Toward 'good process' in regulatory reviews: Is Canada's new system any better than the old?

What are the features of a good regulatory review process? In this paper we identify criteria for 'good process' drawn from a combined reading of the environmental justice and process literature. We then apply these criteria to a case study, assessing four versions of Canadian regulatory review: CEAA 1992, CEAA 2012, the 2017 Expert Panel report, and IAA 2019. We aim to make two contributions. First, we propose a set of 'good process' criteria that we hope can be widely applied, reflecting on complementarities and tensions that arise from combining two bodies of scholarship. Second, we identify areas where Canadian review processes have improved over time and those where significant work remains to be done. This work seeks to make a constructive intervention at a time when energy and industrial projects around the world face strong challenges in the legal, political and public domains. • 'Good process' criteria are drawn from process and environmental justice literature. • Four versions of Canadian impact assessment are assessed against the criteria. • Canada's 2019 Impact Assessment Act improves on CEAA 1992 and 2012. • Deliberation was an area of weakness across all four versions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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