Tories have cancelled almost 600 environmental assessments in Ontario

By Tonda MacCharles Toronto Star August 29, 2012

OTTAWA—The Conservative government has cancelled federal environmental assessments of nearly 600 projects in Ontario after its 2012 budget bill eased environmental review laws.

In Ontario, the list of proposed developments that are no longer to be subject to a federal review for potential environmental damage by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is wide-ranging and raising red flags.

It includes everything from flood protection plans for the lower Don River, a plan to fill in 5,000 square metres of Toronto Harbour waters to deter wayward boats from nearing Billy Bishop airport runways, to the decommissioning of an old plutonium recovery laboratory and construction of new nuclear fuel storage capacity in Chalk River.

Ottawa has also dropped its assessment of TransCanada PipeLines to build a 13-km pipeline as part of an expansion that would cross the Credit River and, according to Greenpeace, 15 other waterways.

Nationwide, Ottawa’s “cancelled” list covers nearly 3,000 projects ranging from small roadways and bridge construction projects to bigger hydro and pipeline expansion plans.

In Ontario, it includes six proposals from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited to decommission a plutonium recovery laboratory, to decommission a waste water evaporator, to clean up two “legacy landfill areas,” and to build and operate “a new dry storage system for used fuel and non-fuel waste”— all in the Chalk River area.

Peter Tabuns, the Ontario NDP MP and energy and environment critic, said for the province to take over the assessments of hundreds of projects “would be a huge cost.”

“It’s a downloading of responsibility.”

Tabuns said he was surprised to learn about the Chalk River projects in particular, because the government of Ontario has always deferred to Ottawa to regulate that area. “The line here is all things nuclear are a federal responsibility.”

Tabuns warns that projects “are going to fall through the gaps.”

“Things are going to go wrong and future generations are going to get stuck with the environmental burden of mistakes that are made because of a lack of proper assessment procedures. It’s irresponsible.”

Even the government of Ontario says it is still trying to understand the full impact of the new regulation’s changes.

The federal agency’s database is new and researchers are told it still has a number of quirks, so the numbers vary depending on how data queries are made, and totals don’t always add up.

Ontario’s Environment Minister Jim Bradley was not available for an interview, but said in an emailed statement to the Star that the province was not consulted when the changes were made, and has written to the federal Conservatives to protest.

“Ontario supports process efficiencies that maintain a high level of environmental protection,” he said, adding his department is now reviewing the new regulations to assess the impact and ensure “that there are no gaps in environmental protection.”

The federal government is fighting back against its critics.

Environment Minister Peter Kent released a written statement Tuesday disputing suggestions that Canada’s environmental protection regime “is now somehow weakened.”

Kent said projects are still subject to “strong federal environmental protection laws and regulations” under other laws, including the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the Fisheries Act, the Migratory Birds Convention Act, and the Species at Risk Act.

He pointed to various provincial approvals that many projects will require, such as permits “for emissions of air and water and waste management, and local municipal permits.”

But environmentalists warn that Ottawa has weakened the Fisheries Act and the Species at Risk Act by replacing rules-based regimes with ministerial discretion. And they argue that a provincial permit process is no substitute for a rigorous environmental assessment.

Greenpeace Canada spokesman Keith Stewart said the difference is a permit process looks at “how to approve this project” rather than examining “whether to approve it” and “what other options are less damaging.”

“The federal government is trying to get out of the business of protecting the environment, and the provinces don’t have the tools to pick up the slack,” said Stewart, who wrote his PhD on Ontario environmental policy.

“The oil industry got the changes to environmental laws they wanted but it is our communities and environment that will pay the price.”

Kent says that where projects are on federal land, the federal department or agency is still obliged to “ensure there are no significant adverse environmental effects” and he has ordered major “screening” assessments under the old law to continue.

Kent also argued the federal Conservatives have adopted stricter enforcement regimes to go after developers who violate laws, including stiffer fines, and have opted to drop screenings of “thousands of small and routine projects with little risk of significant environmental impact.”

“Rather than focusing on these minor projects, our government has decided to focus federal environmental assessment efforts on major projects with significant negative impact and risk to the environment.”

Kent said proposed major pipeline projects will continue to be reviewed by the National Energy Board.

“The only difference is the amount of paperwork. Let’s be clear; pushing paper does not protect the environment, but does add a regulatory burden that kills jobs.”

In Ontario, assessments were also cancelled for: a new sewage facility on Cornwall Island on the St. Lawrence Seaway; changes to the military’s ultra secretive elite JTF2 training facility at Dwyer Hill, near Ottawa; road reconstruction of a 1.2 km-long segment that passes in front of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s home at 24 Sussex Dr; plans to expand the queuing plaza at the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel border-crossing; a 6.5 megawatt run-of-river hydroelectric generating station at Atikokan on the Namakan River; numerous proposals for upgrades and shoreline stabilization along the Trent Severn Waterway; plans to build new military training facilities at Borden, two proposed hydroelectric facilities on the Namewaminikan River; an upgraded fuel depot station at Bearskin Lake; construction and restoration projects in Bruce Peninsula National Park.