"If you followed coverage of the federal budget last week with an eye to environmental issues, you could be excused for thinking Canada's environmental review process is a tangled web of unnecessary red tape that is stifling investment in Canada's energy sector.
Building on the theme that Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver has been doggedly repeating in stops across the country, last week's federal budget documents argued the environmental review process needs to be unraveled in order to attract capital and keep Canada's economy moving forward. It would make sense if it weren't based on such a phony premise.
To illustrate the need to slash all that red tape, the government repeatedly points to Exhibit A: the fact that it took six years for the federal government to approve the Total Joslyn oilsands mine. Six years does seem like a long time — until you consider one important fact: mid-way through the process, the oilsands company behind the project chose to completely change its approach to extracting the bitumen from the oilsands and managing the resulting tailings waste, and submitted a new application for the project, essentially hitting re-set on the regulatory review."
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