resource projects under provincial jurisdiction that spew massive amounts of carbon emissions will no longer trigger federal environmental assessments — a move that’s angering environmental groups.
The Liberal government walked back the requirement in amendments to its controversial 2019 Impact Assessment Act, parts of which the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional in the fall.
Environmental groups are raising the alarm and expressing their “disappointment” in a recent letter about the amendments introduced in Parliament on Tuesday.
“We are concerned that the government is not fully living up to its responsibility to protect Canadians and the environment from the climate impacts of major projects across Canada,” says the letter, which was signed by various environmental groups, including the environmental law group Ecojustice.
Conservatives are way ahead in the polls. Apparently, less environmental protection is acceptable to most of us.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Liberal government walked back the requirement in amendments to its controversial 2019 Impact Assessment Act, parts of which the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional in the fall.
Under changes introduced to the Impact Assessment Act, oilsands projects will no longer be subject to federal environmental reviews of the amount of emissions they would add to the atmosphere.
The recent amendments dropped this part of the law, which would have allowed the federal government to withhold approval of industrial projects if their emissions could worsen the impact of climate change in other provinces and territories.
Canadians are already seeing the impacts of climate change in the rising frequency of severe weather events, the disappearance of freshwater resources, more frequent and intense forest fires, shrinking Arctic ice and the acceleration of glacial melting.
“I was surprised to see the government retreat further than they need to to address the Supreme Court’s decision and abandon important areas of federal authority over climate change and air pollution,” Elgie said.
Martin Olszynski, a lawyer who intervened in the case, said Ottawa is probably taking a strategic approach, opting for changes to the Impact Assessment Act which would survive another constitutional challenge.
The original article contains 856 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
