OTTAWA—The Senate’s energy and environment committee wants to take the Liberal government’s major project assessment legislation on a road tour as the clock ticks on the final session of Parliament before this year’s election.

Paula Simons, an independent senator from Alberta, sponsored the motion that received unanimous consent in the committee Tuesday, after Conservative members opposed to Bill C-69 waged a public campaign for the Red Chamber to hold its own public hearings on the legislation.

Introduced last year, Bill C-69 seeks to overhaul how major projects like oil pipelines, mines and hydro dams are assessed for approval. It creates a new body called the Impact Assessment Agency to lead reviews for all major projects, instead of leaving the process to regulatory bodies like the National Energy Board, which specialize in certain sectors.

The bill also caps the length of a review at 300 days—not including a new, preliminary phase for consultations and planning—and broadens the scope of factors under assessment to include not just environmental impacts, but also climate change, Indigenous reconciliation and effects of a project on people of different genders.

The Liberal government has maintained these changes are necessary to restore public confidence in how major projects are assessed, arguing its Conservative predecessors created a flawed system that needs to be overhauled.

But the bill has also become a focal point of opposition to the Trudeau government, with federal Conservatives lampooning the legislation as the “No New Pipelines Act” that, along with the Liberals’ carbon price plan, will drive away investment and harm the economy.

Simons called her motion a “consensus” proposal that balanced the desire of some senators to hear from more Canadians with those concerned with the need to pass it into law before Parliament breaks in June.

“There’s a real concern on my part that this get done in a timely fashion,” Simons said. She added that touring new regions could let senators hear new perspectives on the bill. The next step will be for the committee leadership to agree to a plan, which will involve separate hearings in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ottawa and somewhere in the West, Simons said. The final plan would also need to be approved by the Senate’s committee on internal economy.

“We’re thinking about maybe going to smaller communities, to Indigenous communities, to oil-and-gas communities, to speak to people really on the ground,” she said.

Conservative Sen. David Tkachuk said many of the independent senators in the committee were worried hearings could delay the bill, but that it’s more important to hear from Canadians who will be affected by the proposed changes.

“We’re not here to do the government’s bidding. We’re here to study the bill,” he said.

“I’m glad that the independent senators saw the light.”

In a statement Tuesday, a spokesperson for Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said the government welcomes the Senate “taking a serious look” at Bill C-69, pointing out that there were 14 months of consultations in more than 20 cities before the legislation was tabled last year.

“This legislation is build on feedback from Canadians to ensure good projects go ahead in a sustainable way,” said Sabrina Kim, McKenna’s press secretary.

But some industry groups share the Conservatives’ concerns.

Tim McMillan, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, has called for Bill C-69 to be “paused” and reviewed, arguing that it would deter big companies from investing in Canada and prevent major resources projects from being built in the future.

Like some other industry association leaders, McMillan contends assessments are better off in the hands of sector regulators, because he argues they have more expertise and experience conducting project reviews.

“I don’t see the advantage of marginalizing the experts,” he said.

The bill also needs to be clearer about how new factors rolled into the assessment process—from climate change to gender impacts—will be weighed by the review agency against economic benefits and environmental effects, said Chris Bloomer, president of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association.

Bloomer said the early planning phase of the process, which takes place before the review begins, opens the door too widely for public participation. That raises the possibility of anti-pipeline activists or other groups bogging down the process and crowding out other voices, he said.

“The (new) agency should be able to define what is the scope of participation,” he said.

Bloomer also shares a concern raised when the bill was introduced: that it gives too much power to the environment minister to suspend reviews or make the final decision to green-light projects.

Grant Mitchell, an independent Alberta senator and government liaison in the upper house, said the prime minister is open to amendments and that further consultations with the public are not necessary, given the length of time since the bill was introduced to Parliament.

He said it is likely the Red Chamber will change the bill to, among other things, clarify the circumstances under which the environment minister would suspend a project review.

“There will be accommodations and amendments, so it isn’t appropriate that the senate would delay this to the point where it would die” when Parliament breaks, he said.

Nichole Dusyk, a senior analyst at the Pembina Institute, said it’s time Bill C-69 was made into law, because it is an improvement over the existing review system. Opening the process to more participation and broadening the scope of impacts under consideration gives the process much-needed legitimacy, she said, arguing that public trust tanked in the wake of the reviews that initially approved the now-abandoned Northern Gateway pipeline and the stalled Trans Mountain expansion.

“There has been a lot of consultation that’s taken place with industry, with civil society, with Indigenous groups,” she said.

“It’s time to pass this bill.”

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