The province of British Columbia\u2019s review of professional reliance in natural resource decision-making was released last week with 121 recommendations aimed at 51,000 professionals in engineering, geoscience, forestry, biology, agrology and applied science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If implemented, the changes mean a generational shift with profound implications for the general prosperity of British Columbians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The review findings immediately provoked strong criticism from mining, forestry and business groups. Little wonder. In the first place, the process was spearheaded by environmental lobbyist Mark Haddock, a UVic academic with strong ties to the environment minister, George Heyman. Haddock is employed at UVic\u2019s faculty of law and has previously advocated for an environmental tribunal system to add an additional layer of oversight to mining, logging, and oil and gas development in BC. He is tied to West Coast Environmental Law, which is concurrently advocating for “a complete overhaul of BC\u2019s environmental assessment law\u201d as the only way to ensure that Heyman can deliver on his mandate-letter instruction to “ensure the legal rights of First Nations are respected, and the public\u2019s expectation of a strong, transparent process is met.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Haddock\u2019s 2015 paper for the UVic Environmental Law Centre, Professional Reliance and Environmental Regulation in British Columbia<\/a>, foreshadowed his current project and its conclusions. The province of BC could not possibly have believed that, with his appointment, a neutral arbitrator was being put in charge of the review process. In effect, the Haddock review was already written before Mark Haddock set to work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If that obvious conflict of interest is not compelling enough, consider that Haddock is also an alumnus of Ecojustice, an advocacy group that is in the business of suing Canadian governments on environmental issues. The group is currently in court trying to compel the federal government to require the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to test for piscine reovirus before issuing a transfer licence for farm fish heading to net pens in the ocean. Ecojustice is suing for the National Energy Board to be required to consider and assess Kinder Morgan\u2019s project impacts on marine species and require the regulatory body to mitigate or avoid harm to the southern resident killer whales\u2019 survival, and it has been credited with<\/a> stopping the Northern Gateway pipeline project. The group’s lawyers have launched a Federal Court case on behalf of local residents in an effort to quash a Port Authority-issued permit allowing the construction of a new coal transfer facility on the Fraser River.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of these measures are characteristic of Ecojustice’s general aim of using whatever legal avenues come to hand to thwart the resource economy. Ironically, perhaps, the methodology of Ecojustice and its parent the Sierra Club of BC (which Heyman used to head) is the polar opposite of what professionals stand for. In contrast to its use of legal professionals for courtroom work, Ecojustice employs a fundraising-oriented activist toolbox reliant on outrage and entitlement, whereas professionals must by law exercise care and caution in all that they do. It’s quite a contrast. (Several years ago, I wrote about the Ecojustice approach<\/a> to water management in BC’s north east.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n A decade and a half ago, the British Columbia government embarked on a significant regulatory overhaul. It adopted an ambitious goal of cutting or deregulating one-third of the regulations, coupled with an equivalent reduction in the size of the public service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Natural resource management and environmental protection laws and agencies were a prime focus for this initiative as government believed resource companies were significantly over-regulated. Knowing that many British Columbians care deeply about the environment, former premier Gordon Campbell sought to assure the public that environmental standards would not diminish; instead, they would be overseen by professionals in the private sector, rather than government bureaucrats. To bolster this claim, the government revised legislation for self-governing professions, such as foresters and agrologists, and passed legislation establishing a new college for biologists. Professional accountability would be maintained primarily through the enforcement of codes of ethics and the disciplinary processes of professional associations, rather than through the approval of plans, permits and licences by government agencies. This was the \u201cnew era of professional reliance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prince George North MLA Pat Bell commented on the changes in 2003 as they were implemented. \u201cWe allow engineers to stamp a bridge that millions of people drive across,” he told the Prince George Citizen, “yet a registered professional forester with a similar amount of education isn\u2019t allowed to stamp a cut permit to harvest one tree without having it double-checked. We think it makes good sense to move to professional reliance.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Haddock argued in his 2015 paper that \u201cmuch of BC\u2019s deregulation goes too far in handing over what are essentially matters of public interest to those employed by industry. Proponents should not be decision makers for matters involving the weighing and balancing of multiple, often competing, environmental and societal values.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n His recommendations at that time included \u201cplugging loopholes, addressing conflicts of interest, incorporating better checks and balances, improving environmental performance, restoring government approvals where needed, and thereby increasing public confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite his having long arrived at those conclusions, Haddock\u2019s report issued June 28<\/a> starts out by framing the exercise as an exploratory process, as if he had not already made up his mind before starting the job. Haddock writes: “It is a higher-level examination of professional governance and regulatory systems in the spirit of continuous improvement. Considering the iterative four-step management method of ‘plan-do-check-adjust,’ British Columbia has about 15 years of recent experience with the planning and doing steps of professional reliance, and this review is about checking and recommending adjustments where needed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n That sounds sensible enough. Yet the 2018 review process was never anything but a zero-sum political game, its outcome decided long before it ever began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Haddock does not fail to point out that when the NDP came to power and formed a minority government in 2017, a Confidence and Supply Agreement (CASA) was made with the BC Green Party Caucus. In this agreement, a commitment was made to \u201creview and address failures in the professional reliance model in BC so that British Columbians\u2019 faith in resource development can be restored.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The idea that BC residents had lost faith in the benefits of resource development may certainly be true of a segment of the population, but not a large segment. A poll by Resource Works in February 2017 showed that 84 per cent of residents believe it is possible to create green jobs and grow the green economy within the province’s natural resource sector. Only 11 per cent of residents do not believe that resource development is good for BC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fifty nine per cent saw BC as a world leader in sustainable natural resource development, a statement that only five per cent strongly disagreed with. Eighty seven per cent felt that, with real discussion and debate, we can figure out how to make natural resource development work for BC. And a majority of residents felt resource development was based on facts and science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is on less objective issues where we discovered the problem lay. A sense that openness and inclusiveness govern natural resources was missing in action. Even worse was transparency: only 37 per cent of residents felt the debate and discussion about natural resource development could be described that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps as a result, residents are almost evenly divided on whether the resource conversation is open, respectful, and moving toward consensus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Facing this nuanced reality, the BC NDP might have thought twice about handing over a professional reliance to the BC Greens. There is clearly room for improvement, particularly in building trust. But does that really require tearing down the entire edifice? BC Green MLA Adam Olsen recently described Canada and British Columbia with the contemptuous term of \u201cresource colonies.\u201d The party\u2019s blinkered \u2013 and deeply flawed \u2013 view of the natural resource economy is that it is all about sending the benefits of industries like mining, forestry, oil & gas, and aquaculture to foreign places, leaving no benefits for locals. Nothing could be further than the truth, as our research at Resource Works has been showing for years. The Greens represent a share of public opinion, but not a large one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It shouldn\u2019t have been a surprise to see Ecojustice be ready June 28 to shower praise on the Haddock report. \u201cWe want to see recommendations in the report implemented immediately,\u201d said Ecojustice executive director Devon Page in a statement from Evidence for Democracy, a coalition of environmental groups and trade unions led by Ecojustice. To this group, the professional reliance recommendation is but one milestone. Next stops: Land use planning, \u201cupdated\u201d mining laws, and restrictions on forestry, to name just a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It seems fair to surmise, based on Haddock\u2019s own statements, that his deeper purpose is nothing less to end the province\u2019s reliance on its resource economy, and the reliance review is but one of the ways to bring that about. Actions on land-use planning, forest practices, water, and First Nations engagement are coming next. More than an administrative change, Haddock\u2019s mission is a philosophical sea change to the operations (and costs) of government. It syncs rather well with the BC Greens agenda. His recommendations, if adopted, will result in a deep, lasting and potentially very costly impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since 2005, the BC Oil & Commission has employed a professional reliance model based on results-based regulation, and it has harmonized its procedures with those of the Province of Alberta, where the Alberta Energy Regulator operates a widely admired system. Changes would affect how LNG projects important to the NDP government are developed, in what is already an intensely regulated industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are definitely two sides to the story. There is no reason to blindly defend the status quo, reducing public policy development to a dogfight between competing ideologies. Regulated professionals are nothing if not practical problem solvers. In one submission the review process received, registered professional forester Stirling Angus stated that<\/a> professional reliance \u201cworks well to encourage different professionals to respectfully cooperate and coordinate in order to develop good, practical solutions.\u201d Lawyer Sean Hern, an observer, acknowledged some notable lapses, and was able to provide<\/a> a number of practical fixes to address perceived problems that would not have required Haddock\u2019s wholesale house cleaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the view one company that heavily relies on regulated professionals, there is lack of awarness of how those accountability is maintained and enforced in those professions. Doug Stout of FortisBC wrote to<\/a> the Haddock process to say that an improved understanding of the role, responsibilities, legislation and work of the professional bodies would do much to enhance public understanding and confidence. (A complete list of submissions can be found here<\/a>.) This was a fairly typical theme that surfaced in submissions received, yet it appears to have been entirely ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the BC Institute of Agrologists<\/a>, one of the professional bodies affected by the report, legislative changes will be introduced in the 2018 fall session to implement recommendations #1 & #2:<\/p>\n\n\n\n R1. Establish an independent Office of Professional Regulation and Oversight:<\/p>\n\n\n\n R2. Legislate critical elements of professional governance<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once those foundational pieces are in place, the stage is set for the remaining 119 recommendations to be implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And what will all this solve? Haddock\u2019s report provides some anecdotal evidence that there are cases where some members of the public believed there was a connection between professional reliance and specific situations. Two well-known examples: the Mt Polley disaster, and a controversy involving a soil dump at Shawnigan Lake. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Haddock couches his critique within some passionate arguments that pull on emotional heartstrings, invoking the shared values of environmental respect that every thinking citizen ought to subscribe to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He also draws heavily on aggrieved parties who felt their influence diminished over the past decade and a half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet there is no actual evidence provided anywhere in the report to show that the professional reliance model has resulted in broad outcomes that are worse than would have been achieved if those changes had not taken place. During the 15 years of professional reliance under the BC Liberals, numerous resource projects were rejected that did not clear the regulatory bar. LNG has been slow to develop, in part because of regulatory congestion at the provincial level. The Fraser Institute in 2017<\/a> ranked BC in 7th place among Canadian provinces as a place for mining investment, while the province declined in mining attractiveness over the previous five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An ambitious government might seek to solve those issues rather than increase the cost and complexity of doing business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where are we headed now? The advised direction is, definitively, back towards a big government approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBackground of professional reliance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A zero-sum political game<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What do British Columbians think?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Two sides to the story<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Will BCGEU get its wish?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n