ID: 1583
Presenting Author: Jason Smith
Session: 668 - Spreading the Deliberative Approach to Impact Assessment and Decision-making
Status: pending
Consulting practitioner's insights were surveyed, gathered and analyzed across Canada to provide recommendations to improving the effectiveness and efficiency for IA while maintaining quality.
Impact assessment (IA) practitioners, particularly consulting practitioners, are at the working face
of IA, regularly involved in navigating the IA process, frequently interpreting and implementing the
governing legislation and regulations, and routinely applying related guidance material developed
by the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) and others. Through direct experience,
practitioners offer a broad perspective informed by work on many projects, with public and private
sector proponents, as well as Indigenous groups, across many economic sectors, in communities
throughout the country. Practitioners are thus intimately familiar with the real-world practical
challenges that arise in the IA process across Canada and factors that either contribute to, or
undermine, its effectiveness. Consequently, consulting IA practitioners are extremely well positioned to identify potential areas
of improvement and innovation. A survey of consulting practitioners across Canada was conducted. They know what is working well and what isn’t and where
changes are most needed to improve the quality of the IA process and its outcomes. They can
also ascertain which practices and approaches from each of the federal, provincial, or territorial
processes could be applied in other jurisdictions. Our research project proposes to leverage the
deep expertise this constituency holds to support IAAC in promoting high quality IA. Outcomes and recommendations from the survey and interviews present improvements to IA effectiveness and cumulative effects management.
Jason Smith is a Senior Environmental Planner with over 25 years of experience in the energy industry, with a
specialization in impact assessment for linear infrastructure.
Coauthor 1: Celesa Horvath