OTTAWA — The Senate passed into law two controversial natural resource bills Thursday evening, just one day after it quietly passed a third bill that reinforced a ban on offshore oil drilling in the Canadian Arctic, quashing any future oil and gas development in the region.
Bill C-48, which would legally enforce a moratorium on oil tankers in northern B.C., is now set to receive royal assent after it was accepted at third reading in the Senate late Thursday.
Bill C-69, which would overhaul the environmental review process for major projects, also passed a third reading. Their passage enshrines the bills in Canadian law, ending more than a year of fierce opposition from the natural resources sector and some provinces. “This phase of the battle is over,” Independent Sen. Doug Black, who was opposed to C-69, said in a final speech before the final vote on the bill.
Both bills are widely viewed as a counterweight to the Liberal government’s decision on Tuesday to approve the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline, part of an effort by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to accommodate both environmental and economic interests.
The approach has been met with some criticism on both ends. Industry lobby groups applauded the approval of the Trans Mountain expansion, which could cost as much as $9.3 billion by some estimates, but said it didn’t go far enough to satisfy its concerns over C-69 and C-48.
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