The federal government and several provinces are in a tug of war over the power to regulate natural resource and development projects. Canada’s Supreme Court heard two days of testimony on March 21 and 22 to help it decide if Ottawa’s Impact Assessment Act (IAA) is constitutional. The law, known as Bill C-69 before it…

The Supreme Court of Canada will hear a federal appeal this week trying to push through what’s often called the “No More Pipelines Act.” The bill, C-69, is officially called the 2019 Impact Assessment Act (IAA), though former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney gave it its other monicker. It gives the federal government more power over…

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has called on his province’s energy industry to intervene in the provincial government’s court challenge of the federal Impact Assessment Act (IAA). The IAA, or Bill C-69, which received royal assent in 2019 and which Kenney dubbed the “no more pipelines” bill, allows the federal government to consider the impacts of…

The recent ruling by the Alberta Court of Appeal that the federal government’s Impact Assessment Act (IAA) is unconstitutional may show that the court has a “principled approach” toward federalism that’s more consistent with earlier jurisprudence, says a constitutional law expert. “Other courts are approaching federalism in Canada a little bit differently today, and the Alberta…

Having recently lost its constitutional challenge against federal carbon pricing in Canada’s top court, Alberta is still in the fight against Bill C-69, the Impact Assessment Act. Multibillion-dollar investments in resource and pipeline development are not all that is at stake. Provincial-federal relations and Western alienation are collateral issues in what promises to be an…