In early 2018, Justin Trudeau’s government put forward legislation to overhaul Canada’s environmental assessment process. It said the new rules would restore public trust in review agencies, ensure protection for freshwater, take climate into account and incorporate Indigenous peoples' rights into decisions over whether or not major resource projects move forward.
But there's one big problem: Trudeau and his government are considering putting some massive loopholes for Big Oil into the new reviews.
That’s why we're demanding a people's amendment to Trudeau's environmental assessment reform bill C-69. It’s simple, ensure there are no loopholes for Canada's biggest polluters in our new environmental assessment regime.
That means two things. First, that any project approved by Canada's broken regulators after Trudeau's election in 2015, like the Kinder Morgan pipeline, be reviewed under these new rules. Second, that there are no exemptions to these rules for big oil and major polluters in Alberta's tar sands where massive projects like Teck Frontier mine, the largest open-pit tar sands mine ever proposed, are going ahead in a review where new rules don't apply.
Prime Minister Trudeau, Minister McKenna, Minister Carr, Federal Party Leaders, Environment Critics, and Chair of the Standing Committee on Environment: Close all loopholes for Big Oil in your environmental assessment reform.