Opinion: Why the Supreme Court needs to uphold Bill C-69 abpoli cdnpoli
But the IAA hardly deserves boogeyman status and is no threat to industry or to federalism. In fact, it is mostly a patch to a Harper-era law that almost everyone agreed was inefficient and dysfunctional. It is the product of intensive debate, legislative scrutiny and give-and-take compromise in the House of Commons and the Senate.
Detractors fret that the IAA recognizes that climate change not only exists , but that the federal government has the duty to consider it when reviewing a project that affects its jurisdiction. This is far from a federal takeover of all greenhouse gas regulation, as the provinces seem to fear. Nor does the IAA allow Canada to dictate which projects are or are not, broadly speaking, in the public interest; its authority under the law is confined to federal effects.
Decisions under the IAA, including whether the federal effects of a project are in the public interest and whether conditions should be imposed to mitigate them, might be politically unpalatable to a province or make it a bit more complicated for a proponent to do as they wish with public lands and resources. That does not make the IAA unconstitutional; it shows that it serves a purpose — environmental protection — which Canadians have the right to expect from every level of government.
In 1992, the Supreme Court of Canada issued a precedent-setting ruling upholding the constitutionality of federal environmental assessment under Canada’s first environmental assessment law. The court found, in Friends of the Oldman River v. Canada that Canada could lawfully assess the environmental impact of projects, even in relation to developments sponsored or regulated by provinces.
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