The Environmental Protection and Management Regulation (EPMR) of the Oil and Gas Activities Act (OGAA) provides the statutory authority to the Minister responsible for administering the Wildlife and Water Acts, or delegate, to take a number of actions that contribute to the management and protection of environmental values. These actions are key environmental components of OGAA; they must be put in place to establish several of the “government’s environmental objectives” and to guide the Oil and Gas Commission in making determinations on permit applications.
Division 3 of the EPMR provides Ministers with the authority to delegate a power or duty. At this time, the Minister of Forest, Lands and Natural Resource Operations has delegated the following under the EPMR to the Minister of Environment. Delegation of an authority does not necessarily preclude the Minister responsible for the authority from exercising that authority. Please note that delegation of authorities may change at any time. All other authorities for the Minister of the Wildlife Act and the Water Act remain the responsibility of the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.
The EPMR provides simplified process requirements for making orders that were approved under the Government Actions Regulation (GAR) at the time that the EPMR came into effect (i.e., to “continue”, for purposes of the oil and gas legislation, legal designations that are already in place for the forest sector).
The EPMR came into force on October 4, 2010. At that time, there were 85 species at risk “elements” (including subspecies, subpopulations, and ecological communities) and 11 ungulates (including subspecies and subpopulations) established by order under GAR that were eligible to be brought, by order, into effect under the EPMR.