The Liberal government is pausing its plan to speed up and simplify environmental assessments for major projects and will be waiting until the fall session of Parliament to introduce legislation on it.
The moves comes in the wake of criticism of the planned changes from several environmental groups and opposition voices who disagreed with proposed changes, including allowing major projects to get approval before they underwent a full environmental assessment and holding some developments exempt from at-risk species protections.
Ottawa’s plan, outlined in two discussion papers released last month, also proposed changing the responsibility for reviewing new pipelines, transmission lines, and offshore renewable energy ventures away from the Impact Assessment Agency to the Canada Energy Regulator….