Fisheries and Oceans Canada is one of seven federal departments and agencies under investigation by Parliament’s Information Commissioner, Suzanne Legault, over allegations that the government is “muzzling” and restricting access to government scientists.
The Postmedia News report, published on Tuesday, quoted an internal memorandum that said the department had “recently” discovered that in-situ oilsands projects could disturb water sources and harm fish habitat.
Postmedia News also reported in the story that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government introduced changes to environmental laws – one year after receiving the memo – that would allow it to exclude some oilsands projects from reviews.
“We are declining your interview request in light of the fact your article is incorrect in suggesting that the memo was in relation to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act 2012 and Fisheries Act amendments,” wrote Frank Stanek, manager of media relations from the department in an email to Postmedia News on Wednesday evening.
The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency has published the list of proposed projects that would be subject to an automatic federal environmental review, and it has confirmed that in-situ oilsands projects, which require the injection of high-pressure steam, deep underground to extract heavy oil, were not on this list.
Another media outlet, iPolitics, also reported in the past week that in-situ oilsands projects were excluded from the list and that an industry lobby group, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, had been lobbying the agency in recent months, according to a federal registry. It is not unusual for industry associations to lobby federal departments and agencies to defend their interests on matters of public policy.
The Postmedia report also included comments from the fisheries department saying that these types of projects did not require federal assessments in the past and that it didn’t anticipate they would require reviews under the amended federal environmental laws.
The report also quoted the agency explaining that the environment minister could still require an environmental assessment because of the “potential for adverse environmental effects on matters of federal jurisdiction or if there are public concerns about those effects.”
In his email from Wednesday evening, Stanek repeated that the memo predated the changes to environmental laws, as Postmedia News had reported.
He also said that the department had not eliminated reviews in higher risk areas.
“The memo clearly states that we would continue to work with Departments, Provinces, proponents and others to assess any of these projects where there may be potential for higher risk to fisheries habitat,” Stanek wrote.
The department also sent out letters to various newspapers in the Postmedia Network with similar comments, attributed to David Balfour, a senior assistant deputy minister.
Erin Filliter, a spokeswoman for federal Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield, later wrote on Twitter that the letter was “correcting” the story on environmental assessments.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Mike De Souza
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