Environmental assessment and duplication:
“Don’t we have a photocopier?”

There is significant rhetoric around how the federal and provincial governments have duplicative and therefore inefficient environmental assessment processes. The federal government has fully bought in on it and has indicated its intent to remove itself from many environmental assessments.

I for one find the duplication argument, while having some truth to it, to be quite misleading as to the underlying concerns with federal environmental assessments.  Rather than being truly frustrated with duplication I see proponents simply frustrated with the scope and rigour with which federal environmental assessments are conducted.  It seems to me that the federal system has, on occasion, more review and analysis of proponent environmental impact assessment than the provincial processes.  Admittedly this is anecdotal opinion on my part, garnered through exposure to both federal environmental assessment (comprehensive studies and joint panel reviews) and the Alberta assessment approach.

Read “Environmental assessment and duplication” on the ELC blog.

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