Impact Assessment Agency of Canada

That's right.

And we never had a single application come forward because one of the things that Bill C-69 changed was any pipeline over 75 kilometers was a designated project that had to undergo a joint review by the CER and the Impact Assessment Agency.

And we had that Gaza Duke project that was talked about, but it never actually came forward.

So we had lots of conversations with the Impact Assessment Agency, but we never actually undertook a joint review of our project.

Yeah, 75 kilometers doesn't get us very far.

It's a very low bar.

And actually, the amended legislation states that the process can be delayed if more time is required for consultation.

But I think the important change, if we talk about Bill C-39, it's a bit alphabet soup, but Bill C-39 and the changes to the regulatory system that are not these projects of national interest, there's actually a crown consultation function now that's taking place.

I think Saskatchewan as well.

Well, in the interim, since Carney was elected, the Impact Assessment Agency has done Nine collaboration agreements with the provinces.

Saskatchewan is the only one that doesn't have an agreement to really define the areas of jurisdiction.

What is the federal lane? What is the provincial lane? And then more exciting to Brian's point, you know, that great Tuesday where, you know, where, you know, a year's worth of advancements had been done by Tuesday.

So it doesn't even care anything else, you know, and has kept in touch, I think, with the NRC are, you know, over the years to make sure everything is up to date.

But

what was announced a week and a half ago was that, yes, before you had this absurd situation where you had two federal regulators for interventional pipelines, the competent regulator who has energy, you know, technical specialists, the Canadian Energy Regulator, it's bread and butter, but Trudeau had overlaying in 2019 the Impact Assessment Agency, some nice people there, I don't want to say they're not nice, but it was a separate process, a redundant process, had, you know, different, more ideological uh, kind of, uh, a mandate.

And so now that's gone.

We're, we're seeing those across the country, so they also have to go through the same regulatory process, and we wanna make sure that that's an improved process.

So for example, if you have an offshore wind project, uh, right now it's gotta be the Canadian Energy Regulator and the Impact Assessment Agency.

Mm.

So through this legislation, it would just be the Canadian Energy Regulator.

I, I know the Conservatives made inroads with a lot of the more kind of trades and, and locally regulated union side of things.

But I think on the major project side- It's in a large part a reversion to the 2012 paradigm, um, taking the Impact Assessment Agency out of, you know, anything to do with energy projects, anything to do with nuclear projects.

Uh, and I think by being this uncautious, they actually risked more opposition and more, um, protests.

Like, the bill's gonna go as fast as they want it to go.

Exactly, whereas this is going to, um, kind of apply those workarounds to a broader range of projects.

And so for things like pipelines, instead of going through the Impact Assessment Agency, you would go through a different regulator, the Canadian Energy Regulator, or a nuclear project, instead of going through the Impact Assessment Agency, you'd go through the Canadian Nuclear, uh, Safety Regulator.

Hmm.

So where there had been potentially, uh, some duplicative, uh, review processes, this shrinks it down into, uh, one project.

Yeah.

And, you know, some of these projects were would have been previously subject to the Impact Assessment Agency, which was a government body that would evaluate, you know, broad environmental, social health and economic effects of the of them.

And they managed to they they didn't have to bring this information.

change um to the regulatory system to parliament because it was really uh just an amendment to existing regulations rather than to the law itself so someone might consider that to be you know a bit sneaky

He's been the same thing the entire time.

So Kate, the, the government has taken some steps to deal with some of the regulatory issues, right, with C-5, moving energy projects to the energy regulator away from the Impact Assessment Agency for approval, and there's apparently legislation coming that's gonna deal with some more of this.

Um, so, uh, d- do you think that's gonna go far enough in addressing some of the, the investor concerns, um, i- in terms of the moves they're making on that already?

I, I think if it went far enough, we would have a private sector proponent, for example, on the West Coast Pipeline, uh, and we don't.