The government clearly wants to jam Bill C69 through the Senate before June and everything is put on hold before the October federal election

Suits and Boots is calling on the federal government to shelve controversial Bill C-69 and launch a Royal Commission on Resource Development in Canada. The call for a Royal Commission comes as the Senate Committee on Energy, Environment and Natural Resources prepares to start its study of Bill C-69 on February 6. 

"(It's) the single most important 90-days in Canada's
resource sector" - Suits and Boots founder Rick Peterson

“It’s clear from our work and conversations with thousands of Canadians from coast-to-coast that Bill C-69 is simply a non-starter for Canadians from all walks of life,” said Rick Peterson, an Edmonton-based investment industry executive and Suits and Boots founder.

“This is a wandering, overly ambitious, poorly written piece of legislation that will stall pipeline and other resource projects in the courts and destroy any future investment appetite for Canada’s resource sector,” he said. 

This isn't hyperbole.  This is THE fight for the Canadian resource sector.

The government clearly wants to jam this Bill through the Senate before June and everything is put on hold before the October federal election. Too much is at stake for that to happen. Too many voices -especially resource sector workers and their families – still need to be heard on this issue before we can produce a fully thought-out, clear and cohesive resource sector investment structure that works for all Canadians.  

“Only a Royal Commission can fully allow Canadians from all walks of life to have a voice in this. The time is now – we need to shelve Bill C-69 and go out and listen to Canadians from coast-to-coast and come back later and write a better Bill.”

The last time the federal government launched a resource-related Royal Commission was the 1986 review of the sealing industry, and before that, the 1968 Donald Commission into the Cape Breton coal industry.

Since the 1960s Royal Commissions have been launched into a broad range of matters of national importance such as the RCMP, electoral reform and party financing, Aboriginal Peoples, the future of health care, the blood system, and most recently the 2006 – 2008 royal commission into the Air India Flight 182 bombing investigation. No Royal Commission has taken place since 2008.

“Responsible resource development is Canada’s past and future, central to our continued prosperity and funding for social services, and yet we can’t get good projects over the finish line in the face of foreign-funded PR campaigns and lobbying,” Peterson said.

“We owe it to ourselves and future generations to take a deep, honest look at this critical issue, get to the bottom of what’s going on, and craft a clear way forward for our nation. With so much at stake and so many competing points of voice, it is clear that the only way to accomplish this is to have a national discussion through a Royal Commission.”

The future of Canada’s resource industry today sits in the hands of Canada’s 95 Senators.  Bill C-69, known as the “Impact Assessment Act”, is the federal government’s attempt to impose new “environmental assessment” measures on Canada’s resource sector.  It’s terrible legislation.

CLICK HERE for the full article, “10 Reasons to Kill Bill C-69 in Canada’s Senate”

1. The proposed law was introduced by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change – not by the Minister of Natural Resources. It was reviewed by the House environment committee rather than the energy committee, and only had minimal witness hearings from the energy department.
   
2. The Bill also contains a clause that will require new resource projects to be scrutinized according to “the intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors.” Seriously?
   
3. This Bill clearly gives the federal Environment Minister added discretionary power on deciding whether a project goes ahead or not. Foreign investors will clearly see this for what it really is: a vague, long, expensive and politically motivated decision making process.
   
4. The Business Council of BC says this proposed law will lead to “greater difficulty securing permits… heightened uncertainty among company managers, project developers and investors.” The Council says Bill C69 will help “accelerate outflows of business investment to other jurisdictions”.
   
5. Project review timelines will be extended from an already slow 4 years, on average, by another 8-10 months. All this while American regulators are moving to two-year timelines.
   
6. Bill C-69 imposes new geographic and upstream/downstream criteria on Greenhouse Gas Emission standards. This effectively takes away provincial government authority on natural resource development or exploration and is largely out of control of pipeline companies.
   
7. Fuzzy scientific standards being imposed by Bill C-69 make it unclear if they are the same for both indigenous and non-indigenous bodies who will be doing assessments.
   
8. New and relaxed public input standards for participation in hearings sets the bar so low that it’s easy to see a huge influx of poorly informed, politically stacked and repetitive presentations. This obviously favours opponents of resource projects who have the time, money and support from offshore sources.
   
9. The Bill contains a clause that sets a dangerous precedent by turning Canada’s voluntary commitments in climate change into legal obligations that could be used against us by our trading partners.
   
10. Bill C-69 falls far short of setting enough support for proponents of resource development during the review process. The Trans Mountain Expansion Project Application had 8,800 pages describing the negative effects on local communities – but just two pages on its economic, fiscal and energy benefits. This won’t change under C-69.

Suits and Boots was launched by six investment industry colleagues in April of 2018 with the mission of giving Canada’s resource sector workers a constructive voice in the decisions impacting their lives and livelihoods. The organization has since grown to 3,200 members in hundreds of communities across Canada. Suits and Boots has held rallies and flown banners over Parliament, written Senators asking them to kill the current version of Bill C-69 and send this flawed attempt at re-working Canada’s environmental assessment regulations back to the House of Commons, and sat down with politicians in Ottawa to advocate for change.