Does passing Bill C-49 (#4) in the Parliament mean a green pass? Absolutely not!
A fundamental legal commitment to ecological integrity (#1, #3, and #5) is required. The law refers to ecological integrity (e.g. the Oceans Act #5) in some cases. However, these references have limited applications. In these references, maintaining or restoring ecological integrity is not a benchmark to assess activities, but it is a reason for establishing management plans or marine protected areas. These references may set spatial limitations for activities such as offshore wind energy (OWE) so that activities do not fall within the protected areas or undermine management objectives, however, references do not provide a benchmark to examine projects based on ecological integrity. This limitation should be overcome by including ecological integrity as a fundamental rule in the law to avoid any compromise of ecological integrity in OWE project approvals.
The formation of laws, policies, and plans should result from a holistic, integrated, and coordinated approach, not a sectoral approach (#3, #4, and #5) to ensure that the whole or the integrity of relevant ecosystems is not fundamentally and irreversibly damaged due to the impacts of OWE and cumulative effects (#2). The laws and policies related to integrated planning including a needed mandatory process for marine spatial planning/MSP (#5), impact assessment (#3 and #4), and compliance with specific laws for different ecosystem components (e.g. fisheries#6, species at risk#7 and migratory birds#8) are among the critical areas that should be considered in an appropriate regulatory framework of OWE. Complying with provincial laws in Nova Scotia such as the Environment Act and the Endangered Species Act in a federal-provincial cooperative approach is also important. In addition, integrated management, strategic environmental assessment, environmental impact assessment, and MSP should be informed by biodiversity-related knowledge to support the inherent purpose of an all-inclusive perspective toward ecosystems and a holistic ecosystem approach to the sustainable development of OWE.
In the complex world of ecosystems and the potentially significant effects of OWE, the precautionary principle can play a critical role in protecting ecological integrity. The lack of full scientific certainty about the effects of OWE (#2) probably creates doubts. It is particularly important where there are marine protected areas, management objectives, and recovery plans to conserve an ecosystem or a component such as species at risk. The construction of OWE will likely undermine these objectives and plans, cause death or displacement of fish, destroy the habitat of fish or species at risk, and change the composition of fish (#2). In this situation, protecting the ecological integrity of ecosystems requires the intervention of law through the application of the precautionary principle.
Bill C-49 (#4) and the benefits of OWE such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions do not offer this technology a green regulatory pass. Bill C-49 without amendments (#4), taking ecological integrity into account, and considering other amendments, partly discussed in the previous blog posts, is a sectoral approach. OWE planning and projects should be examined whether they, individually and in combination with other activities (e.g. shipping), diminish the integrity of ecosystem(s).
Photo by Francesco Ungaro
