Thirty Years of Weaker Rules. Nature Is Still Paying the Price.

Elk walking through the grass beside Canadian government infrastructure in Jasper National Park, Alberta. — Photo: Jasper National Park, Alberta — By Michael Mamoon

Biodiversity | Government and Policy

By Sandra Schwartz | November 5, 2026

After decades of narrowing federal assessment, Canada is being asked to repeat the same failed pattern under Bill C-39.

Canada’s environmental assessment system is starting to feel like Groundhog Day—but the federal government still has time to change the script.

Every few years, governments follow the same script: narrow the rules, promise faster approvals and act surprised when the same pressures return.

After three decades of rewrites, one lesson should be clear: nature protection was never the barrier. Yet it is once again being treated as the problem.

With Bill C-39, Canada is being asked to repeat that pattern.

Fewer reviews. Faster decisions. Less public scrutiny. The same old pattern, repackaged as progress.

If weaker oversight produced faster, better outcomes, decades of shrinking federal assessment should have delivered the proof by now.

Meanwhile, the risks to nature keep growing. Southern Resident killer whales remain endangered and face imminent threats to survival and recovery. Tailings and mine waste continue to threaten waterways and fish habitat, while Canada’s changing climate increases wildfire risk and weather extremes.

Killer whale emerging from the water near a major port in Vancouver, British Columbia. — Photo: Killer whale near Vancouver — By Surangaw

Thirty years of fewer assessments

In the 1990s, federal environmental assessment cast a wide net.

Under the original regime, thousands of decisions triggered some level of federal review each year. Funding, federal land or permits could bring a project into assessment, ensuring that public lands, waters and wildlife were considered before decisions were made.

In 2012, Canada shifted to a project-list approach, cutting federal assessments from thousands each year to a few dozen major projects. Timelines shortened, and more responsibility moved to sector regulators.

The 2019 Impact Assessment Act broadened the factors considered—including climate impacts, health, Indigenous rights and the public interest—but kept the project-list model. Only a small number of major projects were assessed.

Federal review has narrowed further: pipelines and power lines have been removed from the regime, while Bill C-39 would concentrate decision-making, compress timelines and create new pathways to pre-approve projects.

The trajectory is clear.

Canada keeps assessing fewer projects while the risks to land, water, wildlife and communities grow.

That is the real Groundhog Day: the rules keep shrinking while the places and species they should protect are pushed closer to the edge.

Nature was never the problem

Across successive federal regimes, environmental review has become dramatically less common.

If weakening assessment was supposed to solve the problem, the evidence should be obvious by now. It is not.

Canada has reviewed fewer projects, narrowed assessment triggers and shifted more decisions into faster regulatory channels—yet the obstacles facing major projects remain.

Narrowing assessment has not solved the market, financing, infrastructure or public-support challenges facing major projects. It has only made nature protection easier to blame.

Major projects rise or fall on markets, financing, infrastructure, labour, community support and long-term public benefit.

Environmental assessment cannot fix those challenges by being made smaller.

Reducing oversight may look like action, but it does not make projects more durable or credible. Strong assessment can identify risks early, improve decisions and build the public confidence major projects need to endure.

Public land is a public asset

Women having fun exploring nature on trekking day in to the wood — Photo by DisobeyArt

What often gets lost is whose interests environmental assessment is meant to serve.

Environmental assessment protects public assets before irreversible decisions are made.

The forests, rivers, oceans, grasslands and wildlife affected by major projects belong to all Canadians.

Fish habitat affected by mines, migratory bird habitat crossed by transmission lines, wetlands drained for development and species pushed closer to extinction are public—not corporate—assets.

Governments must protect and manage those assets in the public interest—a responsibility that grows more urgent during periods of rapid development.

Bill C-39: We are repeating the same mistake

Bill C-39 follows a pattern Canadians have seen before: fewer projects subject to federal assessment, greater reliance on sector regulators, compressed timelines and more authority concentrated in fewer hands.

Urgency matters—but structure determines whether faster decisions are also credible, accountable and built to last.

Who decides which projects are reviewed and how the public can participate all shape the outcome.

Nature is our greatest asset

C-39 will set the conservation clock back by decades. 

Send a Letter ➜

Faster approvals do not answer the central question: how can Canada advance needed projects while protecting the public assets that support our economy, communities and quality of life?

A false choice—and a broken promise

Aerial view near Fort McMurray, Alberta, showing the Athabasca oil sands. — Photo: Aerial view near Fort McMurray, Alberta, showing the Athabasca oil sands — By Spotmatik

Canada needs clean energy, public transportation, housing-enabling infrastructure and strategic investment. It also needs healthy forests, watersheds, oceans and ecosystems that reduce climate risks and sustain communities.

This is not a choice between nature and development. Bill C-39 is written as though it is.

The federal government has repeatedly said Canada can advance development and protect nature at the same time, including through announcements such as Force of Nature. Bill C-39 should be judged against that commitment. As written, it presents an either-or choice: weaken environmental oversight or accept that necessary projects will not move forward.

That contradiction matters.

Canadians who support the government’s economic ambitions should also expect its laws to match its promises, maintain effective safeguards and protect public assets through transparent, public-interest decisions.

The lesson from 30 years of assessment reform is not that Canada protected too much nature. It is that weakening oversight does not solve the deeper problems holding good projects back—and Bill C-39 risks repeating that failure.

The federal government should revise Bill C-39 so that development delivers lasting public benefits while protecting the natural systems on which future prosperity depends.

The real test is whether the federal government will bring Bill C-39 into line with its promises.

Canadians deserve better than another false choice. The government can still revise Bill C-39, keep its promise and show that lasting prosperity does not require nature to pay the price.