Elizabeth May
Mr. Speaker, the offshore petroleum boards in Atlantic Canada, the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board and the Canada-Newfoundland & Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, have legislated mandates to expand oil and gas activity in the offshore.
They have never had any role in environmental assessment. If they did, it would be a conflict of interest. Now it appears the Liberals are following through on Stephen Harper’s plans to put these boards involved in environmental assessment where they should not be.
Can the Minister of Environment assure this House that she will keep the offshore boards out of environmental assessment?
Catherine McKenna – Minister for Environment and Climate Change Canada
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member opposite for her continued advocacy on the environment.
We understand that we need to rebuild trust in our environmental assessment system, that we need to make sure that the environment and the economy go together. That is why we are working extraordinarily hard with provinces, with indigenous peoples, with civil society, with business to ensure that we have a world-class environmental assessment system that protects the environment, supports reconciliation, and ensures that good projects go ahead in a timely way with regulatory certainty.