Abstract
Since being elected in 2015, Canada’s federal Liberal government has taken steps to overhaul major environment-related laws and policies, including federal environmental assessment (EA) and regulatory processes. During 2016–2017, a government-appointed panel toured Canada and received >1000 suggestions from diverse sectors of society regarding EA reform. Yet, different sectors of society may have different views concerning scientific components of EA. We analyzed written submissions during public consultation (categorized into five sectors) regarding five key scientific components of EA: (1) openly sharing information, (2) evaluating cumulative effects, (3) scientific rigour, (4) transparency in decision-making, and (5) independence between regulators and proponents. On the whole, submissions from Indigenous groups, non-governmental organizations, and individuals/academics supported strengthening all five components. In contrast, most contributions from industry/industry associations, and, to a lesser extent, government bodies or agencies, suggested that there was no need for increased scientific rigour or increased independence. These findings indicate that there is cross-sectoral support for strengthening some scientific aspects of EA. However, the degree to which the Government of Canada strengthens the scientific rigour and independence of EA will indicate whether environmental decision-making in Canada is aligned with preferences from industry or the rest of Canada.
Highlights
While the participants recruited may have represented a self-selected sample of participants who were interested in the tar sands because they already had negative opinions, these results suggest that they were not very knowledgeable, were probably guessing quite a lot, and that their estimates were widely spread and for the most part not very accurate
Answers to the major theoretical research questions are summarized below: 1) What are people’s cognitive, attitudinal, and affective responses before and after viewing very large resource extraction complexes such as the tar sands complex represented in interactive multi-scale media as described above? How are these responses related to the socio-demographic characteristics and their perceptions and opinions of the tar sands open pit mines?
Based on the small self-selected sample of participants who were interested in the tar sands, it appears that Canadians may be generally uninformed about the geographic area and growth of the tar sands open pit mines
Summary
By determining whether or not there is a statistically significant difference in participant responses to the same questions in the initial and follow up questionnaires, this may indicate whether the process of viewing the Google Earth project affected participants’ perceptions and opinions This may indicate whether or not it is useful to use virtual globes such as Google Earth to communicate the cumulative development of very large projects such as the tar sands open pit mines to the general public. The purpose of this chapter is to analyse the qualitative data in order to identify the most common perceptions and opinions about the tar sands open pit mines as well as the Google Earth project itself, both before and after viewing the visual material This contributes to the objectives of this study to develop ways to improve communication about the cumulative development of large projects with the general public.
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