RE: Improved climate but Taseko not a done deal...Improved climate but Taseko not a done deal...
Consolidating multiple reviews won’t hurt environment
By Perrin Beatty
Cuts to government jobs may command the headlines, but the most significant item in the federal budget was the long-overdue decision to clean up Canada’s inefficient regulatory oversight of natural resource projects.
For the natural resource industries, last week’s budget was, very simply, the most significant policy change in decades. Canada has identified a chronic competitive weakness and is moving to fix it. At the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, where we have identified regulatory inefficiency as one of the top 10 barriers to Canadian competitiveness, we welcome this move.
Currently, a whole crowd of federal agencies is involved in assessing a project. Because Parliament has established independent processes under different statutes — the Fisheries Act, the Species at Risk Act, the Navigable Waters Act, the Migratory Birds Convention Act, to name a few — there is little effective co-ordination. Every review must be carried out to ensure the legality of a license. Each can require slightly different information, and proceed on different time frames.
This regulatory “scrum” frustrates both project proponents and the officials who have to administer it. Even once they have emerged with a federal permit, project proponents aren’t finished. They will likely have to duplicate the work for the provincial authority.
In a brief on the Canadian Environmental Review Act last year, the British Columbia government attacked the “inefficiencies of having two separate information registries, different public consultation requirements and two separate technical reports,” and went on to point out the environmental benefits of a second review were often non-existent: “The federal government has come to the same conclusions on all projects except for one.… ”
This approach is one reason why Canada is slipping down the list of competitive countries and why the World Economic Forum says “inefficient government bureaucracy” is our biggest problem.
In the last budget, the federal government announced it would overhaul the federal end of this chain. It’s the first, welcome step towards a new approach.
Specifically the Crown pledged to consolidate the federal reviews into one process. Reviews would have set time frames — 24 months for a full panel assessment, 18 months for a hearing before the National Energy Board.
This will doubtless be characterized as a defeat for environmentalism in Canada. I believe that’s completely wrong. Drawn-out, duplicative reviews are bad news for everyone, including the proponent with investments on hold and even for opponents, often relying on volunteers and personal donations.
In any case, the new rules won’t be a walk in the park for project proponents. Today’s reviews often feature a leisurely preliminary review, during which the regulators advise on deficiencies and let the proponent “tweak” the proposal. With a fixed review period, proponents will find the experience much more urgent and unforgiving — more like a court appearance. A deficient proposal will die a quick death.
There is no appetite in Canada for weaker regulation and this isn’t a plan for that. Good regulation is not the enemy of good business; on the contrary. The most competitive economies in the world — Switzerland, Sweden and Finland — have powerful regulatory systems. Canadians understand and appreciate the role regulators play in protecting worker safety, ethical business practices and the environment.
But wasting our regulators and environmental scientists on duplicative work squanders the contribution they can make to sustainable economic growth. In 2007, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency concluded that approximately 94% of federal screenings were for small projects that have only minimal potential for adverse environmental effects, such as placing a bench in a federal park (an example brought up in Parliament’s recent review of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act). This is clearly not the best use of scarce and valuable resources.
So, the budget announcement was very welcome. But already we can look forward to the next step — a single national approach to assessment and approval. Provincial and federal governments, which co-operate on health, policing and security, financial regulation, human resources and skills, to name just a few areas, need to co-operate on natural resource assessment too.
The federal government has pointed the way with its budget announcement. Now it needs to negotiate a working model with the provinces for a single, rigorous assessment regime.
Provincial governments should be lining up to sign on to such an approach. Ontario’s “Ring of Fire” plan for northern development, Quebec’s “Plan Nord,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s huge hydro and mining developments, Prince Edward Island’s ambitious wind energy plans … there’s no part of Canada in which natural resource developments aren’t critical. All would benefit from greater regulatory efficiency.
Financial Post
Perrin Beatty is president and chief executive of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce