Above photo: More than 100 people demonstrated in Halifax on Jan. 24 to raise awareness about plans to modify the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.
A growing consortium of more than 20 Atlantic Canadian and Quebec community, environmental, Indigenous, fishery and non-governmental organizations have come together to form the Offshore Alliance.
The organization’s goal is to sound the alarm bells about pending changes to federal legislation that may give east coast petroleum boards a seat at the table when it comes to conducting offshore oil and gas environmental assessments.
More than 100 people demonstrated in Halifax on Jan. 24 to raise awareness about plans to modify the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and to deliver a letter to Prime Minster Justin Trudeau via MP Scott Brison calling on the PM to “immediately instruct your ministers to cease and desist in their efforts to grant the east coast petroleum boards any decision-making responsibility in the environmental assessment process, in particular naming the C-NSOPB and C-NLOPB as Responsible Authorities.”
The concern stems from the Environmental and Regulatory Reviews discussion paper released last June which states in part: “For major energy transmission, nuclear and offshore oil and gas projects, assessments would be conducted jointly by the agency and life cycle regulators, using the regulators’ expert capacity and ensuring that safety and other key regulatory factors are considered as part of a single, integrated process. This approach will help to ensure that impact assessments are consistent and based on clear processes and legislated time lines that provide regulatory certainty and enable good projects to go ahead.”
The Offshore Alliance “regards the Nova Scotia and Newfoundland offshore regulatory boards as ‘captured’ unelected bodies, unrepresentative of the public interest, with a mandate to facilitate and promote drilling,” reads an Alliance press release.
“We cannot grasp why the government of Canada, specifically Canada’s Fisheries and Environment Ministers, would willingly give away federal powers of marine protection under Canada’s Environmental Protection Act and Oceans Act to unelected, industry-controlled petroleum boards, powers that belong to the people of Canada and future generations. In our opinion, such conduct is neither rational nor responsible,” the Alliance wrote the Prime Minster.
Gretchen Fitzgerald, National Program Director of Sierra Club Canada Foundation Offshore, said the Offshore Alliance “supports the federal government’s public consultation calls for an independent national environmental assessment agency (CEAA) with sole responsibility for environmental assessments. We support that recommendation,” she said, “but not giving more power to offshore petroleum boards in the environmental assessment process.” “There’s incredible solidarity on this issue,” she said.
The pending legislative changes are expected to be brought to the House of Commons during the spring session.
“If they are going to put in the legislation that offshore boards are going to have more power in environment assessments, we’re going to work really hard through that process to make sure that it gets taken out again,” said Fitzgerald in an interview. “We hope its not there in the first place. I don’t think it is something they will be able to ignore.”
John Davis, Director of the Clean Ocean Action Committee (COAC), a coalition of fish plant operators and fishermen representing over 9,000 jobs in southwestern Nova Scotia, said it “just doesn’t make any sense” for the federal government to be considering making offshore petroleum boards part of the decision-making process on environmental assessments.
“We hope the Prime Minister begins to understand what his ministers are up to,” said Davis.
“This is abdication of responsibility by the environment minister and the fisheries minister. Who among the elected representatives think it’s a good idea to take their environmental responsibilities and pass them off to an unelected board which is laden with oil and gas industry executives and have them make decisions about the health of our marine environment? I know I never told them that was a good idea and never met anybody who did but somehow they seem prepared to abdicate their responsibilities for protection of the ocean environment and pass it on to a petroleum board? Come on people. What’s going on? It’s remarkable to me.”
The Offshore Alliance
Bay of Fundy Inshore Fishermen’s Association
Campaign to Protect Offshore Nova
Clean Ocean Action Committee
Coldwater Lobster Association
Council of Canadians
Council of Canadians – South Shore Chapter
East Coast Environmental Law Association
Ecology Action Centre
Gulf Nova Scotia Herring Federation
Lobstermen’s Association Area 34
Lobstermen’s Association Area 33
Maritime Fishermen’s Union, Local 4
Maritime Fishermen’s Union, Local 9
Maritime Fishermen’s Union, Local 6
Nova Scotia Seafood Alliance
Save Our Seas and Shores
Save Our Seas and Shores – P.E.I. Chapter
Scotia Fundy Inshore Fishermen’s Association
Shelburne County Quota Group
Sierra Club Canada Foundation
St-Lawrence Coalition/Coalition Saint-Laurent
