The Harper government will cut the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency’s budget by 44% in 2015/16, from $31.1 to $17.4 million, prompting iPolitics to ask whether the country is seeing “the end of Responsible Resource Development.”
The CEAA’s mandate was scaled back drastically in a 2012 budget bill that slashed the number of natural resource projects subject to review, and introduced new guidelines and time limits for assessments, Munson writes. Responsible Resource Development was introduced at the same time as “a broad initiative by Ottawa to spur mining and petroleum development.”
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But “this funding sunsets at the end of the 2014–15 fiscal year,” states the agency’s 2012-13 Departmental Performance Report. “The funding will be reviewed as part of a normal process for sunsetting funds that will inform the Government’s decision on its renewal.”
