Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault is still waiting for the end of the federal assessment of GNL Quebec to decide the fate of the project, has learned The duty. However, this is being studied under a law adopted under the Harper government. This legislation provides that the Minister cannot take into account greenhouse gas emissions from gas exploitation or the impacts of maritime transport to determine whether the plant would have “negative” environmental effects and to impose conditions on the promoter. .
Even if they refused in the last few days to make “additional comments”, despite our repeated requests, the promoters of the Énergie Saguenay liquefaction plant and marine terminal project have not abandoned their project. However, the Legault government officially rejected it in July and Hydro-Québec confirmed in To have to the abandonment of the electricity supply project for the industrial complex.
The promoters of the natural gas liquefaction plant and the gas pipeline project have nevertheless decided to continue the federal assessment process, which is conducted by the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (AEIC). They also still, dated 1er December, lobbyists registered in the federal and Quebec registers. In the case of Gazoduq, a lobbying mandate is valid until March 2022 and it recalls that the 480-kilometer gas pipeline project is “subject to federal laws”.
The study of the AEIC continues to progress, according to what was confirmed in To have to. After a period of public consultations on the “interim report” that ended on October 22, the organization is now “examining” the comments received and the opinions of experts from the federal departments involved. She therefore finishes “the drafting of the environmental assessment report which will be presented to the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change for a decision”.
The provisional version of the report, published in September, concluded that the LNG Quebec project would harm the climate efforts of Quebec and Canada, in addition to representing a potential of major risks for endangered marine mammals, including the St.Lawrence beluga. The document also rejected outright the promoter’s assertions that the natural gas export project would be beneficial in the fight against the climate crisis.
However, it is not the AEIC that must rule on the fate of the project, but the Trudeau government. Thus, specifies the organization in a written response, Minister Steven Guilbeault “will send the proponent a decision statement relating to the environmental assessment of the project, and, in the event that the project is approved, it would include enforceable conditions ”.
Steven Guilbeault’s firm confirmed at To have to that the Minister wait for the final version of the report before “announcing his decision” concerning the project. “The Minister will take into account the Agency’s final environmental assessment report to determine whether the project is likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects. If so, it will send the decision to the Governor in Council to determine whether these effects are justifiable in the circumstances. It is only afterwards that the Minister will be able to provide a decision statement, ”said Mr. Guilbeault’s office.
Greenhouse gas
The LNG Quebec project, tabled in November 2015, is assessed under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act revised by Stephen Harper’s conservatives in 2012 (CEAA 2012). Thus, the guidelines for drafting the impact study clearly indicated that the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced “upstream”, mainly during the exploitation of natural gas, “are not considered. as part of the project for the purposes of the environmental assessment ”.
“Therefore, the Minister [de l’Environnement] will not make a decision under CEAA 2012 to determine whether […] these greenhouse gas emissions produced upstream are likely to cause significant negative environmental effects, and these activities will not be subject to the conditions imposed on the promoter by a decision statement authorizing the execution of the project ”, specify the same. Guidelines.
This means that Minister Steven Guilbeault will not be able to take into account, in his decision to authorize the project or not, the some seven million tonnes of GHGs attributable to the extraction and transport of Alberta gas, exploited mainly by fracking.
This legal provision of CEAA 2012 was confirmed in To have to over the past few days by the AEIC. “It should be noted that the upstream activities could not be subject to the conditions imposed on the promoter by a decision statement authorizing the execution of the project, in the event that the project can go ahead, since these escape to the responsibility and control of the promoter, ”explained the federal body.
As part of an energy partnership signed last March with Germany, the Trudeau government affirmed that liquefied natural gas projects are part of the development of “clean energy”, in a context of the fight against the climate crisis. In 2019, it also provided $ 275 million in financing to LNG Canada, the largest gas export project in the country’s history.
Navigation and belugas
In addition, the maritime export of liquefied gas by GNL Quebec is not considered “as part of the project for the purposes of the environmental assessment”, since it “escapes the responsibility and control of GNL Quebec”. . However, the AEIC has already promised that this will be taken into account in the “assessment of cumulative environmental effects”.
In October 2018, the Trudeau government approved the construction of a mining port on the Saguenay, as part of the Arianne Phosphate project, but without imposing any constraints on the maritime transport that would be associated with it. Like GNL Québec, this project was assessed under the provisions of CEAA 2012.
According to a scientific opinion produced by researchers at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the GNL Québec project and the Arianne Phosphate mining terminal would triple the current maritime traffic in the Saguenay, which could harm the recovery of the St.Lawrence beluga.