Environmental groups criticize government walk-back on pollution impact assessment
OTTAWA — Environmental groups say the Liberal government is giving up its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions through proposed amendments to the federal Impact Assessment Act.
“We are concerned that the government is not fully living up to its responsibility to protect Canadians and the environment from the climate impacts of major projects,” the groups wrote Wednesday in a letter to cabinet.
The changes, which are included in the government’s legislation to implement the 2024 budget, are a response to a Supreme Court ruling in October that said the act ventured too far into provincial jurisdiction.
The decision is one of two big court losses for the Liberals on the environment in the last year, the other being a Federal Court decision in November that found Ottawa overstepped by declaring all plastic to be toxic, rather than individual plastic types. The ruling undermines the authority Ottawa has to ban single-use plastics, although existing bans remain in place pending an appeal.