Western Premiers want speedier environmental assessments

EDIT: Note, this topic is expanded on here: http://www.vancouversun.com/Premiers+ro ... story.html

I found this to be a really interesting topic, personally, if only because it does highlight on a lot of points of contention which were being discussed in these forums previously. Immigration, getting investment into Canada and competition to be at the forefront of economic/technical progress are all topics I've found myself arguing about quite a bit recently.

10 years is a ridiculous amount of time for an environmental assessment to be done. While some industries, like oil and gas, do have long wait times, others can come and go during that time easily, depending on which way the industry moves them. It's essentially the same amount of time it would take for your child beginning school to being in high school, which is a bit nuts.

I'm sure the western premiers would prefer the feds got out of environmental assessments altogether. And Harper is probably all too willing to oblige. The federal and provincial processes aren't actually all that duplicative--the feds tend to do a more thorough assessment; the province is more driven by immediate economic investment. Plus the feds are obliged, by the Supreme Court, to do First Nations consultations too. That usually takes a lot longer than the scientific assessment itself.

In the Deepwater Horizon incident it's becoming evident that the Mineral Management Service of the US was rubber stamping assessments from BP and other oil companies that, in retrospect, lacked scientific merit.