CEAA 2012: The End of Federal EA as We Know It?

Abstract

This commentary assesses the key changes to the federal EA process contained in the 2012 Budget Implementation Bill. The resulting CEAA 2012 is compared to the federal EA process in place since the implementation of the original CEAA in 1995. The article concludes that the key changes in CEAA 2012, including the shift in responsibility for EA, the discretionary triggering process, the narrow scope, new powers of delegation, substitution and equivalency, and the more restricted role of the public all go counter to the improvements to CEAA 1995 suggested in the academic literature.

Keywords: Environmental Assessment, Canada, Federal, Legislation