There are changes coming to the way the provincial Ministry of Environment deals with monitoring.
They are working on the new results-based regulation.
Kevin Murphy, executive director of strategic planning with the Ministry of Environment, said they are moving from prescriptive system, where they tell people and organizations what they need to be doing, to a collaborative system.
“We will be specifying what we want the outcomes to be, what the environmental objectives are – which is obviously protection of the environment, human health and conservation of our natural resources,” he said.
It will streamline the permit process. In some cases, like with low risk projects, they will simply have to consult the ministry.
He said it will end up on saving both sides time as well as make expectations clearer.
“We think that saves everybody money including the government,” he said.
With changes in the permit process government staff will have more time to monitor the work stakeholders are doing and their environmental compliance.
He said it will allow them to have more checks and balances, even though there will be more onus on the businesses.
One of the ways they can do this, is having those involved in industry help create the new Saskatchewan Environmental Code — others involved are First Nations groups and non-governmental organizations.
“One thing we want to make sure is we don’t place any unwarranted onus or expectations onto the regulated community,” he said, explaining it is one of the benefits of having them help create the code.
The regulations will also allow those who cannot afford to hire engineers to have a “standard practice” to follow. They won’t be able to undertake new initiatives, but will be able to operate at a lower cost.
It will also mean companies can do things that might have been turned down under the current system.
“If somebody wants to put a different kind of scrubber onto a stack that has never been tried in the province before, the current regulatory system wouldn’t allow them to do that, whereas in the future, the system will allow them to do those things,” he explained, adding it will allow more flexibility into the system.
Murphy said the reason for the change is twofold – there is a global push toward environmental governance and with the amount of industry in the province, if they kept working the way they were, they would just keep hiring staff and not improving effectiveness.
He said an interesting thing with the new system is it will never be static.
“From now on we are in dialogue with the public, with stakeholders whether something needs to be changed are we observing impacts from what’s going on.”
The program is expected to rollout in the spring, but that could change depending on when the code is finished being developed and once the month long public comment period is over.
klavoie@panow.com
