CEC hearing a long-overdue step

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/12/2021 (1563 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IT was refreshing to hear the government of Manitoba announce it will be conducting a Clean Environment Commission (CEC) hearing into CanWhite Sands project’s extraction activities.

This is the first CEC hearing to be called since the current Progressive Conservative government took office in 2016, and it is being done following much pressure from the public.

However, I suspect the underlying purpose is to demonstrate that the provincial government is now under new leadership.

Now we wait for the public notice to be posted on the CEC website to get a clearer idea of the rules for the hearing, and the makeup of the commission body that will preside over the hearings.

The government recently appointed a new chairperson of the CEC, who assumes this position on Jan. 1. He just happens to be Jonathan Scarth, the former principal secretary and de facto chief of staff to former premier Brian Pallister.

I have participated in a number of CEC hearings since the 1990s, and this is the first time, to my knowledge, that a former senior order-in-council political staff person has been appointed to chair the CEC.

Concerns about having a full-fledged CEC hearing are already being raised. In a Nov. 25 article in The Carillon newspaper, an unnamed government source said, “Rather than provide funds to a number of parties to examine the environmental effects, the Clean Environment Commission has been asked to provide an independent, technical assessment of the proposal as per the terms of reference. This will include engagement of a consultant to provide technical expertise, and the commission will ensure that relevant issues are evaluated by the consultant. That evaluation will be made public and be available to all parties.”

This is not good enough. Many organizations that have been following the CanWhite Sands (CWS) silica sand mining development project in recent years are calling on the minister of conservation and climate to make funds available, through the established Participant Assistance Program, so groups with limited resources but considerable expertise can participate meaningfully and constructively in the hearings.

It is also unfortunate that the terms of reference given to the CEC by the minister require that the CEC review only the Environment Act Proposal (EAP) submitted by CWS for its silica sand extraction-related activities, as there are still many unresolved issues with CWS’s EAP for its proposed processing facility.

To date, these concerns have gone unanswered, so the proposed processing facility should also have been included as part of the of the terms of reference.

It must also be noted that the recommendations to the minister that will be issued by the CEC are just that — recommendations. The minister is under no legal obligation to accept or implement any of the CEC’s recommendations, and need only provide a written explanation as to why she accepts or ignores any of the recommendations advanced.

It now remains to be seen whether this CEC process will be a meaningful, fair and transparent, and not just an exercise that demonstrates that there is a new leader in town who’s doing business as usual.

It is imperative that those who have presented scientific, evidence-based information about CWS’s EAP be afforded the opportunity to question the company’s experts publicly and under oath at the CEC hearings. We need to ascertain the veracity of the information CWS has included in its EAP. We need to get access to information that CWS has either purposely omitted or been vague about in its EAP. And it should be obvious that we need to be able to call independent experts to provide testimony and evidence.

After all, the fate of the aquifer that supplies drinking water to all of southeastern Manitoba hangs in the balance.

Don Sullivan is currently the director of What The Frack Manitoba, he served as a special advisor to the government of Manitoba for seven years, is a Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal recipient and is a research associate for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – Manitoba.