October 3, 2016
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Submission to the Review of Canadian Environmental Assessment Processes
Wanda Baxter, Executive Committee member, Sierra Club Canada Foundation, Atlantic Chapter
On behalf of the Sierra Club Canada Foundation’s Atlantic Chapter and speaking as a Nova Scotian
and environmental professional, thank you for the opportunity to contribute ideas and suggestions
to improve environmental assessment processes in Canada.
Sierra Club Canada Foundation has been a voice for the environment in Canada since 1972, and we
have participated directly in a range of environmental assessments. Notably, we were actively
involved in the White’s Point Quarry Panel Review proposed for Digby Neck over a decade ago.
NAFTA vs Canadian Environment Assessment Act
I am sure that a number of people today will speak to the White’s Point Quarry Environmental
Assessment and the significant effort made to voice opposition to the proposal and gather evidence
on the projected environmental effects of the proposed mine and shipping routes. Currently, Sierra
Club is working with Ecojustice and East Coast Environmental Law to challenge the successful
litigation against Canada that Bilcon Inc.- the proponent of the White’s Point Quarry Mine - argued
and won on the basis of NAFTA challenge in response to the White’s Point Quarry EA decision –
which was no.
This case is not well known to most Canadians, but the outcome will essentially affect all of us – as
the NAFTA win already has. That a company can, via NAFTA challenge, defeat and nullify a
decision made under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act process means that our own
environmental laws can be trumped by International law. It is concerning to say the least.
Therefore, a main priority of this review and of reforming environmental processes in Canada must
be to ‘trade-proof’ the CEA Act, and to give it some teeth in other ways as well. The NAFTA
challenge to the White Point Quarry Panel Review decision makes the need to strengthen the CEA
Act an urgent and critical priority.
Bringing Back the Precautionary Principle
The Canadian environmental assessment Act 2012 states
The Government of Canada, the Minister, the Agency, federal authorities and
responsible authorities, in the administration of this Act, must exercise their powers
in a manner that protects the environment and human health and applies the
precautionary principle.
The Precautionary Principle. It seems an antiquated idea in ways, but there it is, still in the Act,
though it is not a guiding principle in practice, really, if we are honest. There would be no fracking in
Canada if we were applying precaution.
Environmental Assessment, in order to be effective needs to have teeth. It needs to be able
to require and enforce:
Application of the Precautionary Principle
Implementing Panel Recommendations
Mitigation bonds and financial assurances
Monitoring protocols and reporting timelines
Fines or reimbursement when plans are not carried out  (see Picadilly Mine, New
Brunswick)
Transparency and Fairness: Stated Conflict of Interest and arms-length science/EA
consultants
The potential for the decision of EA to be No (and to stay ‘no’)
Inclusion of Emissions reductions and sustainability targets
** Limitations on pro-project PR
In summary, this review presents an opportunity to develop new, effective legislation and processes
that result in an impartial EA process that reflects the government’s policy objectives and addresses
society’s most pressing needs in the areas of climate change; transparency and accountability to the
public; the rights and interests of Indigenous Peoples and communities, and environmental
protection.
It doesn’t feel like 16 years have gone by since the CEAA review and the main problem is the same:
the environment is continually and incrementally being degraded by how we develop and live and
want more (repeat), and we can’t seem to keep ourselves from doing it.
If I have one thing I want to contribute today, it is this: now is the time to put the environment at
the top of the list of environmental assessment processes. Sixteen years ago there was time, it
seemed, to turn things around. People used to talk about the paradigm shift that needed to happen.
It was 1987 when some of the best minds and scientists in the world got together, looked at the
science and the trends and saw where we were headed, and laid out a strategy given the name
Sustainable Development to try to change course. But it hasn’t happened. Not yet.
It has to happen now. Please have the foresight and fortitude to give the EA process teeth, and real
effectiveness.
Respectfully,
Wanda Baxter
Sierra Club Canada Foundation, Atlantic Chapter
The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas,
but in escaping the old ones, which ramify
for those brought up as most of us have been
into every corner of our minds.
– John Maynard Keynes