Shift has submitted a brief to the Legislative Committee reviewing Bill C-39, raising serious concerns about the bill’s implications for environmental protection, Indigenous rights and public accountability.
Our brief warns that Bill C-39 would weaken environmental safeguards, expand ministerial discretion, limit meaningful Indigenous consultation and allow potentially irreversible environmental harm before assessments are complete. These changes risk undermining public trust and creating greater uncertainty for projects, without ensuring better outcomes for Canadians.
We urge Members of Parliament to reject Bill C-39 in its entirety. Canada needs to build, but not at the expense of the laws that protect people, wildlife, and the natural environments we all depend on.
Rushed reforms and the dismantling of environmental protections
Bill C-39 is part of a sweeping effort to accelerate major projects by weakening existing environmental protections and changing how projects are assessed and approved. While improving coordination and efficiency can be worthwhile goals, the changes being advanced go far beyond administrative streamlining. They risk fundamentally weakening safeguards for nature, limiting meaningful Indigenous consultation, and reducing public accountability – all with inadequate scrutiny and opportunity for meaningful engagement.
In July 2026, Shift submitted a response to the Government of Canada’s discussion paper, Getting Major Projects Built in Canada, outlining serious concerns about proposals to weaken federal environmental assessment, Indigenous consultation and oversight of major projects.
The concerns raised through that consultation have since become more urgent. Despite approximately 26,000 submissions to the discussion paper – including 1,885 from Shift supporters – in September 2026, the federal government amended regulations without the customary public comment period, exempting many major federally regulated projects from impact assessment under the Impact Assessment Act. These changes risk removing important environmental scrutiny from projects before their impacts have been properly assessed.
This is part of a broader pattern of rushed legislative and regulatory change, including Bill C-5, the One Canadian Economy Act, which was rushed through Parliament in June 2025. Bill C-39 would take these changes further, expanding ministerial powers, creating new pathways to streamline approvals, and imposing tighter timelines on project decisions and consultation. The limited time available for submissions to the legislative committee raises further concerns about whether Canadians have had a meaningful opportunity to understand and respond to the cumulative effects of these changes.
Together, these measures risk dismantling key protections that safeguard Canada’s lands, waters, wildlife, climate, and communities. They also threaten meaningful Indigenous participation and transparent, evidence-based decision-making. Shift’s brief calls on Parliament to reject Bill C-39 and pursue an approach that supports responsible development without sacrificing the environmental protections and public accountability Canadians depend on.
Read Shift’s full brief to the Legislative Committee below.
Click here to download Shift’s submission.