Assessments after decision: Lessons from the Jackpine Mine Expansion Approval in Alberta, Canada.

Recent federal legislative reforms, such as the Impact Assessment Act (2019), seek to rebuild public trust in the regulation of large industrial projects through a commitment to sustainability and public engagement, alongside jurisdictional cooperation between federal, provincial, and Indigenous levels of government on projects that fall within their respective powers (Government of Canada, 2019). Ideally, impact assessment processes are a means to achieve good environmental governance over the entire life of a project. In practice, impact assessments, and academic research on impact assessment, disproportionately focus on the first four stages of assessment (planning, impact statement, impact assessment, decision-making), with less attention given to what happens post-decision.

This case study examines the contentious Jackpine Mine Extension Project (JPME) to ask: what happened after the decision? The JPME was approved in 2013 under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (2012). Since the project involved both federal and provincial jurisdiction, a joint review panel was convened, which concluded that the project would have significant environmental effects. The subsequent ministerial decision claimed that the JPME was justified in the circumstances, with approval conditional on numerous recommended conditions including that the proponent evaluate mitigation measures, maintain aquatic and fish health, protect fish health, migratory birds, and Indigenous communities. In 2014, the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations (ACFN) launched a high-profile lawsuit to the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn the approval on the grounds that the impact assessment process failed to uphold Indigenous rights.

Tracing the JPME approval from the 2013 decision to post-decision monitoring and follow up, this case study will examine public documents, including assessment reports, court proceedings, and media accounts, to better understand how questions pertaining to jurisdiction – such as authority and accountability - are addressed in the context of the IAA (2019), paying particular attention to the post-decision phases of impact assessment process.

As with our other case studies, our work on this case was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but we are now in full swing. Graduate Research Assistant Hunter Yaworski will assist with compiling and assessing public documentation, working with case study leads Lianne Lefsrud (University of Alberta) and Gwendolyn Blue (University of Calgary).

Jackpine Mine (Source: Shell Canada)