This morning, the Quebec Environmental Law Centre, Équiterre, the Coule pas chez nous foundation and Nature Québec filed a motion with the Superior Court in Montréal for a declaratory judgment against TransCanada PipeLines Ltd. and Energy East Pipeline Ltd. in order to subject the Energy East pipeline project to the procedure required under the Quebec law.
« If the largest industrial project in Quebec does not respect the law by filing a project notice, the trigger for the Quebec environmental impact assessment and review procedure, who will? » said Michel Bélanger, the applicants' lawyer.
Jean Baril, also present added: « If we accept that Alberta doubles its production of GHGs with the Energy East Project, what level of reductions will Quebec and the other provinces have to adopt to meet the targets set by Canada as part of the Paris Agreement. This is an important economic issue ».
Indeed, « subsections 31.1 and following of the Environment Quality Act (EQA) and Section 2 of the Regulation respecting environmental impact assessment and review stipulate that any pipeline more than 2 km long is subject to undergoing the environmental impact assessment and review procedure of the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) and to obtaining an authorization certificate from the Government of Québec. This mandatory assessment and authorization procedure has been in effect for over 35 years » added Me Bélanger.
Please see the press release for more details.
