The Canadian Liberal government has introduced Bill C-69, which,
among other things, will repeal the Canadian Environmental
Assessment Act, 2012 (the "CEAA")
and enact the Impact Assessment Act (the
"IAA"). After being introduced in
February 2018, Bill C-69 was passed by the House of Commons in June
2018 with little attention from the general business community. The
Bill is now being considered in the Senate, with second reading
underway. Judging by the relatively fast timeline thus far, the IAA
is expected to come into force in 2019.
The government has stated the IAA will create greater certainty
and predictability within the environmental review process.
However, at this stage there is a cloud of uncertainty hanging over
the ultimate impact of the IAA until further information regarding
execution of the new review process is released. Based on what
information is contained in Bill C-69, what we do currently know is
that the IAA is a bulked-up version of the CEAA,