It’s hard to get major projects built in a country that requires evaluations of systemic racism, local psychosocial conditions and confidential Indigenous spiritual knowledge to be considered at length before any approval is issued. But that’s the current scheme for building big projects that fall under federal jurisdiction and are thus subject to the Impact Assessment Act — and that’s exactly why any plan for turning around the country’s lost decade requires its repeal.
The Impact Assessment Act (IAA), passed by the Liberals with great pride in 2019, requires extensive sociological surveys — taking into account demographics, women, Indigenous and otherwise non-white racial identity — to be conducted alongside environmental assessments prior to any federal project receiving approval.
Impact assessments, according to the law, must take into account “social or economic conditions,” positive or negative, that are likely to arise from the project; confidential Indigenous knowledge, as well as Indigenous cultural concerns; “community knowledge”; and the “intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors.”
The result: delays, more work for consultants and, ultimately, fewer shovels in the ground. From 2019, when the law came into force, to 2023, only one of 25 total projects designated by the act for federal assessments received approval (and this was, in the later stages, delegated to the B.C. government’s process).
Is it fair to deprive aboriginal Canadians of work and other opportunities that our natural wealth provides?
If you are a Liberal, yes.
Only THEY may get rich.
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