Canada: New Canadian Environmental Assessment: A Rose By Any Other Name?

Canada: New Canadian Environmental Assessment: A Rose By Any Other Name? by Dianne Saxe, August 31, 2012, Mondaq
Officially, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012, has abolished most federal environmental assessment screenings, but the practical effect is less than it appears. … The savage cuts to federal environmental staff make the new process twice as hard to figure out, especially for projects in a hurry. I’ve got deja vu all over again; it’s like the “good old days” before CEAA when we struggled to understand federal environmental requirements. Confusion and uncertainty are good for lawyers, but didn’t make anyone else happy. CEAA was passed to keep the courts from filling in the gaps themselves. Remember Friends of the Oldman River Society v. Canada (Minister of Transport), 1992 CarswellNat 1313, when the courts unexpectedly gave real teeth to political lip service? It could happen again. [Emphasis added]