O'Toole proposes streamlined environmental assessments for 'strategic' projects

Conservative leadership hopeful Erin O’Toole laid out his vision for natural resource development this week, proposing a greater role for the federal government in ensuring projects of “national significance” like the Energy East pipeline and Ontario’s Ring of Fire go forward.

Under O’Toole’s plan, which proposes a National Strategic Pipelines Act, pipelines that send resources to tidewater or a Canadian refinery would be deemed ‘nationally strategic’ and sent through a fast-tracked environmental and consultation process.

There would be no need to demonstrate the pipeline itself is needed, he said in a background document.

Pipelines that cross a major river would be subject to enhanced annual inspections. And project approvals would guarantee that communities along the route benefit, he added.

Indigenous communities would be consulted the whole way through, but they wouldn’t get a “veto,” he said.

“There is no veto right. There is a right to be consulted and a right to benefit, and be in some cases primary beneficiaries of development, but if we don’t take advantage of these opportunities it holds everyone back,” he told iPolitics.

O’Toole said he would “streamline” the environmental assessment process in Ontario for a transportation corridor to the Ring of Fire, a mineral-rich area in northern Ontario that has struggled to develop over the last decade despite its vast economic potential.

The area contains a significant chromite deposit, as well as nickel, copper, gold and platinum. Its mineral potential is estimated to be worth $60 billion.

“The provincial government, both Liberal and NDP in Ontario going back 25, 30 years, have really missed the ball on northern Ontario,” O’Toole said.

Ontario’s Minister of Northern Development and Mines, Bill Mauro, doesn’t see it the same way.

“Erin O’Toole and his party were in government for more than a decade and showed no interest in developing the Ring of Fire. Now, in the midst of a leadership campaign, the Conservatives finally see what the Ring of Fire means for Northern Ontario,” he said in a statement.

“Our government is actively laying important groundwork to drive smart, sustainable and collaborative development in the Ring of Fire,” he said, noting the Wynne government has established a dedicated infrastructure development corporation and committed $1 billion to develop transportation infrastructure in the region.

Since that $1 billion commitment in 2014, the Ontario government has “allowed the Ring of Fire to all but go up in smoke,” O’Toole said, noting a U.S. mining company, Cliffs Natural Resources, walked away from the region in 2013 after spending $500 million.

Noront Resources is now the main proponent in the area and, as the Sudbury Star reported in January, the company is committed to developing the Ring of Fire.

But it could still be some time before a mine is developed in the area.

As CBC reported late last month, the relationship between Noront and Neskantaga First Nation is challenging. The First Nation sent a cease and desist letter to the company in the summer of 2015 telling it to stop drilling on its traditional lands, and last month they said they are not in renewed talks with the company’s despite Noront’s assertion that they were.

There are also no plans as yet to develop much-needed road infrastructure in the region.

O’Toole also proposes giving the three northern territories more control over their offshore resources.

The northern offshore drilling ban should be scrapped, “unless northerners themselves choose to keep it,” he said.

That ban drew criticism from northern leaders who weren’t consulted on the decision.