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Photo by Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna claims the new legislation will provide more certainty for industry while giving more voice to the public and Indigenous groups. Last week, she told reporters she was pleased with the committee’s amendments. “We’re pretty confident we have this.”

But the bill has raised red flags among industry groups, including the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, which says it will create more barriers to development. When asked recently what the Conservatives would do differently to get the Trans Mountain expansion built, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer pointed to C-69.

“I think if this government were to send a signal that it was actually championing the industry, it could start by abandoning C-69, which is sending a tremendous amount of uncertainty to the industry,” he said, calling the legislation a “death knell of new investment.”

The House of Commons environment committee spent several days earlier this month working through more than 400 proposed amendments to the bill, with the final meeting running until past midnight. The meetings were often argumentative, marked by heated exchanges between opposition MPs and Liberal committee chair Deborah Schulte.

“The Liberals are really trying to ram this through,” Conservative environment critic Ed Fast said in an interview. “It’s a travesty of a process.”

The whole thing was a farce. Why did we even go through the process?

Linda Duncan, the NDP’s lone representative on the environment committee, was so frustrated by the process that she’s since resigned from her committee position. She complained that the Liberals voted down many of her amendments, only to pass nearly identical changes of their own. “The whole thing was a farce. Why did we even go through the process?” she said. “Absolutely, I think legislative reviews are important. But they’ve completely made a joke of committee review of legislation by this.”