The federal government is moving ahead with changes that will exempt a number of energy projects from a layer of its environmental assessment process.
Projects including pipelines and transmission lines that cross international or provincial borders, as well as offshore renewable energy projects, will no longer be subject to an environmental review by the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC), according to the new regulations published in the Canada Gazette on Wednesday.
Instead, those projects will be solely reviewed by the Canada Energy Regulator (CER).
“The CER has expertise conducting impact assessments that review a project’s effects on a range of environmental factors, including air, water, soil, climate change, wildlife, species at risk and Canada’s environmental obligation,” a government news release said.
Certain oilsands extraction projects and fossil fuel-fired power generating projects are also being removed from the list of projects that will be subject to IAAC review, the news release said.
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“These projects and facilities will continue to be subject to equally robust applicable provincial and federal assessment processes,” the release reads.
Heather Exner-Pirot, director of energy, natural resources and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said the changes “concretely will help attract investment in this country” by reducing costs.
“Regulatory costs are a big burden. You’re paying a lot of up front legal due diligence costs before you make a single cent,” she said.
The changes come after Prime Minister Mark Carney promised to streamline regulatory approvals for major projects during the last election.
The Liberals, with the help of the Conservatives, passed Bill C-5 shortly after the 2025 election. That legislation allows the government to fast-track major projects it deems to be in the national interest. But these changes will impact the reviews for other major projects that don’t receive that designation.
The government first proposed the changes as part of a suite of measures in May and subsequently launched consultations on the proposed reforms that wrapped up in July.
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The report on those consultations was published on Tuesday, the same day the regulatory changes were announced.
“There was no forewarning of this decision,” said Julia Levin of the Environmental Defence advocacy group in a statement.
“Prime Minister Carney has once again taken a wrecking ball to Canada’s environmental safeguards and climate progress.”
But Exner-Pirot insisted that there will still be an environmental assessment, but it will only be done by one regulator instead of two. She also noted that the regulatory change comes as Carney is about to host an “investors summit” next week.
“This is the Carney government showing the people who are going to show up in Toronto next week that they’re not just talking big game, they’re doing something on the ground that will help make capital welcome in Canada,” she said.
