Late last week, members of the Westwood Lab submitted a letter to the engagement on the Draft Co-operation Agreement between Nova Scotia and Canada on Environmental and Impact Assessment. The letter, co-authored by Ben Collison, Dr. Alana Westwood, Dr. Alana Lajoie-O’Malley, Dr. Sara Seck, and Dr. Peter Duinker, was supported by signatures from a dozen other experts with experience in impact assessment (IA) / environmental assessment (EA) policy and practice.
The letter’s central message was simple: “the draft agreement formalizes a shift toward diminished federal oversight by relying on an outdated and less rigorous provincial EA regime. This undermines standards of evidence, participation, and rights protections that impact assessment is meant to uphold.”
Seven priority recommendations, formed through extensive policy analyses and research against best practices in IA, centred around rewriting key sections of the agreement to ensure genuine federal–provincial collaboration using the strongest IA / EA standards, guaranteeing that Indigenous consultation is jointly overseen by both governments, improving details on how the public can participate, and more. We hope that regulators strongly consider these recommendations to revise and advance an agreement that has the potential to greatly influence how natural resource management decisions are made in Nova Scotia.
Read our full letter below.
Westwood Lab 