Biodiversity Climate change Conservation planning Natural resource development

WCS Canada Comments: Proposed Federal Major Projects Reforms (Part 2)

Goodday, V. & Ray, J.

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Key points

This is the second of two WCS Canada submissions on this topic. Explore the resource library for part 1.

• On May 12, 2026, the Government of Canada announced a series of proposed legislative, regulatory, and policy reforms related to getting major projects built in Canada. This submission is a follow-up to our higher-level comments on the same proposed reforms.
• The proposed federal major projects reforms, as a package, pose significant risks to biodiversity by weakening ecological safeguards, enable project approvals before environmental risks are fully understood, and reduce consistent application of the mitigation hierarchy.
• WCS Canada proposes measures that strengthen early planning and ecological risk identification, cumulative effects management, and integration of assessment and permitting, while opposing any reforms that predetermine project approvals, eliminate substantive environmental safeguards, or weaken biodiversity protections in the name of efficiency.

Recommended citation

Goodday, V. & Ray, J. (2026). WCS Canada Comments: Proposed Federal Major Projects Reforms (Part 2). Wildlife Conservation Society Canada [WCS Canada]. https://wcscanada.org/resources/wcs-canada-comments-proposed-federal-major-projects-reforms-part-2/