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 received royal assent, was dubbed by former Alberta premier Jason Kenney as the “no more pipelines” law because of the regulatory burden it puts on major infrastructure projects. It allows Canada’s environment minister to flag a project—be it a pipeline, a housing development, or highway construction—as potentially having adverse environmental or socio-economic impacts….