Former minister says energy project review changes could cause further delays

Workers position pipe during construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion in Abbotsford, B.C., on Wednesday, May 3, 2023.

OTTAWA — The former environment minister who helped to create the Impact Assessment Agency eight years ago says the federal government’s proposal to change how pipelines are assessed risks delaying those projects even further.

“I’m not saying you couldn’t improve the process. But trying to jam through projects and making major changes, similar to what we saw under Stephen Harper, isn’t going to do that. It’s not,” Catherine McKenna told The Canadian Press.

McKenna was the environment minister in 2018 when the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced Bill C-69, the Impact Assessment Act, to overhaul major project reviews. The goal of the legislation was to expedite project reviews and provide confidence and clarity for both Indigenous consultations and environmental impact reviews.

C-69, which passed in 2019, was heavily criticized by energy industry leaders and attacked by the Conservatives as the “no more pipelines bill.”

On Friday, the government announced a suite of proposed changes which would see international and interprovincial pipelines, transmission lines and offshore renewable energy projects reviewed by the Canada Energy Regulator instead of the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, or IAAC.

Reviews for nuclear and uranium projects would be handled by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

The proposed changes, which are undergoing a consultation period, would also give cabinet the power to approve long-route pipelines before the CER completes its review of project conditions and routing. Companies still would not be able to start construction until they get approval from the CER.

The changes would effectively unravel parts of C-69.

McKenna, who left government in 2021 and now chairs a net-zero advisory group to the UN secretary-general, said the changes will backfire.

“It’s going to result in a lack of trust, it’s going to result in protests and it’s going to result in lawsuits,” she said. “And that’s going to be a lot slower and it’s going to be a lot more divisive.”

C-69 was introduced and debated as the government was facing two controversial pipeline projects — the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to the northern B.C. coast and the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. Both projects were mired in legal challenges over Indigenous consultation and environmental impacts.

But Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government says industry feedback suggests the review process is too long and repetitive, and doesn’t encourage investor confidence.

Though the IAAC process has never been used to review an oil pipeline proposal, the government says other project proponents who have gone through the review process for things like new oil wells and LNG pipelines say the process was slow.

“We heard concerns from industry about expertise that lived at places like the Canada Energy Regulator, lived at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, that just did not live at the Impact Assessment Agency,” said Carolyn Svonkin, director of communications for Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson.

“And that made it more difficult to interact with them, they felt like it was slowing down the process, the capacities were different, and therefore it was deterring investors and deterring potential proponents.”

Svonkin said the goal is not to reduce the degree of environmental review but to have it done “in a different place through different expertise.”

Canada has been trying to find ways to expedite major project reviews for more than a decade.

In 2012, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government sought to speed up the environmental review process by having oil and gas project assessments conducted by what was then the National Energy Board, which later became the Canada Energy Regulator under C-69.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said those 2012 changes under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act also failed.

“In the course of all of that, they ended up moving really fast, and then of course the permits were quashed,” May told The Canadian Press.

May pointed out that the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal saw its federal permits overturned by the Federal Court — largely because of a lack of Indigenous consultation but also because of a lack of consideration for the impact of increased tanker traffic on endangered killer whales.

“I mean, the National Energy Board didn’t know what it was doing. It had never done environmental reviews,” said May, who on Friday called on the government to extend the consultation period on its proposed changes.

“When governments decide, ‘We’re going to go fast,’ it’s one of the ways that things go wrong and they don’t get built at all.”

Jay Khosla, executive director of economic and energy policy with the Public Policy Forum and a former assistant deputy minister in the Privy Council Office, said that while he disagrees “a little bit” with the claim the Carney government’s proposal could backfire, it will depend on how the reviews are managed.

“Really, it’s the job and the onus of officials to manage the process to make it as close to litigation-proof as possible. And we’ve had struggles with that,” Khosla told The Canadian Press.

“You have to have the right people on the file. I’ve said this over and over again. You can’t have people who don’t know what they’re doing, who are novice. You also have to have the senior brass, and the people who are actually conducting the technical reviews, aligned on a frequent and regular basis.”

Khosla also said Indigenous consultation is “far more advanced than it ever has been before,” largely due to the government’s emphasis on it throughout the Trans Mountain review process.

One of the proposals the Carney government is pitching is a “consultation hub” for Indigenous feedback on a project. In its discussion paper, the government suggested feedback from Indigenous groups called for improvements to the consultation process to “avoid consultation fatigue.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 12, 2026

Nick Murray, The Canadian Press