Bill C-17, otherwise known as an Act to amend the Yukon Environment and Social-Economic Assessment Act, will make a consequential amendment to another act.

– Basically Bill C-17 will repeal 4 amendments of our Bill S-6 which received Royal accent in 2015.
– Bill S-6 streamlined environmental regulatory processes in the North. This Act was intended to make northern regulatory regimes more consistent with those in the south, to attract investment and develop economic opportunities

Bill C-17 Proposes to repeal:
• Time limits on the review process;
• Exemptions of project from reassessment when authorization is renewed or amend unless there has been significant changes to the project
• Ability for the Federal minister to provide binding policy directives to boards; and
• Ability to delegate the federal minister’s powers to the territorial government

Industry concern is, they prefer that the beginning to end time limits remain in the Act. Without certainty it will be difficult to attract future investment.
In addition, Industry has signaled that its preference would be to retain the significant change provision when a project authorization needs to be renewed or amended.
First Nations communities support the amendments set out in C-17
– Opposition to this Bill will come from the resource exploration and development industry

So I propose we oppose this bill.