How should Canada decide which mines and pipelines get built, and which whole regions are opened up to industry? And who gets a say before the first trees come down?
Those are the questions behind Bill C-39, the Building Canada Strong Act. The bill would let a small number of federal ministers approve major projects on a one-year clock, designate entire “regions of national interest” where eligible projects are treated as pre-approved, and make that system permanent.
In October, ORCIE submitted a brief to the House of Commons Legislative Committee studying the bill. It is our first submission to a legislative committee. We read the bill as religious congregations approach any discernment: who will live with its consequences, and have they been heard? First Nations, communities beside each project, and generations not yet born all will, and the bill gives none of them a real say.
Integral ecology asks every law whether it is life-giving or life-diminishing. Applied to major projects, that means assessment comes before the decision, environmental, social, economic and cultural effects are weighed together, and the people who will live with a project have a real say in it. Bill C-39 moves away from each of these.
Our member congregations have also committed to the UN Declaration as the framework for their own reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, in answer to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action 48. We are not asking Parliament to meet a standard we have not accepted for ourselves. And bypassing rights does not deliver the certainty the bill promises: it delivers conflict and litigation.
What we found
As drafted, the bill falls short in four places.
Climate. A project’s effect on Canada’s climate commitments is one consideration among many, with no point at which its emissions would lead to refusal. Pipelines approved next year will still be running after 2050, the year Canadian law commits us to net-zero. The people who will live with those emissions have no say in this decision.
Indigenous rights. Consultation is squeezed onto a federal timeline, with no consent-based process. On October 8, the Chiefs of Ontario, the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador, the BC Assembly of First Nations and Nishnawbe Aski Nation jointly rejected the bill and called on Canada to withdraw it.
Independent review. An integral ecology lens starts with the conviction that everything is connected: a pipeline is never only an engineering question. The Impact Assessment Agency is the federal body built to look at a project whole, weighing its environmental, health, social and economic effects, including its effects on Indigenous peoples. Bill C-39 removes the Agency from the review of pipelines and nuclear projects. What is left is a narrower review, run by regulators that report to the minister responsible for growing those same industries.
Irreversible harm. Ministers could allow construction before an assessment is finished and loosen a project’s conditions after it is approved. Clearing a forest or draining a wetland cannot be undone, and paying for the damage afterward does not bring back a spawning ground.
What we asked for
We asked the Committee to amend the bill in six places:
- Test every project and regional decision against Canada’s legislated climate targets, with published reasons.
- Bring the bill in line with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, including free, prior and informed consent, and delay Part 1 until its regulations are developed with Indigenous governments.
- Restore joint review with the Impact Assessment Agency for pipeline and nuclear projects.
- Require a vote in Parliament before any region of national interest is designated.
- Bar irreversible construction before an assessment is finished and stop ministers from weakening approval conditions after the fact.
- Keep a company’s profit margins out of decisions that protect species at risk and fish habitat.
Where the bill is now
Bill C-39 passed second reading on October 8 and was sent to a special committee created for this one bill, the Legislative Committee on Bill C-39, instead of a standing committee. The window for written submissions was short: groups had until October 26, less than three weeks after the bill was referred. The committee has heard a long list of witnesses from every sector.
ORCIE made its submission on behalf of our member congregations. You can watch the committee’s meetings on ParlVU and read the briefs it has received on the committee’s page of the House of Commons website. Our full brief, including draft amendment language for three of our six recommendations, is here: Decades of consequences on a one-year clock: our brief on Bill C39
Next: the Senate
The Special Senate Committee on the Building Canada Strong Act is studying the bill at the same time, in what is called a pre-study, and the government wants Royal Assent by December. Our next step is to adapt our brief for senators.
The Senate committee is still accepting written submissions. If you or your congregation want to write, we suggest focusing on two amendments that are narrow enough to win support:
- A review of the new approvals system by Parliament within five years. Parliament built a five-year limit into last year’s Building Canada Act, and this bill removes it.
- Delaying Part 1’s coming into force until its regulations and consultation arrangements have been developed with Indigenous governments.
Submissions go to the committee clerk, and the Senate’s guide to contributing to a committee study explains how. If you do write, please send us a copy at info@orcie.org so we know what senators are hearing from our communities.
Canada can still choose good decisions, not just fast ones. That choice now sits with Parliament, and for a few more weeks, with us too.