Quebec’s Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and the Fight against Climate Change, Mr. David Heurtel, recently a bill aimed at modernizing the environmental approvals process established under section 22 of Quebec’s Environment Quality Act (EQA).

The new approach, which follows similar reforms recently undertaken by Ontario, is designed to increase efficiencies and reduce processing wait-time by focusing the Ministry’s resources on projects with significant environmental impacts.

Under the new regime, the intensity of the Ministry’s assessments will vary with the environmental risk associated with the project. Four categories of activity: low risk, negligible risk, moderate risk, and high risk, have been identified:

 

• low-risk activities, identified by regulation, may be carried out without ministerial authorization 30 days after proponents file "a declaration of compliance" attesting that the project meets provincial standards;
• activities of negligible risk will not need a ministry approval to proceed. These activities will be identified by regulation or through an assessment methodology that will be prescribed by regulation;
• activities of moderate risk will require ministerial authorization;
• high-risk activities, identified by regulation and including those subject to the BAPE process (the province’s public hearings’ bureau) will require an authorization issued by the Quebec Government before they will be permitted to proceed.

The bill also outlines several circumstances under which the government may also subject any project to the EIA process. 

 

The Bill will be subject to consultations in parliamentary committee. Further amendments may be anticipated.