After months of nervous waiting, just before the absolute deadline, on March 31, Prime Minister Carney announced a massive $3.8 billion investment for nature across Canada. This funding is an important step toward protecting 30% of our land and oceans by 2030 (30×30) and advancing nature’s recovery.
This announcement is an important step, yes. It deals with some things well. But there are a few critical things missing. And it’s what I don’t see that concerns me and should concern us all. The federal government has largely abandoned its role assessing the impacts of big extraction projects on nature and climate. Agreements to “turn assessment over to the provinces” are not reassuring because provinces are walking away from or scaling back their assessments as well.
Promising funding to spend money on national and urban parks, Indigenous protected areas and other protected and conserved areas is all well and good, but how? Talking about federal and provincial sharing of impact assessments, maybe regional assessments, is all well and good, but how?
The Prime Minister’s Major Projects Initiative to expedite construction of pipelines, mines, northern roads and ports is likely to be a multibillion-dollar mistake for nature and the economy.
Under the new law, all assessments and decisions must be done in 2 years once a major project proposal is accepted for review. 2 years! Can you imagine only taking 2 years to study, review and confirm the environmental impact of the high-speed train from Windsor to Montreal? An oil pipeline to the B.C coast through the territories of dozens of Indigenous nations? A completely rebuilt Hudson Bay port and rail line?
This isn’t just a cautionary tale about the need for impact assessments: we’ve lived this before. Some members will recall ExxonMobil’s Mackenzie Gas Project, a proposed 1,200-kilometer natural gas pipeline from the Beaufort Sea to northern Alberta. What started as a $5 billion “sure thing” ended up abandoned by ExxonMobil as costs escalated to $15 billion.
Years after the assessment documented permafrost and climate change issues, ExxonMobil finally understood that a high-pressure gas pipeline under and across 600 rivers and creeks subject to breaks due to increasing frost thaw and heave cycles made no business sense. Who would have paid to keep a white elephant Mackenzie pipeline operating? Not industry. Taxpayers. The impact assessment saved us all billions—not just ExxonMobil.
Scientists and Indigenous and local people will have important questions to ask about the environmental impacts of all these Major Projects. Right now, we just don’t know enough. The devil is in the details, and those details won’t be understood until projects are assessed with public participation.
What can YOU do? We recently hosted a webinar, Defending Nature From Major Projects: Getting Engaged, where we connected with local Nature Network groups and concerned community members about how to act locally and organize to raise your voice.
