Comparing Provincial EA: A Comparative Analysis of Five Canadian Provincial Approaches to Municipal EA

The purpose of this major research paper is to examine the provincial environmental assessment processes within five Canadian jurisdictions for comparison using the EAOGRAM metric created by the IAIA. The paper focuses on provincial EA and its subsidiary practices in municipalities to explore provincial EA at the local level and on the scale of large provincial projects.

Environmental Assessment is a well studied and utilized planning tool in Canada and much has been written on EA in each province individually and increasingly across jurisdictional lines. There is however, little written in terms of comparative analysis of these policies. That is, comparing jurisdictions side by side for commonalities and opportunities for improvement or to encourage a better understanding of how EA operates across Canada regionally. The diversity of approaches across Canada has garnered several attempts to standardize EA, however this has largely been unsuccessful due to the distribution of power in the provinces, the difficulty in administration, and the different needs of EA from each region.1 This paper will further an understanding of the differences and commonalities between provincial EA practices in a few of Canada's jurisdictions. The provinces are specifically British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. The evaluation will utilize case studies from routine municipal projects, specifically road-extension projects to create a comparable baseline as it relates to municipal EA. The case studies presented are examples of typical road extension projects and thus reflect a comparable baseline by which to evaluate the projects. The evaluation will also employ the popular EAOGRAM developed by the International Association on Impact Assessment to evaluate each province on 10 criteria for effective EA practice. The provinces have been compared using this criteria by the IAIA in 1994, since then much of Canada's EA practices have changed, this paper will compare the 5 selected jurisdictions and contribute to our understanding of EA practice across provincial lines both municipally and provincially.

1 Constitution Act, s. 92 and 92A, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (UK), 1982, c 11. 4