LETTER

Fed’s interim environmental assessment processes

 

The new conditions for existing proposals, like Kinder Morgan and Energy East, are certainly a step in the right direction, but any conditions placed on a fundamentally flawed system will be imperfect.

It is critical that First Nations' rights be truly respected. As well, having been an intervenor in the KM process before the NEB, I can only support these interim measures having heard Minister Carr confirm that the Government of Canada will make a serious independent effort to review the science and weigh the weak and shoddy evidence presented by TransMountain. In addition, Environment Canada and Climate Change will make its own assessment of the upstream GHG impacts. No band-aid solution will work to cover up a broken process.

We will be watching vigilantly to make sure that all new conditions are met. I hope that the interim measures will be adequate to fully assess the devastating impacts proposed by Kinder Morgan.

The truth is that the current system must be totally replaced. The National Energy Board has only been doing environmental assessments since the previous Conservative government gutted the environmental assessment process with C-38 in 2012. It is ill-suited for the role and woefully inexperienced. We need to return to the regime as it existed before the previous Conservative government took an axe to it. We need to build on what worked.  Our current system is anti-democratic and anti-science. We need to restore a regime where the voices of Indigenous people, sound science, and citizens are heard.

Elizabeth May, Green Party of Canada
Ottawa