OTTAWA—As key pieces of the federal government’s environmental agenda hit road blocks in the Senate, environmental groups and a collective of B.C. First Nations say unelected members of the upper house shouldn’t significantly change or defeat legislation the Trudeau Liberals promised during the last election.

In an open letter to all senators and MPs Tuesday, the president of the Coastal First Nations said a looming Senate vote on whether to kill Bill C-48 — legislation to ban heavy oil tankers from the north coast of British Columbia — could scupper public trust in government. The Senate transport committee voted to defeat the bill at a meeting May 15, and that recommendation is expected to go to the floor of the upper house in the coming days.

“We don’t agree that senators have a democratic mandate, and therefore the legitimacy, to kill this bill,” wrote Chief Marilyn Slett in her letter Tuesday.

“Please defer to the will of the people and pass into the law the oil tanker ban.”

Meanwhile, in a basement meeting room at a hotel near Parliament Hill, environmental groups hosted what they called a “People’s Hearing” on Bill C-69, another piece of Liberal legislation being considered by the red chamber.

The bill — slagged by Conservative opponents as the “No New Pipelines Act” — would overhaul how the federal government assesses major development proposals like cross-boundary pipelines and major nuclear projects. The government says the legislation is meant to bring in predictable timelines for assessments, ensure broader impacts on gender, Indigenous communities and climate change are considered, and that obstacles to public participation in the process are removed.

But industry opponents and Conservative politicians have argued the bill will make it harder for worthy projects to be approved by opening the door too wide by including people not directly affected in public consultations, as well as transferring authority for major reviews from sector-specific regulators to a new Impact Assessment Agency.

Earlier this month, after months of hearings that included a road tour to different regions of the country, the Senate committee proposed close to 200 amendments to the bill. While the changes were welcomed by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney — who had just weeks earlier warned the bill could spark the flames of separatism in his province — environmental advocates denounced the amendments.

On Tuesday, Anna Johnston, a staff lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law, warned of a “democratic crisis” in Canada’s parliament if the Senate decides to pass the bill with the committee’s amendments. Taken as a whole, she said the amendments “erode” the bill to the point of breaking Liberal election promises to make the new assessment process more credible and to restore environmental protections removed when the previous Conservative government implemented a suite of changes in a 2012 omnibus budget bill.

“This government was elected on the promise of restoring credibility and public trust, restoring lost protections and introducing modern safeguards,” said Johnston. “The amendments the Senate has made totally undermine those against the will of the electorate. I think this is absolutely at its core a democratic crisis.”

Conservative Sen. David Tkachuk, the party’s critic in the upper chamber for C-69, said it is not unusual for the Senate to improve government bills, pointing to the Harper government’s accountability legislation in 2006, which he said received about 100 amendments. He added that the government in the House of Commons will get last say on amendments from the upper house.

And though he said he has only seen one government bill defeated in the Senate after 25 years in the upper chamber, Tkachuk said there is nothing inappropriate about Conservative senators opposing Liberal legislation, and that if they succeed in defeating it with the help of Independent senators appointed by the government, that’s fine too.

“Thirty senators from the Conservative side cannot defeat a bill. We can fight for our position, which is what we’re trying to do,” said Tkachuk, who is chair of the Senate transport committee that recommended killing Bill C-48.

“As far as I’m concerned, that’s a perfectly legitimate thing to happen,” he said.

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Frances Lankin, an Independent senator appointed in 2016, said she believes the role of the upper house is to examine, consult and recommend changes. The decision to strike down a government bill should only be taken in rare circumstances, such as when legislation tramples on rights protected in the Constitution, she said.

“I don’t believe that this particular bill rises to the kind of exceptional circumstances within the scope and purview of the Senate’s role for the Senate to do that,” she said.

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