Latest news with #Kebaowek
National Observer
19-06-2025
- Business
- National Observer
Carney's controversial major projects bill clears committee
Running roughshod over the environment. Spawning the next Idle No More movement. Picking economic winners and losers. Prime Minister Mark Carney 's Building Canada Act is anything if not a magnet for criticism. The Liberal government's controversial legislation that would let cabinet quickly grant federal approvals for big industrial projects like mines, ports and pipelines sailed through committee in the early hours of Thursday. A House of Commons panel sat from Wednesday afternoon to after midnight reviewing Bill C-5 in a hurried study, as the Liberal government seeks to pass it through the chamber by week's end. Indigenous and environmental groups, along with opposition MPs and senators, raised concerns that the bill is being rushed through parliament and will grant cabinet sweeping powers to override other laws to plow ahead with industrial projects favoured by the government of the day. 'The process that led to Bill C-5 is a case study in how not to engage with Indigenous nations,' said Kebaowek First Nation Chief Lance Haymond, adding there was no 'meaningful engagement' or a 'recognition of the complexity of our rights, titles and interests.' 'The conditions for an Idle No More 2.0 uprising are being written into the law as we speak,' he told the House of Commons transport committee late Wednesday night. The legislation enjoys support from the business community and building trades, who testified to parliament that it can take longer to get projects approved than to get them built. Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc appeared at the hearings to defend the bill, warning Canada is weathering a 'storm of change' amid US President Donald Trump's punishing trade war and that the country needs to quickly bolster the economy. 'Canadians have entrusted us to do things differently and better and move nation-building projects forward,' he said. The bill is two pieces of legislation rolled into one, with the first part aimed at breaking down internal trade barriers – something Carney promised to achieve by Canada Day. The second part grants the government the ability to designate major projects to be in the "national interest," then fast-track their approval. Thanks to help from the Conservatives, who won a handful of amendments to the bill, the Liberal legislation appears on track to clear the Commons at a brisk pace. Even still, the Tories and the Bloc Québécois raised concerns that it consolidates too much power in the hands of the prime minister and his cabinet. In a series of testy exchanges with LeBlanc, Bloc Québécois MP Xavier Barsalou-Duval said there's no guarantee that the minister in charge of the new process will act in the best interests of the public by granting itself far-reaching powers. 'What we have at the end of the day is a series of decisions that will be made behind closed doors … and nothing guarantees that you won't transform yourself into the minister of cronyism,' he said in French. 'I do not agree that this bill opens the door to corruption,' LeBlanc said in French. As some MPs trotted out comparisons to the Emergencies Act, LeBlanc balked at the idea and added that it's not comparable to a 'White House presidential order,' either. Conservative MP Philip Lawrence pressed LeBlanc on whether there are sufficient ethics screens in place. He noted that Carney previously chaired Brookfield, which has a hand in infrastructure and construction, reviving conflict of interest concerns about Carney's past ties to the firm that the party brought up constantly throughout the recent election. LeBlanc said elected officials would continue to be bound by current ethics rules. Critics lined up on Wednesday to warn one after another that the bill could pose a threat to species at risk and allow Ottawa to sidestep its duty to consult with Indigenous Peoples. 'The last thing we want to do is hold up industry and projects with court cases, and this is exactly where it's headed,' Trevor Mercredi, grand chief of the Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta, told the Commons committee. "We say go back to the drawing board," Charles Hatt, climate program director with Ecojustice, said at a press conference. Anna Johnston, a lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law, said the bill throws the principle of informed decision-making "out the window." "Allowing cabinet to decide whether projects proceed before reviewing them is like building a house and then calling an engineer to ask if it's safe," she said. Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski said he understands the concerns raised by Indigenous and environmental groups but believes the government needs to act quickly. "Are we going to continue to put this on hold, to tinker with it and make slight amendments? I think it's important we pass this legislation and there's always an opportunity afterwards to amend it," he said. Heather Exner-Pirot of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute think tank warned the bill lets political Ottawa pick winners and losers and is 'rife with potential for abuse,' but she said she does not oppose it. She said at the hearings that the Canadian economy needs to be turned around at a critical moment, and this should be the start of broader reforms to spur investment. 'What good is a pipeline if the emissions cap means you can't fill it? What good is a railway if the Impact Assessment Act means you can't mine products to ship on it?' The House is scheduled to sit until Friday, and a Senate programming motion has the upper chamber wrapping up its examination of Bill C-5 by June 27.
CBC
17-03-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Another win for Algonquin community in fight against nuclear waste dump
The Kebaowek First Nation is celebrating a second court win in the last month in its battle against the building of a nuclear waste dump at Chalk River. In January, the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) received approval to construct the "near-surface disposal facility" at the Chalk River research campus, about 190 kilometres northwest of Ottawa and one kilometre from the river. In that same announcement, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) determined the project "is not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects," and that Indigenous groups were adequately consulted. The Kebaowek community, among other advocate partners, challenged both of those rulings through separate judicial reviews. On Friday, in addressing the latter judicial review, federal court Justice Russel Zinn acknowledged that construction of the facility would in fact be a threat to endangered Blanding's Turtle and two bat species in the area. "We were absolutely elated because it's a victory for us, but again, it's a victory for those species at risk that are there," said Chief Lance Haymond of Kebaowek First Nation. According to the ruling, CNL failed to properly assess other reasonable locations for the site. Nicholas Pope, the legal counsel for Kebaowek First Nation, told CBC there are two other viable sites that were overlooked. "Under the law, you can't put the waste facility somewhere that's worse for species at risk when there are other places that would work just as well," he said. "Now the decision is being sent back to the government for redetermination and for right now, the project can't go ahead," Pope said. As of Sunday evening, the CNSC had not responded to the court decision. 'We were completely ignored' In a press release, Pope said the court's latest decision "is a landmark moment for environmental law in Canada." Haymond agrees, but says getting to this point should not have required so much legal pushback. "We were completely ignored, and for us, the two wins that we've won in the courts is validation that we have a voice, we have an understanding of our territory and that [what] we have to say is important," Haymond said.
CBC
20-02-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Algonquin community wins part of court challenge over nuclear waste dump near Ottawa River
An Algonquin community in Quebec is declaring victory after a judge upheld part of its court challenge to a proposed radioactive waste dump to be built about a kilometre away from the Ottawa River. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission approved the project in January 2024, greenlighting Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) to build the "near-surface disposal facility" at the Chalk River research campus near Deep River, Ont., 150 kilometres northwest of Ottawa. But according to Federal Court Justice Julie Blackhawk, the regulatory body failed to consider internationally recognized Indigenous rights and how they apply in Canadian law when consulting with Kebaowek, rendering the approval decision both unreasonable and incorrect. "The consultation process in this matter was not adequate," Blackhawk wrote in a decision released Wednesday. The judge ordered the commission and CNL to resume consultations with Kebaowek "in a robust manner," while properly considering the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and its standard of free, prior and informed consent. The consultation must be adapted to address Indigenous laws, knowledge and be aimed at reaching an agreement, to be completed by Sept. 30, 2026, Blackhawk ruled. Kebaowek had asked the court to quash the commission's approval entirely, requiring CNL to restart the process altogether. But Blackhawk declined, calling that impractical, sending the matter back to the commission to correct the process instead. Nevertheless, community leaders are ecstatic, said Chief Lance Haymond. "It's clear that when Canada adopted UNDRIP, the provisions of UNDRIP had to be applied in Canadian law from the beginning, not in some time in the future," said Haymond, whose community is 300 kilometres northwest of Ottawa. "I think that's a win for Kebaowek, and that's a win for First Nations across this country." Haymond hailed the decision as one with far-reaching implications for industry and project proponents, meaning he expects it will be appealed. The community wasn't entirely successful. The judge found it was reasonable for the commission to conclude the project is unlikely to cause significant environmental harm, contrary to Kebaowek's argument. Neither the commission nor CNL, a private consortium under contract to the federal government, has responded to requests for comments as of publishing time. A novel argument The facility would contain up to one million cubic metres, or about 400 Olympic-sized swimming pools worth, of low-level radioactive waste from the Second World War-era Chalk River site in a specially designed mound. Kebaowek has raised concerns about the project's potential impact on drinking water, wildlife and Indigenous rights. In the judicial review, the community raised novel legal arguments, centring on the commission's obligations under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, federal legislation passed in 2021. The law requires Canada to harmonize federal laws with UNDRIP, an international instrument outlining minimum standards for the protection of Indigenous peoples' rights around the world. Kebaowek argued the nuclear regulator, in light of the relatively new legislation, needed to apply UNDRIP during its decision-making, particularly the article that prohibits states from disposing hazardous materials on Indigenous peoples' lands without their consent. The commission concluded it had no power nor jurisdiction to do so, amid a lack of judicial interpretation of the new law, and declared it had met its duty to consult the community. Blackhawk rejected that, and Kebaowek's legal counsel echoed the chief about the precedent being set in a Thursday news release. "The court has made it clear that respecting Canada's commitments under UNDRIP cannot be delayed to some far distant date," said Robert Janes, a partner at JFK Law in Toronto, in the release. "Canada must respect these commitments now." At the same time, Blackhawk said the duty to consult, which stems from a 2004 Supreme Court ruling, "is a right to a process, not a particular outcome," and doesn't afford Indigenous nations a veto power. Haymond declined to speculate on what the new consultation round will look like but expressed hope it will go beyond "lip service" and enable the First Nation to make a properly informed decision. He called the ruling a win for the two million people who rely on the Ottawa River for drinking water as well, and was eager to thank Kebaowek's numerous backers, which include community groups, non-profit organizations, the Bloc Québécois and the RAVEN Trust legal fundraising charity.
