Sustainability Assessment of the Impact Assessment Act of 2019

Environmental impact assessment (EIA or IA) has been around since the 1970’s and is a governmental process that evaluates the impacts of a project, policy, program, plan, and other initiatives. The process evaluates these initiatives to determine impacts, and explores associated mitigation techniques, alternative solutions, or stopping the initiative altogether. However, is the process itself sustainable? Does it produce sustainable decisions? Hence the purpose of this study is to evaluate the Canadian EIA process for sustainability, specifically the recent iteration of federal EIA law: the Impact Assessment Act of 2019 (IAA 2019, or ‘the Act’). This study combines the methods of policy evaluation, sustainability assessment, and Next-Generation environmental assessment to evaluate the 1AA 2019 against 3 sustainability criteria: 1. Strategic Assessment, 2. Public Participation, and 3. Indigenous Peoples. The main research question is: Is the IAA 2019 an effective instrument in embedding sustainability in Canada? The results of this evaluation found that the Act is a partially effective instrument in embedding sustainability in Canada. Some strengths found include usage of the term ‘meaningful participation’ throughout the statute, and a strong top-down tiering approach. Some gaps found include public participation provisions that do not directly link to racialized and marginalized groups, and weak linkages to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.